On the seventeenth of August Napoleon was awakened at the crack of dawn by the expectation of seeing the Russian army drawn up in front of him; but the battlefield he had prepared for them on a wide plain in front of the city's walls was still deserted.

--Philippe-Paul de Segur

For more than two months Napoleon's armies had sought to bring the Russians to a decisive battle. Napoleon believed he had them pinned down at Smolensk where the Russian generals, Barclay and Bagration, had brought their forces together. When the Russian armies were seen, nearly one hundred and twenty thousand men, marching across the right bank of the Dnieper River, Napoleon hoped their intent was to deploy their forces beneath the city's walls to wage the battle so long awaited.

On the morning of the seventeenth the Russians were seen in full retreat on the eastern road to Moscow. Napoleon responded with a full-scale assault on the city. His flamboyant marshal Murat opposed such a violent action, especially since the Russians were withdrawing on their own initiative. But the city was stormed and fighting ensued with the Russian rearguard, left behind to defend and evacuate the city as the main armies withdrew. The entire city was set on fire as a barrier to French pursuit. A part of the French army was able to catch the rearguard of Barclay's army in a bloody encounter at Valutino, on the plateau east of Smolensk. But the Russians had again evaded the Grand Army and left Smolensk a smoldering ruin for the French to inhabit.

Napoleon in Russia