Borodino and the War of 1812

September 2012 sees the 200th anniversary of the epic Battle of Borodino.

Immortalised in Tolstoy’s classic book ‘War & Peace’ and revered in Russia as the

centrepiece of the war of 1812 against Napoleon’s Grande Armeé, it saw one of the

biggest clashes in military history involving over 280,000 troops

The battle was not just the largest battle of the prolonged Napoleonic Wars but such

was the degree of bloodletting that it was probably the highest causality rate for a one

day action before the 20th century. Named by the French as The Moskova, the small

area and sheer weight of casualties was

unusual even for the time. Many generals

were killed or wounded: of the two Russian

generals, de Tolly had horses killed under him

and all his immediate aide-de-camps killed or

wounded, whilst Bagration was mortally

wounded in the leg whilst defending the

Flèches.

Borodino was an epic battle pitting

Napoleon’s multi-national Grande Armée

against the Russian Army. At the end of the

day almost a third had become casualties,

30,000 French and well over that number

Russian. To achieve this millions of musket and

artillery rounds were expended – although the

majority obviously failed to find a target! In all, it was the biggest single-day battle of the

Napoleonic Wars – in terms of participants and casualties.