"Napoleon Wins Borodino" Topic

Let's play What If.

Napoleon wins big at Borodino, perhaps by following Davout's advice. The Russian army is too big to shatter like the Prussians in 1806, but it falls back, heavily damaged, perhaps having lost half its strength, likely limping away to the north and leaving the road to Moscow open.

What, if anything, changes?

Note that nothing changes with regard to the onset of Winter, nor does anybody invent an express train from Paris to Moscow. The meteorological and cartographic realities remain unchanged.

Personally, I don't see the outcome being any different, other than maybe there's no battle at the Beresina: those troops are saved in order to starve or freeze to death over the next three weeks.

(Count Peter Bezukov still gets rescued by a Cossack raid that sadly takes the life of young Petya Rostov.)

Decisive win huh? I'm sure that Alexander still doesn't give in so Moscow is still abandoned. Cant see much changing except the French have a larger army than they would.

If there is no Russian army to oppose him as it has been destroyed at Borodino (somewhat like at Austerlitz), would Napoleon have to retreat through the same devastated countryside that he originally advanced through?

He would still lose men on the retreat, but the size of the army now back in Poland would be much greater, and give Napoleon another crack at Russia in 1813 or react to the disaster unfolding in Spain.

No change, Napoleon can win, as he did by any margin but if Russia does not surrender, additional armies will still threaten the French supply lines. It would still only be a few months before Prussia and Austria changed sides. And th British would get closer to the French border.

no change – Boney would have to give up Moscow, the main question would be – how far would he retreat "unmolested" – to Somolensk, to Wilna?
He would have to hurry back to Paris and leave the army in dire conditions, to set things right in Paris.

"heavily damaged, perhaps having lost half its strength"

But this is exactly what historically happened.
If they decided to continue the Borodino battle on next morning, they probably lost all army.

How does a bigger win at Borodino affect the massive losses of men and horses by the Grand Army prior to the battle? How does it impact Russian forces that were not present.?

One possibility – albeit a long shot – with a big win at Borodino Napoleon marches into Moscow, declares victory, marches out a lot earlier and on the way back does something like make the Duchy of Warsaw into the Kingdom of Poland (adding a bunch of Russian territory and creating a bigger buffer state), gives the Austrians some land to make them happy (Galacia springs to mind) then turns his attention to resolving the Spanish ulcer

Just a thought

You can't eat victories. Nothing changes at Moscow.

Oh good! Another "what if?", and not about Waterloo.
Agree with most that little really changes, the only thing that occurred to me being the possibility of Napoleon following a southern, then western route rather than retracing exactly the same one (as noted by Desert Rat above). The scenario envisaged by Frederick is attractive, and I believe Napoleon said that one of his biggest mistakes was not issuing a proclamation freeing the Russian serfs. Perhaps he might have hoped for another insurrection, but it seems that Russian landowners drove their serfs eastwards like herds of brute animals. Either that, or devotion to their Czar and their God would have ensured another century of subjugation.

When the French got to Moscow the Russian rearguard fraternized with the French they thought the war was over, so if napoleon had shattered the Army and routed it even if it had got a lot away, equipment would have been lost the Russian army would have needed more equipment and might not have been in a position to fight again for months enabling Napoleon to perhaps chasing down routers capturing more Russian troops and exercised more pressure on the tsar after all he was susceptible to the advice of those around him and with and a demoralized Russian staff, poss Kutuzov killed or captured would have led to terms. But at least another less devastated route would have ensured more french surviving, a less aggressive pursuit and Russian armies not blocking napoleon army so again more troops surviving

The Russians would stilaFrench retreat. They ALSO would have been going on a route that they had not traveled before. No supplies stockpiled, no detailed knowledge of distances and where road lead to. How do you think that Napoleon could correspond with France, if they were having to travel without a connection to Paris? Another thing, the original and return route were on the "land bridge".They were traveling over the very head waters of the elevation divide. Further south there would be more and bigger rivers to cross and usually they were not frozen until very late in the retreat when the weather turned very cold.