Diary of a Napoleonic Foot Soldier: Western Civ II

Below is an outline of what the paper is supposed to look like:

Name

History 1020

Date

Jakob Walter:  The Diary of a Napoleonic Foot Soldier

This is what your essay should look like.  Have your name and the class information in the upper left-hand corner of this page.  You don’t need a cover sheet.  Have the name of the book at the top of the first page of your essay.  Be sure to use 12-pitch type, which is what this guide uses.  Be sure to double-space your text, so the lines aren’t all bunched together.  Your margins on the sides and top of every sheet of paper should be about the same as those on this sheet of paper.  Your essay should be three pages long.

Be sure to begin your essay with an introductory paragraph that explains what you are trying to do.  For this essay, you are writing about what it is like to read about an important historical event from the perspective of a low-level participant in that event.  Jakob Walter took part as a soldier in the Napoleonic Wars, most notably the disastrous invasion of Russia in 1812.  Walter was not an officer.  He had no real idea of what Napoleon’s strategic goals were and had no clear concept of what all this fighting and marching was to achieve.  (Please be sure to read the entire book, including the Introduction, the Historical Appraisal, the Letters, the Notes, etc.  Be aware that Walter did not write all this extra material.)

In your essay, be sure to have a paragraph or two that describes what benefit you got from reading Walter’s account of Napoleon’s campaigns.  There is no “right” or “wrong” answer to this.  The important thing is that you explain the positions you take.  If you think this was a great book that deepened your understanding of warfare in the early 1800s, it is not enough to say just that.  You need to give specific examples and talk about things that impressed you in Walter’s diary that led you to this deeper understanding.  (If you felt there was nothing of value here, you need to explain why you felt that way.)  Your task is to convince me that you have read this book and thought about it.

You may want to use a quote or two from the book.  If you do (and you don’t have to) keep the quote you use short and to the point.  Here is an example of how to quote.  “The impulse to help one another was still quite dulled.” (Walter p. 105) You, and not Jakob Walter, are the person writing this paper.  If you use blocks and blocks of quotes from Walter, you are hiding behind his words.  This essay is to show your thoughts, not Walter’s.

Have a paragraph or two about the drawbacks of reading Walter’s account of Napoleon’s campaigns.  Did his diary raise questions that you wanted answered, but the answers were not found in the diary?  How did reading his diary compare to reading a textbook?  What would you find more helpful at this stage of your college career?  As before, there are no “right” or “wrong” answers.  Present your thoughts to me in a clear and understandable way.

Include a paragraph in your paper about the Historical Appraisal and the other material in the book that was not written by Jakob Walter.  Tell whether you found this information useful or not, and explain why you think this way.

After you have discussed the pros and cons of the book, have a paragraph or two in which you tell me what you think of Jakob Walter.  Before you write this part of your paper, look at the paragraph that begins at the bottom of page 65 and ends at the top of page 66.  In it, Walter talks about judging people who are in extreme situations.  Write a paragraph that tells me what you think about Jakob Walter, and then have a paragraph that addresses the issue of how you judge people who live in historic eras of extreme crisis.  Again, I am not looking for a “right” or “wrong” answer, but I want you to show me how you think and why you came to the opinion you have.

After you have addressed all these issues, it is time for a concluding paragraph.  Here you should sum up your response to the book.  Did you like it?  Dislike it?  Briefly go over the reasons why you reached the conclusion you did and end by saying whether you would recommend that this book be used the next time