Battle of Borodino

The Battle of Borodino, fought on 7th September 1812, was the bloodiest single day of the Napoleonic Wars. Napoleon with about one hundred and thirty thousand men assaulted the Russian army of Mikhail Kutuzov, roughly one hundred and twenty thousand strong, dug in around the village of Borodino on the road to Moscow. The French captured the key Raevsky redoubt and the Bagration flèches only after hours of frontal attacks that cost both sides terribly. Russian losses were around forty to forty-five thousand killed and wounded, French around thirty to thirty-five thousand. Though beaten, the Russian army withdrew in good order, and Kutuzov chose to abandon Moscow rather than risk a second battle. Napoleon entered an empty, burning city a week later. Napoleon later called Borodino the most terrible of all his battles. The victory was hollow: it decided nothing, and the retreat from Moscow destroyed his army. Both armies were too exhausted to pursue, and the battlefield was left covered with tens of thousands of dead and wounded.