Diary of a Napoleonic Footsoldier (2 page)

Napoleon had seized power to extricate France from the domestic difficulties that had been brought about by the mismanagement of the Directory, to consolidate the gains of the Revolution, and to enhance its—as well as his own—glory, by securing, and if possible expanding, the territorial acquisitions of the new French social and political order. Such a double goal could not but bring about a self-fulfilling prophecy of ever renewed coalitions and wars, and new territorial conquests stubbornly rejected by England. Napoleon succeeded in defeating Austria, Prussia, and Russia—but Nelson’s victory at
Trafalgar precluded any serious French naval challenge and ensured that England would fight on and subsidize Continental allies, so that Napoleon never achieved the military and diplomatic security he craved. Napoleon’s military genius brought victory and ever new conquests on the Continent, and war lasted, with short-term breathing spells, from 1799 to his failure in Russia in 1812 and final defeat in 1814–15.

In 1806, following the defeat of the Third Coalition at Austerlitz, the Holy German Empire of the Germanic Nation—in existence since the tenth century—was dissolved by its Emperor, Francis II, who was also ruler of the Habsburg lands. In its stead Napoleon created the Confederation of the Rhine, which in fact was a French satellite, encompassing the German states, with the exclusion of Austria and Prussia. The major states of the Confederation, Württemberg and Westphalia, were promoted to kingdoms—Württemberg keeping its ruler, while Westphalia, a new creation carved out from former sovereign principalities and Prussian lands, received as king Napoleon’s younger brother Jérôme. Most important in our context, the various states of the Confederation had to furnish troops to be raised through a system of conscription similar to that of France. In the war of 1807–9 against Austria, Prussia, and Russia, contingents from these newly created kingdoms—promised significant territorial benefits after victory—fought on the side of the French. The author of our autobiography, Jakob Walter, had his first military experiences during that war.

Since he could not beat England by naval and military means, Napoleon tried to strangle it economically.
He proclaimed the Continental Blockade (Decree of Berlin, 21 November 1806) that prohibited all his satellites and allies from trading with England. After practically dismembering Prussia in 1807, Napoleon forced Alexander I, Emperor of Russia, to accept peace (treaty of Tilsit, 8 July 1807) and to join the Continental Blockade. Disagreements about the implementation of the blockade regulations constituted a major element of friction between Napoleon and Russia. This was exacerbated by serious discord over Poland. Emperor Alexander I considered control over neighboring Poland an essential element of his empire’s security. On the other hand, Napoleon expected to use Poland as a friendly satellite to keep Prussia and Russia in check. He set up the Grand Duchy of Warsaw as an autonomous state, broadly hinting that it would serve as the nucleus of a revived Polish state under French tutelage. However, it was dawning on Napoleon that his domination over Continental Europe would never be secure as long as Russia, with its vast manpower resources and territory, was not cowed into submission. Only then, Napoleon fancied, could he force England, barred from all trade with Europe, to accept his peace terms.

Alexander I understood the situation just as well. Moreover, Russian court circles and economic interests found membership in the Continental Blockade highly onerous. Alexander I also realized that for all his promises, Napoleon would not give him a free hand against Turkey (with whom he was at war). When Napoleon came to the conviction that he had not obtained Alexander’s genuine acceptance of his new order in Europe, he began
preparing for a war against Russia. But he was quite aware that in order to defeat Russia decisively he would need an overwhelming force. He started to build up the Grande Armée in 1811 in preparation for the campaign against Russia. He hoped that, as had always been the case, a decisive victory at the start would compel Alexander I to sue for peace. His strategic plans, as well as the logistic preparation of the campaign, were predicated on the notion that war was but another instrument to achieve political ends. But, as is well known, the decisive battle eluded Napoleon. He was forced to push on into Russia’s heartland, occupy Moscow, overextend his supply lines, and exhaust his troops. Yet, the Russian army remained at full strength and no peace offer was forthcoming from Alexander I. The burning of Moscow (whose true causes have still not been fully elucidated) proved to be the last straw and forced Napoleon to order the retreat. His exhausted troops, incapable of breaking through to the south (battle of Maloiaroslavets, 24 October 1812) to seek rest and supplies in the Ukraine, had to retrek on the road of invasion through a devastated countryside, prey to partisan attacks, and decimated by the hardships of a Russian winter, compounded by demoralization and famine. The star of Napoleon’s power and glory was setting.

