In the museum of the battle of Borodino, on 110 square kilometers of fields and forests with a landscape practically unchanged for almost two centuries, the historian Sergey Khomchenko tells AFP about the fate of the French soldiers who remained in Russia after the withdrawal of the Great Army, in the run-up to the 200th anniversary of Napoleon’s death, which occurred on May 5, 1821.
AFP: The fate of Napoleon’s soldiers left behind in Russia
A picture taken on April 16, 2021 shows the monument to the French at the Shevardino redoubt on the Borodino field, the site of one of the best-known battles of the 1812 war with Napoleon. - In the early 19th century, the French-speaking Russian nobility admired French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, seen then as unparallelled political and military strategist. But when his army invaded Russia in 1812, residents of Moscow preferred to torch their capital and leave it in ruins rather than surrender it to the hated Corsican general. Two hundred years after his death in exile on the remote Atlantic island of Saint Helena, Russians' views on the French emperor appear to be shifting again. (Photo by Dimitar DILKOFF / AFP)
