Owing to the heavy casualties suffered by the carabiniers in the 1809 campaign, the Emperor decreed that they should be armoured to the same advantage as the cuirassiers. In this way the two corps drew together in being the only troops of the Grande Arme? who were armoured, while at the same time they diverged in breaking away from their traditionally similar dress. Emir Bukhari does a splendid job of examining the uniforms and equipment of Napoleon's cuirassiers and carabiniers, in a text complemented throughout by numerous illustrations and diagrams including eight full page colour plates by the ever popular Angus McBride.