Because the Imperial Russian army had weakened the Grande Armée, they allowed the French occupation of Moscow, using scorched earth tactics on their own population to trap Napoleon and his men with their own largest city.

[24] As his Russian army was outnumbered by far, Mikhail Bogdanovich Barclay de Tolly successfully used a "delaying operation", defined as an operation in which a force under pressure trades space for time by slowing down the enemy's momentum and inflicting maximum damage on the enemy without, in principle, becoming decisively engaged,[25] using a Fabian strategy as a defence in depth by retreating further eastwards into Russia without giving battle.

[30] Although the Borodino field was too open and had too few natural obstacles to protect the Russian center and the left flank, it was chosen because it blocked both Smolensk–Moscow roads and because there were simply no better locations.

[32] The initial Russian position, which stretched south of the new Smolensk Highway (Napoleon's expected route of advance), was anchored on its left by a pentagonal earthwork redoubt erected on a mound near the village of Shevardino.

The defeats of Austerlitz, Eylau and Friedland led to important additional reforms, though continuous fighting in the course of three wars with France, two with Sweden and two with the Ottoman Empire had not allowed time for these to be fully implemented and absorbed.

[43] The Russian position at Borodino consisted of a series of disconnected earthworks running in an arc from the Moskva River on the right, along its tributary, the Kolocha (whose steep banks added to the defense), and towards the village of Utitsa on the left.

The Russian center was defended by the Raevsky Redoubt, a massive open-backed earthwork mounting nineteen 12-pounder cannons which had a clear field of fire all the way to the banks of the Kolocha stream.

The fall of Shevardino unanchored the Russian left flank but Kutuzov did nothing to change these initial dispositions despite the repeated pleas of his generals to redeploy their forces.

[31] The initial French attack was aimed at seizing the three Russian positions collectively known as the Bagration flèches, three arrowhead-shaped, open-backed earthworks which arced out to the left en échelon in front of the Kolocha stream.

There was much to be desired in the construction of the flèches, one officer noting that the ditches were much too shallow, the embrasures open to the ground, making them easy to enter, and that they were much too wide, exposing infantry inside them.

[48] Davout, seeing the confusion, personally led the 57th Line Regiment (Le Terrible) forward until he had his horse shot from under him; he fell so hard that General Sorbier reported him as dead.

Prince Bagration quickly led a counterattack that threw the French out of the positions, only to have Marshal Michel Ney lead a charge by the 24th Regiment that retook them.

[49] During the confused fighting, French and Russian units moved forward into impenetrable smoke and were smashed by artillery and musketry fire that was horrendous even by Napoleonic standards.

Bagration in some instances was personally leading counterattacks, and in a final attempt to push the French completely back he got hit in the leg by cannonball splinters somewhere around 11:00 hours.

[55] During the height of the battle, Kutuzov's subordinates were making all of the tactical decisions for him; according to Colonel Carl von Clausewitz, famous for his work On War, the Russian commander "seemed to be in a trance".

[56] On the morning of the battle at around 07:30, Don Cossack patrols from Matvei Platov's pulk[clarification needed] had discovered a ford across the Kolocha river, on the extreme Russian right (northern) flank.

Platov's aide was lucky enough to encounter Colonel von Toll, an enterprising member of Kutuzov's staff, who suggested that General Uvarov's 1st Cavalry Corps be added to the operation and at once volunteered to present the plan to the commander-in-chief.

[34][page needed] The sudden appearance of masses of enemy cavalry so close to the supply train and the Emperor's headquarters caused panic and consternation, prompting Eugène to immediately cancel his attack and pull back his entire Corps westwards to deal with the alarming situation.

[34][page needed] Unable to achieve much else, Platov and Uvarov moved back to their own lines and the action was perceived as a failure by both Kutuzov and the Russian General Staff (chief –9 Bennigsen[58]).

Generals Daru, Dumas and Marshal Louis Alexandre Berthier also joined in and told the Emperor that everyone thought the time had come for the Guard to be committed to battle.

[citation needed] Given the ferocity of the Russian defense, everyone was aware that such a move would cost the lives of thousands of Guardsmen, but it was thought that the presence of this prestigious unit would bolster the morale of the entire army for a final decisive push.

[68] Carl von Clausewitz, the Prussian historian and future author of On War, and Alexander I of Russia both noted that the poor positioning of the Russian troops had particularly hobbled the defense.

According to Ludwig von Wolzogen (in an account dripping with sarcasm), the commander was found a half-hour away on the road to Moscow, encamped with an entourage of young nobles and grandly pronouncing he would drive Napoleon off the next day.

[73] The politics of the time were complex and complicated by ethnic divisions between native Russian nobility and those having second and third-generation German descent, leading to rivalry for positions in command of the army.

[79] The casualties of the battle were staggering: according to French General Staff Inspector P. Denniee, the Grande Armée lost approximately 28,000 soldiers: 6,562 (including 269 officers) were reported as dead, 21,450 as wounded.

Whilst patiently waiting for an answer from the tsar, as soon as the cold winter and snowfall started to form, Napoleon, realizing what was happening, attempted to escape the country with his men.

This kind of warfare weakened the French army at its most vulnerable point: logistics, as it was unable to pillage Russian land, which was insufficiently populated nor cultivated,[95] meaning that starvation became the most dangerous enemy long before the cold joined in.

Historian Oleg Sokolov (1999) posited that Borodino constituted a Pyrrhic victory for the French, which would ultimately cost Napoleon the war and his crown, although at the time none of this was apparent to either side.

Furthermore, although the Russian army suffered heavy casualties in the battle, it regrouped by the time of Napoleon's retreat from Moscow; it soon began to interfere with the French withdrawal and made it a catastrophe.

[110] A huge panorama representing the battle was painted by Franz Roubaud for the centenary of Borodino in 1912 and installed on the Poklonnaya Hill in Moscow to mark the 150th anniversary of the event in 1962 by Soviet authorities.