Mikhail Kutuzov

Mikhail Illarionovich Kutuzov (5 September 1745 – 16 April 1813) was the Russian field marshal who denied Napoleon a decisive victory in 1812 and presided over the destruction of the Grande Armée. A veteran of Catherine the Great's Turkish wars, where he lost an eye, he was present at Austerlitz in 1805 but overruled by the tsar's circle. Given command in August 1812 as Napoleon advanced on Moscow, he fought the great holding battle at Borodino and then made the painful decision to abandon Moscow, trading space for time while the French starved. His patient pursuit during the retreat, avoiding a pitched battle he did not need, bled the invaders white. He died at Bunzlau in 1813 while leading the pursuit into Germany. Russians revere him as the saviour of the fatherland, and his strategy of exhaustion became a classic of defensive warfare. Tolstoy later made him a central figure of War and Peace, cementing his image as the patient, fox-like opposite of Napoleon's restless energy.