Naval War College Review Volume 65 Article 10 Number 4 Autumn 2012 German War Gaming Milan Vego Follow this and additional works at: https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/nwc-review Recommended Citation Vego, Milan (2012) "German War Gaming," Naval War College Review: Vol. 65 : No. 4 , Article 10. Available at: https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/nwc-review/vol65/iss4/10 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at U.S. Naval War College Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Naval War College Review by an authorized editor of U.S. Naval War College Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Vego: German War Gaming GERMAN WAR GAMING Milan Vego A tedious war game is the grave of interest. GENERAL ALBERT KARL FRIEDRICH WILHELM VON BOGUSLAWSKI (1834–1905) he Germans invented and developed the modern war game. By the end of the Tnineteenth century, the German-style Kriegsspiel had been adopted in most of the major militaries of the day. In the interwar years (1919–39), the Germans greatly increased the number and diversity of war games, which collectively became one of the main means of educating and training future commanders and their staffs at all levels. Prior to and during World Dr. Milan Vego has been a professor in the Joint Mili- War II, the Germans proved to be masters of the use tary Operations Department at the U.S. Naval War College, Newport, Rhode Island, since August 1991. of war games throughout the chain of command for A native of Bosnia and Herzegovina, he obtained po- rehearsing plans for pending and future operations. litical asylum in the United States in 1976. Dr. Vego In peacetime, they used war games to test the validity has been an adjunct professor at the Defense Intel- ligence College (1984–91) and a senior fellow at the of new doctrinal documents and for force planning. Center for Naval Analyses in Alexandria, Virginia Though German methods of organizing and executing (1985–87), and at the former Soviet Army Studies Office, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas (1987–89). He war games cannot and should not be blindly followed, earned a BA (1970) in modern history and an MA in yet many aspects of their practice could be successfully U.S./Latin American history (1973) at the University applied today. Moreover, the role and importance of of Belgrade and his PhD in European history from the George Washington University (1981). He holds war gaming should be greatly enhanced in the present a license as a master mariner. Dr. Vego has published era of smaller forces and shrinking financial resources. eight books, including the textbooks Operational Warfare (2001) and Joint Operational Warfare: Theory and Practice (2008; reprint 2009), and The THE ROOTS Battle for Leyte, 1944: Allied and Japanese Plans, The rudiments of war games go back to the Gupta Preparations, and Execution, plus numerous articles Empire (AD 320–550) in India, where a chesslike game, in professional journals. He published his most recent 1 book, Operational Warfare at Sea: Theory and Prac- chaturanga, was invented. (Some other sources say tice, in December 2008. that a chesslike game, xianggi, originated in China.) In the seventh century AD, chaturanga was adopted © 2012 Dr. Milan Vego Naval War College Review, Autumn 2012, Vol. 65, No. 4 in Sassanid Persia (AD 224–651) as chatrang. After Published by U.S. Naval War College Digital Commons, 2012 1 NWC_Autumn2012Review.indd 106 8/20/12 11:28 AM Naval War College Review, Vol. 65 [2012], No. 4, Art. 10 VEGO 107 the Arab conquest of Persia in the seventh century, this game became known in Arabic as shatranj. In the ninth century, shatranj found its way to Byzantium.2 The North African Moors spread a derivative of shatranj to the Iberian Peninsula. Around 822 the emir of Córdoba, in Andalusia, was introduced to the game by a Persian Muslim.3 This game became known as ajedrez in Spanish, xadres in Portuguese, and zatrikion in Greek. The game was introduced to Western Europe generally by Muslim merchants; its Arabic name was replaced by the Persian shah (king), or shah mat (the king is dead), eventually becoming “check” or “chess” in English. The game spread to Switzerland in 997, the northern part of Christian- dominated Spain in 1008, southern Germany in 1050, and central Italy in 1061. By 1200, the game had been adopted in Britain and Scandinavia.4 “Courier chess” was played in Germany at the beginning of the thirteenth cen- tury.5 It was first mentioned in the great Arthurian romance Wigalois, by Wirnt von Gravenberg, in 1202.6 Courier chess was described in some detail in a travel account by Kunrat von Ammenhausen in 1337.7 In 1616, Duke August II of Brauenschweig-Wolfenbuettel (or Lueneburg, 1579–1666) published under the pseudonym “Gustavus