The revolutionary armies had been manned practically by Frenchmen only. But as Napoleon’s empire expanded, and embroiled him into more and more wars, he came to call upon the populations of annexed and “allied” countries to contribute to the manpower needs
of his army. Before 1812 he had called upon Italians and Germans to fight in campaigns near their own homeland, as our author documents in the first chapters of his autobiography. For the invasion of Russia, Napoleon again ordered conscription in all the states directly under his control. His Grande Armée in 1812 numbered about 600,000 men, of whom only about one half were French conscripts, while the remainder were made up of soldiers from Poland (the largest number, since the Poles hoped to regain their independence after a French victory), Italy, Holland, Austria, Prussia, and the states of the Confederation of the Rhine, more particularly Württemberg and Westphalia.

Following the French example, the German states, too, had introduced conscription. In Württemberg men between the ages of eighteen and forty were subject to conscription, active service being for eight years in the infantry and ten years in the cavalry and artillery. Thus, our hero Jakob Walter was first conscripted in 1806 and then recalled to duty twice, in 1809 and 1812. When Napoleon decided on the campaign against Russia he demanded that his German “allies,” in fact satellites, mobilize too. In a letter, dated 27 January 1812, to Frederick, whom he had made king of Württemberg in 1806, he ordered that the Württemberg contingent be ready to march on 15 February 1812. The king had no alternative but to execute this order. Likewise, Napoleon’s brother, King Jérôme of Westphalia, was ordered to furnish 27,000 men. Württemberg mobilized nine infantry regiments, as well as some artillery and cavalry units. The troops, 12,000 men in all, were placed under the nominal command
of the Crown Prince William and were part of the corps commanded by Marshal Ney.

Napoleon’s motives and policies are well documented and have been thoroughly analyzed, even though historians continue to disagree on a final assessment. But what made all his numerous conscripts fight on and on? First of all, naturally, compulsion and fear of retribution in case of disobedience and desertion. Although, as the years of war dragged on, and the burden of monetary contributions and conscription became increasingly heavy, the number of desertions and self-mutilations, to escape army service, grew by leaps and bounds. Nevertheless, in the case of the Frenchmen, revolutionary fervor and the magic of Napoleon’s name, pride in the victories and the glory that rebounded on them—all served to sustain their energies in the hope of final victory and final reward. These attitudes are well documented in the memoirs of such French veteran soldiers as Sergeant Bourgogne and Captain Coignet, although one should make allowance for retrospective embellishments and anachronistic perspectives.

Unfortunately, there seem to be no equivalent sources for the Russian side. Although there is a vast documentation on the invasion of Russia and the subsequent campaigns of 1813–15, and an extensive historiography of this period of Russian history, there is practically nothing on and by the common soldier, as illustrated by most recent bibliographies of memoirs, letters, and autobiographies published in the Soviet Union. What there is comes in the form of some eyewitness accounts by merchants and artisans of the French occupation of Moscow
and of its burning; as well as descriptions, collected by someone else, of a few peasants’ and soldiers’ experiences as members of the militia and partisan groups in 1812. This state of affairs is witness, on the one hand, to the comparatively low level of literacy of the Russian population (as compared with that of the ordinary peasant, town dweller, and soldier in France or the Germanies). On the other hand, it may also illustrate the greater reluctance of the Establishment and of the elites (in spite of their alleged populism) to let the common man speak for himself and the constrictive censorship instituted by Alexander I at the end of the war and reinforced, after 1825, by his successor Nicholas I. The relaxation of censorship after 1861 came too late to permit collecting materials that would not be overly distorted by a great chronological gap.

