M. A.

Conflict Studies

British War-Gaming, 1870-1914

Christopher Yi-Han Choy

King’s ID 1261533

Supervisor: Dr. Ahron Bergman

Submission: 30 August 2013

Word Count: 13,085

Declaration
1
This work is the sole work of the author, and has not been accepted in any previous application
for a degree; all quotations and sources of information have been acknowledged.

Signed: Christopher Yi-Han Choy

Date: 30 August 2013

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Abstract

The 18th century saw the confluence of sciences, mathematical theory and military
strategy in a singular product unprecedented in intellectual history, the creation of military
simulation, which strived to emulate the conditions of the battlefield on maps with
representational models underpinned by a mathematical framework. While the concept of
abstracting strategy using representational models is a concept as old as human civilisation, it was
George Leopold von Reiswitz who conceived applying the abstractions of chess-style war-games
to a concrete military framework which would reflect the realities of contemporary warfare and
be supported by corresponding mathematical data. A century of development and widespread
adoption of these simulations, known as war-games, and the resulting extrapolation of this idea
led to the fields of Operational Research adopted by Britain in the Second World War, and the
widespread use of simulation in the modern world in fields far beyond the military scope
Reiswitz imagined; what Philipp von Hilgers described as the ‘most effective and fateful concept
the twentieth century produced in order to master its crises.’ While histories of the Prussian and
German war-gaming tradition and development are detailed and widespread, the history of war-
gaming in Britain is less well documented. This paper will chart the adoption and use of war-
gaming in the British military in the late Victorian and Edwardian period.

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Contents

1. The Dawn of Simulation

Reiswitz, Elder and Younger 6

Probability Applied to War 8

The Watershed War 10

2. War-Gaming in the British Army

The British Kriegsspiel, 1872 13

Spenser Wilkinson, War-Game Pioneer 17

The Victorian Army’s 1896 War Game 19

Polemos, A New Game of War 20

Chamberlain’s New Game of Invasion 22

J.M. Grierson and the British Army 1905 War Game 23

Bellum, A 1909 Kriegsspiel 27

3. War-Gaming in the Royal Navy

Early Naval Wargaming and Colomb’s The Duel 31

Chamberlain and The Naval Blockade 32

Fred T. Jane and the Naval Wargame 34

4. Conclusion: The Outside Context Problem

5. Bibliography

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 1. The Dawn of Simulation

The 18th century saw the confluence of sciences, mathematical theory and military
strategy in a singular product unprecedented in intellectual history, the creation of military
simulation, which strived to emulate the conditions of the battlefield on maps with
representational models underpinned by a mathematical framework. While the concept of
abstracting strategy using representational models is as old as human civilisation, it was George
Leopold von Reiswitz who conceived applying the abstractions of chess-style war-games to a
concrete military framework which would reflect the realities of contemporary warfare and be
supported by corresponding mathematical data. A century of development and widespread
adoption of these simulations, known as war-games, and the resulting extrapolation of this idea
led to the fields of Operational Research adopted by Britain in the Second World War, and the
widespread use of simulation in the modern world in fields far beyond the military scope
Reiswitz imagined; what Philipp von Hilgers described as the ‘most effective and fateful concept
the twentieth century produced in order to master its crises.’1 While histories of the Prussian and
German war-gaming tradition and development are detailed and widespread, the history of war-
gaming in Britain is less well documented. This paper will chart the adoption and use of war-
gaming in the British military in the late Victorian and Edwardian period.

The year 1870 was not only a watershed for Prussia and for the subsequent balance of
power in Europe, but also marked the beginning of the rise of war-gaming from an obscure
Prussian hobby to a standard practice in all militaries of the world. Prussia, long regarded as a
second-rate military power had in the space of a few years crushed the Austrians at Sadowa,1866,

1Philipp von Hilgers, Benjamin Ross trans. War Games, a History of War on Paper (London: MIT Press,
2012), ix.

