The gripping account of two momentous battles fought in the same location 129 years apart. For Russians the battle of Borodino resonates with the patriotic soul of Mother Russia. The epic confrontation in September 1812 took the French Grande Armee to the gates of Moscow and on to catastrophe during the subsequent winter. Another equally bitter battle was fought at Borodino in October 1941. This time Hitler's SS and Panzers came up against elite Soviet Siberian troops defending Stalin's Moscow. Remarkably, both battles took place in the same woods and gullies that follow the line of the Koloch River. BORODINO FIELD tells the story of the French Imperial soldier's 1812 experience of campaigning in Russia in their own words. It is juxtaposed with personal accounts, diaries and letters of SS and Panzer soldiers in 1941, drawing on previously untapped German and Russian sources. Acclaimed historian Robert Kershaw narrates the odyssey of simple soldiers, who had marched the same tracks and roads on the 1,000-kilometre route to Moscow, and reveals the fascinating parallels and contrasts between the two battles.
