Mapping the Health of Military Campaigns
By Christopher Albon, January 1st, 2008,
In 1861, the French civil engineer Charles Joseph Minard published maps on Napoleon’s Russian campaign of 1812 and Hannibal’s campaign into Italy. In two dimensions, Minard’s maps convey the campaigning army’s location, direction and dwindling size, as well as the local temperature. Each map plots the course of the campaigning army on a geographical map with the width of the line depicting the size of the army at any given period. The tan line represents the offensive campaign, while the black line represents the retreat. The results are often cited as brilliant examples of the visual display of statistics. I enjoy them for another reason. There are dozens of maps and publications describing the weaponry, tactics, and leaders of the two campaigns. However, through Minard’s map, we are presented a different and rarer vision of war, determined as much by infectious disease and injury, as by gun, general, or siege.
Napoleon’s 1812 Campaign into Russia
Hannibal’s Campaign into Italy
Click the images to see the full maps.
P.S. Posters of the Napoleon map can be purchased here.
UPDATE: Commenter Timothy Jiggens points out last week’s economist has a great article on the power of data visualization. Check it out here (subscription possibly required).
Christopher is a Ph.D. student at the University of California, Davis. His research focuses explores the relationship between armed conflict and public health. He lives in San Francisco with his wife Jen. Read more about him at his website.
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January 4th, 2008 at 3:50 pm
Sir
Followed the link from MountainRunner’s article on SWJ Blog (I hope you’re also familiar with Thomas Barnett). As an officer in the US Public Health Service, I’m looking forward to seeing how this blog develops. Saw these maps in The Economist last week, found them very interesting as well, you might well consider linking to the informative article, or otherwise noting where you saw them.
January 4th, 2008 at 4:06 pm
Good catch Tim. I actually stumbled upon the map on a flyer for Edward Tufte’s course “Presenting Data and Information”. After your comment I glanced through a few recent copies of the economist but couldn’t find the article. If you can find it online I’d love to link to it. Also, if you know of any similar maps pass them along!
January 4th, 2008 at 4:08 pm
Ooops nevermind, I found it. Linking now.