摘要：HListory puts current physical casualties in context. In 1 861,the French civil engineer Charles Minard published: a brlliant,if misleading,graphic of losses from Napoleon's army during its hellish round trip from the Polish border to Moscow and back,1812 to 1 813. Most non-historians today know of this chart through Edward R. Tufte's classic,The Visual Display of Quantitative Information. The subzero cold prevailing during the retreat from Moscow rivets attention,both because of the black,dramatically thick,but rapidly thinning line drawn westward across a mapofRussia to graphically represent troopstrength during the winter retreat,and points out that Napoleon lost two-thirds of his 400,000-plus army,primarily t如heat,disease,and starvation before reaching Borodino,not far from Moscow. One can sce this staggeringattritionduring the approach march in Minard's graphic,if you look for it past the eye- catching,"it was notBonapartes fault' visual narmative. B utone needn't go so far back as Napoleonic warfare to see whata hostile physical environment can do to an army: during World War II in North Africa,far famed Rommel had twice as many troops in hospital forsickness as killed,wounded,or missing.
