It was easier than I thought, and apparently researching coordinates for 18th century place names is a suitably mindless and time-consuming pastime on 3 hours of sleep and insomnia.
I got two surprises out of the finished product, one cool and one sad.
Cool: I keep reading about the autumn military maneuvers Fritz held in Silesia, and you can watch them happen on this map! What you can't see on the map is that he kept going every year until his death, because in 1785 he famously insisted on sitting on his horse in the pouring rain for 6 hours reviewing the troops, and then got so sick he couldn't get out of bed the next day. That was the beginning of the one-year decline toward August 17, 1786.
Sad: The 1780s autumn maneuvers, aka Sir-Not-Appearing-In-This-Map. That's because the map turned out to be an inadvertently very poignant illustration of his emotional isolation. You may notice the itinerary gets less and less granular at the end, as his correspondents die off one by one. There's a sharp drop-off in volume after Voltaire goes in 1778 and Maria Antonia in 1780. :(
Which, of course, makes me even more annoyed that the transcription of his political correspondence cuts off in March 1782. I'm just not going to be able to put together a decent map after that date. Ditto before 1740, the data's just too sparse.
But what I've got so far is still cool! As approximations go, I'm pretty stoked about what I've put together. And proud, I have to admit. Do you think Old Fritz would be proud?
For my next trick, I'm planning to see how much work would be involved in wrangling the more granular data from his political correspondence, and then making a decision whether to proceed. :D
Re: Fritz chronological maps, or a labor of love
- 1740-1745
- 1745-1756
- 1756-1763
- 1763-1786
- And the granddaddy of all gifs: 1740-1786
It was easier than I thought, and apparently researching coordinates for 18th century place names is a suitably mindless and time-consuming pastime on 3 hours of sleep and insomnia.
I got two surprises out of the finished product, one cool and one sad.
Cool: I keep reading about the autumn military maneuvers Fritz held in Silesia, and you can watch them happen on this map! What you can't see on the map is that he kept going every year until his death, because in 1785 he famously insisted on sitting on his horse in the pouring rain for 6 hours reviewing the troops, and then got so sick he couldn't get out of bed the next day. That was the beginning of the one-year decline toward August 17, 1786.
Sad: The 1780s autumn maneuvers, aka Sir-Not-Appearing-In-This-Map. That's because the map turned out to be an inadvertently very poignant illustration of his emotional isolation. You may notice the itinerary gets less and less granular at the end, as his correspondents die off one by one. There's a sharp drop-off in volume after Voltaire goes in 1778 and Maria Antonia in 1780. :(
Which, of course, makes me even more annoyed that the transcription of his political correspondence cuts off in March 1782. I'm just not going to be able to put together a decent map after that date. Ditto before 1740, the data's just too sparse.
But what I've got so far is still cool! As approximations go, I'm pretty stoked about what I've put together. And proud, I have to admit.
Do you think Old Fritz would be proud?For my next trick, I'm planning to see how much work would be involved in wrangling the more granular data from his political correspondence, and then making a decision whether to proceed. :D