Eighteen Japanese postcards.

The three Japanese post cards with pictures of Japanese generals from the Russo-Japanese War period:

1) General Oshima Hisanao: ( 1 October 1848 – 27 September 1928) was a general in the early Imperial Japanese Army.
2) Count Hasegawa Yoshimich: (1 October 1850 – 27 January 1924) was a field marshal in the Imperial Japanese Army and Japanese Governor General of Korea from 1916 to 1919.
3) Baron Tatsumi Naofumi: ( 21 August 1845 – 6 March 1907) was a samurai from the Kuwana Domain in the Bakumatsu period Tokugawa shogunate and later a general in the Imperial Japanese Army during the Meiji period.

The fifteen other Japanese post cards (all stamped and written on) date from the early decades of the 20th century. They are from military men addressed to colleagues. Some just give New Year greetings, others clichéd expressions of thanks for favors conferred in spite of being very busy.

Scholar Peter Kornicki commented, “The one with the massive mustache is General Viscount Ōshima Hisanao (1848-1928), who took part in the suppression of the Satsuma Rebellion in 1877, the Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese wars. I had never heard of him! I have glanced through the other cards without trying to decipher them in full and they are from military men addressed to colleagues. Some just give New Year greetings, others clichéd expressions of thanks for favours conferred in spite of being very busy. The captions suggest that the generals are still alive, so the cards were probably sent in the 1920s.”