Original subtitles

Smolensk was a victory,

but not the one Napoleon had entered

Russia to find.

By August 1812, French troops had fought

their way into one of Russia's oldest

cities.

Parts of Smolensk were burning. Its

streets and fortifications were falling

into French hands, and the road east was

open.

Yet, the Russian armies were already

pulling away.

Napoleon had taken the city.

He had not trapped the army defending

it.

To him, it felt as if he had thrown a

punch into a pillow.

He had spent the force,

but gained no real result.

That problem had followed him for weeks.

Napoleon's way of war relied on bringing

separate corps together at the critical

point, fixing the enemy in place, then

concentrating enough force to break part

of the line.

A battlefield defeat could then be

turned into a political decision.

In Russia, the battlefield he wanted

kept moving farther east.

At Vitebsk, the French expected a major

engagement and found the Russians gone.

Smolensk seemed to offer another chance.

Again, the Russian army survived.

Ground could be occupied, and positions

could be taken,

but Tsar Alexander still had an army in

the field.

The farther Napoleon advanced, the more

expensive that failure became.

The Grande Armée had crossed the Niemen

in June with well over half a million

men when all contingents accounted.

The force immediately available to

Napoleon around Smolensk was already

much smaller.

Disease, desertion, and exhaustion had

thinned the columns.

Feeding men and horses over such

distances was becoming harder with every

stage of the march.

The supply ran back over roads already

stripped by armies moving in both

directions.

Horses weakened.

Wagons failed.

Men who could no longer keep pace

dropped out.

More of the army's strength was being

consumed simply to keep the invasion

moving.

Napoleon therefore needed the Russians

to stop.

On the other side, Barclay de Tolly had

good military reasons not to give him

that battle.

Retreat had preserved the Russian army.

As long as it remained intact, Napoleon

had to move deeper into a country too

large to occupy completely, while the

Russians kept the option of fighting

later under better conditions.

The difficulty was that military logic

was no longer the only pressure on the

Russian command.

Officers, nobles, and political circles

had become increasingly hostile to the

retreat.

One of Barclay's strongest critics was

Prince Pyotr Bagration, commander of the

Second Western Army.

Bagration was 47 in 1812 and already one

of Russia's best-known field commanders.

He had served under Alexander Suvorov

during the Italian and Swiss campaigns

of 1799,

where he was repeatedly trusted with

difficult advance guard duties.

In 1805, at Schöngrabern, his rear guard

held off a much larger French force long

enough for Kutuzov's main army to

continue its withdrawal.

He later fought at Austerlitz, Eylau,

and Friedland.

His reputation rested on personal

courage and a willingness to take

responsibility close to the fighting.

That background also shaped his dispute

with Barclay.

Bagration was capable of retreat when

circumstances demanded it.

His own army had spent the opening phase

of the 1812

campaign maneuvering away from French

attempts to isolate it.

What he resisted was the idea that

Russia could go on trading major cities

and roads for time without eventually

accepting battle.

By the time the two Russian Western

armies joined near Smolensk, that

disagreement had become personal as well

as strategic.

Bagration had spent the opening weeks

trying to keep the Second Western Army

from being cut off while Barclay

continued to pull the First Western Army

east.

Their armies had survived, but the

method that preserved them also made

each new retreat harder to defend

politically.

Bagration's standing made his criticism

especially difficult to dismiss.

He was not arguing from a desk in Saint

Petersburg,

but as a commander who had repeatedly

handled dangerous assignments in earlier

wars.

Smolensk sharpened that disagreement.

The city had immense historical

importance,

and after the fighting, it was

abandoned.

The French were now moving toward

Moscow.

For many Russians, another withdrawal no

longer looked like a temporary military

measure.

It looked like the road to Moscow was

being surrendered without the battle the

country expected.

Czar Alexander turned to Mikhail

Kutuzov.

Kutuzov was 67 with decades of service

behind him.

