Napoleon's Surgeon

In the Spring of 1813, the French army was just a shadow of the Grande Armée that had travelled to Moscow a year earlier. So for his new German campaign, Napoleon quickly needed a new army. Again conscripts were summoned throughout the French Empire.

The same applied to 24-year-old medical student Carolus Blomme from rural Flanders. He was not called up for the army, but as a surgeon in the service de santé, Napoleon’s military medical service. Carolus travelled via Mainz and Dresden to Leipzig, where he attended the 'Battle of the Nations' in mid-October, which the French army lost again. Later he was captured by the Russians in Worms and released as a Dutchman. In the icy winter of 1814 he travelled via Düsseldorf to Amsterdam and waited until the Coalition armies had also liberated Flanders.

On his nine-month journey, Carolus kept a diary somewhat similar to the report of a grand tour. In this book, the experiences and journey of Carolus Blomme are set in the historical context of Napoleon’s medical service, contagion and diseases in the French army, and hardship and suffering of the French conscripts. It is followed by the full English translation of his diary.