A village of western Russia west of Moscow. Nearby, Napoleon defeated the Russian troops defending Moscow on September 7, 1812.
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A village of western Russia west of Moscow. Nearby, Napoleon defeated the Russian troops defending Moscow on September 7, 1812.
Borodino, battle of (7 September 1812), the greatest battle during Napoleon's 1812 invasion of Russia, and the second bloodiest of the Napoleonic wars, one of Jomini's three ‘hecatombs’, along with the ‘battle of the nations’ at Leipzig and Waterloo. At the village of Borodino, on the main road 77 miles (124 km) west of Moscow, Marshal Kutuzov, commanding 120, 000 Russian troops with 640 guns, gave battle to Napoleon's multinational Grande Armée with 130, 000-135, 000 men and 587 guns. More than one-third of those on each side were killed or wounded. The battle itself was indecisive, and the Russians withdrew, having lost about 44, 000 killed and wounded. But they had inflicted a mortal wound on Napoleon's overextended army, which lost about 50, 000.
On 3 September, after a long retreat from the frontier which included giving up Smolensk, Kutuzov dug in across a front of 5 miles (8 km) spanning the only two approaches to Moscow, the main (new) Smolensk road and the old Smolensk road to the south, with his right flank protected by the Moskva river, the left by the thick Utitsa forest, with the Kolocha stream to the front and with woods behind to conceal his reserves. In the centre was the Kurgan hill, where ‘the Great (Raevsky) redoubt’ was constructed. Miloradovich commanded the right near the villages of Maslovo and Gorki, strengthened with several redoubts, and Bagration commanded the left, near the village of Semyonov where he constructed three lunettes. The strength of the wings was designed to direct any attack into the centre, commanded by Barclay de Tolly with the bulk of the artillery. Outflanking movement to the immediate north or south was impossible because of the forest and river.
There was nothing subtle or deceptive about the Russian position: it was immensely strong and any sane general would have refused to assault it under normal circumstances. But Kutuzov calculated that after a long advance over scorched earth, Napoleon would be desperate for a decisive battle, and so it proved. The French army comprised the corps of Murat, Davout, Ney, and Junot, plus the Old and Young Guard in reserve under Napoleon's own command. The first contact was at the Russian redoubt at Shevardino, to the west of the main position, where 40, 000 French stumbled on 12, 000 Russians on 5 September and were repulsed, giving Kutuzov confirmation of the main line of French advance and buying time to strengthen his position yet further. This included reinforcing Bagration, upon whom Napoleon's first hammer-blow was to fall.
The French attacked at 05.00 on 7 September; seven separate assaults were beaten back at enormous cost but the eighth, at about noon, succeeded. His planned turning manoeuvre already seriously dislocated, Napoleon then attacked the Great Redoubt in the centre. As he had already discovered at Eylau, Russian infantry on the defensive fought to the death, and the battle lost any semblance of tactical refinement in an orgy of mutual slaughter. Shaken by the carnage and perhaps suddenly acutely aware of how far he was from home, Napoleon decided not to commit the Guard, whose bitterly ironic nickname of ‘the immortals’ may have been coined by the battered line infantry after Borodino. At about 18.00, as darkness approached, the fighting petered out through exhaustion. Not only the French were stunned. After an orderly withdrawal, six days later Kutuzov informed his subordinates of his decision to give up Moscow in order to maintain the army in being.
— Christopher Bellamy
For more information on Battle of Borodino, visit Britannica.com.
Borodino was the climactic battle of the Campaign of 1812, which took place on September 7. Napoleon had invaded Russia hoping to force a battle near the frontier, but he pursued when the Russian armies retreated. His efforts to force a decisive battle at Smolensk having failed, Napoleon decided to advance toward Moscow, hoping to force the Russian army, now under the command of Field Marshal Mikhail Kutuzov, to stand and fight. Pressed hard by Tsar Alexander to do so, Kutuzov selected the field near the small village of Borodino, some seventy miles west of Moscow, for the battle. He concentrated his force, divided into two armies under the command of Generals Peter Bagration and Mikhail Barclay de Tolly, and constructed field fortifications in preparation for the fight.
