Minards Chart

     This chart is a depiction of Napoleon's Russian campaign of 1812. Although the actual campaign was in 1812 the chart was created essentially half a century afterwards by Charles Joseph Minard. He was a French Civil engineer who worked on various things such as bridges, dams, and canals. He used the techniques he had learned over the many years of work to create the chart seen above.

     This chart is a marvel of information as it shows six different types of information at once; geography, time, temperature, the course and direction of the army movement, and the number of troops remaining. The gold line represents the troop's number and direction going outward and then the black line represents the troop's number and direction upon returning. This chart manages to show the absurdity of the number of men lost during this campaign. Napoleon had left with nearly 450,000 men but only returned with 10,000. It truly goes to show how devastating this was.

     Although I cannot say that I found this piece particularly moving, which is not the fault of the chart itself, I do find it fascinating. For both the quality and quality of the data and the data itself. In such a short form Minard is able to show the death/loss of over 400,000 thousand men, entirely dispassionately. At the same time, you realize how idiotic this campaign was in hindsight. While it’s hard to say that Napoleon was an idiot it comes into question as to what he thought when planning for this campaign. Without a doubt there are innumerable aspects to war that nobody could dissertation, but the weather being rough seemed predictable. Overall, this chart is and will most likely continue to be a statistical marvel.

https://bigthink.com/strange-maps/229-vital-statistics-of-a-deadly-campaign-the-minard-map/

https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/napoleon-invades-russia/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlb1uM_SOcE