In June 1812, Napoleon Bonaparte led 685,000 men—the largest army ever assembled in European history—across the Niemen River ...

But the Russian Empire had been resisting his efforts to cut off all trade with Britain. That summer, he ordered his army, some 600,000 strong, to invade Russia. It would prove to be a terrible ...

In the winter of 1812, Napoleon’s Grande Armée met its most devastating enemy—not the Russian army, but biology itself. As starvation, exhaustion, and freezing temperatures ravaged the troops, ...

It was meant to break Russia’s resistance, but became a brutal stalemate soaked in blood. Borodino tested the limits of Napoleon’s army—and his ambition.