He understood the logic of Barclay's

withdrawals and did not inherit a

magically improved military situation.

Napoleon remained dangerous.

A badly chosen battlefield could still

destroy the Russian army.

What changed was the political room

available to the commander.

Kutuzov still had to preserve the army,

but he also had to show that Moscow

would not simply be yielded without

resistance.

The Russians began looking for ground

where they could stand without giving

Napoleon an easy battle.

They found it near the village of

Borodino,

roughly 70 mi west of Moscow.

By then, the needs of the two commanders

had brought them to the same place.

Napoleon had been chasing a decisive

battle since June.

Kutuzov now needed a defensible position

on which he could accept one.

The Russian line covered the main

approaches toward Moscow.

Barclay's first Western Army held much

of the right and center.

Bagration's Second Western Army took the

left.

The Kolocha River and broken ground gave

parts of the Russian right some natural

protection, while the southern end of

the position was more exposed.

The Russians strengthened that weaker

ground with field fortifications.

The arrangement also meant that the two

most important Russian defensive sectors

were not identical.

Barclay's right had more help from the

river and terrain.

Bagration's left depended more heavily

on the field works and on reserves being

moved quickly behind them.

If the French could force that wing away

from the flesh,

they would not merely gain a few hundred

yards of ground,

they would alter the shape of the whole

Russian position.

Near the center stood the Raevsky

Redoubt, later known to the French as

the Great Redoubt.

Farther south were three open-backed

earthworks that became known as the

Bagration fleches.

Beyond them, toward the old Smolensk

road, woods and ravines around Utitsa

made movement difficult.

These were hurried earthworks, not

permanent forts.

They offered infantry and artillery some

protection, but anyone approaching them

still had to cross open ground under

fire.

Napoleon arrived with roughly 130,000

men and 587 guns.

Russian strength is disputed, but around

120,000

regular troops, supported by militia and

more than 600 guns, gives the scale of

the forces gathering on the field.

Before the French could deploy

comfortably against the main Russian

line, they had to deal with an advanced

position at Shevardino.

On September 5, French troops reached

the redoubt.

Borodino's main battle was still 2 days

away,

but the fighting had already become

costly.

Napoleon ordered the position taken.

Compans's division moved in with support

from other French and allied formations,

while Polish troops pressed from the

south.

The Russians defended hard enough to

show that the coming battle would be

different from the retreating actions of

the previous weeks.

For several hours, the redoubt changed

hands.

Infantry crossed ground swept by

artillery, fought into the earthwork,

lost it, and went back again.

The Russians finally withdrew toward

their main line late in the evening.

>> [cheering]

>> The French had gained the space they

needed for deployment.

They had also lost close to 4,000 men by

common estimates.

Russian losses are often placed around 5

or 6,000.

That was before the main battle.

Both armies spent September 6th

preparing.

Marshal Davout proposed a wide movement

around the Russian left.

If his core could get far enough south

and east, it might threaten Bagration's

rear instead of attacking the earthworks

directly.

Napoleon rejected the plan.

The march would take time, make

coordination harder, and place a large

part of the army beyond immediate

support. He chose to attack more

directly.

The main weight would fall on the

Russian center and left.

Artillery would batter the defensive

works, and infantry and cavalry would be

sent in when openings appeared.

Before dawn on September 7th, both

armies were already awake.

Russian Orthodox priests carried the

icon of Our Lady of Smolensk.

For many of them, the campaign had now

reached a point where defending the army

and defending the road to Moscow were

becoming the same task.

At about 6:00 in the morning, the French

guns opened.

The fighting spread quickly.

To the north, Eugene de Beauharnais's

troops attacked the village of Borodino.

Russian Yegers were pushed back across

the Kolocha, giving the French a

foothold from which artillery could

threaten the Russian center.

Farther south, Polish troops moved

toward Utitsa,

but woods and broken ground slowed them.

The heaviest fighting developed between

those two sectors.

