The State Hermitage Museum: Exhibitions

The Battle of Borodino

Peter von Hess

1843

Oil on canvas

This painting shows simultaneously several episodes in the battle. Depicted in the left-hand corner of the panorama is the episode when the Izmailovsky and Lithuanian Regiments entered the fray. Despite furious attacks the French were unable to shift those Life Guards from the positions they held for 13 full hours. In the centre of the canvas is the wounded General Bagration, the commander of the left wing of the Russian army. The officer on the white horse is General Konovnitsyn who has just assumed command. Here, at the Semionovsky gully, the fighting began at five in the morning. The defence of the fortifications known as Bagration's fleches was so stubborn that until noon all the French assaults on them floundered with terrible losses. After prolonged artillery bombardment from 150 guns, Ney, Davout and Murat attacked the Semionovsky gully and the fleches in tremendous strength. The divisions led by Vorontsov and Neverovsky were thrown back and smashed. Bagration and the French marshals time and again took and retook positions strewn with the bodies of men and horses.

Napoleon directed 400 cannon against Bagration's fleches, more than two-thirds of his artillery. He gave orders for a new all-out assault on the positions. The French genadiers hurled themselves at the fortifications with arms at the ready. They did not return fire while the Russian bullets mowed them down. Prince Bagration admired the enemy for courage. During a new attack on the fleches he was mortally wounded. This was a fateful moment in the battle. The soldiers not only loved Bagration but also believed in his invincibility. "It was as if the spirit went out of the whole left wing after the death of that man," witnesses recalled.

After the capture of Bagration's fleches, the second important episode in the Battle of Borodino was the contest for General Rayevsky's battery, located in the centre of the Russian front. This artillery position changed hands several times. At two in the afternoon Napoleon gave orders to install artillery on what had been Bagration's fleches. Now Rayevsky's battery was being bombarded from three sides. The Russian artillery responded with intensive fire. Napoleon told General Beauharnais and units of Murat's cavalry to take the battery. The ensuing onslaught met with dogged Russian resistance. The wounded soldiers remained in the ranks. Both sides fought with a savage fury. Seeking to hasten the outcome, Napoleon ordered his cavalry to attack the Russian infantrymen of Count Osterman's corps. Badly concussed, Osterman was put out of action, but his men met the attack with such a hail of bullets that the attackers wavered. The guards hastened to the aid of the infantrymen and the assault was repulsed. Another storm of Rayevesky's battery followed, however. The French cavalry burst upon the position from the rear, while General Beauharnais's infantry mounted a frontal attack. A terrible slaughter ensued with no prisoners being taken on either side. This was the last great drama of the Battle of Borodino.

Bonaparte took his forces from the battlefield before Kutuzov issued the order to withdraw. The Russian army fell back from Borodino to Moscow and beyond in complete order.

The outstanding Russian historian Yevgeny Tarle wrote: "In all the history of the world there are few battles to compare with Borodino… In that clash Napoleon destroyed almost half the Russian army and a few days later entered Moscow. Nonetheless, not only did he fail to break the spirit of the surviving part of the Russian forces, he did not either intimidate the Russian people, who at that very time, after Borodino and after the demise of Moscow, intensified their furious resistance of the enemy."