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and the French at Sedan and Metz, 1870, the two pre-eminent Continental powers of the day, to
establish the German Empire and render the sobriquet ‘Prussian’ synonymous with military
effectiveness2. Vera Riley and John Young ascribe a significant factor of Prussian success to their
war-gaming3, as does von Trier who ascribes an ‘unequalled mastery’ which ‘arose there with
respect to both war machines and mathematics.’4 Therefore it is necessary to delve momentarily
into the genesis of war-gaming in the Prussian crucible to understand their historical context in
relation to the period and their purpose; as no British war-gaming tradition existed independent
prior to the introduction of Reiswitz’s Kriegsspiel, it must thus be upon it the foundations of the
Prussian tradition we build our study of British war-gaming upon.

Reiswitz the Elder and Younger

Leopold von Reiswitz’s contribution to the development of an entirely novel semiotic

method of operation has been largely glossed over by history. While the concept of representing
military units on an abstract field was not a new concept- chess-like war-games were widespread
in early 18th century Prussia, notably Johann Venturini ‘s 1797 Krieges-Spiel and Johann Hellwig’s
1803 Kriegsspiel, Reiswitz’ contribution was to innovate the playing board on which the war-game
took place on, abandoning the grid system of chess-style war-games for a three-dimensional,
scale map of terrain, which could be re-arranged to reflect different scenarios. A brief diversion
into the history of cartography is necessary, as Reiswitz’s innovation was only made possible by
advances in map-making in the late 17th century. The development of scientific war-gaming is
closely tied to the improvements in survey techniques and representation of features on
topographical maps in the preceding years. The most common form of map in the 18th century
remained the cadastral map, which mainly focused on the political landscape and salient
geographical features of cities, roads and rivers, without properly scaled topography.5 Accurate
topographical surveys were an achievement of the 18th century which had significant
consequences for military planning, and created the possibility of far more accurate simulation of
reality in war-gaming. The first accurate topographical survey of France was begun in 1670 by
Cassini and completed in 1789 by his grand-son, which triggered a vogue for map-making in
Europe- the British Ordnance Survey was commissioned in 1790 to produce a similar accurate
national map to scale.6 With the introduction of scaled maps in war-gaming, one is able to

2 And consequently the attendant stereotypes of efficiency, discipline and severity. The negative
connotations of dullness and lack of imagination came later.
3 Vera Riley and John P. Young. Bibliography on War Gaming (Maryland: John Hopkins, 1957). xiii
4 Hilgers (2012), ix.
5 Jon Peterson. Playing at the World (San Diego: Unreason Press, 2012) p. 218.
6 Ralph E. Ehrenberg. Mapping the World (Washington DC: National Geographic Press, 2005) p. 149

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represent the actual distances a body of troops are able to travel in reality, and the ranges at
which their weapons function. Scale is a tool which binds the rule-set to reality, and enables the
mathematical calculation of previous abstractions.7 The introduction of scale empowers the
transition of a game of war into something entirely unprecedented: a simulation.

Much like the Cassinis’ undertaking, the von Reiswitz Kriegsspiel was a generational
endeavour started by the elder von Reiswitz, Leopold von Reiswitz, in 1809. Prussia, at the time
under the heel of Napoleonic dominion, was experiencing a strong undercurrent of patriotic
militarism, and war-games were a popular endeavour especially in the Prussian metropolis of
Wroclaw (Breslau), where the elder von Reiswitz resided as a Kriegs-und-domanenrath, a manner of
civilian war counsellor to the Prussian court. Leopold himself was an avid war-gamer from youth
and familiar with contemporary Prussian war-games, notably Hellwigg’s Kriegsspiel, which he had
access to from relations with local nobility.8 Building upon criticisms of unrealistic representation
of terrain in existing war-games, Leopold invented a war-gaming board with a sand table in lieu
of grid squares, in the scale 1:2,373, with wooden blocks to represent troops.9 A presentation to
the Prussian princes in 1811 impressed them sufficiently to grant him an audience with the King,
Friedrich Wilhelm III, but he insisted on refining the board and presented a polished version of
the war-game with tiled terrain and playing pieces in a neat cupboard.10 The game was well
received at court but developments on the continent proved a distraction from war gaming with
the defeat of Napoleon. It fell to his son, Johann von Reiswitz, a lieutenant in the Prussian
Guard Artillery and recipient of the Iron Cross in the recent Napoleonic conflict, to further
develop and refine the system. Johann’s stated aim was to produce a ‘realistic pictures of events’
on the battlefield, and hoped to reflect the uncertainties of real combat. 11 The sand-table tiled
terrain was replaced by topographical maps in a 1:8000 scale, details corresponding to realistic
military operations were added, an umpire was introduced, and most vitally, the system of
combat was revamped to be based on probability rather than a discussion. As Johann addressed:

