JAKOB WALTER

Si bien el diario de Wlater se centra en tres campañas militares, no hay duda que debe su fama a la tercera de ellas, la batalla de Moscú, la más importante en la que participó. Lo que singulariza su texto es el hecho de narrar desde el punto de vista de los soldados las dificultades extremas a las que se vieron enfrentados, su condicion de autentica carne de cañon mal alimentada, pero preparada para el frio, sometida a marchas brutales y victima de sus propias divisiones internas.Aunque publicado originalmente hace ya algunos años een una revista especializada, gracias a la edicion de Marc Raeff (que incluye una amplia introduccion, un texto del historiador Frank Melvin, seis cartas de soldados y una amplia seleccion de grabados de la epoca) este breve e interesante texto ha sido traducido a muy diversas lenguas y, por su singularidad, se ha convertido en una cita ineludible para los estudiosos de la epoca napoleonica.

A grunts-eye report from the battlefield in the spirit of The Red Badge of Courage and All Quieton the Western Frontthe only known account by a common soldier of the campaigns of Napoleons Grand Army between 1806 and 1813. When eighteen-year-old German stonemason Jakob Walter was conscripted into the Grand Army of Napoleon, he had no idea of the trials that lay ahead. The long, grueling marches in Prussia and Poland sacrificed countless men to Bonapartes grand designs. And the disastrous Russian campaign tested human endurance on an epic scale. Demoralized by defeat in a war few supported or understood, deprived of ammunition and leadership, driven past reason by starvation and bitter cold, men often turned on one another, killing fellow soldiers for bread or an able horse. Though there are numerous surviving accounts of the Napoleonic Wars written by officers, Walters is the only known memoir by a draftee, and as such is a unique and fascinating documenta compelling chronicle of a young soldiers loss of innocence as well as an eloquent and moving portrait of the profound effects of war on the men who fight it. Professor Marc Raeff has added an Introduction to the memoirs as well as six letters home from the Russian front, previously unpublished in English, from German conscripts who served concurrently with Walter. The volume is illustrated with engravings and maps, contemporary with the manuscript, from the Russian/Soviet and East European collections of the New York Public Library. Honest, heartfelt, deeply personal yet objective, The Diary of a Napoleonic Foot Soldier is more than an informative and absorbing historical documentit is a timeless and unforgettable account of the horrors of war.