Napoleon eagerly seized upon Kutuzov's stand and prepared for battle. Napoleon's normal practice would have been to try to turn one of the flanks of the Russian army, which Kutuzov had fortified. Mindful of the Russians' retreat from Smolensk when he had tried a similar maneuver, Napoleon rejected this approach in favor of a frontal assault. The extremely bloody battle that ensued centered around French attempts to seize and hold Kutuzov's field fortifications, especially the Rayevsky Redoubt. The battle was a stalemate militarily, although Kutuzov decided to abandon the field during the night, continuing his retreat to Moscow.
Borodino was effectively a victory for the Russians and a turning point in the campaign. Napoleon sought to destroy the Russian army on the battlefield and failed. Kutuzov had aimed only to preserve his army as an effective fighting force, and he succeeded. Napoleon's subsequent seizure of Moscow turned out to be insufficient to overcome the devastating attrition his army had suffered. Russia's losses were, nevertheless, very high, and included Bagration, wounded on the field, who died from an infection two weeks later.
Bibliography
Duffy, Christopher. (1973). Borodino and the War of 1812. New York: Scribner.
—FREDERICK W. KAGAN
| Battle of Borodino | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of French invasion of Russia (1812) | |||||||
Napoleon I on the Borodino Heights, by Vasily Vereshchagin (1897) |
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| Combatants | |||||||
| Commanders | |||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| 82,400 infantry 26,700 cavalry 14,900 artillery troops with 587 guns[1] |
72,000 infantry 17,300 cavalry 14,500 artillery troops with 637 guns[2] |
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| Casualties | |||||||
| ~6,600 killed ~21,400 wounded [3] ~1000 captured[4] |
~43,000 killed or wounded ~1,000 captured 20 guns lost[5] |
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Napoleon's invasion
of Russia |
|---|
| Saltanovka –
Ostrovno – Klyastitsy –
Smolensk – 1st Polotsk –
Valutino – Borodino – Tarutino – Maloyaroslavets – 2nd Polotsk – |
The Battle of Borodino (Russian: Бородинская битва Borodinskaja bitva, French: Bataille de la Moskowa) (September 7, 1812[6]), was the largest and bloodiest single-day battle of the Napoleonic Wars, involving more than a 250,000 soldiers and resulting in at least 70,000 casualties. The French Grande Armée under Napoleon I attacked the Imperial Russian army of General Mikhail Kutusov near the village of Borodino, west from the town of Mozhaysk, and captured the main positions on the battlefield, but failed to destroy the Russian army. Strategic considerations and the poor condition of the army forced the Russians to withdraw. The clash at Borodino was a pivotal point in the campaign as it was the last offensive battle fought by Napoleon in Russia.
The French Grande Armée had begun the invasion of Russia in June, 1812. Alexander I proclaimed a Patriotic War in defence of the motherland. The Russian forces — previously massing on the Polish frontier — fell back before the invaders in the face of the speedy French advance (see main article on the invasion). Count Michael Barclay de Tolly was commander-in-chief of the Russian army. His attempts at forming a defensive line were thwarted time and again by the fast moving French line, but Barclay's constant retreat was nevertheless perceived as an unwillingness to fight, and he was removed. The new Russian commander, Prince Mikhail Kutuzov, although much more fierce in his rhetoric, was also unable to establish a defensive position until within 125 kilometers of Moscow. Kutuzov picked an eminently defensible area near the village of Borodino and from September 3 strengthened it with earthworks, notably the Rayevski Redoubt in the center-right of the line and three open arrow-shaped 'Bagration fleches' to the left.
