The above photo is of soldiers from the various countries of the eight nation alliance during the boxer rebellion.
The photo taken in 1900, I find it an interesting depiction of human stature at the time.
From left to right are soldiers from Great Britain, America, Australia, India, Germany, France, Austria-Hungary, Italy, and Japan.
No Russian soldier is present, and the Indian soldier technically is British military at the time.
It’s surprising that the Brit is taller than the American.
Americans by way of food abundance tended to be the tallest worldwide.
With sergeant stripes that Brit may have come from a more well fed background then the lower classes in England.
The Australian is near the American and Brit in height, this makes sense, all three likely share genetic background. Plus Australia had good access to meat despite money as compared to Brits across the board via economic class.
I have to wonder if as they formed up height was determined by headgear, not true height.
The German seems bigger than the Indian in build, while only slightly shorter due to height of their respective covers.
Germans at the time were not known as giants though in strongman they produced some.
Their stature improved by WW2. Americans after WW2.
You see that height amongst Europeans varied considerably at that point in time.
This is mostly related to the economics of food. America and Australia had much better access to affordable meat by being big ranching nations.
The stereotypes we have of who is short are somewhat seen in this photo.
Next to Japan the shortest is the Italian, and I’ve met barely 5′ Italian adults.
From this photo to the year 2000 stature likely increased most amongst the Japanese, and shrunk the most amongst the Indians.
It would be useful to know the rank of each soldier pictured so as to conclude food access.
Still on the tall side you had good access to meat, and on the short side grain centric diets.
I wonder how small the average boxer soldier was in comparison being their economic situation was worse than neighboring Japan’s in addition to their nation having a rampart opium problem.