The French invasion of Russia, known in Russia as the Patriotic War of 1812, and in France as the Russian Campaign , began on 24 June 1812 when Napoleon's Grande Armée crossed the Neman River in an attempt to engage and defeat the Russian army.
On 7 September, the French caught up with the Russian army which had dug itself in on hillsides before a small town called Borodino, seventy miles west of Moscow.
The 1812 Fire of Moscow broke out on September 14, 1812, when Russian troops and most of the remaining residents abandoned the city of Moscow just ahead of Napoleon's vanguard troops entering the city after the Battle of Borodino. The fire all but destroyed the city, which had been mostly abandoned by its residents the previous month...