Selenus” Das Schack- oder Koenig-Spiel (Chess Game or King’s Game), in which he gave a detailed description of courier chess as taught in schools and played in the small village of Strobeck. In 1644, Christopher Weikmann of Ulm, in Bavaria, invented a modi- fied game of chess, which he explained in his Neu-erfundenes grosses Koenig-Spiel (Newly Invented Great King’s Game).8 Each player had thirty pieces, and each piece had fourteen different fixed moves, similar to those in modern chess.9 Weikmann’s game, called “war” (or “military”) chess, was designed to serve not only as a pastime but also as a means of studying the military and political prin- ciples of the time. Weikmann’s game was extremely popular among Germans.10 A significant development came in 1780, when Dr. Johann Christian Ludwig Helwig, master of pages at the court of the Duke of Brunswick, invented the “King’s Game” (Koenigspiel). Helwig’s game used a modified chessboard with 1,666 squares, in various colors, each color representing a certain terrain fea- ture, such as flat ground, mountain, marshes, forests, lakes or ponds, a building, villages, etc. A dotted line divided the chessboard into two camps and marked the frontier between them.11 As in chess, each piece was named for a character common in the political and military world of the day (king or marshal, colonel, captain, lieutenant, chancellors, heralds, knights, couriers, adjutants, bodyguards, halberdiers, and private soldiers).12 The King’s Game was meant to encourage young noblemen to think about important military questions and to teach them basic elements of military art and science.13 Helwig’s game became very popular in Germany and was quickly introduced by the militaries in France, Austria, and Italy.14 https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/nwc-review/vol65/iss4/10 2 NWC_Autumn2012Review.indd 107 8/20/12 9:22 AM 108 NAVAL WAR COLLEGE REVIEWVego: German War Gaming The “New War Game” Between 1780 and 1824 occurred several significant developments in military gaming. In 1797, Georg Venturini, a military theoretician and tactician from Schleswig, invented the “New War Game” (Neue Kriegsspiel).15 It was based on Helwig’s game but with much more numerous, detailed, and complex rules.16 A year later Venturini transferred the game from the chessboard to a chart, thereby converting it into something that could be further developed.17 By 1804 his game had undergone several revisions. Venturini expanded Helwig’s grid system to 3,600 squares, each representing one square mile and colored to indicate the ter- rain within it. In contrast to other games then in use, Venturini’s used stylized maps and so represented a major change from the rigid chessboard.18 This advance was made possible by the recent advent of precise maps. In 1727 the Dutch engineer Nicholas Cruquius had drawn the bed of the Merwede River with lines of equal depth (isobaths) at intervals of one fathom; a French geogra- pher, Philippe Buache, had used a similar method, with ten-fathom intervals, in a chart of the English Channel prepared in 1737 and published in 1752. The same technique had thereafter been adapted to the terrain maps.19 In Venturini’s game, pieces and moves approximated the ordinary marches of troops. The terrain was not fictional but represented actual territory between France and Belgium. A sixty-page rule book governed reinforcements and lo- gistics.20 The playing pieces represented not only infantry and cavalry but also various supporting arms and equipment. Venturini even included restrictions on movement during winter months and incorporated the effects of proper support and provisioning of combat arms.21 His game gained popularity in Germany, Austria, and Italy.22 In 1811 a Prussian counselor at Breslau, Georg Leopold Baron von Reisswitz, devised a war game on a sand table, with terrain modeled to the scale of 1 : 2,373. The game was described in his Anleitung zu einer mechanischen Vorrichtung um taktische Manoevers sinnlich darzustellen (Introduction to a Mechanical Gadget to Sensory Depiction of the Tactical Maneuver). Reisswitz’s game had a maximum of ten players on each side, neither side knowing about the moves of the other.23 Troops were represented by squares of wood on which pasted symbols indicated various branches of service.24 Reisswitz’s game was played in a way similar to previous games, except that the movement of the troops was not restricted to chessboard squares; maneuvering and the marching of columns were much more realistic than before.25 Reisswitz also used a realistic-looking terrain. The game was directed by an umpire, or referee, known as a Vertrauter (confidant), with several assistants. The umpire determined the course of the game after evaluating movements and adjudicating decisions made by the players.