Carte Figurative!

This is coolbert:

Thanks to the tip from Steve a graph that illustrates in a manner easily understandable to all - - the catastrophe as suffered by the Grand Army of Napoleon, 500,000 man strong when embarking on the invasion or Russia - - 1812 - - ONLY 30,000 returning alive!!

[approximately 430,000 of that 500,000 man Grand Army actually participated on the march to Moscow. About 300,000 were killed during the campaign, their bodies being cremated, 100,000 captured, 30,000 returning to point of origin!!]

A catastrophe of the worst possible proportions, the most powerful and to that point in history probably the largest army ever assembled, commanded by arguably the most able general of all time, annihilated. Those surviving having faced an ordeal without parallel!

Click on the "graph" to see a full resolution image!

That portion of the graph [in tan color] shows the march

TOWARD Moscow, the diminishing size of the army most evident.

That portion of the graph [in black] shows the even much more

diminished size of the army during the march FROM Moscow.

With regard to the bottom-most portion of the graph, showing temperatures:

"The figures which Fezensac gives here are most probably degrees

below zero in the Reaumur scale, still widely used In the period;

they would corresponds to temperatures ranging from -3 degrees

to -25 degrees Fahrenheit. Actually the cold was often much

more severe in late November and early December

than Fezensac indicates. Several times the temperature dropped

below -40 degrees Fahrenheit."

This too from the book by M. de Fezensac [French officer who survived the march to and from Moscow]:

After only one month into the Russian campaign, according to Fezensac:

"those of reflective temperament and the experienced officers were not without some concern. They had seen the army dwindle by A THIRD [my emphasis] since the passage of the Niemen with scarcely any fighting, simply through the impossibility of providing for its subsistence in any regular fashion, and through the difficulty in obtaining anything [food primarily], even by pillage"

Of those French army troops invading Russia, within one month ONE-THIRD had "melted away" without any serious combat having been fought!!

"generals think logistics, lieutenants think tactics!"

coolbert.