This is Jocco Podcast number 97 with echo Charles and me, Jocco Willink. Good evening, echo. Good evening.

To the master stone mason in the town of Mansfield.

Greetings in God, much beloved parents. If my small letter finds you in good health, I should be mightily glad.

What concerns me, I am pretty much in health. Here in the white country will have to die all of hunger.

All is burnt, and the Russian army has carried off all subjects, as they had such a fear of us, and there is no food to be found, because nobody is to be found in any town.

Whenever a house is found, it is empty and dark.

Dear parents, I have to give news of our last battle, as we had already gone hungry for three days, and March day and night at five in the morning, we marched into this battle with a cabbage stump in our stomach, and we were in it until the evening.

And then we again had nothing and could not eat for tiredness. Only cannon fire from morning to evening.

God has helped me out of the third battle also without harm, though the bullets hailed down pretty well, as if one were to take peas and throw them at someone. But none got me.

The whole cavalry is lost. Now I want to write you about the Russian town of Misery, Moscow, which is seven hours walk long and as wide, and the Russians put fire to it.

For four hours it burned and then it was extinguished, and we were stationed before Moscow, and I don't know whether we are going forward or back.

I don't know what to write, except that you will shortly see many cripples without arm and leg, and so many must die pitifully of hunger and terrible dangers.

Russians appear all the time for the last battle. Let's end now. Finally, farewell and stay healthy until we speak again.

Many greetings to brothers and sisters, brothers and law and sisters and law to the Boltsons, the Krogens, and all good friends and acquaintances. And I am quite well if only I can live. Farewell. I remain your faithful son until death.

Johann Andreus Warnock. So Napoleon, who is often praised by many, including myself, praised as a military genius, and he was one of the first military leaders to effectively utilize psychological warfare.

And this included, most famously, his bulletins de la grande arme, which was sort of an update. It was like a newspaper that was sent out while the campaigns of France were being embarked upon.

And that was his media, so he had control of it. And he also controlled mail that his troops sent home and made sure that it painted a positive picture of what was happening downrange.

And that is where that opening letter came from. It was actually excerpts of a letter, but it was confiscated by the military of the Kingdom of Westphalia, which was a vassal state under the first French empire, which was Napoleon's empire.

And the Kingdom of Westphalia, which is a German piece of land, and it provided hundreds of thousands of soldiers for the Napoleonic Wars. And when I say provided soldiers, I should say specifically conscripts, which are basically slave soldiers. You have no choice. You will go and fight.

And over time, Westphalia was eventually conquered by the Russians for a period, and then some of the confiscated letters survived and ended up as historical documents that explained what was happening on the ground.

And that's where that letter came from through old Russian files where they had this letter. And again, we make a habit of glorifying Napoleon. And I have done it right here on this podcast, which is actually pretty substandard behavior from me, since I always try to listen to the voice and hear the voice and understand the viewpoint of the foot soldier.

The grunt, the front line troops on the battlefield, because that is where the fighting takes place. Those are the men that execute the plans of the general, and that is where the wars are actually won.

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