The Diary of a Napoleonic Foot Soldier

When 18-year-old Jakob Walter was conscripted into the Grand Army of Napoleon, he had no idea of the trials that lay ahead. The long, gruelling marches on Prussia and Poland sacrificed countless men to Napoleon's grand designs. But it was the disastrous advance on Russia which tested human endurance on an epic scale. In Jakob Walter's account of his privations in Napoleon's army during the long retreat home from Russia to Germany, the reader can observe how he and his fellow conscripts were driven past reason by starvation and bitter cold; how men turned upon each other, killing for a half loaf of bread or tearing off each other's clothes in their grim fight for survival. Although there are numerous accounts of the Napoleonic Wars written by officers, Walter's is the only memoir by an infantryman from the ranks.