People

A Corsican artilleryman who became master of Europe. His genius lay in movement: in bringing more men to the decisive point than the enemy thought possible. He ruled by Civil Code, by the loot of a continent, and by the devotion of his Old Guard. He died in exile on St Helena, attended by his diary and a handful of grumblers.

A cooper's son from Saarlouis. He commanded the rearguard of the retreat from Moscow. At Waterloo he had five horses shot under him. Tried by the Bourbons after the Hundred Days, he gave the firing squad the order himself.

Bespectacled, austere, undefeated. At Auerstedt his 26,000 men broke a Prussian army nearly twice their size. Alone among the marshals he never lost a battle in independent command. Napoleon trusted him with Hamburg when the Empire was crumbling; he held it to the last.

An innkeeper's son who became Napoleon's brother-in-law and the most theatrical cavalryman in Europe. He rode in plumes, velvet and gold lace; the Russians called his uniforms 'the peacock's feathers.' Shot by a Bourbon firing squad in Pizzo, he gave the order himself, refusing a blindfold.

Gascon, hot-tempered, beloved. The only marshal who addressed Napoleon with the familiar 'tu.' Both his legs were shattered by a cannonball at Aspern-Essling; he died nine days later in Napoleon's arms. The Emperor is said to have wept, perhaps the only time for a subordinate.

Commanded a battalion of the Old Guard in the last square at Waterloo. Legend says that, summoned to surrender, he answered: 'La Garde meurt et ne se rend pas!', or, in the soldier's version, a single untranslatable word. He was taken alive, bloody and bitter.

Born in the same year as Napoleon. Cold, private, calculating; he spoke of his men as 'the scum of the earth, enlisted for drink.' Yet he shared their biscuit in the mountains and never lost a battle in independent command. At Waterloo he said: 'I should like to be off my horse.'

One-eyed, one-armed, and absolutely without fear. His signal at Trafalgar, 'England expects that every man will do his duty', has never been forgotten. Shot from the mizzen-top of the Redoutable, he died between decks, whispering: 'Thank God, I have done my duty.'

Architect of British light infantry training at Shorncliffe, father of the Light Division. He led the retreat to Corunna through a Galician winter and died on the ridge above the port, urged by his aide: 'I hope, sir, you are not much hurt.' 'I fear I am mortal.'

Martinet, bible-reader, cold terror of the Light Division. He marched the Light Brigade forty-two miles in twenty-six hours to Talavera. Mortally wounded leading the stormers up the lesser breach at Ciudad Rodrigo, he lived four days and is buried in the ditch he took.

Welsh, profane, unbreakable. He fought the Peninsular War in a top hat and greatcoat, swore in chapel and brigade. Shot through the head at Waterloo while leading Kempt's brigade in a counter-charge at the crisis of the day. Buried in civilian clothes; his uniforms were at the cleaner.

A Dorset shepherd turned rifleman. His dictated 'Recollections' give us the private soldier's war: the lice, the hunger, the blistered feet, the dark comedy of the ranks on the retreat to Corunna. He died a shoemaker in London.

Seventy-two at Waterloo, hair like a badger's brush, riding at the head of a cavalry charge. Thrown from his horse at Ligny, he lay under the dead until darkness and rose to march to Wellington's aid. 'Ich werde kommen,' he wrote, and came.

One-eyed, corpulent, patient. He gave ground at Borodino, and gave Napoleon Moscow, and then strangled the Grande Armée on the road to Smolensk with famine, Cossacks and cold. He died on the march to Germany, having outlived his usefulness to the Tsar.

The man who commanded all the armies at Leipzig, the first time in history. Cautious, conciliatory, Austrian; he made the coalition hold together where strong personalities would have smashed it apart. Without him, no Battle of the Nations.

The first general to beat Napoleon in a major battle, at Aspern-Essling in May 1809. An epileptic, a reformer, an honest student of war. Dismissed after Wagram; he spent the rest of his life writing treatises that are still read at staff colleges.

A farm-hand from the Salamanca plain whose parents and sister were murdered by French soldiers. He raised a lancer regiment of partisans, served under Wellington, and rode into Salamanca at the head of his Charros in 1812. Wellington loved him; Madrid, afterwards, did not.

Performed for the French garrison in Moscow and survived the retreat. Her memoirs record the burning city, the frozen Berezina, and the terrible kindness of a Russian woman who hid her under straw. The war as civilians saw it.

Born in a Cat Lane brothel; enlisted to escape a hanging. From sergeant at Assaye to lieutenant-colonel at Waterloo, he is the ladder-climbing rogue at the Empire's edge. Carries a Baker rifle, a heavy cavalry sword he prefers to the regulation sabre, and a permanent chip on his shoulder.

From Donegal, seven-barrelled volley gun at his shoulder, a crucifix under his jacket. Sharpe's friend, conscience, and armourer. The second most dangerous man in any room Sharpe enters, and often the first.

Map-maker, spy-master, patron. A fictional cousin to the real Colquhoun Grant and George Scovell. He sees in Sharpe what the gentlemen officers will not: a useful, lethal, unpolished instrument.

'I cannot be killed, it says so in the Scriptures!' The most loathsome of villains, a survivor of a botched hanging at fourteen. Based loosely on real army bullies; Cornwell's darkest invention. Sharpe kills him at last, by musket, in a ditch.