The Battle of Borodino resonates with the patriotic soul of Mother
Russia. The epic confrontation in September 1812 was the single
bloodiest day of the Napoleonic Wars, leaving France's Grande Armée
limping to the gates of Moscow and on to catastrophe in snow and ice.
Generations later, in October 1941, an equally bitter battle was fought
at Borodino. This time Hitler's SS and Panzers came up against elite
Siberian troops defending Stalin's Moscow.
Remarkably, both conflicts took place in the same woods and gullies that
follow the sinuous line of the Koloch River. Borodino Field relates
the gruelling experience of the French army in Russia, juxtaposed with
the personal accounts, diaries and letters of SS and Panzer soldiers
during the Second World War.
Acclaimed historian Robert Kershaw draws on previously untapped archives
to narrate the odyssey of soldiers who marched along identical tracks
and roads on the 1,000-kilometre route to Moscow, and reveals the
astonishing parallels and contrasts between two battles fought on
Russian soil, over one hundred years apart.