"The Lion’s Last Roar: Marshal Michel Ney" Topic

"Napoléon Bonaparte called him "a lion" and amid an army of heroes singled him out as "the bravest of the brave." One of his fellow French marshals perhaps said it best: "We are soldiers, but Ney is a knight." Marshal Michel Ney exemplified all these characteristics, and so it was in 1815 he abandoned titles, lands and family to fight once more at the side of Napoléon in defense of France in the final campaign of the Napoleonic wars.

Ney joined the French army as a 19-year-old private. He displayed such daring and skill during the wars of the French Revolution that he rose meteorically in rank, becoming a general at age 27 and a marshal of France at 35. Tall, muscular and possessed of great courage, Ney always gravitated to the hottest part of the battlefield, often fighting more like a captain than a marshal. "He had only to give an order for you to feel brave," an aide recalled. "Ney's genius only awakened in the face of the enemy and at the great voice of the guns. Even under grapeshot his laughter and pleasantries seemed to defy the death all around him." The troops idolized Ney and nicknamed him le Rougeaud ("the Ruddy"), because his complexion turned deep red in the heat of battle…"
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