Anyone who has observed the effect of fire power at the artillery ranges will know
that the results achieved can differ considerably, even when circumstances are the same...
If, therefore, we were to give fixed results for fire effect we would arrive at a very
unnatural situation... Only when the player has the same sort of uncertainty over results as

7 Peterson (2012), p. 220.

8 Georg Leopold von Reiswitz in Bill Leeson (trans.) Von Reiswitz Kriegsspiel, (Hemel Hampstead: Self
Published, 1989), vi.
9 Peterson (2012), p. 224.
10 Militar-Wochenblatt, 1874 no. 73 in Bill Leeson, The Reiswitz Story: Five articles from the Militair

Wochenblatt, The War Game Library (1988), p. 2.

11Reiswitz in Leeson (1989), vi.

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 he would have in the field can we be confident that the Kriegsspiel will give a helpful insight
into manoeuvring on the field.12

Johann’s system thus incorporated an entirely unprecedented method of calculating combat

results: probability and statistics, representing a break with the chess-style war-games of the past,
and Hellwig’s war-game, where ‘nothing depends on chance.’13

Probability Applied to War

Probability as a mathematical discipline was still a relatively new concept, dating back to
Cardano’s Liber de ludo aleae in 1663, and its practical application, statistics, an 18th century
formulation.14 Attempts to apply mathematics to warfare were prevalent in Prussian academic
circles; a royal ordinance of 1790 observed that mathematics ‘exerts a particular influence on
military things, on tactics and on all of the operations of war.’15 Venturini himself authored
several works on mathematical appliqué to warfare, but the outstanding example remains Gerard
von Scharnhorst’s work Uber die Wirkung des Feuergewehrs (1813) “On the Effect of Firearms”,
which attempted to infer from empirical data a mathematical model of probability for the effect
of various firearms at various distances.16 While the methods and mathematical extrapolations
may seem simplistic from a modern perspective- most of his empirical data resulted from
shooting cannon and muskets at a brick wall from various distances and then counting the
resultant hits- this was possibly the first study of its kind to attempt to quantify the various
effectiveness of modern firearms using statistical models. Johann von Reiswitz cites Scharnhorst’
work as his primary inspiration and model for his use of probability in determining combat
results, and forms the basis for ‘the cumulative effect of artillery bombardment, or small arms
fire, for given intervals of time, along with the effects of terrain, the minimum and maximum
effective range of guns and the decline in performance over increasing distances’ in his
Kriegsspiel.17 By introducing the element of unpredictability and statistical probability to
calculations of combat in his war-game, based on statistical probabilities derived from empirical
results, Reiswitz creates a far more realistic dimension of combat compared to the pre-
determined outcomes of chess-style war-games.

12 Ibid, p. 6.
13 Ibid, p. 9.
14 Deborah J. Bennett, Randomness (Cambridge: HUP, 1999). xii
15 Peterson (2012), p. 233.
16 Gerard von Scharnhorst, Uber die Wirkung des Feuergewehrs (Osnabruck: Biblio Verlag, 1973) p. 1.
17 Peterson (2012), p. 234.

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 The efforts of the von Reiswitz dynasty may have remained in obscurity if not for two
incidences of history, one which may have precipitated the other. Johann von Reiswitz continued
his work playing and refining his Kriegsspiel in the 1820s and in 1824 was invited by Prince
Wilhelm to demonstrate the revised war-game to the King and the Prussian General Staff,
childhood nostalgia for the elder von Reiswitz’ game probably a significant motivation.18 The
Chief of the General Staff, von Muffling, himself an enthusiastic cartographer and topographical
surveyor, was initially sceptical, but soon became absorbed in the game and declared at the end
enthusiastically ‘this is not a game! This is training for war! I must recommend it to the whole
army.’19 Holding true to his word, he published the following notice in the foremost Prussian
military journal Militar Wochenblatt in February 1842:

