Who was the greatest of Napoleon's Marshals and why?

he is right

That's correct.

>At Waterloo Ney again commanded the left wing of the army. Ney was seen [11] during one of the charges beating his sword against the side of a British cannon in furious frustration.
>During the battle he had five horses killed under him;[12] and at the end of the day, Ney led one of the last infantry charges, shouting to his men: "Come see how a marshal of France dies!".[13] It was as though Ney was seeking death, but death did not want him, as many observers reported.[14][15]

If that's not bravery, I don't know what is
It's not Washington, Robert E. Lee or Patton who would have done something like that

>leads the men from the front
>"Come see how a marshal of france dies"

He was a warrior priest

He was brave, don't get me wrong and I think he was the best rear guard anyone could want. However by Waterloo I think he was suicidal, not brave.

This, that of Bernadotte was the only family who gained their throne from Napoleon who still hold it today. Too bad it's wasted on Sweden

Talleyrand.

>"Soldiers, when I give the command to fire, fire straight at my heart. Wait for the order. It will be my last to you. I protest against my condemnation. I have fought a hundred battles for France, and not one against her ... Soldiers, fire!"

Ney really gets my tragedian boner going

>In order to save Ney's life, his lawyer Dupin declared that Ney was now Prussian and could not be judged by a French court for treason as Ney's hometown of Sarrelouis had been annexed by Prussia according to the Treaty of Paris of 1815. Ney ruined his lawyer's effort by interrupting him and stating: "I am French and I will remain French".

They still had Archduke Charles of Austria, he was pretty good.

>They had nothing on the Holy Roman Imperial Army.

>You will never ride with Napoleon to Paris during the 100 days

>Prussia
>HRE

You should post Napoleonic battles against Austria.

i hate poniatowski's weird hat and his pants

It's an Uhlan thing.

Why not give him more than that? Was he a traitor by nature?

What was good about the ones you just said?

how the hell does a pole even become a fuckin marshal of france... but i guess it makes sense... there were italians and germans who were marshals

>Louis-Nicolas Davout was a French general who was Marshal of the Empire during the Napoleonic era. His talent for war along with his reputation as a stern disciplinarian, earned him the title "The Iron Marshal". He is ranked along with Masséna and Lannes as one of Napoleon's finest commanders.

> As commander of the III Corps of the Grande Armée, Davout rendered his greatest services. At the Battle of Austerlitz, after a forced march of forty-eight hours, the III Corps bore the brunt of the allies' attack. In the subsequent War of the Fourth Coalition, Davout with a single corps fought and won the Battle of Auerstädt against the main Prussian army,[5] which had more than twice as many soldiers at its disposal (more than 63,000, to Davout's 28,000). Historian François-Guy Hourtoulle writes: "At Jena, Napoleon won a battle he could not lose. At Auerstädt, Davout won a battle he could not win".[6]

>Davout's military character has been interpreted as cruel, and he had to defend himself against many attacks upon his conduct at Hamburg. He was a stern disciplinarian, who exacted rigid and precise obedience from his troops, and consequently his corps was more trustworthy and exact in the performance of its duty than any other. For example, Davout forbade his troops from plundering enemy villages, a policy he would enforce by the use of the death penalty. Thus, in the early days of the Grande Armée, the III corps tended to be entrusted with the most difficult work. He was regarded by his contemporaries as one of the ablest of Napoleon's marshals.

It's generally been assented by historians that Davout was the most independent and free-thinking of Napoleon's marshals, though I agree that Ney is the far better choice for a Napoleon era protagonist.

Interesting fact about Davout though: he was almost blind, meaning that he always had to lead his armies for the forefront, for him to catch glimpses of them, so he always was in the line is danger..

>there were italians and germans who were marshals
He's actually the only foreigner to have been greeted by a marshal by Napoleon.

But Poland and revolutionary France had incredibly close ties, as both had has their democratic uprisings in the same period, and France felt it owed Poland its sympathies. Also Napoleon was heavily friendly to the polish because a polish legion had served with him in Italy, making him friend to the polish cause -> Great Duchy of Warsaw.

to be a marshal*

>implying you can just kill marshall ney

militaryhistorynow.com/2012/11/29/did-napoleons-most-feared-marshal-end-his-days-as-an-american-high-school-teacher/

>According to the rumours, the firing squad actually shot blanks and the marshal (aware of the scheme) fooled onlookers by bursting blood packs concealed in his shirt.

>The following year, history records the sudden appearance of one Peter Stuart Ney in Charleston, South Carolina. The redheaded immigrant matched the marshal’s physical description.

>According to his former students, Ney would parade and inspect them each morning, much like a field marshal might. He constantly pushed them to better themselves and had a tendency to challenge spirited and disruptive pupils to playful duels with wooden sticks.

>Ney reportedly told those at his bedside that he was in fact the famous marshal. His gravestone, which still stands today in Cleveland, North Carolina, reads “A native of France and soldier of the French Revolution under Napoleon Bonaparte.”

>What was good about the ones you just said?
Davout, Murat, Suchet (and I would contribute Soult too), were known to be much more able whenever ripped away from Napoleon and without a line of communication to him. This is why they embodied some of Grande Armée most note-worthy accomplishments, in becoming an army where some of the commands were delegated to the marshals themselves, rather than be autistically hoarded by the despotic kings and emperors of Europe who sought to oversaw everything. With the creation of corps, Napoleon could be cut from his marshals, but this would not mean their demise because those marshals knew how to fight independently, without Napoleon always telling them what had to be done.

Ney was not of those men, and albeit the for the Spanish conquest, Napoleon never let him much out of sight. Napoleon knew that Ney was a brilliant tactician, who could summon unprecedented fervor in his ranks by charging with his men, and enduring as many dangers as them, but Ney wasn't very gifted with coordinating infantry, artillery and cavalry. Being a cavalry officer, he'd always lay them out as the center-piece of his tactics, and would forget all about the infantry meant to shoulder them.

This is best seen in Waterloo, when Napoleon was sick, and Ney was entrusted the entire army: he charged against Wellington very daringly, and pushed them back without the british even having the time to rear back their cannons. But Ney was a fool: he had forgotten to order his infantry to be in close-pursuit, so while the cannons were briefly under french dominance, they were never dismantled because the infantry never reached them in time.

This is of the many examples for why Ney was best as an underling to Napoleon, but never as an independent general.

Davout