Warning: this post is not for the squeamish.
Lice, death, and soapy peas. The Diary of a Napoleonic Foot Soldier is a unique–albeit gruesome–account of Napoleon’s conquests. It’s told from the perspective of a peasant, Jakob Walter, which is a rare occurrence. All other accounts of these wars are from the more well-to-do.
Walters was also ahead of his time in giving an even-handed recounting of the war’s events. Though we applaud telling both sides of an issue nowadays, in the late 18th/early 19th century, it was much more common to write only in favor of one side.
In addition to being innovative and historically piquant, Walter’s diary is also just an honest account of a man’s life during bleak times. It’s not an authoritative text on the tactics of war, dates of battles, and characters of leaders. Instead, Walter tells it like it is: war that is hungry, savage on both sides, and either freezing cold or blisteringly hot.
While reading, I found myself squirming a lot. Walter describes the rampant infestation of lice the army dealt with. At one point, his captain asks him to help him, as his lice are really bothering him.
“…for this reason he asked me to kill the tormentors in his shirt collar. I did it; but, when I had his collar open, his raw flesh showed forth where the greedy beasts had gnawed in. I had to turn my eyes way with abhorrence and reassure the master that I saw nothing, telling him that my eyes hurt so much from the smoke that I could not see anything. These pests, however, were no less to be found on me, thousands of them.”
Jakob Walter, (78)
Walters does a really good job of depicting the desensitization that was required of soldiers just in order to survive the horrors they were experiencing. He sees thousands killed and wounded, but there is no way to save the wounded, so they are left to die as well.
One night, while trying to find a place to sleep in the dark, Walter curls up next to his horse on a bit of ground that is softer than its surroundings. In the morning, he discovers that he slept atop a dead man’s belly that hadn’t frozen solid yet. And then he moves on.
He also talks of his desperate search for food when traveling through frozen Russia. He and his comrades would head towards burning villages to scavenge any hidden food stores. I couldn’t help but think of the hungry peasants the soldiers left behind when they were victorious.
Walter and some of his comrades combine some of their meagre food supplies for a memorable meal. A rare pot of seasoned peas with lard, they are forced to throw away – the “frozen lard” was actually soap.
To put Walter’s account into a historical perspective: Napoleon’s campaign in 1812-1814 sent 650,000 men into Russia. 200,000 were captured, and only 30,000 soldiers returned. Miraculously, Walter was one of those who returned to his family.
Walter gives all the credit for his survival to God. He notes that “since I did not suffer the misfortune of being wounded, I thought: ‘God, Thou hast allowed me to live till now. I thank Thee and offer up my sufferings to Thee and pray Thee at the same time to take me further into Thy protection,” (Walter, 49). With all the horrific misadventures Walter endured, it’s hard to believe his survival was anything but supernatural.