There have already been a number of previous attempts to represent warfare in

such a way as to provide both instruction and entertainment... they have always left a large
gap between the serious business of warfare and the more frivolous demands of a game...
after years of trial, an officer has pursued the topic begun by his father, and has so much
extended it that warfare can actually be represented in a simple and lively way... I will gladly
assist in seeing the number of available copies augmented... the further distribution and
knowledge of the game will earn him the thanks of the whole army.20

This endorsement from the highest echelons of the Prussian military establishment led to a
vogue for the von Reiswitz Kriegsspiel, attracting many adherents, not least the young Helmuth
von Moltke. Despite the death of its creator in 182721, Kriegsspiel became a staple of Prussian
military education for the next forty years. Many variations and improvements on the rules were
published, notably the Tschichwitz revision in 1867 which introduced rifled artillery, and three
revisions from von Trotha in 1869. Scenarios were constantly discussed in the Militar Wochenblatt,
and gaming clubs were formed throughout Prussia. Yet war-gaming might have remained an
obscure Prussian hobby if not for the seminal events of 1866 and 1870, where the Prussian army
defeated the foremost Continental powers of the day, Austria and France, in quick succession,
helmed by the avid war-gamer von Moltke. In hindsight, the antiquated, ill-disciplined armies of

18 The cupboard version of Kriegspiel had seen much use in the Royal Household.
19 General der Infanterie z.D. Dannhauer, ‘Das Reisswitzche Kriegsspiel von seinen Beginn bis zum Tode
des Erfinders, 1827,’ “The Reisswitz Wargame from the Beginning to the Death of Its Inventor, 1827’
Militar Wochenblatt, 1874, no.56. in Leeson (trans.) (1989).
20 General von Muffling, ‘Anzeige’, Militair Wochenblatt, 1824, no. 42, in Leeson (1989).
21 Johann von Reiswitz apparently possessed a lively personality, and was given to making insalubrious

comments on the military personages playing his wargame- and given that they mostly were of higher
rank than him, he made sufficient enemies to be exiled to a distant outpost of the Prussian Empire in
Torgau. Despondent, he shot himself in 1827.

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Austria and poorly-led French armies seem to us invariably fated to defeat by superior Prussian
discipline, military leadership, and rifled Krupp steel artillery, but in 1870 their defeats came as a
shock as Prussia had long been considered a second-rate military power; Friedrich Engels in
1866 derided it as ‘a peace army, with the pedantry and martinetism inherent to all peace armies.
No doubt a great deal has been done latterly, especially since 1859, to get rid of this, but the
habits of forty years are not so easily eradicated.’22 One such habit of forty years was Kriegsspiel,
and in lieu of other reasonable but far harder to discern explanations of Prussian military success,
such as accurate, long-distance artillery or brilliant staff work by the Prussian General Staff, the
military establishments of the world latched upon the Prussian predilection for war-games as the
crux of their success.

The Watershed War

How important, really, was Kriegsspiel to the military effectiveness of the Prussian army?
Spencer Wilkinson claimed in 1887 that nearly all the officers of distinction in the Prussian army
were connected in some form to a Kriegsspiel club, with Konigsberg, the headquarters of the 1st
Army Corps, being one of the foremost clubs.23 Von Moltke himself founded the Magdeburg
War-Gaming Club in 1828 and remained an enthusiast even after he ascended to the position of
Chief of the General Staff, although as Peterson ruminates, one can only speculate whether
Kriegsspiel ‘improved his military genius or merely delighted it’.24 That Kriegsspiel was very much
the vogue in Prussian military circles is not in question; did it contribute to their victory,
however? While the defeats of the Austrian and French armies no doubt were to a large extent
self-inflicted, through their inferior weaponry and poor discipline in the case of the Austrians25,
and inferior artillery and poor leadership in the case of the French26, there remains no doubt the
Prussians were far better led and prepared strategically- Kriegsspiel must have contributed in
preparing officers for command and it became apparent that war-gaming was an excellent tool
for training leadership as well as conceiving and testing strategy.

