This book caught my eye on a recent visit to Waterstones. I do not buy new books in regular bookshops usually as they are too expensive. However this one was on offer.
I have several books on this conflict and although the general narrative on the war is ok it stops well before the end of the war, missing out entirely for example, the battle of Mukden, the largest land battle ever at the time. However the purpose of the book is to describe the actual soldiers so I guess that is understandable to some extent.
The book covers well not only the training and equipment of the infantry on both sides but also the social conditions of the two nations and its effect on the personal characteristics of the soldiers. However once again the remit of the title is rigidly enforced with very little on the artillery for example.
Overall an interesting book but certainly not a good history of the war and useful only if you are particularly interested in the soldiers themselves, in other words you get exactly what it says in the title.
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