This account of Napoleon's disastrous invasion of Russia, in the words of those who experienced it, offers "a brilliant insight into men at war" (David G. Chandler, author of The Campaigns of Napoleon ).

Hundreds of thousands of men set out on that midsummer day of 1812. None could have imagined the terrors and hardships to come.

They'd been lured all the way to Moscow without having achieved the decisive battle Napoleon sought--and by the time they reached the city, their numbers had already dwindled by more than a third. One of the greatest disasters in military history was in the making.

The fruit of more than twenty years of research, this superbly crafted work skillfully blends the memoirs and diaries of more than a hundred eyewitnesses, all of whom took part in the Grand Army's doomed march on Moscow, to reveal the inside story of this landmark military campaign. The result is a uniquely authentic account in which the reader sees and experiences the campaign through the eyes of participants in enthralling day-by-day, sometimes hour-by-hour detail.