The Reiswitzian Kriegsspiel represented a departure from previous war-games which

proceeded from analogical frameworks, abstracting terrain and temporality and certainty in the

22 Friedrich Engels, Manchester Guardian, June 20, 1866.

23 Spencer Wilkinson, Essays on the Wargame (Manchester: Manchester Tactical Society, 1887)
Introduction.
24 Peterson (2012), p. 243.
25 Geoffrey Wawro, The Austro-Prussian War: Austria's War with Prussia and Italy in 1866 (Cambridge:

CUP, 1997) xii.

26 Christopher Clark. Iron Kingdom: The Rise And Downfall of Prussia, 1600–1947 (Harvard: Harvard

University Press, 2006) p 237.

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outcomes of conflict. However aware of Clausewitzian dictums the creators may have been, the
Reiswitz Kriegsspiel introduced the fog of war, friction and uncertainty into war-gaming as well as
empirical measurement of distances and the effect of fire-power. The consequence is a game
where players are less restricted in the actions they can take and may thus freely influence events,
but yet are still limited by conditions within the game. This, and determinations by an impartial
umpire to adhere to reality, best approximates the experience of a field commander who
constantly struggles against uncertainty and has to make decisions based on available
information. Judging probabilities to achieve a set outcome, through the variation of a set of
inputs within the constraints of parameters, is the essence of simulation: to arrive at a probable
outcome helpful to the decision making process. The creation of military simulation by melding
accurate topography with statistical models of combat, supported by empirical probability has
had no antecedent in academic history, and the logical extrapolation of which represents the
dawning of the age of simulation in the following centuries. We now may progress to the
pertinent question: how did Britain adapt to this new discovery in the following decades?

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 2. War-Gaming in the British Army

Colonel L.O. Solbert, the American military attaché in London, writing in 1920
equanimously prefaced his observations on the military system he had been privy to with the
caveat: ‘there is probably no more complex and complicated organization in the world than the
British Army.’27 With its byzantine rivalries, inscrutable traditions and complex regimental
system, the British Army to the uninitiated was less a monolithic institution like the Imperial
German Army than a rough collection of warring tribes united by loyalty to a shared sovereign-
and this after a half century of reforms and the experience of the First World War. From 1854 to
1904 the British Army was subject to a constant barrage of reformation: no fewer than 567 Royal
Commissions and committees were organised to attempt to improve the various perceived flaws
in its structure and performance, culminating in the establishment of a General Staff and the
Committee of Imperial Defence.28 While the vogue for Prussian military standards post 1870
meant the Cardwell reforms attempted to introduce a Germanic model to the British Army and
were largely successful: short service, the creation of the Army Reserve, and the linking of
battalions were implemented but a General Staff on the Prussian model was not implemented
until 1904. The lack of a central directive body meant official war-gaming pre-1904 remained
sporadic and localised, largely kept alive by interested volunteers and amateurs in separate clubs
across the country, the key ones in Manchester and naturally Aldershot, spiritual home of the
British army. The war-gaming tradition in Prussia which had now become institutionalised in
the Berlin War Academy with its combination of staff rides, sand-table and map exercises and
manoeuvres was never replicated at Staff College; on the whole war-gaming was never
thoroughly integrated into British Army culture and practice pre-1914. This may stem from the
British predilection for amateurism and the ambivalent Army attitude towards preparing for a
continental conflict; the average British officer of the period being more pre-occupied with polo

27National Archives, 2017-223, ‘The British Army’, 1920, p. 1, Record Group 165 Box 636.
28John Gooch, British General Staff in the era of Two World Wars, in David French and Brian Holden Reid
(eds.), The British General Staff, Reform and Innovation, 1890-1939. (London: Frank Cass, 2002) p. 193.

12
and social engagements than actual military education29, and the Germans having far more
serious continental military dilemmas to face, with far more at stake. Nevertheless, war-gaming in
Britain suffered no lack of adherents and enthusiasts with no small number of war-games being
published, propagating an amateur tradition that endures to the modern day.

