All-metal ersatz (substitute) bayonets were made in Germany during the early years of World War I, because there weren't enough regulation bayonets to equip the rapidly expanding army. As time went on, these stop-gap bayonets were replaced by regulation bayonets and many were given to Turkish forces. Ersatz bayonets were manufactured in local workshops, resulting in hundreds of variations. I only have a small number of examples, however, these should aid in making a general identification. The German specification was for a 12-inch blade. The Turks shortened many blades to 10-inches and shortened examples can be presumed to have been in Turkish hands (or 'Turked' if you like).

Two ersatz bayonet reference works exist. The first, published in 1976, is Anthony Carter's Ersatz Bayonets 1. Carter documented 79 German ersatz variations and a dozen or so non-German ersatz types. He assigned each a number, beginning with #1. The "Carter Numbering System" was the universal classification system for many years. During the 1990s, the importation of massive quantities of ersatz bayonets from Turkey provided a fertile ground for additional research and documentation. Bayonet dealer/collector, Dennis Ottobre, rose to the challenge, publishing his CD-ROM book Observations on Turkish Bayonets in 2002. Hundreds of ersatz variations were documented, some of German origin and some indigenous to Turkey. The Carter Numbering System could not be expanded to account for the wide variety of variations, so gave rise to the more sophisticated Ottobre Classification System. In the Ottobre System, each bayonet is assigned a 4 or 5 digit classification number, where each digit identifies a specific characteristic, rather than simply assigning a number to each bayonet. Sometimes the number "47" will be appended as a prefix and simply denotes chapter 47 of the book, which is dedicated to the ersatz bayonets.

Carter's book is long out of print and hard to find. However, the Ottobre book is available insanely inexpensively from the author at www.ebayonet.com. If you don't already own a copy, what are you waiting for?

These few ersatz examples that I possess are all of German origin, although most have Turk-shortened blades. German-made ersatz bayonet blades typically have a single Fraktur inspection marking on the ricasso or blade spine.