The Battle of Borodino. With both sides evenly matched and Napoleon unimaginatively content to launch his troops straight into the teeth of prepared positions, the battle was destined to be a costly and exhausting stalemate.
Back at the flêches, a Russian grenadier division struggled against overwhelming numbers of attackers until virtually annihilated; like so many Russian units, especially those regiments within easy range of the enemy’s plentiful artillery, they died where they stood, stubbornly refusing to yield ground. The French eventually took two flêches, but before the third could be captured Bagration introduced reinforcements into the fray, which in turn drew in tens of thousands of French troops in a fierce hand-to-hand struggle that involved hundreds of pieces of artillery on both sides. The flêches changed hands several times, and in the course of the fighting Bagration fell wounded, struck in the leg—a wound from which he would die seventeen days later. From Bagration command passed first to General Peter Petrovich Konovnitsyn and then to General Dmitry Dokhturov, and after five hours’ savage, fighting the Russians finally withdrew from the flêches, the place littered with the fallen.
Further north, Eugène and his division crossed the Kalatsha in the direction of the Rayevsky Redoubt but were halted with severe losses. Similarly, Davout’s I Corps, confronting the corps of generals Nikolay Rayevsky, Borodin, and Karl Fiodorovich Baggovut and supported by part of Marshal Ney’s command and all of Marshal Junot’s corps, could not make further headway. After four hours’ fighting, by 10:00 A.M. the battle had degenerated into a massive contest of attrition, with rapidly growing casualties on both sides. Napoleon had long since committed practically all his formations save for the Imperial Guard and the cavalry held in reserve. Subordinates appealed in vain to the Emperor to commit the Imperial Guard to take advantage of the fall of the flêches, but Napoleon refused, perhaps conscious of the fact that it might be needed at a more critical time.
By noon the Russians had partly given way in the center, but they continued to hold the line in other sectors of the field. Kutuzov redeployed General Ivan Osterman-Tolstoy’s IV Corps from the right wing in order to bolster the center and left, while 12,000 Cossacks and regular cavalry under generals Matvei Platov and Fedor Uvarov crossed the Kalatsha to counterattack around Borodino, obliging the French to postpone their planned massive onslaught against the Great Redoubt. Meanwhile, by 2:00 P.M. Eugène had recrossed the Kalatsha to the north bank in order to bolster the troops under attack by Russian cavalry and to ready his three divisions for the great assault. An earlier attack on the redoubt had been repulsed, leaving the French 30th Line virtually destroyed and the commander of the Russian reserve artillery, Kutaisov, dead. Grouchy’s III Cavalry Corps was sent to cut up the Russian infantry in the area, but when they formed square his enterprise failed. After the cavalry returned to friendly lines the artillery bombardment was redoubled, killing thousands in the tightly packed Russian ranks, though the Rayevsky Redoubt remained in Russian possession.
At the same time, on Napoleon’s extreme right, Poniatowski had made little further progress around Utitsa. Having the advantage of woods and broken ground, the defenders held their positions tenaciously, despite the appearance of French reinforcements under Junot.
With no possibility of a breakthrough on either wing, the French could only clinch victory in the center. Situated in the Russian line between the Rayevsky Redoubt and the flêches, Semenovskaya, already burned and virtually demolished, was now utterly destroyed by French artillery fire before two of Ney’s cavalry corps swept in to deliver a potentially decisive blow. At the same time, General Marie-Victor Latour-Maubourg’s IV Cavalry Corps destroyed a Russian grenadier division before it could deploy in square, only to be driven off by counterattacking Russian cavalry behind them. Further south, General Nansouty’s I Cavalry Corps could make no headway against infantry of the Russian Imperial Guard, which had formed squares, while in Semenovskaya itself the grenadiers fought with such tenacity that only Marshal Murat’s presence stopped the French from abandoning the place altogether.
Another French advance ejected the Russians from the burning village once again, and for a short time Kutuzov’s army was actually split in two. A second appeal to Napoleon to throw in the Imperial Guard was made and declined, and with it probably went the last opportunity for a breakthrough. Nor were Murat’s cavalry properly put to use: The bulk of them, having been repulsed from the area around Semenovskaya, sat immobile for hours, receiving no orders to exploit the gap in the Russian line and suffering horrendous losses, including General Montbrun, commander of II Cavalry Corps, who was killed by Russian artillery fire. The Russians filled the gap, and despite the loss of Semenovskaya and the flêches, Kutuzov’s line remained intact, albeit battered.
Meanwhile, Eugène, concentrating every available trooper, attempted to advance further after the fall of the Rayevsky Redoubt in order to exploit his success there, but Barclay de Tolly halted this advance by bringing up two fresh cavalry corps. With no further reserves, the French were simply unable to proceed further.
On the Russian right, Kutuzov now showed some rare initiative, ordering a broad cavalry sweep intended to strike the French rear. Generals Uvarov and Platov, with regular cavalry and Cossacks totaling 8,000 horsemen, advanced with caution, and though they did not attack the French rear, they did manage to cause panic in their ranks and paralyzed thousands of troops who might have been committed to the fray in the center.
