June 2001
With the Peninsular War still raging, Napoleon made a fateful decision in 1812 when he turned his attentions east and the Grand Army began an invasion of Russia. Nothing could have prepared them for what lay ahead as they marched slowly towards Moscow. Little did they know that of the half a million men who crossed the Russian border, fewer than fifty thousand would ever see their homeland again. This episode tells the story of Napoleon's greatest mistake his ill fated Russian adventure that spelt the beginning of the end for the Emperor. The episode includes the story of the bloody Battle of Borodino and the appalling horrors of the French retreat from Moscow.