
The Battle of Borodino, fought on September 7, 1812, was the largest and bloodiest single-day action of the French invasion of Russia, involving more than 250,000 troops and resulting in at least 70,000 casualties. It was a pivotal point in the campaign, as it was the last offensive action fought by Napoleon in Russia.
The small British Expeditionary Force, moving up into Belgium on the left flank of the French 5th Army, met with the full weight of the German 1st Army advancing towards Paris under the Schlieffen Plan. A short but intense fire fight - where the British caused heavy casualties to the thick masses of enemy infantry - was followed by a British withdrawal out of the canal salient. This manoeuvre was made more urgent by news that the French Army on the right flank was in retreat.
At Cambrai in November 1917, a tank force of over three hundred tanks punched a hole four miles deep into the German lines in the space of a single morning, But the Germans counter-attacked and the result of the battle was a virtual draw, with the front lines shifting slightly. However the battle of Cambrai marked a major turning point in the course of the war - as the era of trench warfare was coming to an end and technology was beginning to reign supreme on the battlefields of Europe.