After the Battle of Smolensk, the Tsar replaced the unpopular Barclay de Tolly with Kutuzov, who on 18 August took over the army at Tsaryovo-Zaymishche and ordered his men to prepare for battle. Īs 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, using a Fabian strategy as a defence in depth by retreating further eastwards into Russia without giving battle. Napoleon with the French Grande Armée began his invasion of Russia on 24 June 1812 by crossing the Niemen. Approximately a quarter of a million soldiers were involved in the battle, and it was the bloodiest single day of the Napoleonic Wars.īackground Napoleon's invasion of Russia The failure of the Grande Armée to completely destroy the Imperial Russian army, in particular Napoleon's reluctance to deploy his Imperial Guard, has been widely criticised by historians as a huge blunder, as it allowed the Imperial Russian army to continue its retreat into territory increasingly hostile to the French.
Because the Imperial Russian army had severely weakened the Grande Armée, they allowed the French occupation of Moscow, using the city as bait to trap Napoleon and his men. After the Battle of Borodino, Napoleon remained on the battlefield with his army the Imperial Russian forces retreated in an orderly fashion southwards. Napoleon fought against General Mikhail Kutuzov, whom the Emperor Alexander I of Russia had appointed to replace Barclay de Tolly on 29 August 1812 after the Battle of Smolensk.
The Grande Armée won the battle against the Imperial Russian Army, but failed to gain a decisive victory and suffered tremendous losses. The Battle of Borodino ( Russian pronunciation: ) took place near the village of Borodino on 7 September 1812 during Napoleon's invasion of Russia.
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