<p>A picture is worth a million words! The original graphic has been translated from French to English by ODTmaps' authors Ward Kaiser & Denis Wood, and modified to most effectively display the temperature data. The map is reproduced from page 74 of Seeing Through Maps ( see that title on AMAZON at amazon.com/Seeing-Through-Maps-Many-World/dp/1931057206. Edward Tufte says, this is...'probably the best statistical graphic ever drawn, this map by Charles Joseph Minard portrays the losses suffered by Napoleon's army in the Russian campaign of 1812. Beginning at the Polish-Russian border, the thick band shows the size of the army at each position. The path of Napoleon's retreat from Moscow in the bitterly cold winter is depicted by the dark lower band, which is tied to temperature and time scales.' From The Economist: Minard's chart shows six types of information: geography, time, temperature, the course and direction of the army's movement, and the number of troops remaining. The widths of the gold (outward) and black (returning) paths represent the size of the force, one millimetre to 10,000 men. Geographical features and major battles are marked and named, and plummeting temperatures on the return journey are shown along the bottom. The chart tells the dreadful story with painful clarity: in 1812, the Grand Army set out from Poland with a force of 422,000; only 100,000 reached Moscow; and only 10,000 returned. The detail and understatement with which such horrifying loss is represented combine to bring a lump to the throat. As men tried, and mostly failed, to cross the Bérézina river under heavy attack, the width of the black line halves: another 20,000 or so gone. The French now use the expression C'est la Bérézina to describe a total disaster. In 1871, the year after Minard died, his obituarist cited particularly his graphical innovations: For the dry and complicated columns of statistical data, of which the analysis and the discussion always require a great sustained mental effort, he had substituted images mathematically proportioned, that the first glance takes in and knows without fatigue, and which manifest immediately the natural consequences or the comparisons unforeseen. The chart shown here is singled out for special mention: it inspires bitter reflections on the cost to humanity of the madnesses of conquerors and the merciless thirst of military glory .</p>

Minard Map of Napoleons March on Moscow - Handouts 6x9. 25-pack

Charles Joseph Minard

Translated by ODTmaps.com

Reference

ODTmaps

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Books by Charles Joseph Minard

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Minard Map of Napoleons March on Moscow - Handouts 6x9. 25-pack