Davout and Ney sent infantry toward the

Bagration flesh.

The approach was exposed, [groaning] and

Russian cannon had clear targets as the

French formations moved forward.

>> [cheering]

>> French batteries answered.

>> [screaming]

>> Infantry reached the earthworks, fought

their way inside, and sometimes held

them only briefly before Russian

counterattacks came in.

The fighting around the Fleches did not

develop as one clean assault followed by

a clear result.

Units arrived at different times,

attacked through smoke and artillery

fire, then had to reorganize under

immediate counterattack.

Ground that looked secure for a few

minutes could become contested again as

Russian reserves came forward.

That instability is why commanders on

both sides were repeatedly drawn close

to the front. Reports aged quickly and a

position described as held could already

be changing hands when an order reached

headquarters.

The same ground was fought over again

and again because neither army could

simply leave it.

>> [cheering]

>> If the French took the Fleches and held

them, the Russian left would be forced

back and the center would become more

vulnerable.

If Bagration abandoned the works too

early, the road behind his wing would

open.

So, both sides kept feeding troops into

a narrow section of the field.

Davout was injured after his horse was

hit, but returned to command.

Murat pushed cavalry forward when

Russian horsemen counterattacked.

Ney added more infantry.

Russian reserves moved in from sectors

under less pressure.

By midmorning, tens of thousands of men

were fighting over a few pieces of

earthwork and the ground around

Semenovskaya.

Bagration remained close to the

threatened sector.

>> [cheering]

>> It was characteristic of the way he had

fought for years,

but at Borodino, it also had a practical

purpose.

The Russian left was no longer operating

as one neat line.

Units were being broken up, reinforced,

shifted sideways, and sent back into

positions that had already changed

hands.

Keeping that defense connected required

someone to see where the pressure was

greatest and move reserves before a

local retreat became a wider collapse.

His presence mattered to the soldiers as

well.

Bagration's reputation had been built in

actions where he was visibly close to

danger.

At Borodino, the same habit placed him

inside one of the most heavily shelled

parts of the battlefield.

Late in the morning, shell fragments

struck him in the leg.

He was carried away while the French

were still pressing the left.

The wound later proved fatal.

A little more than 2 weeks after

Borodino, one of Russia's most prominent

battlefield commanders was dead.

>> [cheering]

>> The Russian line did not collapse the

moment Bagration left, but command on

the left became harder.

Replacing the man directing that sector

in the middle of repeated attacks cost

time,

and the troops holding the flesh were

already exhausted.

They began to fall back.

French infantry secured the works and

pushed towards Semyonovskaya.

For Napoleon, this was the first point

in the day when the battle appeared to

be opening in the way he had wanted.

The Russian left had been displaced.

Pressure on the center was increasing

and French cavalry could now move

through ground that had been blocked

earlier in the morning.

Russian formations still fought, but the

original defensive layout was coming

apart.

Several French commanders wanted the

Imperial Guard sent forward.

The Guard was Napoleon's last major

reserve.

Its infantry included some of the most

experienced men in the army, and keeping

it intact gave him a force that could

respond if the battle suddenly turned

against the French.

Using it might have increased the

pressure on the damaged Russian center.

It would also have committed the one

major formation Napoleon had

deliberately kept largely untouched

after marching hundreds of miles into

Russia.

He kept the guard back.

That decision has attracted argument

ever since, but Napoleon did not see the

battlefield with the certainty of

hindsight.

Russian reserves were still arriving.

The French had already taken serious

losses.

He was deep inside hostile territory and

could not know whether another major

action would be required within days.

Events on the Russian right soon made

the situation look less settled.

General Matvei Platov and General Fyodor

Uvarov took cavalry across the Kolocha

and struck toward the French northern

flank and rear.

The raid did not destroy a major

formation and it did not reverse the

battle.

It did, however, force French and allied

troops to react.

Cavalry reserves shifted.

