The Battle of Borodino: a day when the Russians “gained laurels to be unfoiled”

In 2017, on September 7, Russia will commemorate the remarkable date - 205 years since the battle of Borodino, when only in 125 km from Moscow, two great armies - the French, under the command of the Emperor Napoleon I, and the Russian, headed by commander Mikhail Kutuzov, came together in a fight. The Presidential Library has collected a large amount of material dedicated to this battle of unprecedented scale - the electronic copies of historical documents, rare books, portraits of the participants, as well as the records of radio and TV programs. They help to recreate in detail the events of those days and take a look at one of the bloodiest battles with the eyes of its contemporaries.

In his work “Borodino” (1912), an electronic copy of which is in the Presidential Library stock, A. V. Gerua wrote: “The French army, as known, consisted of a motley array of 12 languages and, at least, of as many as the same concepts…” Our troops, according to the author, were foemen worthy adversary: “Regarding the Russian officer corps, it must be emphasized that the officers served in the army not under duress or as a result of material benefits <...> Some of the officers who have served in the lower ranks was of high quality in the military respect, because they were the best of the soldiers, those who apart from military service as is, a war itself, endless at that time, has promoted.”

When the French invaded Russia, both sides were waiting for a decisive battle. N. P. Mihnevich writes in his book entitled The Battle of Borodino. 1812 (1912) as follows: “In 1812, Napoleon invaded Russia with a force in the number three times superior of Russian army, and because of this, certainly, was looking for a pitched battle to end the war immediately. But he did not succeed: every time, when he was ready to launch a strike on us, Russians eluded him and, retreated in good order, approached with their reinforcements and sources of means to continue the war.” But “in the Russian ranks, where for the past two and a half months of continuous retreat a discontent settled, a hope for a chance to fight the invading to their limits foemen became stronger. All from soldier to general longed for a decisive battle,” noted in the abovementioned work “Borodino” by A. V. Gerua. That was roughly the way the things with the forces were, and the mood before the Borodino battle was such.

There is an electronic copy of the report of Prince Bagration to Tsar Alexander I on the Presidential Library website. He submitted it immediately after the battle of Borodino, where he was wounded, as it turned out, fatally. That is what Bagration writes about this day: “On the 26th, at the dawn, the adversary made a massive attack, and the battle began as brutal, desperate and suicidal, that were hardly examples of <...>. This day, Most Gracious Sovereign, Russian troops showed perfect fearlessness and unheard bravery from a general to a soldier.”

Another participant of the battle, the memories of which cites A. N. Muraviyev in rare edition “Borodino” (1879) from the collection of the Presidential Library, described one of the moments of the battle: “We hit on Rayewsky artillery battery, in the quarter of hour it was already back ours, because the French did not have time to turn our guns over on us, there was no benefit from them though, since the loads were exhausted… We dumped our guns from the earthwork along with the enemy; there was no mercy for them, the soldiers in their exacerbation have not been taking the captives.”

The battle lasted from early morning until late at night. Its bottom line is: “The losses incurred by both sides in this battle were truly terrible. From the lineup of the Russian army 58 thousand soldiers were withdrawn as killed and wounded, the French lost about 50 thousand troops. Trophies were the same: we have taken 13 French guns, the French - 15 of ours,” - these data P. M. Adrianov lists in his “The Battle of Borodino” work, published in St. Petersburg in 1912. N. P. Mihnevich adds: “Among the generals 22 fell by the wayside in the Russian army, 43 - in French, so the “battle near Moscow,” i.e. the Battle of Borodino, the French also tagged the “battle of the generals.”

Speaking about the results of the Battle of Borodino, it is important to note that it was primarily due to the strategic expediency, aimed at disrupting the Napoleonic plan to achieve a victory in the pitched battle, at the suspension of further advance of Napoleon's army to Moscow, at creation a solid foundation for future victory over the enemy. One of the best estimates of the battle belongs to Napoleon himself, who wrote in his memoirs: “Of all my battles worst thing is that I gave near Moscow. The French in it have shown themselves worthy of victory, yet the Russians courted a right to be unfoiled.”