Klingenthal, Bas-Rhin

Klingenthal was the first Royal Weapons Manufactory in France, and was largely inspired by methods pioneered in Solingen, another major sword-producing town in western Germany.

Under the reign of Louis XV, acknowledging the critical dependency on foreign imports to equip the army, French authorities decided to mimic the organization that had succeeded in Solingen by creating their own national blade manufacturing centre.

The manufactory, named the 'Manufacture Royale d'Armes Blanches d'Alsace', was opened in 1730, under the direction of Henri Anthès, and the basic pattern of the factory would later be used in at other sites such as Saint-Etienne.

After the Restoration, French officials started considering the fact that the manufactory was too close to the German border for such a strategic asset, and so Weapons production was gradually resettled to Manufacture d'armes de Châtellerault, founded in 1819 in the Western Center of France.

In 1838 Klingenthal ended weapons manufacturing, lost the Royal Manufactory status, and became a privately owned company producing civilian goods under the "Coulaux" name.