“Ney is considered a great hero of France, but he should also be seen as the victim of a condition that is still imperfectly understood.”

By John Danielski

“DAMN YOU, general! Where is your honor?” bellowed Marshal Michel Ney. “Has your courage deserted you, monsieur? Do you no longer serve the emperor? Form your troopers up, charge that square yonder, and be quick about it!”

General of division Baron Charles Claude Jacquinot, the victim of Ney’s hysterical Waterloo tirade, recoiled in surprise and puzzlement. He had never been scolded like a common ranker shirking his duty. This was not the Marshal Ney he loved and venerated, a man famous for shouting ribald words of encouragement to his men. Something was wrong with the marshal, but Jacquinot had no idea what it was.

Ney suffered from what today we’d call post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a persistent, combat-induced affliction whose symptoms can be identified in battle accounts as far back as ancient Greece. American author and Civil War veteran Ambrose Bierce suffered from the malady and alluded to it in his classic short story The Occurance at Owl Creek Bridge. Known by names like “soldier’s loneliness” in the early 19th century, “shell shock” in the Great War and “battle fatigue” in the Second World War, its present name dates from 1980. The longer a soldier is subjected to combat the more likely he will suffer some form of it.

PTSD is part of the hidden costs of war and its onset can be gradual or sudden. Symptoms are many and varied and often include depression, anxiety, mood swings and self-harm. According to a 2021 Brown University Study, approximately 30,000 U.S. veterans who fought in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan died by suicide – more than four times the number of those killed in action.

While PTSD’s effect on the average combat soldier is the focus of most of the current medical research, it is well to remember it has done significant damage to men in positions of high command in times past; men with far more power to alter the tide of history than a humble private soldier. One such victim was Marshal Michel Ney of France, the man who more than anyone, lost the Battle of Waterloo.

A native of Lorraine, Ney was born in the same year as Napoleon and was 20 years old when the Bastille fell. He was the son of Pierre Ney, who had fought as a noncommissioned officer against Frederick the Great.

In peacetime, Pierre was a modestly successful cooper but wanted something better for his son and found Michel employment as a clerk for a small ironworks and later as a secretary to a local attorney.

During his off hours, Michel practiced fencing and riding, becoming expert at both, and soon abandoned the life of a scribbler for that of a cavalryman, enlisting at 18 and becoming a sergeant by 20. Ney was a born horseback corsair, an apolitical hotspur seeking glory and renown who had no interest in the rights of man issues raised by the French Revolution. Yet with the dismantling of France’s traditional aristocracy, he soon realized that one could now go as far in the French army as one’s thirst for adventure, honor, and distinction would carry him.

Ney was five foot eight, powerfully built, with a short torso and long legs. Despite his modest origins he was as cocksure as a lion king, as prideful as Odysseus, and as touchy about honor as the greatest Spanish grandee. This was counterbalanced by a strong egalitarian streak that rendered him unpretentious and easily approachable by any man under his command.

His talents were recognized early, and he was commissioned a hussar officer after the Battle of Valmy in 1792. He fit the profile of his new rank perfectly: fearless, impetuous, impulsive, always at the head of the most advanced skirmish line and always the last man to withdraw from the field. His skill with weapons and in hand-to-hand combat was unmatched and duty became his watchword. His bright red hair was a perfect complement to his fiery temper and hard-driving nature. However, though he was quick to take offense, he had a generous and sentimental core, and he forgave equally quickly. When he rode by, his men shouted “there goes le Rougeaud (the red-faced). Things must be heating up again!”

Early in his career, Ney had been chosen by his regiment to fight a duel to defend its honor against a brother regiment that had spoken ill of its abilities and valor. Ney handily defeated the enemy champion. Years later, however, when found out that his old opponent was nearly destitute, he bailed the man out financially.

Ney served in the Low Countries and the Rhineland and rose quickly in rank, becoming a brigadier general by 1795 and a divisional general by 1799. His phenomenal personal bravery was legendary around army campfires. He soon came to the attention of the new First Consul of France, Napoleon Bonaparte, for his role in the great victory over the Austrians at Hohenlinden. The future emperor entrusted him with the task of pacifying the Swiss Cantons which he carried out with remarkable efficiency.

