Napoleon planned two attacks for September 7th. Redoubts, known as 'Bagration's redoubts.' Close to the village of Utiza they constructed three more Or 'Rayevsky's (Raievsky's) redoubt' was constructed near the center of the Russian line, The Russians began constructing two sets of redoubts. That Borodino offered the best opportunity to confront Napoleon, On September 5th, the Russian army was driven off from a redoubt it hadĬonstructed at the village of Shevardino, south of Borodino. Would not come into play during the battle. To 3,800 pounds), the guns would be positioned in the lines of the First Army where most Russians had more and heavier guns (a broadside weight advantage of 4,800 pounds With 637 guns, with another 7,000 men among the Cossack forces. Russian commander in chief, had a force reduced to 103,000 men, At Borodino, General Mikhail Hilarionovich Kutuzov, The Russian army which opposed the French at the Niemen crossing had numbered 183,000 men, supplemented by 15,000Ĭossack fighters. At Borodino Napoleon had an effectiveįorce of around 124,000 men, with 587 guns. Some seventy miles west of Moscow, at the beginning of September, the number wasĭown to 133,819. September 2nd, a week later, it had lost another 15,256. When it departed Smolensk its numbers had dwindled further, to 149,075. On August 23rd, at Smolensk, it had fallen to 161,475. His main French army group had numbered 286,000. Which took three days to make the crossing of the Niemen River (June 24th-26th). When Napoleon began his invasion in June 1812, he had an army of 449,000 men, He also considered hisĪrmy too large to be swallowed up by the territorial expanse of the lands he He believed that all he needed to defeat Czar Alexander was aĭecisive battle or, at most, the capture of Moscow. He had vastly underestimated the military resources needed toĬonquer Russia and he had miscalculated the fighting abilities of his Russian When it managed to survive in Russia he remarked: 'We mastered aĭestiny which broke another man 130 years ago.' Napoleon's decision to retreat from Moscow was one Winter of 1941-42, the major mistake of the French campaign would not be If the German army could somehow hold its ground during the Hitler, in invading Russia, had ignored the central lesson of Napoleon's 1812 campaign, some 130 years before.Īs winter set in in 1941, he convinced himself that Napoleon's mistake had notīeen the decision to invade, but the decision to retreat from Moscow, once inįrench hands. Million casualties in the Stalingrad campaign, of which 485,751 were fatalities. Losses for the Italian, Hungarian, and Romanian allies fighting with the GermansĪt Stalingrad had been 450,000.) The Russians may have suffered 1.1 Sources placed the number of German officers and men killed at Kursk itself atħ0,000, with 2,952 tanks and 195 assault guns destroyed. Stalingrad counted 147,000 German dead and 91,000 taken prisoner.) Russian Where 209,000 (twenty divisions) had been lost. German 'irreplaceable' losses (dead, missing, andĪnd during the retreat to the Kneiper, from July through October, were 350,000, higher than at Stalingrad, Retreated some 150 miles, along a front 650 miles wide, from the line held at

The Ostheer, the German Army in the East, by mid-September 1943, had On September 26th, the Soviets secured two small bridgeheads The GermanĪrmy retreated, in hopes of stopping the Soviet advance with a defensive line at On August 22nd Manstein ordered the German evacuation of Kharkov and onĪugust 23rd the Red Army took the city. Belgorod was re-captured after heavy fighting on Augustĥth. By 2:00 in the afternoon they had broken through the The Soviets launched a counter-attack at 5:00 in the morning on August 3rd The Red Army's ability to mount an offensive action in the immediate aftermath of theīattle came as an unexpected surprise. The Soviet ability to withstand the German attack was unwelcome news. Into an epic tank battle, German tank losses at the village may have been onlyĪround twenty-five or thirty. While Prokhorovka helped to turn the battle of Kursk The T-34s had managed to stop the advance of Of the Tiger at long range, managed to close with the German armor and maneuver Guards Tank Army, mostly T-34s, usually at a disadvantage against the 88mm guns In the fighting around the village of Prokhorovka on July 12th, history would witness one of theįew duels between two tank armies. It wouldĬontinue until July 23rd, when the Russians had re-taken the ground lost to Fourth Panzer Armyĭuring the battle and had pushed it back to its starting point. Was called off on July 17th, when Hitler directed the withdrawal of II SS PanzerĬorps, the fighting in the salient did not end on that day. The battle of Kursk began on the afternoon of Jwith a dive-bombingĪttack by a squadron of Stukas around Butovo in the Kursk salient.

Battle group kursk