📅 On This Day in Military History
3 events across history
Marching south from Acre toward Jaffa along the coast, Richard's disciplined army endured constant harassment from Saladin's mounted archers. At Arsuf, Richard held his knights in tight formation under galling fire until the perfect moment, then unleashed a devastating charge that broke the Muslim army and won the field.
Arsuf restored crusader morale and demonstrated Richard's mastery of the disciplined fighting march — proof that Saladin could be beaten in open battle. It secured the coast and allowed the recovery of Jaffa, though Richard would ultimately judge Jerusalem itself beyond his grasp.
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Eugene led a daring relief march to relieve the besieged Piedmontese capital, then attacked the French siege lines surrounding Turin with his Imperial army. Catching the French outside their own trenches, Eugene's assault shattered the besieging force. Marshal Marsin was mortally wounded and captured. The French abandoned all their guns and equipment as they fled.
Turin ended French power in Italy at a stroke. Eugene's victory secured the Kingdom of Savoy as a firm Allied partner and drove France out of the peninsula for the remainder of the war. It also freed Eugene to eventually move forces northward, compounding French difficulties in the Low Countries.
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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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