The Russian forces present at Borodino were 180 infantry battalions, 164 cavalry squadrons, 20 Cossack regiments, and 55
artillery batteries with 637 artillery pieces; in total the Russians had 103,800 troops.[7] There were 7,000
The French forces present at Borodino were 214 battalions of infantry, 317 squadrons of cavalry and 587 artillery pieces, for a total of 124,000 troops.[10] However, the French Imperial Guard, which consisted of 30 infantry battalions, 27 cavalry squadrons and 109 artillery pieces, 18,500 troops in total was never committed to battle.[11]
Napoleon was suffering from a fever at the time, which may explain his uncharacteristic detachment from the battle as well as his unusually simplistic battle plan.[12]
Napoleon ordered a frontal assault straight at the Russians. It is believed he was seeking a decisive encounter that would destroy the Russian army in one day. The initial French attack was successful if costly; the King of Naples, Joachim Murat, directed a joint cavalry and infantry attack that by early afternoon had broken through the Russian line and seized the Rayevski Redoubt, lost it and retaken it. The cavalry assault on the Russian redoubt was not made by the French army, but led by Major Friedrich Wilhelm Carl Luffleholtz von Colberg, in command of the Saxon Heavy Cavalry, and by Oberstleutnant Christian Günther von Selmitz, leading the Zastrow Cuirassiers.
But the Russians committed their reserves and the battle ground down into a bloody attritional mess. Even with the Russians nearly at breaking point, Napoleon would not commit to sending in the French Imperial Guard, fearing a battle possible the next day. A Russian counter-attack was broken by artillery; and as night fell, both sides disengaged. At night, after discussing with his officers, Kutuzov decided not to resume battle the next day and retreat, allowing the French to take Moscow. He had doubts that the Russian army could withstand another day of battle, and thought it was more important to preserve its strength rather than try to save Moscow at all cost. In retrospect, it was a wise decision.
Casualty estimates vary dramatically. The French are said to have suffered 28,000 dead and wounded including 48 generals, according to historian Adam Zamoyski. Others put the figure as high as 50,000 (Stephen Pope) although a figure between 30,000 to 35,000 seems more likely. The Russians lost between 38,500 - 58,000 (45,000 is the generally accepted number). Some believe that combined casualties were as high as 125,000, but this is unlikely. The lowest casualty estimates (28,000 French and 38,500 Russians) together give a combined total of 66,500. The casualty figures, except for the lowest estimates, are high enough to make the Battle of Borodino the bloodiest engagement in modern human history, although such a statement is hardly uncontroversial. Though other modern battles may have ended with a higher number of casualties (the Somme, Battle of Stalingrad), none seems to have surpassed Borodino in only a single day. Controversial casualty figures of ancient times make accurate comparison with them problematic. Consideration of casualties on a per-day basis is further complicated by the fact that casualty figures for Borodino are quoted over the three day period, from the 5 to 7 September (24 to 26 August old style), over which action took place, with the major action taking place on the last day.
Around 8,500 casualties were sustained each hour of the conflict— the equivalent of a full-strength company wiped out every minute. In some divisions casualties exceeded 80% of the strength prior to the battle.
Adam Zamoyski, in his in-depth account of the Russian campaign, estimates that 1,400,000 rounds were discharged by the French infantry and a further 60,000 to 91,000 by the artillery. This averages as 2,300 rounds of musketry per minute from the French.
The Russian retreat opened the way for the French to seize Moscow on September 14 1812.
Poet Mikhail Lermontov romantised the battle in his poem Borodino, based on the account of his uncle, a combat participant. The battle was famously described by Leo Tolstoy in his novel War and Peace as "a continuous slaughter which could be of no avail either to the French or the Russians". A huge panorama representing the battle was painted by Franz Roubaud for the centenary of Borodino and installed on the Poklonnaya Hill in Moscow to mark the 150th anniversary of the event.
There exists the tradition to replay the battle at the same place on August 26. At the battlefield today the 'Bagration fleches' are still preserved; there is also a modest monument to the French soldiers fallen in the battle, and also remnants of the trenches from the 7 day battle fought at the same battlefield in 1941 between the Soviet and the German armies (which took fewer human lives than the one of 1812).
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