Battle of Krasnoi - November 18: The Destruction of Ney

November 18: The Destruction of Ney

At 3:00 p.m. on November 18, Ney's III Corps finally made contact with Miloradovich, who had posted 12,000 troops on a hill overlooking a deep ravine. Ney had 8,000 combatants and 7,000 stragglers under his command at this point.

Believing that Davout was still in Krasny, directly behind Miloradovich's columns, Ney turned down a Russian offer of honorable surrender, and boldy attempted to ram his way through the enemy. The dogged French troops then succeeded in piercing the first two lines of Russian infantry. The third line, however, proved indomitable, and at the decisive moment, the Russians counterattacked. An eyewitness to this engagement, the English General Sir Robert Wilson, describes it thusly:

Forty pieces of cannon loaded with grape, simultaneously on the instant, vomited their flames and poured their deadly shower on the French assailants. The Russians most in advance, shouting their "huzza", sprang forward with fixed bayonets, and without firing a musket. A sanguinary but short struggle ensued; the enemy could not maintain their footing, and were driven headlong down the ravine. The brow and sides of the hill were covered with French dead and dying, all the Russian arms were dripping with gore, and the wounded, as they lay bleeding and shivering on the snow, called for "death", as the greatest mercy that could be ministered in their hopeless state.

The terrible defeat of the III Corps was thorough enough to induce the chivalrous Miloradovich to extend another honorable surrender to Ney. Again, Ney refused to submit, and with 2,000 refugees—all that remained of his corps—he absconded into the forests pursued by Platov's Cossacks.

For the next two days Ney's small party bravely stood off Cossack attacks as it marched westward via footpaths in search of Napoleon's army. The elements and the Cossacks soon reduced Ney's contingent to only 800 diehards. On November 20, Ney and Napoleon were reunited near Orsha, an event which the demoralized French troops regarded as the emotional equivalent of a great victory.

At Krasny, Ney's steely courage in defeat immortalized him in the annals of military history, leading Napoleon to bestow upon him the sobriquet of "Bravest of the Brave."