On 7 September 1812, Napoleon’s Grande Armée met Kutuzov’s Russian army near Borodino in the bloodiest single-day battle of the invasion of Russia. Repeated French assaults captured key positions but failed to destroy the Russian force, leaving Napoleon able to enter Moscow without securing the decisive victory he required.
The study reconstructs the campaign and battle principally from the Russian perspective, using operational evidence to assess command decisions, troop movements and casualties. Borodino emerges as a tactical French success whose enormous cost helped turn the advance on Moscow into the disastrous retreat that followed.