A quiz question · medium
Roughly what fraction of Napoleon's Grande Armée recrossed the frontier as an organised force after the 1812 Russian campaign?
Over 600,000 crossed in June; total losses to death, capture, and desertion approached half a million. Minard's famous chart draws the army's shrinkage.
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Napoleon's Invasion of Russia in 1812, Which Marched In With 600,000 Men and Staggered Out With a Remnant On 24 June 1812 the Grande Armée — over 600,000 men from a dozen nations — crossed the Niemen into Russia. Borodino was carnage, Moscow burned around them, and the winter retreat destroyed the army: barely a tenth recrossed the frontier. It broke Napoleon's empire and produced, in Minard's chart of the shrinking army, perhaps the most famous data graphic ever drawn.
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