He was part of the original group of marshals created by Napoleon in 1804. In the years that followed, he was instrumental in Bonaparte’s greatest victories: Austerlitz, Jena, Friedland.

Ney added greatly to his personal and professional laurels and showed himself to be an able and energetic subordinate. While neither a deep thinker nor a great strategist, he was a good tactician and a competent administrator: a charismatic, larger-than-life figure who was adored by the rank and file. The emperor once quipped that Ney’s mere presence on the field was worth two divisions. But his stunning success also cost him.

The first evidence of the onset of PTSD came during Napoleon’s brief campaign in Spain in 1808, but it was when he was assigned to Andre Massena’s Spanish Army in 1810 that things began to go seriously wrong for Ney. He grew increasingly impatient, quarrelsome and occasionally countermanded direct orders. He sometimes fumbled details, made questionable combat dispositions at Busaco, suffered bouts of indecision, and was prone to melancholy. While his bravery never wavered, he argued with Massena and questioned his orders. At the end of 1811, Massena relieved him of command for outright insubordination.

In 1812, Ney was given command of Napoleon’s III Corps for the 600,000-man invasion of Russia. Over the weeks that followed, he earned his formal title, the Prince of Muskowa, and his more famous informal sobriquet, “the bravest of the brave.”

On the surface, he appeared his old confident self. He was wounded at Smolensk and fought gallantly at the bloodiest battle of the Napoleonic wars, Borodino. Yet it was during the endless, agonizing retreat from Russia, through bitter cold and driving snow that he passed into legend. Napoleon said of him then, “he was priceless for his valor, his obstinacy during retreat.”

Ney’s greatest Russian moment came when 60,000 Russians had trapped the rump of Napoleon’s Army against the banks of the ice choked Berezina River. Ney and 3,000 men made charge after charge against the Russians and held them at bay long enough for Napoleon’s men to get across. After nightfall, a senior Russian officer approached Ney’s camp under a flag of truce and suggested that an honorable surrender was the wisest course of action. He was astonished at Ney’s indignant reply. “A Marshal of France never surrenders. My sword will get me out of this.”

Ney was literally the last man out of Russia. He defended the only standing bridge over the Nieman into the Dutchy of Warsaw with a ragtag rear guard of 30 men, largely Germans with no great allegiance to Napoleon. When attacked, most of the Germans threw down their weapons and ran. Ney rallied the survivors and picked up all the discarded muskets himself. He fired them off one by one at point blank range, courting death like a lover whose embrace he welcomed. Astonished by his bravery, the Russians retreated, and Ney escaped. Despite his legendary heroics, Ney never fully recovered from Russia.

During the 1813 Campaigns in Germany, Ney’s abilities experienced a noticeable decline. He vacillated between anger and a brooding glumness; his customary volatility gradually sliding into instability. His performance fluctuated: from capable to adequate to poor. While he had always been mindful of the lives of those under his command, the unwarranted risks he now took caused a significant increase in the butcher’s bill. Napoleon said of him at this time, “he is good in command of 10,000 but an idiot with any number greater.” Napoleon realized Ney needed to be kept on a very short leash, though he frequently was unable to do so.

He led the Young Guard during the short campaign of 1814 and as foreign armies closed in on Paris, he was the first of Napoleon’s marshals to suggest his abdication. After the peace, he settled uneasily into post-war France: a born warrior without a war to fight.

He supported Louis XVIII hoping the Bourbon restoration would bring stability to France after decades of war. Indeed, when Napoleon escaped exile on Elba and returned to France in early 1815, Ney promised Louis he would bring Bonaparte back to Paris “in a cage.” Louis was astonished by this vow but took him at his word. Upon encountering the former emperor, Ney abruptly defected to Napoleon’s side. He said he did so because his troops would not fire upon Bonaparte, but it seems likely that PTSD had impaired his resolve.

