📅 On This Day in Military History
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The largest and bloodiest single-day action of the Napoleonic Wars, Borodino was fought 70 miles west of Moscow as Kutuzov's Russian army made a stand to defend the ancient capital. The battle centered on a series of earthwork fortifications — the Great Redoubt, the Bagration Flèches, and the Shevardino Redoubt — which the French stormed in brutal frontal assaults throughout the day. General Bagration was mortally wounded defending the flèches that bore his name. Napoleon refused to commit his Imperial Guard, later citing this as his greatest mistake. By day's end the French held the field, but the Russian army had not been destroyed and withdrew in good order.
Though technically a French victory, Borodino was pyrrhic. Napoleon captured Moscow but found it evacuated and burning. Unable to force a decisive peace, he retreated in October, beginning the catastrophic withdrawal that destroyed the Grande Armée.
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