Editing Pyotr Krasnov (section)

== Early life and service ==
Pyotr Krasnov was born on 22 September 1869 ([[Adoption of the Gregorian calendar#Adoption in Eastern Europe|old style]]: 10 September) in [[Saint Petersburg]], son to lieutenant-general [[Nikolay Krasnov (soldier)|Nikolay Krasnov]] and grandson to general [[Ivan Krasnov]]. In 1888 Krasnov graduated from [[Paul's Military School|Pavlovsk Military School]] and joined the [[Ataman]] [[regiment]] of the [[Russian Imperial Guard|Life Guards]] of the [[Imperial Russian Army]]. In 1893, he had a son, Semyon Krasnov [https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semi%C3%B3n_Krasnov].
[[File:Краснов в молодости.jpg|thumb|left|Krasnov in 1896]]
In April–May 1902 a series of articles were published in ''Russkii Invalid'', the newspaper of the Imperial Russian Army, containing Krasnov's impressions of his trip to Mongolia, China and Japan as the East Asia correspondent of  ''Russkii Invalid''.{{sfn|Menning|2006|p=65}} In his article "Fourteen Days in Japan", Krasnov painted the Imperial Japanese Army in a negative light.{{sfn|Menning|2006|p=65}} One staff officer of the Main Staff called Krasnov's article "poorly founded, extraordinarily hasty and far from the truth".{{sfn|Menning|2006|p=65}} Krasnov reported that based on what he had seen in Japan that "the Japanese looks coldly on life and death and does not fear death".{{sfn|Menning|2006|p=65}} He reported that the Japanese soldiers were up to European standards of discipline, but were highly rigid in their conduct of operations and suffered from health problems.{{sfn|Menning|2006|p=65-66}} Krasnov mockingly noted that during the march on Beijing during the Boxer Rebellion of 1900, exhausted Japanese soldiers had to be carried in the wagons of the Russian Army.{{sfn|Menning|2006|p=66}} Krasnov noted during the assault on the forts at Tianjin that one Japanese company had lost 90% of its men during a frontal assault on a Chinese fort while at the same time a Russian company had taken a Chinese fort by outflanking it, losing only six men killed.{{sfn|Menning|2006|p=66}}

Krasnov felt that the Japanese were brave, but poorly led, declaring "the military deed does not suit the Japanese" as it "was thought up for them by a chauvinist government of complete militarist conviction".{{sfn|Menning|2006|p=66}} About the Japanese infantry, Krasnov wrote the "Japanese soldier is weak and an indifferent marksman, although amenable to training and able to discharge exactly and well what he has learned, regardless of the cost".{{sfn|Menning|2006|p=66}} Krasnov declared "the language of numbers is not my language", stating though the Japanese could mobilize 400,000 troops in 335 battalions and 104 squadrons with 1,903 artillery guns, they would be little match against "European powers holding excellent positions on the Asian mainland".{{sfn|Menning|2006|p=66}} Krasnov had an equally low opinion of the Japanese cavalry, writing that the Japanese had "neither the horses nor riders to create cavalry".{{sfn|Menning|2006|p=66}} Krasnov declared "to destroy all 13 regiments of the Japanese cavalry would be a very easy task".{{sfn|Menning|2006|p=66-67}} He concluded that once the Japanese cavalry had been defeated "a deaf and blind Japanese army would become a plaything for an enterprising partisan commander" and "a detachment of 2,000 cavalry easily might tire a Japanese division".{{sfn|Menning|2006|p=67}} Krasnov quoted a Frenchman who lived a decade in Japan as saying: "They are a people gone astray, the military deed is not in their nature", to which Krasnov added "I think that this minute they are contemplating the same thing in St. Petersburg".{{sfn|Menning|2006|p=67}} Though the Main Staff officers deplored Krasnov's article with his sweeping generalizations based upon superficial impressions, the Emperor Nicholas II was said to have read and enjoyed his article while Krasnov's articles about his trip through Asia were turned into a book with a grant from the War Ministry.{{sfn|Menning|2006|p=65}}