Michel Ney: The Bravest of the Brave Among Napoleon’s Generals

Born into a German-speaking family from Alsace, Michel Ney joined the French Revolutionary Army and quickly rose through the ranks fighting the Austrians in Germany. After being named Marshal of the Empire in 1804, Ney campaigned with Napoleon in central Europe throughout 1805-07. He was less successful campaigning in Spain, but his exploits during Napoleon’s Russian campaign in 1812 transformed him into a legend. After leading the marshals’ revolt to convince Napoleon to abdicate in 1814, he rejoined Napoleon at Waterloo in 1815 before being executed by the restored Bourbons.

On November 18, 1812, as the remnants of Napoleon’s Grande Armée retreated from the city of Smolensk, Russian general Mikhail Miloradovich cut off the French rearguard and sent an officer to demand its surrender.

“A Marshal of France does not surrender. One does not parley under the fire of the enemy. You are my prisoner,” Marshal Michel Ney informed the startled Russian officer. With a rifle in hand and some 6,000 men still under his command, Ney counterattacked before searching for a different path to rejoin his comrades.

By the 20th, Napoleon was at Orsha when he received news that Ney was on the verge of breaking through with a few hundred remaining men, remarking, “The army of France is full of brave men, but Michel Ney is truly the bravest of the brave.”

After rejoining Napoleon the following day, Ney continued to command the rearguard, claiming to be the last soldier to leave Russia on December 15. In recognition of Ney’s exploits in 1812, Napoleon bestowed upon him the title of Prince of the Moskova in March 1813.

Son of Alsace

Michel Ney was born in January 1769 in Saarlouis, then a French city on the German border but today part of Germany. After embarking on a clerical career, in 1787, Ney joined the French army as a hussar, earning a reputation as a fine cavalryman.

Although the Revolution of 1789 did not immediately lead to war, when the War of the First Coalition broke out in 1792, Ney served as a staff officer to French generals in the Low Countries before commanding a company of 100 troopers at General Jean-Baptiste Jourdan’s victory over the Austrians at the Battle of Fleurus on June 26, 1794.

Ney’s actions at Fleurus earned him the admiration of General Jean-Baptiste Kléber, and he cooperated with Kléber’s vanguard commander, Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, as the French occupied the left bank of the Rhine.

After helping to secure the surrender of the fortress of Maastricht in November, Ney was wounded during the Siege of Mainz in December and returned to his hometown to recuperate before returning to the army in February 1795.

After an unsuccessful year of campaigning in 1795, Ney commanded the cavalry of Jourdan’s Army of the Sambre and Meuse in 1796. He won promotion to brigadier general on August 7 at age 27 following the capture of the fortress of Forchheim, though Jourdan was soon obliged to withdraw and resigned his command.

By the spring of 1797, while General Napoleon Bonaparte was in the final stages of his brilliant campaign in northern Italy, Ney was taken prisoner by the Austrians during the French victory at Neuwied on April 18. He was soon released in a prisoner exchange after both sides received news of a preliminary peace agreement negotiated by Bonaparte.

In 1798, as war broke out again, Ney did not join Bonaparte in Egypt but instead continued to serve in Germany under Generals Jourdan and André Masséna. In March 1799, Ney was promoted to general of division after helping Bernadotte capture Mannheim.

1799 had been a disastrous year for French military fortunes, especially in Italy, where Russian field marshal Alexander Suvorov led a brilliant campaign to retake northern Italy alongside his Austrian allies. Though Masséna’s victory at Zurich in late August rescued the situation, these reverses prompted Bonaparte to return to France and take power as First Consul in November 1799.

While the First Consul led a campaign to regain northern Italy in 1800, Ney served under General Jean Victor Marie Moreau in Germany and distinguished himself at the Battle of Hohenlinden on December 3, compelling Austria to sue for terms once again.

Although he had not yet served under Napoleon’s direct command, in 1802, Ney strengthened his ties to the First Consul by marrying the 20-year-old Aglaée Louise Auguiée, a protégée of Josephine Bonaparte.

In May 1804, Ney was one of eighteen generals named Marshal of the Empire and given command of the VI Corps of the Grande Armée. On October 14, 1805, Ney led his corps to defeat the Austrian vanguard at the Battle of Elchingen, facilitating the encirclement of Austrian general Mack’s army at Ulm.

While Ney was absent for Napoleon’s victory at the Battle of Austerlitz on December 2, he played a major part in the 1806-07 campaign against the Prussians and Russians. On October 14, 1806, he supported Marshal Jean Lannes’ attack against the Prussian center at Jena and was briefly cut off behind enemy lines.

Though most of the Prussian army was crippled, a small Prussian contingent joined up with General Levin August Bennigsen’s Russian army over the winter. At the Battle of Eylau on February 7-8, 1807, Ney’s timely intervention late on the second day compelled Bennigsen to withdraw. Neither side managed to secure a convincing victory, and as he toured the battlefield the following morning, Ney remarked, “What a massacre, and without result!”