Commanders had to determine whether they

were seeing a limited raid or the start

of something larger.

The interruption delayed the next major

French effort and gave the Russians time

to reorganize parts of their center.

The raid's military effect was limited,

but its timing mattered.

>> [music]

>> Napoleon had just seen the Russian left

forced back and was considering how much

strength remained behind the visible

line.

A sudden threat on another part of the

field made that picture less clear.

By the time French attention returned

fully to the center, the Russians had

used the interval to bring order back to

formations that had been under severe

pressure. [clears throat]

Attention then moved to the Raevsky

Redoubt.

The redoubt stood on raised ground near

the center of the Russian position.

Its artillery covered the approaches in

front while infantry behind it helped

block the roads leading east.

The French had attacked it earlier in

the day and briefly entered the position

before a Russian counterattack drove

them out.

During that fighting, the young Russian

artillery commander Alexander Kutaisov

was killed making the coordination of

Russian artillery more difficult at a

time when batteries across the field

were under heavy pressure.

By afternoon, Napoleon prepared a larger

attack on the center.

French artillery was brought forward in

mass.

At this stage, about 300 French guns

were concentrated against the area

covering Bagration's battered sector and

the Raevsky Redoubt.

The Russians answered with more than 300

guns of their own.

In a relatively compressed part of the

battlefield, more than 600 cannon were

now engaged.

No single charge accounts for the scale

of the losses at Borodino.

Formations remained within artillery

range for hours, then were ordered back

across ground that had already been

swept by fire.

The damage accumulated while the same

sectors were contested again and again.

Post-battle estimates attributed to the

French artillery commander, General

Lariboisière,

put French artillery expenditure at

roughly 60,000 rounds from Napoleon's

587 guns.

Russian guns may have fired about 50,000

more.

Taken together, that is around 110,000

artillery rounds during the battle.

If the main fighting is treated as

roughly 10 hours,

the average is about 183

cannon shots a minute, close to three

every second.

The actual rate varied constantly.

Batteries moved, paused, concentrated on

particular attacks, or ran short of

ammunition.

In the hardest hit sectors, the firing

could be much denser than the overall

average. Musketry added another layer.

One contemporary estimate gives about

140,000

cartridges expended by French infantry,

and roughly 120,000

by the Russians.

Across 10 hours, the combined figure of

around 260,000

rounds works out to more than 430

infantry shots a minute on average.

By then,

powder smoke was mixing with dust raised

by men, horses, and artillery.

Parts of the field disappeared from

view.

Orders had to cross ground under fire,

and officers sometimes rode forward

simply to find out whether a unit was

still in place.

The French senior officer casualty list

shows how often command came close to

the fighting.

One marshal was wounded, and 14 generals

of division, and 33 generals of brigade

were killed or wounded.

Dozens of senior officers became

casualties in a single day.

In the afternoon, the struggle around

the Great Redoubt reached its decisive

phase.

Russian gunners concentrated on French

infantry approaching from the front.

While they were occupied there, French

cavalry worked around the position and

reached its rear.

Saxon horsemen were among those who

entered the redoubt, followed by other

cavalry and infantry.

Once attackers were inside the

earthwork, its defensive advantage

largely disappeared.

Gunners and infantry fought at close

range.

Many Russian defenders were killed

around their guns before the French

finally secured the position.

>> [cheering]

>> The great redoubt was lost.

There was another opening for the

French, but it was not the collapse they

needed.

Cavalry moved beyond the captured

position and ran into Russian cavalry

reserves.

Russian infantry withdrew onto a new

line instead of dissolving.

>> [screaming]

>> The main central fortification was gone,

yet the army still had enough

organization to keep fighting.

French officers again asked Napoleon to

commit the Imperial Guard.

He refused again.

Whether the guard would have destroyed

Kutuzov's army cannot be known.

Napoleon's immediate problem was

deciding whether the Russians were

actually at the point of breaking.

The evidence was mixed.

