This book offers the first English-language translation of the finest soldier’s memoir to emerge from the Franco-Prussian War, titled With my Rucksack: The Unvarnished Campaign Memoirs of an Infantryman from the Year 1870 by Carl R?ckert. Lasting from 1870–1871, this was the war that made the modern German nation and set Europe on the path to World War I, and Carl R?ckert offers an unrivalled worm’s eye view of the experiences of common soldiers who fought in it.