The British Kriegsspiel, 1872

Within two years of the Franco-Prussian war the War Office issued its first copies of the
Reiswitz Kriegsspiel, on 18th February 1872, with the memorandum attached:

The Secretary of State for War, having approved of the issue of a certain number of
sets of the ‘War-Game’ for the use of the Officers of the Army, His Royal Highness the
Commander in Chief, in recommending that Officers should avail themselves to the
utmost of this useful means of instruction, directs that the game is to be played according
to the accompanying Rules. 30

The rules attached were a translation by Captain E. Baring, Royal Artillery, of the 1862 version
of Anleitung zum Kriegsspiel by Capt. W. von Tschichwitz, already considered almost obsolete in
Germany. John Curry considers this edition key in the spread of British military wargaming, as it
was one of the first translations of contemporary Kriegsspiel to see circulation.31 It was by no
means the first translation of Kriegsspiel into English- the Manchester Tactical Society had an
operable translation in 1839- but it was the first time its value had been acknowledged by the
military. Within Captain Baring acknowledges the effect the victories of 1870 have had on
military opinion – ‘the game is no novelty, it is only recently that its importance has been fully
recognised out of Germany... due to the feeling that the great tactical skills displayed by Prussian
officers in the late war had been, at least partially, acquired by means of the instruction which the
game affords.’ The aim of the war-game was ‘apart from the tactical instruction, which it is the
primary object of the game to impart, it teaches officers to realise the space occupied by troops,
either when deployed or on the march, and the time required to transport bodies of men from
one point to another... it also excites a spirit of emulation, and leads to the frequent discussion of
military questions of importance.’32 Baring was to update the combat resolution tables to be
more in-line with British military equipment and practice and the game was to be played on the

29 Edward M. Spiers, The Late Victorian Army, 1868-1902 (Manchester: Manchester University Press,
1992) p. 97.
30 R. Airey, Horse Guards Department, War Office Memorandum, February 12 th, 1872. In John Curry (ed.)

The British Kriegspiel 1872 (London: Lulu, 2013) p. 17.

31 John Curry (ed.) The British Kriegspiel 1872 (London: Lulu, 2013) p. 17.
32 Captain E. Baring, Rules for the Conduct of the War-Game (London:HMSO 1872) in Curry (2013) p. 19.

13
scale of six inches to the mile, rather than the Prussian standard of eight. Baring was also to
assuage interested parties that it was ‘by no means necessary that every officer who plays at this
game should thoroughly understand all these conventional rules... all that is require of them is
that they should learn what the various blocks of metal severally represent... be able to read an
ordinary map, and... A tolerable knowledge of the leading principles which govern the march of
troops and their disposition in action, and that they should yield implicit obedience to the
decision of the Umpire.’33 The core component and fatal flaw of the Reiswitz Kriegsspiel was its
over-reliance on the role of the third player, the umpire, to adjudicate and enable the game to be
played. As Baring notes, ‘the Umpire himself must be thoroughly acquainted with that part of
the modern art of war which has reference to the movement of troops both during an
engagement and previous to it... the value of the game depends, indeed, almost entirely upon the
Umpire... who must make themselves thoroughly acquainted with the manner in which the game
is conducted.’34 This made the game relatively simple to learn and play, the chief obstacle being
the availability of competent umpires given the time-consuming difficulty of learning to play the
role of the umpire.

The game itself was an updated version of the younger Reiswitz’s Kriegsspiel: coloured metal
blocks representing infantry, artillery and cavalry placed on a topographically accurate map,
subject to limited movement in turns representing two minutes of real-time. Enemy units would
only become visible to the player when they appeared in visual range, as determined by the
umpire, and combat was resolved by the umpire consulting various combat tables for results and
rolling dice, to add the dimension of probability. All orders were to be written as they would in
reality and queries were to be addressed only through the umpire, whose decisions were final. To
determine the scenario played the umpire was required to conceive a ‘General Idea’, which was
the conditions of the military circumstances of the encounter, while each player receives a
‘Special Idea’, which would delineate their objective for the game, their available forces, and any
information about the disposition of enemy forces available. Observations by Lt-Col. Middleton,
Superintending Officer of Garrison Instruction at Aldershot of the experiences umpiring
numerous sessions with the Aldershot War Game society describe how the Prussian scale of 8
inches to the mile is preferable as it enables larger playing pieces, and thus easier play, and that
the game was played best with three separate maps, one for each player and one for the umpire,