Their original positions had been forced

back, casualties were enormous,

Bagration had been removed from the

field, and the great redoubt had fallen.

Yet every French advance still found

another Russian formation behind the one

it had just defeated.

Napoleon kept his last reserve intact.

As the afternoon went on, the chance of

turning the Russian withdrawal into a

decisive route became smaller.

By around 5:00, both armies were close

[music] to physical exhaustion.

Some battalions had lost so many men

that the formations left on the field

barely resembled the units that had

marched in that morning.

Cavalry horses were spent.

Gun crews had been moving ammunition and

serving pieces for hours.

Officers trying to restore order found

soldiers from different regiments mixed

together.

The casualty totals are easier to

understand when placed against the

length of the battle.

Estimates differ.

Historian Adam Zamoyski has put French

casualties at roughly 28,000, including

48 generals.

Russian losses are often placed around

45,000,

although lower and higher figures have

also been argued.

Figures in that range produce a combined

total of around 70,000 or more

casualties in one day.

If a working total near 75,000 is spread

across roughly 10 hours of principal

fighting, it comes to about 7,500

casualties an hour, or around 125 men

killed or wounded every minute.

Using some commonly cited estimates,

deaths alone approach 40 a minute.

The losses were never distributed

evenly.

Parts of the field fell quiet for a

time, while individual attacks and

artillery concentrations produced

casualties much faster than any average

suggests.

The calculation is useful only as a way

of putting the final totals back into

the hours in which they occurred.

By evening, the French held the

Bagration flèches and the Great Redoubt.

The Russians had been forced off the

positions prepared before the battle.

In the conventional military sense,

Napoleon controlled the field.

What he still did not have was the

result he had come to Borodino for.

Kutuzov's army had suffered devastating

losses, but it had not been surrounded.

There was no mass surrender.

Enough infantry, cavalry, and artillery

remained under control to cover a

withdrawal.

As darkness came,

the firing gradually died away.

Many French officers expected another

battle in the morning.

Instead, Kutuzov ordered the army to

withdraw toward Moscow after learning

the scale of its losses.

The Russians left Borodino,

and the field remained to Napoleon.

French losses were severe as well.

Around 28,000 killed and wounded is a

commonly cited figure, with some

estimates running higher.

Russian losses are even more disputed,

from the high 30,000s to well above

50,000. Around 45,000 is often used as a

central estimate.

Even the lower combinations put total

casualties above 66,000.

Using commonly cited central figures

takes the total past 70,000.

Borodino, therefore, became the

bloodiest single day of the Napoleonic

Wars, and one of the most destructive

one-day battles yet fought.

The French had taken the positions they

attacked, but the victory had consumed a

large part of the strength needed to

exploit it.

The Russians had lost more men,

yet the main army Barclay had spent the

campaign preserving still existed.

Kutuzov now had to decide whether to

risk what remained in another battle for

Moscow.

At the council at Fili,

the Russian command chose to preserve

the army.

Moscow would be abandoned.

>> [cheering]

>> Napoleon entered the city on September

14.

Much of it was deserted, and fires were

beginning to spread.

He had marched hundreds of miles, forced

the major battle he wanted, driven the

Russians from the field, and reached

Moscow.

Alexander did not make peace.

>> [cheering]

>> Holding the battlefield on the evening

of September 7th did not settle the

question Napoleon had been trying to

settle since June.

He had finally forced the Russians to

stand, inflicted enormous losses, and

opened the road to Moscow.

Their army, however, withdrew under

orders and remained part of the war.

Russia paid heavily.

Bagration's wound removed one of its

most admired commanders. He would die

little more than 2 weeks later.

Tens of thousands of soldiers were dead

or incapacitated, and Moscow was

abandoned.

None of that changes the fact that the

main Russian army was neither surrounded

nor compelled to surrender.

Napoleon held Borodino.

The decisive military and political

result he had been seeking since

crossing the Niemen was still out of

reach.