The Diary of a Napoleonic Foot Soldier

170 pp. "The only known memoir of the Napoleonic Wars written by a common foot soldier relates the hardships of campaigns against Prussia and Poland and the disaster of the Russian campaign of 1812." "Eighteen-year-old German stonemason Jakob Walter served in the Grand Army of Napoleon between 1806 and 1813. His diary intimately records his trials: the long, grueling marches in Prussia and Poland, the disastrous Russian campaign, and the demoralizing defeat in a war few supported or understood. It is at once a compelling chronicle of a young soldier's loss of innocence and an eloquent and moving portrait of the profound effects of all wars on the men who fight them."