33 Ibid,p. 20.
34 Ibid.

14
to best simulate the uncertainty of not knowing the opponent’s force dispositions.35 Arguing
with the umpire was prohibited and subject to penalties- which seems to be a perennial problem
with sessions of von Reiswitz’s Kriegsspiel . At the end of a game, both players would be informed
by the umpire of their performance and where improvements could have been made, essentially
the most important part of the training process. Contemporary figures in Prussia were already
aware of the limitations of Kriegsspiel, mostly critiquing the difficulty of the umpire’s task.
Wilhelm Jacob Meckel in 1873 published the Studien uber das Kriegsspiel , the ‘Study of Wargames,’
in which he recognises the necessity of war-gaming in military education but sees four core
failings with the current rule-set: the judgement of the umpire being too constrained by the rules,
the limitations of the rules themselves to apply to realistic battlefield conditions, the calculation
of damage takes too long and is of little use to the simulation, and the difficulty of finding
umpires or learning umpiring given the complexity of the rule-set.36 Already, the pioneer war-
gamers were discovering the fundamental dilemma of war-game design: increasing realism
necessitates increased complexity, but complexity reduces playability and ease of learning, and a
successful war-game needs to balance the two poles. Enter the next iteration of Kriegsspiel,
unsurprisingly the idea of a German general, Julius von Verdy du Vernois.

Verdy du Vernois had served had served as the head of intelligence on the Prussian
general staff during the Franco-Prussian war, and was a member of Moltke’s inner circle, and
was already a celebrated author of a manual on troop training, Studen uber truppenfuhrung, ‘Studies
in Troop Leading.’37 In 1876 he released his interpretation of the Reiswitz Kriegsspiel, which was
duly translated into English in 1884 by Major J.R. MacDonnell. The eight year gap in obtaining
the most contemporary and lauded version of Kriegsspiel thus far may be useful insight into the
state of British war-gaming, as by the translator’s admission he was unable to find an ‘accessible
treatise in English in which the principles of the Game are laid down.’38 The authorised
regulations were out of print and MacDonnell was unable to find a copy at either Horse Guards
or the United Services Institution. Was the enthusiasm for the War Game flagging in the British
Army? The difficulty the Maj. MacDonnell had finding an English translation of Kriegsspiel, much
less opponents and a referee, seem to suggest so. Certainly even in the German army there was a
certain fatigue for undertaking the Reiswitz Kriegsspiel, as Verdy du Vernois observed in his

35Lt. Col. A. Middleton, Explanation and Application of the English Rules for Playing the War Game (London:
Mitchell, 1873) p. xii.
36 Jacob Meckel in H.O.S. Heistand (trans.) Revue Militaire de l’Etranger, August-October 1897. p. 225-235.
37 Peterson (2013), p. 246.
38 J.R. MacDonnell, The Tactical War Game: A Translation of General Verdy Du Vernois’ Beitrag Zum

Kriegsspiel (London: Clowes and Sons, 1884), p. 1. In John Curry (ed.) Verdy’s Free Kriegsspiel, (London:
Lulu, 2008).

15
introduction: ‘cases are often met with in which attempts to practice (Kriegsspiel) have been swiftly
abandoned,’ despite the ‘universal acknowledgement of the utility of the War Game,’ mostly the
reason being ‘we have no one here who knows how to conduct the Game properly.’39 The root
of this neglect, Verdy du Vernois found, was ‘chiefly in the purely technical part of the conduct
of the Game, the novice failing to understand the Rules, or the use of the Dice and the Table of
Losses.’40 He concedes the difficulty of mastering the rules unaided resulting in ‘many officers,
who should be especially fitted from their position, to take the matter in hand who utterly shrink
from doing so.’41 His solution was to, taking a cue from the staff rides or ‘instructional
excursions’ where decisions are made but no dice are consulted, remove entirely the calculation,
dice-rolling and tables of loss for the umpire to consult, and for the Umpire to decide conflicts
primarily by his own discretion. This ensures senior officers are able to umpire a session of
Kriegsspiel without having to memorise the necessary combat tables- their experience in battle a
being a sufficient substitute, as Verdy du Vernois reasons, if war-games are meant to train
officers in war, experienced officers should be able to conduct war games. While addressing
impartiality as a concern, ‘dice... provide an apparent security against partiality in decisions,’42 the
deliberations of the umpire were secret in a game of Kriegsspiel and bias would in any case be hard
to detect, considering the restrictions on questioning the umpire.

