In the Aftermath
It was clear then that the remainder
of the battle would consist of gun duels, frontal attacks, and hand-to-hand
fighting. By midday, the center of action was shifting to the Raevsky Redoubt,
a fortified emplacement of twenty-seven guns. The fighting was so fierce
there, according to one eyewitness, that "the approaches, ditches,
and interior all disappeared under a mound of dead and dying, an average
six to eight men piled on top of one another.
It was in the late afternoon that
Eugene from the north, Ney and Murat from the south, launched a combined
attack on the Raevsky Redoubt. This time they succeeded in capturing it
and turned round the guns on the Russians retreating over the ravines to
the east. The French had taken this battlefield but they were too decimated
to pursue the Russian armies any further as they withdrew towards Moscow.
The losses at Borodino were enormous
and without proportionate results. The Russians had fought and died with
stubborn heroism, 44,000 dead and wounded. The French had lost 33,000 men,
including forty-three of their generals who had been killed or wounded.
Arithmetically, and in the sense that the road to Moscow now lay open,
Borodino was a French victory. But it was far from the crippling, decisive
victory on which Napoleon had been trusting his campaign. It was the most
terrible battle Napoleon had ever fought.
The Grand Army was left with only
95,000 men to continue its march toward Moscow. They met little resistance
as they moved through the towns of Mozhaysk and Krymskoie. But the Russian
army had not been vanquished by its losses, resuming its evasive tactics
and withdrawing to a base south of Moscow. Napoleon sent an urgent message
to the Duke of Bellano who had remained behind with reserves in Poland,
requesting that all manner of reinforcements be dispatched immediately
to Moscow.
Retreat
Advance