Ney’s loyalty to Napoleon was rewarded; he was appointed commander of a full wing of the Armée du Nord for the Waterloo Campaign. Considering Napoleon well knew Ney’s limitations, this is hard to explain. However, Napoleon’s health had suffered over the years, and he too was far from the man he was at Austerlitz, the high point of his career.

Ney fumbled badly during the Waterloo Campaign. At Quatre Bras, he squandered the chance to smash the Duke of Wellington’s army as it was forming up piecemeal. When Ney finally attacked in the afternoon, Anglo-Allied forces were reinforced. At one point during the fight he was heard to moan, “oh how I wish an English bullet would find me.” What’s more, while engaged with Wellington, he ordered d’Erlon’s corps to rush to his aid. Unfortunately, d’Erlon was already marching to support Napoleon, who was in action against the Prussians under Blucher at Ligny. It reversed course and headed for Quatre Bras, wasting an entire day on the road, and helping neither Ney nor Napoleon. Quatre Bras was a draw and Ligny, although a victory, could have been far more decisive.

Despite severely berating Ney for his poor performance at Quatre Bras, Napoleon astonishingly entrusted most of the operational command at Waterloo to him. The emperor, who was unwell, spent much of the battle off the field. Ney led from the front seemingly daring the enemy to kill him. Five horses were shot out from under him as the battle raged; he remained unwounded.

Ney squandered his assets in ill-coordinated attacks and learned nothing from his mistakes. He ordered 22 separate charges of cavalry against Wellington’s center, utterly ruining Napoleon’s horse arm as well as swelling the butcher’s bill to Olympian proportions. His troops noticed that rather than encouraging them with his usual wry, risqué commentary, Ney berated, cursed, and threatened them. He marched along with the Imperial Guard during their final assault, though Napoleon had taken personal command at that point. When the Guard was smashed, Ney fought on to the bitter end and was the last ranking officer to leave the field of Waterloo, well after dark.

Upon his return to France, Ney immediately proceeded to his country home and the affections of his wife and four children. His very public presence put the government of Louis XVIII in a difficult position. He had betrayed the king’s trust by defecting to Napoleon rather than returning him to Paris for justice, yet he was a well-loved figure with a nationwide following. The restored government stated publicly that Ney would be put on trial for treason; privately Louis and his advisors took pains to see that such a spectacle would never happen. The soldiers sent to arrest Ney made it plain they wanted him to escape. Ney angrily ignored their suggestions and willingly surrendered because he wanted the imagined stain on his honor cleared in a public venue. When Louis heard Ney had been taken into custody, he asked in exasperation the same question that many senior officers had. “What is wrong with him?” The answer was PTSD: this was a man who wanted to die.

A court marital was assembled but soon ruled by a 5-2 vote that it was ” not competent” to rule on Ney’s alleged misdeeds: no officer wanted to convict such a gallant soul. Instead, as a peer of France, he requested a trial by the Chamber of Deputies, composed of other French nobles. During the trial he defended his honor vigorously, but the outcome was never in doubt.

Ney was shot by a firing squad at the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris on Dec. 7, 1815. He told his reluctant executioners to aim for his heart yet many of the 11 soldiers purposely fired high, hoping to miss. His last words before he himself gave the order to fire were, “I have fought a hundred battles for France and never one against her.”

Ney is considered a great hero of France, but he should also be seen as the victim of an affliction that is still imperfectly understood. His death was pointless and unnecessary but at age 45, he was a man who had seen and done too many terrible things and wanted to be relieved of the joyless burden of life. The firing squad was his way of committing suicide.

John Danielski is the author of eight books chronicling the adventures of Royal Marine Thomas Pennywhistle during the Napoleonic Wars. The newest title in the series is Destination Waterloo. It is available from Amazon.com. He is a frequent contributor to MilitaryHistoryNow.com.

 

 

 

 

 

 

NEED HELP?

If you are a U.S. military veteran and struggling, or know someone who is, help is available. Call the Veterans Crisis Line at 988 and Press 1 or visit va.gov.

Canadian Forces personnel and veterans can get mental health supports HERE.

In the U.K., visit shiningalightonsuicide.org.uk.

Australian veterans in crisis can find assistance HERE.