#34, Battle of Borodino: Napoleon's Hollow Victory That Bled His Grande Armée White
The Battle of Borodino on September 7, 1812, produced approximately 72,000 casualties in a single day, 30,000 French and 44,000 Russian killed, wounded, or missing. It was the bloodiest single-day battle of the Napoleonic Wars and one of the costliest days of combat in the 19th century. Napoleon's 130,000-strong Grande Armée attacked Kutuzov's 120,000 Russian troops along fortified positions near the village of Borodino, 75 miles west of Moscow.
The battle was a grinding frontal assault, nothing like Napoleon's usual maneuver warfare. The Raevsky Redoubt and the Bagration flèches changed hands multiple times in savage fighting, with cavalry charges, bayonet assaults, and massed artillery at point-blank range. Napoleon, suffering from a cold and uncharacteristically cautious, refused to commit his Imperial Guard, a decision his marshals never forgave him for. Though the French held the field, the Russian army retreated intact and would fight again. Napoleon occupied Moscow a week later, but found it burned and empty. Borodino's true cost was irreplaceable: the 30,000 French casualties included thousands of experienced officers and NCOs who could never be replaced, hollowing out the Grande Armée for the catastrophic winter retreat that followed.
