Jakob Walter was born in 1788 in the town of Rosenberg, near Ellwangen in the Duchy of Württemberg in the Holy Roman Empire.
The area a few years later became part of the short-lived Confederation of the Rhine founded by Napoleon and was at that point a French vassal state.
In 1806, Walter and his brother were conscripted into the regiment of Heinrich Eberhard von Romig and served in the campaign of 1806-1807 in Poland, as part of King Jérôme’s contribution to the Grande Armée.
By far the greater part of his time was spent on the march, and most of his memoir concerns foraging; he speaks of the difficulty of forcing peasants to show where their food was hidden.
Around it from top to bottom were heaped bundles of hemp and shives, which I tore down; and, as I worked my way to the ground, sacks full of flour appeared.
At times he survived on dough balls made from looted flour mixed with muddy water and roasted in a fire; for almost a week he lived on a jar of honey he dug up from where a peasant had hidden it.
My company's doctor, named Staüble, had his arm shot away in crossing the stream, and he died afterward.
Everyone fired and struck at the enemy in wild madness, and no one could tell whether he was in front, in the middle, or behind the center of the army.Walter was shaken by the efficiency of the Russian scorched earth policy.
He recorded that From Smolensk to Moshaisk the war displayed its horrible work of destruction: all the roads, fields, and woods lay as though sown with people, horses, wagons, burned villages and cities; everything looked like the complete ruin of all that lived.Walter records that after the fall of Moscow and the subsequent retreat, the French commanders became more brutal to the men; he says that even in retreat the commanders would inspect the men's weapons, and men who had rust on their weapons were beaten with clubs "until they were near desperation."
He titled it Denkwurdige Geschichtschreibung über die erlebte Millitäridienstzeit des Verfassers dieses Schreibens ("Memorable History of the Military Service Experienced by the Author of these Letters.")
Another University of Kansas professor, Otto Springer, translated the work into English, and they published it as A German Conscript with Napoleon.