Diary of a Napoleonic Footsoldier (4 page)

1. P
ENCIL SKETCH BY
E
BERHARD
E
MMINGER OF
W
ALTER’S HOME CITY OF
E
LLWANGEN
,
DATED
1847.

After I arrived in the village ahead of me, the nobleman quartered me in the mayor’s house; but, when I entered the room through a straw door, I could not stand upright and could not see any people for the smoke. This compelled me to quarter myself at the nobleman’s house.

The next day I tried to visit eight villages, but I frequently got to only one or two in a day, for often it was necessary to walk a distance of three or four miles. In one manor I once could get no guide, since everyone ran away and hid from my lone self. A big dog also kept attacking me, and I shot the dog because of my customary youthful impulses. This was another reason why I got no guide. Here I traveled alone, depending upon my own
good judgment, to a village in another region and received here, as almost everywhere, unrequested presents which pleased me very much.

Since, as I have said, it required eight days insted of four to visit the villages and since the convoy lying in Gnesen left hurriedly, I and three other men returned too late. The convoy was gone. Having obtained the route of march from Gnesen to the Neisse stronghold in Silesia, we had to march alone a distance of about one hundred hours.

Since we four men thought we were well off, we did not hurry to catch the convoy but contented ourselves with comfortable traveling. We visited the noblemen, who usually had to hitch up their own good horses for us while we threatened that we had to catch the convoy by the next day and that the noblemen could be made responsible if we missed it. However, we usually had to combine force with these methods to get horses.

Once we took four horses from a nobleman, and unfortunately the march led us through a large government city, Posen. Here the servant said something we could not understand to a few burghers, but we were not stopped. We wanted to drink some brandy in the last suburb, and we halted. At once the nobleman came up on a white horse, being a Polish general stationed there in garrison. Our position did not seem to be the best, and we had to discuss what was to be done. Quickly our sickest-looking comrade had to lie on the ground and continually moan and lament. The general greeted us by threatening to write to our headquarters in Silesia about such use of his horses. That might have happened if the
sick man had not aroused some serious doubt on the part of the general. To defend ourselves further, we said we had just as much right to complain to our regiment that His Excellency the general had hindered our progress and had caused the death of a sick man. At these words a wagon with two horses was brought there at once, and we were able to travel away laughing with our healthy “sick man.”

After Posen we came into a little Polish town called Fraustadt, which was a garrison town. I have to mention this town because of its windmills, which numbered 99.

From Fraustadt we came after several marches to Glogau on Easter Eve and were quartered with a Jew. Since we were acquainted in this city, we wanted to give this Jew something to remember us by. The meals were usually attended by violence on account of stinginess and uncleanliness; and, since clean chinaware was always set up for the Jews, we took over all that chinaware and ate with it, causing such an uproar in the house that a crowd of people gathered in front of the house to listen. Our defense was that we just had not thought of making anything unkosher that had been intended not to be for us, and so the Jews could not set forth any complaint.

From Glogau we traveled with some of the Black Riflemen toward the stronghold of Schweidnitz. We had not obtained a wagon out of Glogau, which seemed to us a great hardship. It was Easter Day, March 29, and we looked for horses in every stable in a village called Hochkirch, but found none, which failure made it necessary for us to look even in the parsonage.

When we searched the buildings and found nothing
but an old woman there, we wanted to look into the church where the service was in progress, and we found the church full of people. Meanwhile there stood in the court a beautiful carriage hitched with two horses; so we untied the horses and rode away without a servant. Since we had to hurry to escape the church folk, I had to drive and ran into a tree stump so that the carriage and all of us lay there in the mud. Here we set out again and traveled until we were a half mile from Schweidnitz. In that place there was a tavern in the forest; and, after we had sold the carriage and horses cheaply to the innkeeper, we continued our march.

When we came to the fortress of Neisse, we had to go on with our regiment and with the Seckendorff Regiment through Breslau, across Poland through the city of Kalisch, then Posen, Gnesen, [Inowr]azlav, and Thorn on the Vistula River. From there we went through Prussian Pomerania toward the fortress of Colberg on the Baltic Sea. One mile from this stronghold is a town called Belgard, and ther was a castle there which had belonged to our King Frederick while he had encamped in this town as general of the cavalry.

On this journey from Thorn to Colberg I saw a lake which lay in a forest by a monastery. In this lake were multitudes of frogs which were of a very beautiful bright blue color, and no soldier would quit until he had caught one of these beautiful frogs. Beyond this region we came to a little town in which the largest part of the inhabitants were Jews. The same day we had had to walk several miles through swamps and snow water up to our knees; and, when quarters were taken there for the evening,
I and four other men came into a Jew’s house. The room was full of straw and goats. Since neither fire nor wood was to be had, we went into the next house to lodge, looked for the Jew, and took him into custody; for only by applying such stern treatment could we induce the wife to bring us food on her husband’s account.

While we were besieging the fortress of Colberg, we were assigned a camp in a swampy place. Since wood and even straw were rarely to be had, the barracks were built from earth and sod, and ditches were dug around them.

