page_title: Battle of Krasnoi
section_title: November 18: the destruction of Ney
hierarchical_section_title: Battle of Krasnoi / November 18: the destruction of Ney
caption_attribution_description: English: Marshall Ney supporting the Rear Guard During the Retreat from Moscow, on exhibition at the Manchester Art Gallery.
context_page_description: The Battle of Krasnoi was a series of skirmishes fought in the final stage of Napoleon's retreat from Moscow. The Russians under General Mikhail Illarionovich Kutuzov inflicted heavy losses on the remnants of the Grande Armée. Lacking sufficient artillery, cavalry and supplies to wage battle, Napoleon's objective at Krasnoi was to collect his scattered troops and to resume his retreat. Despite the vast superiority of his forces, Kutuzov refrained from launching a full-scale offensive during the four days of fighting as he did not want to risk a pitched battle.
  The climax of the engagement occurred on November 17, when an aggressive feint by the French Imperial Guard induced Kutuzov to delay a potentially decisive final Russian attack. Napoleon was thus able to withdraw part of his army before the Russians seized Krasnoi.
  Despite Napoleon's success in saving part of his army from destruction at Krasnoi, overall the encounter was ruinous for the French. During the four days of combat Napoleon's subordinate commanders suffered heavy defeats in individual actions, and large numbers of French stragglers were captured by the Russians.
context_section_description: 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 ravine  with the marshy brook Losvinka. 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 boldly 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 (the battle at the brook Losvinka). An eyewitness to this engagement, the English General Sir Robert Wilson, describes it thus:
  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 "hurra", 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. In the early evening Ney decided to escape silently passing the Russians and following the brook Losvinka. When the Cossacks appeared during the night Ney succeeded to cross the Dnieper, one by one, but lost a thousand men in the ice-cracks when crossing the river, leaving his guns and carriages behind. The elements and the Cossacks reduced Ney's contingent to only 800 diehards.
  For the next two days Ney's small party bravely stood off Cossack attacks as it marched westward along the river in search of Napoleon's army. 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. 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."
caption: The epic retreat of Marshal Ney's rear guard at Krasnoi; by Adolphe Yvon.
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