S Shafer wrote: > Napoleon also had, at least at the beginning of his career, > more troops then any of his adversaries. His "technological" > feat decimated a whole generation of French men... Imagine > what GWB could do if he was able to force every american male > age 14-30 into the military (and then quickly dispell this > image from your mind because you'll have nightmares). There's a chilling (pun intended) map(1) that depicts Napoleon's March to and Retreat from Moscow. It shows the size of his army along the way. It speaks volumes. 400,000+ troops left Paris. 10,000 returned. What a waste. Granted, we no longer recruit troops to be literal cannon fodder, but <shudder>. Casey (1) http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/minard