War & Peace | Battle of Borodino

Can anyone tell me the music in the last scene

To be honest, the war scenes in this movie are better than Napoleon 2023.

Those French soldiers who died that day were the lucky ones.

fun fact: borodino was the single bloodiest day in all of warfare until ww1.

There is no Kutuzov's answer. He said: "The loss of Moscow doesn't mean the loss of the Russia".

If a civilian wandering around a battlefield seems weird, in the 19th century it was common for wealthy people to go and watch battles. It was done during the American Civil War. Under the generally accepted rules of those days, they were not directly targeted by either side. It was like watching a grand spectacle for them. Times have changed. ;-)

1:13 me in total war .

Turning General Ermolov into a bald man was a stupid move

Napoleon shined as the New Alexander the Great of the Black powder era... But after 1812 he ended as Pyrrhus the 1st.

Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. And tactics without strategy is just the noise before defeat- Sun Tzu, the Art of War. And Borodino exemplified that. The Russian Army stood its ground and traded blows with Napoleon's vaunted elite. And for all his pride, glory and wily tactics, the Corsican could only watch as his Grande Armee reduced itself to smithereens against an enemy who would simply not give up. I'd classify this as a Russian strategic victory and a pyrrhic tactical draw for the French with a liberal dash of eventual disaster for them. The Russian army avenged Austerlitz here. Later battles would come. But there is something you absolutely have to understand. They had run before at Austerlitz. They had been touted at Friesland. The Russian army found its spirit to fight at Borodino. And learned that even it could only be pushed so far. If anyone asks you... Borodino was the turning point.

“What was it all for, I wonder? What was any of it for?” – Vir Cotto, Babylon 5, “The Long Night” (1997).

Napoleon looks like he's been drinking a lot in this movie...

Moscow wasn't even the capital of Russia at the time

Brian Cox is a legend.

Just want to point out a few things. Kutuzov did absolutely nothing from his headquarters at Borodino. Moreover, the recent studies proof that Kutuzov slept while the battle was going on and orders were given mostly by Barclay De Tolly and Bagration. The only reason Aleksander appointed Kutuzov, was because Kutuzov was a true Russian. Barclay De Tolly was a better commander, but he was German and unpopular among Russian aristocracy. Russian nobility and officers didn’t like the fact that the Russian army was retreating all the time and blamed Barclay for this. They thought that he did this because he didn’t care about Russia (because of his German descent). This wasn’t true of course. Most historians agree now that Kutuzov put his army defenses terribly. Russian’s right wing was facing no enemy troops and were useless. Russians constantly had to move their troops from the right side to bolster their center where the actual battle took place. These Russian troop movements were costly and easy target for Napoleon’s gunners. This is the main reason why Russian loses were greater than Napoleon’s. Just think for a minute, Russians made defenses while Napoleon’s troops were in the open and had to attack Russian positions. At that time, this would usually mean more casualties for the advancing army. But this is not what happened for the reason that I just stated above. Another fact that just recently was discovered and published. Russians had approximately 30,000 wounded troops that were taken to Moscow after the battle (right before Napoleon took Moscow). When the Moscow was set on fire by Russian prisoners/police, most of those wounded were left behind and died because of this fire. Also, we should remember that Napoleon wasn’t planning to go to Moscow from the start and he wasn’t interested in occupying Russian territories. That was never his intention. His plan was to defeat Russian army at the boarder and make Russia his ally again. He wanted Russia to follow his “Continental Blockade” against United Kingdom. The reason Napoleon ended up in Moscow was because Russians were constantly retreating in the direction of Moscow, and Napoleon had to follow Russians to Borodino village. If the Russian army was retreating to Saint Petersburg (their capital city) this is where Napoleon would go instead. However, even though the Russians lost Borodino battle, Napoleon’s venture into Russia was a big mistake. Sorry for the long comment

Kutusov was indeed a clever general but was no match for Napoleon's grand war machine

I love the opening speech of Napoleon with this epic soundtrack ! Vive l’empereur !

Borodino showed that the Russians under Kutuzov could fight evenly with the Grande Armee under Napoleon. The two powers were tactically equal. The abandonment of Moscow to the French showed that strategically, in that moment, Kutuzov had greater wisdom and will than Napoleon. Kutuzov defeated his nation's greatest opponent in a hundred years, through letting him loot and burn their greatest city. He even aided his enemy in the plundering and pillaging, ahead of Napoleon's triumphant 'capture' of the city. Defeating the hitherto largest invasion in history, through a genuine (temporary) retreat, is something only a Christian general could think of. Quite appropriate, given that Napoleon was the great conqueror general of Liberalism/Humanism in Europe.

I don't understand why the Russians say that Borodino battle was a victory, the french were victorious ... Of course that the victory was costly in spite of the French suffered less casualties than the Russians, but the Russians saying that they were victorious, why, because they stopped the French army? In my opinion, that, is not a victory ...

the general did well for himself.. now running a media empire and worth over billions.