The Rayevsky Redoubt, the focus of hours of artillery fire by over 150 guns, remained to be vanquished. Now, at about 3:00 P.M., the French launched a coordinated infantry and cavalry attack against the now-shapeless feature. Napoleon’s aide-de-camp, General Caulaincourt, leading II and IV Cavalry Corps, advanced over the breastworks with the Saxon and Polish heavy cavalry, while French cuirassiers stormed in through the back. Caulaincourt was killed in the charge, but the key to Kutuzov’s line was taken, secured by infantry that stormed through the embrasures in the wake of the cavalry. There followed a fierce two-hour cavalry engagement as French and Allied regiments galloped on into the main Russian line, where Barclay de Tolly twice narrowly escaped death.
On Napoleon’s extreme right, Poniatowski’s Polish troops carried on the struggle and at 4:00 P.M. were able to recapture Utitsa and the knoll on which it stood. However, the appearance of Russian reinforcements—unbeknownst to Poniatowski, they were the Moscow militia, a force of very dubious quality—gave the attackers cause for concern, and the offensive ground to a halt. Indeed, by 5:00 P.M., all along the front the fighting gradually petered out, both sides exhausted from the bloodletting. Large gaps had opened in the Russian line, but Napoleon continued to refuse to send in the Imperial Guard in what might have been a decisive turn of affairs. As the fighting abated, the French stood roughly on the site of the original Russian positions. Still, Kutuzov’s army, shaken though not broken, retired only a short distance away to the next ridge— hardly the outcome that Napoleon had desired.
Both sides were exhausted. Casualties were horrendous. Exact figures are not known, but approximately 44,000 Russians fell at Borodino, of whom perhaps 25,000 were wounded and left on the field. Bagration lay mortally wounded, Tuchkov was dead, and twenty-one other Russian generals were casualties. Some corps were so depleted as to be mistaken for divisions, and divisions for battalions. The French, for their part, held the field, but at a cost of about 33,000 wounded and killed—roughly 40 percent of their original force. Montbrun and Caulaincourt were among the dead, and Davout was wounded. All told, about a dozen générals de division and nearly 200 staff and senior officers were among the fallen. Too weary to pursue, the French withdrew to their original lines and had to content themselves with possession of a battlefield choked with bodies.
Senior commanders on both sides, but particularly the French, had shown little imagination, with massacre the inevitable result of two armies slugging it out on a congested field. Both sides claimed victory, but Borodino may best be described as a draw or, arguably, a technical victory for the French, who, with a clear road ahead of them, staggered into Moscow on 14 September. Nevertheless, Napoleon’s losses had been on such a scale as to render Borodino a Pyrrhic victory. While Kutuzov had certainly lost a considerable proportion of his forces, he could expect reinforcements, whereas the French could not rebuild the units that had been thrust into the cauldron of fire with such lavish disregard for the losses they were bound to suffer. Nor could they easily replenish their expended ammunition. Thus, despite their Herculean efforts on 7 September, the French failed to achieve the decisive outcome they desired, marking Borodino as the climax of the campaign and the beginning of the end of the Grande Armée in Russia.
During the night the shattered Russian army, now reduced by more than a third of its strength, began to withdraw further east in case the French sought to renew the attack on the following day. Leaving thousands of stragglers to catch up as best they could, Kutuzov declared on 13 September that he would not fight the French again before Moscow. Instead, he left the city undefended on the basis that its loss would not spell the defeat of his country. He was right: His army remained intact, Napoleon was not in a position to dictate peace, and Tsar Alexander was resolved to continue the war at least until the French had been driven from Russian soil. Although Kutuzov’s troops could not inflict a decisive blow on the Grande Armée, the coming winter could.
References and further reading Belloc, Hillaire. 1926. Napoleon’s Campaign 1812 and Retreat. New York: Harper. Brett-James Antony. 1966. 1812: Eyewitness Accounts of Napoleon’s Defeat in Russia. New York: Harper. Britten Austin, Paul. 1993. 1812: Napoleon’s Invasion of Russia. London: Greenhill. Cate, Curtis. 1985. The War of the Two Emperors: The Duel between Napoleon and Alexander—Russia, 1812. New York: Random House. Caulaincourt, Armand-Augustin-Louis de, duc de Vicence. 1935.With Napoleon in Russia: The Memoirs of General de Caulaincourt, Duke of Vincenza. Ed. George Libaire. New York: Grosset and Dunlap. Chandler, David. 1995. The Campaigns of Napoleon. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. Clausewitz, Carl von. 1992. The Campaign of 1812. London: Greenhill. Duffy, Christopher. 1972. Borodino and the War of 1812. London: Seeley Service. Hereford, George B. 2002. Napoleon’s Invasion of Russia. London: Empiricus. Hourtoulle, F. G. 2000. Borodino, the Moskova: The Battle for the Redoubts. Paris: Histoire and Collections. Nafziger, George F. 1988. Napoleon’s Invasion of Russia. Novato, CA: Presidio. Nicolson, Nigel. 1985. Napoleon, 1812. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. Palmer, Alan W. 1997. Napoleon in Russia. London: Constable. Riehn, Richard K. 1990. 1812: Napoleon’s Russian Campaign. New York: McGraw-Hill. Ségur, Louis-Philippe, comte de. 1928. The Memoirs and Anecdotes of the Count de Ségur. New York: Scribner. Smith, Digby. 1998. Borodino. Moreton-in-Marsh, UK: Windrush. Zamoyski, Adam. 2004. 1812: Napoleon’s Fatal March on Moscow. London: HarperCollins.
