Marshal Michel Ney
Michel Ney was called the bravest of the brave by Napoleon and was shot by a French firing squad six months after Waterloo. Born in 1769 in Saarlouis, the son of a barrel-cooper, he enlisted as a hussar at eighteen and rose through the revolutionary armies entirely on performance, reaching general of division by 1799. He was made one of the first Marshals of the Empire in 1804 and fought in every major campaign — Elchingen, Jena, Eylau, Friedland, and Spain, where he quarrelled with everyone. His reputation was made in Russia in 1812. Commanding the rearguard of the retreat, he was cut off at Krasny, presumed lost, and marched what remained of his corps across the frozen Dnieper by night to rejoin the army. He is said to have been the last Frenchman to leave Russian soil, firing a musket himself. He was among the marshals who told Napoleon to abdicate in 1814, and accepted the Bourbon restoration. When Napoleon returned from Elba in 1815, Ney was sent to stop him and promised Louis XVIII that he would bring him back in an iron cage. He met the column at Auxerre and embraced him instead. At Waterloo he commanded the left and the centre, had five horses killed under him, and threw the French cavalry against unbroken British squares without infantry or guns in support — the decision most often blamed for the day. He was tried for treason by the Chamber of Peers and executed in December 1815, giving the order to fire himself.
- Lived: 1769 CE – 1815 CE
- Nationality: French
- Roles: field_marshal, cavalry_commander
