The Terrible Fate of Napoleon's Army in Russia:
        1812 

        

 


        Based on the classic map of Charles Joseph Minard
        drawn in 1861, this animation portrays the devastating
        losses suffered in Napoleon's Russian campaign of 1812, 
and was constructed as an exercise to show the efficacy of the Web in imparting lots of information using relatively simple tools, and to learn GIF animation techniques and various graphics applications.



        The width of the band indicates the size of the army as
        it marched toward Moscow and then retreated to Poland. 
        Beginning on the Polish-Russian border near the Niemen
        River, Napoleon's army of 422,000 men invaded Russia in
        June 1812. In October, the army reached Moscow, which was
        by then sacked and deserted, with 100,000 men. It was a
        bitterly cold winter, and many men froze on the march out
        of Russia. The army finally struggled back into Poland
        with only 10,000 men remaining. Overall, the temperature
        on the march, indicated by color, varied greatly, as the
        troops had to deal with, at times, a 95-degree sun
        beating down on them and, at other times,
        negative-30-degree freezing cold. 
        

        
(This animation will cycle 10 times.) 
          
   

   
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