Wargaming Wednesday

This week in history found Napoleon being crowned Emperor by Pope Pius VII in 1804. Exactly a year later Napoleon showed his appreciation by kicking the pants off the Russians and Austrians at Austerlitz. As a result finding battles for this week in history is like shooting fish in a barrel. As a commemoration of the battle I’m including a map of the battle I found at the University of Texas.

But perhaps more importantly than even this is the graph that I recall when I think of Napoleon in Russia. The Minard Map is widely regarded as one of the finest examples of a graphical depiction of statistics ever created. In brief, it manages to encapsulate the size of Napoleon’s army at various points in his campaign toward Russia and his withdrawal along with the increasingly bitter temperatures he faced. The genius of the design is the simplicity with which he encapsulates nearly every relevant fact in a form that is easily understandable at a glance. If you’re not familiar with the map, or if you haven’t appreciated the brilliance of its design, I invite you to consider it.

The battle of Austerlitz

The Minard Map

Games to set the mood:

I count well over a dozen games at Boardgamegeek.com just on Austerlitz. That doesn’t include all the Napoleonic fodder available to Francophiles. However, I’ll cull that number to just a few to help set the mood.

Boardgames:

Austerlitz 1805: Napoleon's Greatest Victory
The Sun of Austerlitz
La Bataille d'Austerlitz (this one is a collector’s item but worth it if you can find it)

PC Games:

HPS has just released Campaign Austerlitz.
More broadly, Napoleon’s Russian Campaign is worth checking out.
Matrix Games’ Crown of Glory Emperor’s Edition gets a lot of praise.
Last but not least would be the suggestion to play AGEOD’s Napoleon’s Campaigns



By: GladiusMagnus