Borodino, 7 September 1812

The battle, stage by stage

1. 5 September 1812, afternoon to night

   Shevardino

   Advancing up the New Smolensk road toward Moscow, Napoleon's army runs into a detached Russian redoubt on a hill near the village of Shevardino, about a mile and a half in front of the line Kutuzov is fortifying near Borodino. Prince Andrei Gorchakov holds it with Dmitry Neverovsky's 27th Infantry Division, the 2nd Grenadier Division and cavalry. Compans' division of Davout's I Corps attacks it frontally in the afternoon, with cavalry support, while Poniatowski's Poles swing south along the Old Smolensk road to turn it; the 57th Line reportedly leads the assault that finally clears it. Bagration counterattacks at sunset and the fighting ends in darkness. Each side loses several thousand men (one account gives 5,000–6,000 Russians). Kutuzov orders the redoubt abandoned that night; on the 7th Napoleon will direct the battle from beside it.

2. 7 September 1812, about 5:30–6 AM

   Two armies at dawn

   Some 130,000 French and allied troops face about 120,000 Russian regulars (more than 150,000 with Cossacks and militia, by Russian counts) along a front of about five miles (8 km). Kutuzov's line runs from the Moskva near Maslovo through Gorki, his headquarters, to the Kurgan height, where Raevsky's VII Corps has built an 18-gun redoubt, then south to the three earthwork fleches west of Semyonovskoye and to Utitsa on the Old Smolensk road. Barclay de Tolly's 1st Western Army holds the strong right behind the Kolocha; Bagration's weaker 2nd Western Army holds the open left. Napoleon rejects Davout's proposal to turn that flank through the Utitsa woods and instead orders a head-on blow: Davout and Ney against the fleches, Eugène against Borodino village and the Great Redoubt, Poniatowski along the Old Smolensk road, the Guard in reserve near Shevardino. The guns open at about 6 AM.

3. About 6–11 AM

   The struggle for the fleches

   Compans' and Dessaix's divisions come out of the edge of the Utitsa woods against the southern fleche; Compans is wounded early and Davout is stunned when his horse is killed. Ney's corps — Ledru, Razout and Marchand's Württembergers — attacks the works from the north-west. The fleches change hands again and again (eight times by Russian counts) as Vorontsov's combined grenadiers, Neverovsky's division, Konovnitsyn's 3rd Division brought up from Utitsa and the 2nd Grenadiers of Karl of Mecklenburg counterattack; Vorontsov's division is all but destroyed. Junot's Westphalians are fed into the gap toward the woods. Friant's division is committed and by about 11 AM the works are in French hands. Bagration is mortally wounded, by most accounts between 9 AM and noon, and Konovnitsyn, then Dokhturov, takes command of the 2nd Army.

4. About 6 AM; first assault on the redoubt about 10–11 AM

   Borodino village and the Great Redoubt

   At first light Delzons' division of Eugène's IV Corps storms Borodino village and drives the Life Guard Jäger Regiment back over the Kolocha bridge; the jägers lose heavily and the bridge is destroyed. Eugène then pushes Broussier's division and two divisions lent from Davout's corps, Morand and Gérard, across the Kolocha against the Kurgan height. In the mid-to-late morning General Bonamy's brigade of Morand's division, led by the 30th Line, breaks into the Raevsky Redoubt. Aleksei Ermolov, chief of staff of the 1st Army, gathers a battalion of the Ufa Regiment and the 18th, 19th and 40th Jäger Regiments, and within minutes the redoubt is retaken; Bonamy is captured with many bayonet wounds. The artillery chief, General Aleksandr Kutaisov, is killed in the counterattack.

5. About 11 AM–2 PM

   Semyonovskoye and Utitsa

   With the fleches lost, the 2nd Army falls back across the Semyonovka ravine behind the burning village of Semyonovskoye, which Friant's division takes. The Life Guard Izmailovsky, Lithuanian and Finland Regiments, formed in squares on the heights behind the village, hold for hours against Nansouty's and Latour-Maubourg's cuirassiers and French artillery fire. In the south, Poniatowski's Poles take Utitsa and attack the kurgan behind it, held by Stroganov's 1st Grenadier Division. General Nikolai Tuchkov is mortally wounded leading the Pavlovsk Grenadiers in a counterattack; Baggovut, arriving with Olsufiev's 17th Division from the far right, takes over the southern flank and holds the kurgan for now. Junot's Westphalians work through the Utitsa woods between the two fights. Napoleon refuses his marshals' requests to commit the Guard.

6. About noon–3 PM

   Uvarov's and Platov's raid

   To relieve the pressure on his center, Kutuzov sends Uvarov's I Cavalry Corps and Platov's Cossacks across the Kolocha against the French left. Uvarov crosses at a ford near the village of Maloye ('Staroie' in one account) but is stopped near Bezzubovo by the 84th Line of Delzons' division and Ornano's cavalry; the Life Guard Hussars charge three times without breaking the infantry squares. Platov's Cossacks cross the Voyna farther north and ride into the French rear, causing alarm as far back as the trains. Napoleon sends Grouchy's cavalry corps and part of the Italian Guard to the threatened flank. The raid achieves little directly and Uvarov is recalled at about 3 PM, but by most accounts it delays the next assault on the Great Redoubt by about two hours, time the Russians use to bring Ostermann-Tolstoy's IV Corps and more cavalry to the center.

7. About 2–4 PM (most often given as about 3 PM)

   The fall of the Great Redoubt

   Napoleon masses some 150–200 guns against the Kurgan height. Broussier's, Morand's and Gérard's divisions attack it from the front while the cavalry rides around its flanks: General Auguste de Caulaincourt, who took over the II Cavalry Corps after Montbrun was killed, leads the cuirassiers into the redoubt from the rear and is killed in the act; Saxon and French cuirassiers are reportedly first inside, with Lorge's Saxon and Westphalian heavy cavalry of Latour-Maubourg's corps close behind. Likhachev's 24th Division, defending the work, is cut down and Likhachev captured. Russian cavalry and Ostermann-Tolstoy's infantry check the French behind the height, and a great cavalry battle follows. Napoleon, asked again for the Guard, refuses to risk it so far from France.

8. Evening 7 September; night of 7–8 September

   Evening and withdrawal

   By dusk the Russian army stands on a new line about 1,000 yards behind its morning position, from Gorki through the heights east of Semyonovskoye to the Old Smolensk road, where Poniatowski has at last taken the Utitsa kurgan. The French hold the Great Redoubt, the fleches and Semyonovskoye, but by some accounts pull back from parts of the field during the night. Losses are enormous: the French official return gives about 28,000 killed and wounded, among them dozens of generals; Russian losses are usually put at 38,000–45,000 or more. Kutuzov reports a victory and first speaks of renewing the fight, but on learning the scale of his losses orders a withdrawal; the army marches through Mozhaysk toward Moscow, which Napoleon enters, unopposed, a week later.