When active campaigning resumed in June, Lannes enticed Bennigsen to stop his retreat and cross the River Alle at Friedland on the 14th. Lannes fought a delaying action to allow Napoleon to bring three corps to the field, and Ney led the key attack against the enemy left, trapping the Russians against the river. The decisive French victory prompted Russia and Prussia to negotiate the Treaty of Tilsit in July.

In August 1808, Ney joined Napoleon in Spain in an effort to pacify the country after a series of uprisings against French influence. While Napoleon left to deal with the resumption of hostilities with the Austrians in 1809, Ney continued to fight in the Peninsular War and proved reluctant to cooperate with his fellow marshals in the emperor’s absence.

In the spring of 1810, Ney served in Masséna’s Army of Portugal and was entrusted with the Siege of Ciudad Rodrigo, whose fortress guarded one of the two major invasion routes to Portugal. Ney and Masséna were soon at each other’s throats, and their poor relationship undermined the invasion of Portugal, which ran into Lord Wellington’s impregnable defensive network known as the Lines of Torres Vedras.

After Masséna’s second invasion of Portugal was repulsed in early 1811, Ney proved an effective rearguard commander and managed to fend off Wellington’s attacks at Pombal and Redinha but was soon recalled to France for insubordination against Masséna.

Empire in Decline

Ney’s fears that he lost his emperor’s favor were dismissed when he received instructions in January 1812 to prepare for what would become the invasion of Russia in June. As commander of a new III Corps, Ney participated in the central thrust towards Moscow and broke through the initial Russian positions at the Battle of Borodino. Although Napoleon occupied Moscow in mid-September, he was soon obliged to withdraw, seeking winter quarters closer to home.

After his heroics during the retreat from Russia, Ney joined Napoleon in 1813 to defend French imperial interests in central Europe against Russian and Prussian armies. Ney fought at Lutzen on May 2, 1813, and at the Battle of Bautzen three weeks later, he led an outflanking maneuver against the allied left but misunderstood his orders and failed to cut off the allied retreat.

By August, Austria had joined the allies, and Ney fought brilliantly as an outnumbered Napoleon defeated Austrian general Prince Karl von Schwarzenberg’s army at Dresden at the end of August. Ney was then dispatched north to lead a force to threaten Berlin. However, he was defeated at Dennewitz on September 6 by an allied army commanded by his friend Bernadotte, now an enemy of Napoleon, after accepting an invitation to become Crown Prince of Sweden in 1810.

After rejoining Napoleon in Saxony, Ney’s corps defended the northern sector at the climactic Battle of Leipzig in mid-November, but overwhelming allied numbers eventually compelled Napoleon to retreat and abandon his German possessions.

Although Ney was among several marshals to receive offers from Bernadotte to switch sides, he played a full part in the campaign of 1814 as Napoleon sought to defend France against allied invasion. Though Napoleon and Ney managed to win brilliant tactical victories against the odds, the strategic situation was beyond repair, and by the end of March, the allies had reached Paris.

While Napoleon wanted to fight on with his dwindling army, Ney placed himself at the head of disgruntled marshals who realized that further resistance was futile and convinced him to abdicate unconditionally on April 6, 1814.

While Napoleon was dispatched to exile in Elba, Ney was appointed commander of the cavalry by the restored Bourbon King Louis XVIII and made a member of the Chamber of Peers. However, he was angered by the condescending behavior of the returned aristocrats toward his beloved wife Aglaée.

Nevertheless, when Ney received news that Napoleon had escaped from Elba and had landed in southern France, he promised King Louis that he would bring Napoleon back to Paris “in an iron cage,” a boast that the king did not appreciate.

Despite his ardor and a genuine desire to resist his former master, Ney soon realized that there was little loyalty to the Bourbons among the French army while thousands of men were rallying to Napoleon’s standard as he marched north. On March 14, Ney chose to switch his allegiance to the emperor, enabling Napoleon to enter Paris less than a week later.

Though Ney had enabled his restoration to the throne, Napoleon continued to doubt his loyalty and was reluctant to employ him. As another coalition formed against Napoleon, the emperor organized 110,000 men into the Army of the North in an attempt to defeat allied armies under Wellington and his Prussian ally Blücher in Belgium before the arrival of Austrian and Russian troops on France’s eastern frontier.

Ney languished in Paris without a command until June 11, when he received orders to join Napoleon at headquarters. Ney was given command of 40,000 men and fought Wellington to a draw at Quatre Bras on June 16, while Napoleon defeated Blücher at Ligny to the east.

As the allies retreated north to maintain their communications, Napoleon joined Ney’s pursuit of Wellington, who was preparing to make a stand near Waterloo on the road to Brussels. During the battle on June 18, Ney’s cavalry charges against Wellington’s right were repulsed by British infantry squares. Although he managed to capture the farm of La Haye Sainte in Wellington’s center at 6 pm, the Prussians had arrived in force on the French right, and even the intervention of the Imperial Guard led in person by Ney could not prevent Napoleon’s defeat.

After taking refuge in a chateau in the country, Ney was arrested on August 3 and put on trial by King Louis. Ney was found guilty of treason by the Chamber of Peers, courageously meeting his end in front of a firing squad on December 7, 1815, a few weeks short of his 46th birthday.