As in the case of the Poles, the Russians conceived of the campaign of 1812 as a war of liberation. For the former it held out the promise of liberation from foreign rule and the restoration of an independent Polish state—no wonder that Prince Poniatowski’s corps performed particularly well until his death in battle at Leipzig in 1813. As for the latter, it was a truly defensive and allegedly patriotic war to safeguard the Orthodox faith and the integrity of the national way of life and territory. At the start of the war there had been concern in high places about the loyalty of the peasant-serfs in the western provinces and near Moscow. This concern, as well as stategic considerations, led the Russian command to adopt a policy of mass evacuation and scorched earth. Napoleon’s failure to manifest any intention of freeing the serfs
and to improve their lot (the same mistake Hitler was to repeat a century and a quarter later), and the ruthless pillage by his troops, turned even the most wretched Russian serf against the invader. Difficult as it is to accept the hagiographic clichés of popular enthusiasm in defense of the fatherland, there is no question that the Russian peasant did resist the invaders, and contributed his share to the French Emperor’s defeat. The militia raised by the government and by private landowners surely took active part in exhausting and pursuing the Grande Armée.

None of this pertained to the German soldiers, whatever their state of origin. They shared neither French glories nor Polish and Russian patriotism. True, given the opportunity—and it was to present itself in 1813—the German elites, especially in Prussia, gladly rose against the French to recover their national dignity and sovereignty. In the meantime, however, they had to serve in the Grande Armée; but they did so without enthusiasm or any sense of the possible advantages to be gained from obediently fighting under Napoleon’s command.

In the memoirs, autobiographies, and letters of ordinary soldiers from Germany, such as our main author Jakob Walter, we find total indifference as to the outcome of the campaign—only the hope of returning quickly and safely home, of surviving the hardships and the dangers that had fallen to their lot. Theirs is, therefore, a relatively “objective” picture of the Polish and Russian countryside and its conditions—and it is a dismal one. They do not really care who wins in battle or engagement: ready to assist each other, they are not interested either in killing more Russians or helping their fellow soldiers of other
nationalities. They are not vengeful or spiteful, either—in spite of the sufferings that Napoleon, French rule, and the Russians visit upon them; theirs is what the French call
égoïsme sacré
, a healthy drive to survive. To escape hunger and avoid disease are their main concerns, and this is what frequently transforms them into callous brutes.

To understand Jakob Walter’s autobiography and the letters by Westphalian soldiers better, we should say a few words about the way in which Napoleon’s armies were supplied and equipped. One of the great achievements of Napoleon as military commander, besides his strategic and tactical talents, had been his skill in organizing the mobility and logistic support of his troops. As he relied heavily on artillery and the firepower of his highly maneuverable infantry and cavalry, he paid particular attention to the ready availability of guns and small firearms, as well as of an adequate supply of ammunition. He also made sure that his engineers had the wherewithal to build pontoon bridges and lay siege to fortresses. Given the primitive technology of transportation, one that relied almost exclusively on horsepower and manpower, few resources were left for an efficient system to bring food and clothing to the troops. Thus regular pay had as its main purpose to enable individual soldiers to turn to the civilian market for their additional needs. Clothing was issued at more or less regular intervals and, by and large, in sufficient quantity and of acceptable quality for normal conditions of war; although no serious effort was made to adapt the clothing to the climatic conditions of specific campaigns.

As for foodstuffs, under “normal” circumstances, a minimum quantity of bread was supplied by regimental bakeries. Practically everything else, and naturally in situations where the field bakeries could not be moved on time close enough to the fighting men, had to be obtained on the spot. The local population was compelled to furnish shelter (through billeting) and food, through requisitions by units detached for that purpose by the commander. Additional food—and liquor, of course—was to be purchased either from local traders or from sutlers (canteen keepers) who accompanied the regiments; many sutlers were women, frequently the wives of professional noncoms and soldiers. In Central and Western Europe, areas that were densely populated and, on the whole, quite prosperous, with an elaborate network of traders and stores, this “system” worked fairly well. Especially when it was supplemented by marauding—forbidden, of course, but tolerated as long as it was not excessive. In this respect, the Württemberg soldiers had a particularly bad record, as Walter illustrates.