I'm reading "Kenya Diary" by Richard Meinertzhagen where he relates his experiences as a junior officer in the British army around 1902. At one point he states that during his 5 year service in East Africa he saved about 3000 pounds, because he had no expenses to speak of. I fed that figure into several inflation calculators and that comes to 350,000-400,000 pounds in today's money. If that's what the British army was paying its junior officers at the time it seems a military career would be a very reliable way of getting rich. AFAIK modern day soldiers are not very well paid so there are three options:
- Meinertzhagen is mistaken/lying.
- I got my economics wrong somehow (quite possible).
- The British army was a really good place to be in around that time.
Which is it?