Analyzing Minard's Visualization of Napoleon's 1812 March (2014)

Analyzing Minard's Visualization of Napoleon's 1812 March (2014)(thoughtbot.com)

19 points by DJPocari 5 years ago | 8 comments

smogcutter 5 years ago |

Blog posts about this graph surface every so often. They all say about the same thing, and all (that I’ve seen) miss the same thing.

What’s the biggest piece of information missing from the graph? The Russians!

Minard’s visualization presents the campaign as if it’s a natural disaster or act of god. One man’s hubris against nature, with a tragic, inevitable outcome. Russian participation not required.

To pick an example, the dogleg near the beginning of the French retreat is the battle of Maloyaroslavets, where the Russians prevented the French from turning south into warmer weather and unspoiled countryside. The diagram labels the battle, but without other information it’s an arbitrary waypoint.

I’m not arguing the merits of the diagram’s point of view either way, but it’s worth observing that it has one.

tgtweak 5 years ago |

That mingard graphic is right up there with Sankey diagram in terms of novel and efficient conveyance of data in an infographic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sankey_diagram#/media/File:JIE...

Daub 5 years ago | |

Thanks, for pointing me to that. I was not aware of the Sankey diagram. As I understand it, both these diagrams employ the same device: arrow width to represent an extra dimension.

To my mind, the pie chart and the histogram are top of the pops in terms of classic visualization. Not sure where my life would be without histograms (I edit images).

Daub 5 years ago |

An elegant masterpiece of information visualization. The dwindling size of Napoleons army, their progress into Russia and the temperature all expressed in one simple graphic. I reference this in class when teaching motion graphics.

ArturHere 5 years ago |

The article has many incorrect points describing the situation around the battle.

Napoleon was not simply attacking the Tsar. It was the Russian Tsar who claimed to stop anti-monarchy freedom spread in Europe and planned to invade France. The same is true for European Coalitions that had had place before the French-Russian war. Napoleon moved the battles out of France.

The rest information, including troop quantity, is presented in the inaccurate manner.

mannykannot 5 years ago | |

That is a very idiosyncratic view of the struggle. At the start of the invasion, Bonaparte occupied most of Europe south of the Baltic, from Spain to Poland, and while the Russian government would doubtless have preferred to depose him, it was in no position to do so. The more conventional story is that Bonaparte wanted to force Russia into his 'continental system' of embargoing and isolating Britain.

And if you are going to claim that the rest of the information is inaccurate, you should be specific and explain your position.

ArturHere 5 years ago | | |

Let us answer on the question “What is the anti-French Coallition?”. It is the union of countries that had the primary goal to return monarchy to the power in France. The coalition included UK, Germany, Austria, Holland, Russia. When did the first Coalition started? In 1792.

When Napoleon did gain power in France? In 1799. So the anti-republican wars started before his actions.

How many anti-French coalitions there were? Eight!

The European rulers were frightened to death about revolution spread in their countries and started the wars against France. The goal of Bourbon Restoration was temporary achieved only in 1814.

Now, the article claims that Russia started the war against France because the Tsar did not want to join the England blockade. Really? :) England had been fighting France for 20 years, blocking each other economically. Russian forces already had had many battles against France before 1812, and the country was in the first Coalition. Here we go, a conventional story where “bloody Napoleon was terrifying the whole Europe”.

The fear of revolution against slavery in some countries were not theoretical. Russia was under peasants mutiny during the Napoleon wars. The Tsar savagely choked the rebellion movements.

The history should be based on facts.

ghaff 5 years ago |

Leaving aside any specific criticisms, an interesting aspect of this graphic is that it highlights the contrast between simplistic graphics and those that reward some study. I din't actually expect that most publications would publish this simply because it takes some work to really grok.