As some sickness was arising because of the continual fog, I also became sick and had to go to the hospital in the fortress of Stettin, which is also a fortress on the sea. When I arrived with several from the regiment, we were placed three stories high under the roof in the hospital. Here twelve to fifteen of the men about me died every day, which made me sick at my stomach and would have caused my death in the end if I and four comrades had not reported ourselves as being well even on the second day and escaped. This hospital and three others, according to rumor, had six thousand sick people; and that was the reason also why everyone with an appetite had to suffer great hunger, which was one of the things that moved me to leave. The third day we five men were allowed to go, and we traveled without delay to our regiment.

In this fortress of Stettin the Würzburg soldiers were stationed and were all dressed in uniforms of white and red, that is, like Austrian soldiers. This stronghold
had a position which could be besieged only by land from the side facing Berlin. Here the Oder River flows into the Baltic Sea. This, together with the swamps, which extend for a mile and through which currents of the Oder flow, surrounds two-thirds of the city. Over the swamp is a paved dike a mile long, reaching to the head of the bridge near a village named Dam. This city is large and beautiful and had especially large merchant ships in the harbor to look at.

When we five men came again without delay to the fortress of Colberg, we had the honor of enduring the siege in good health for another three weeks. Pentecost Night is especially fixed in my memory, since the fortress was stormed then.

When we had to leave camp after midnight, all the regiments marched forward through the swamp; and finally, when light firing began upon the outposts, we were commanded to attack by wading through the rampart ditches with fascines, to tread these in, and to scramble up the outworks by chopping and shoveling. When I stood in the ditch, each first soldier had to pull up the next one with his rifle. The ramparts were of sand, and everyone frequently fell back again because of the attack of the enemy, or just because of the sliding sand; yet in that place the huge cannonballs flew by above us [?], thundering so violently that we would have believed the earth would burst to pieces. When everyone was almost on top of the earthwork, the Prussians were slaughtered with great vigor, and the rest took flight into the gate. Then we, too, wanted to gain possession of the gateway in order
to enter the city, but at this critical time many of these Prussians were shot along with our men by small and large guns, and the gate was closed.

Since all sorts of shells and rockets broke out of the fortress like a cloudburst, we had to take to flight. Those who meanwhile were scrambling up the outworks had to jump from the fortress into the moat along with their prisoners, and all the rest had to do likewise. During this retreat many fell on bayonets, many drowned, and many of us were also brought into the fortress as prisoners and sent away to Danzig by sea.

When we reached camp, we saw many who had lost their helmet, rifle, saber, knapsack, etc. Because of various falls and pains, many looked for wounds and had none; many, however, did not become aware of the wounds which they had until they reached camp.

2. W
ATERCOLOR BY AN UNKNOWN ARTIST OF THE
P
ALACE
S
QUARE IN
S
TUTTGART
,
ABOUT
1790.

In this camp there were Poles, Westphalians, French, and, as mentioned before, only two regiments of us from Württemberg. One morning the Prussians surprised the Polish camp from the sea with their ships, as had happened before on Easter. The cannon fire on the Poles was so heavy that they could not withdraw fast enough. Their cannonballs also traveled more than half again as far toward our camp as our balls did across the water, since the surrounding swamps were frozen and the balls could roll along on the ice so fast that one ball often took off the feet and legs of ten or twelve men, frequently both feet of the same man. During this blockade the Prussians frequently made attacks, although every time with great losses.

At the end of over four weeks the command came from General Vandamme,
¹
or rather from Prince Jérôme, that both regiments from Württemberg should go by forced march to Silesia to the siege of Silberberg.

When we marched away, we had to get additional horses in the little town of Belgard to carry the knapsacks, etc. This brought me to misfortune, since my knapsack, cloak, bayonet, and the money which I had packed in a belt of my cloak, were lost. When I was in my quarters and learned this, I wanted a horse to ride to the other companies in order to look for my lost articles, but I had to make use of a military requistion and look for a horse with my landlord in the forest, since I saw that there was horse manure in the stable. When I had the horse but no saddle or bridle, I made a bridle out of a bit of rope
and traveled about three miles in the surrounding villages but found nothing. At best I only got lost and did not know how to ask where I wanted to go; since because of the dialect there I could not remember the name of the village and I believed that I could depend on what I had remembered of the roads. Finally it grew dark, and with no other choice I had to let the horse go where it wished, and that proved the best choice. The horse walked half the night through heath and woods; and, since I did not let it graze from the ground, it went home to its village; and I had to be resigned to my loss.

From this village the march went through Pomerania and Poland to Breslau. From Kalisch on we obtained wagons and were all driven in them to the camp near Frankenstein and Reichenbach. We arrived there in the month of June.

Before the fortress of Silberberg, all the regiments from Württemberg and also Bavarian soldiers had laid siege. The stronghold could not be stormed because of its height and would not surrender. The ground plan of this fortress could be examined by many of our men who were captured, but only after the war. During the war they were not allowed even to see the way they had to go.