Marshal Michel Ney, Prince of Moskowa (1769-1815)

Michel Ney was one of the best known of Napoleon's marshals. He fought for Napoleon at Elchingen (1805), Austerlitz (1805), Jena (1806), and Spain (1808-11) before the Russian Campaign. He established himself as a brave soldier but at the same time as a temperamental and impulsive leader.

Ney is mostly remembered for his courageous survival when he and his troops got behind from the main army and he managed to escape with 800 men the vastly larger Russian and Cossack armies at Krasnoe. "He is the bravest of the brave," said Napoleon when Ney caught up with the main body of the frozen and shrunken Grand Army.

When Napoleon was forced to abdicate in 1814, Ney took an oath of fidelity to the Bourbon dynasty. When Napoleon came back to power and Ney noticed that the Bourbon dynasty was not considered popular, he returned to Napoleon's side. After Waterloo, in 1815, the Bourbons returned and Ney attempted to flee France. However, he got arrested and sentenced to death in a trial that according to Encyclopedia Britannica was one of the most divisive trials in French history. Ney was shot to death by a firing squad in the Luxembourg Gardens in December 1815.