The result was a transformation of Kriegsspiel as dramatic as from Leopold von Reiswitz’s
version to Johann’s; freed from the plodding, deliberate pace of the previous version, with the
long tables of combat to be consulted and calculations made, Verdy du Vernois’s innovation
dispenses with written orders and instead has the umpire merely verbally questioning the players
on their intentions and orders, and then immediately appraising them of the changes in the
situation. This did not mean the umpire was free of responsibility- a detailed idea of the positions
of the troops on the map had still to be kept in mind, calculating when and how units would
clash in combat and the duration they would take down to the minute. The result was a more
dynamic and vastly more playable Kriegsspiel which could be learnt and played by all participants
in short order. Verdy du Vernois’ versions met with critical acclaim, partially possibly due to his
already stellar reputation, and his position on the famed Prussian General Staff- previously
authors of Kriegsspiel variations had mostly been junior-ranked soldiers, and his rank certainly lent
a cachet to his revision, which Jon Peterson considered ‘crowned the achievements of nearly one

39 Ibid, p. 14.
40 Ibid.
41 Ibid, p. 15.
42 Ibid, p. 17.

16
hundred years of German war-game design.’43 If the idea of arbitrary judgements seems a step
backwards from the younger Reiswitz’s innovations on probability, the game still retained general
guidelines and aids for the umpire to use when determining combat results- the focus merely
shifted more to the decision making process of the players, compromising on realism to a certain
extent. MacDonnell’s translation seemed to have revitalised the British war-gaming scene: at
Aldershot a committee of officers issued a new edition of the War Game, emphasising the
umpire’s judgements and down-playing the role of loss tables, following Verdy du Vernois’
advice44- new sets of the Game of War, or the War Game, as it had come to be known in Britain,
were commissioned and built for H.M. Government, one such specimen containing units
representing Maxim-gun teams, which were a recent invention in 1884.45 The most enthusiastic
proponents of the War Game were volunteers, as Col. Lonsdale Hale observed in an 1891
article, who overestimated its value, while regulars, who may have had more practical experience
in battle, dislike it and underrate its value.46 It was in this era a particularly enthusiastic volunteer
emerged to impact war-gaming significantly in Britain- Henry Spencer Wilkinson.

Spenser Wilkinson, War-Game Pioneer

Born in Manchester in 1853, Spenser Wilkinson was the son of pacifist banker who largely
forbade the discussion of military affairs at home. While touring Germany, Spenser happened
upon a pamphlet comparing the numerical strength of the armies of Europe. Shocked to find
Britain’s army so feeble, he dedicated himself to military interests- possibly rebelling against the
pacifism of his childhood, upon returning to Oxford he enlisted in the Volunteer Corps and
started organising the Oxford Kriegsspiel Club. Upon graduation he was called to the bar and
practised law in Manchester, and was commissioned into the 2nd Manchester Volunteers.47
Appalled at the poor standards of military training in the Volunteers, he joined the Manchester
Tactical Society, which formed the nexus for enthusiastic war-gamers in Britain throughout the
18th century, holding regular games and circulating a newsletter in which heated discussions took
place. In 1887 he published his Essays on the War Game, the foremost British publication of war-
gaming of the time, a collection of letters from his discussions with the society, which provides
valuable insight to the state of war-gaming in the period. In it, he declares : ‘Probably no form of

43 Peterson (2012), p. 247.

44 This edition was known as the Aldershot rules. C.G. Lewin, War Games and Their History, (London:
Fonthill, 2012), p. 24.
45 C.J. Chivers, The Gun (London: Simon & Schuster, 2010), Introduction.
46 Col. Lonsdale Hale, ‘The War Game’, The Nineteenth Century(1891), p.298-317.
47 A. J. A. Morris, Wilkinson, Henry Spencer (1853-1937) in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, H. C. G.

Matthew and Brian Harrison ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).

17
military study is more useful if properly conducted, as certainly none is so liable to be misused,’48
and promotes them as a substitute for troops manoeuvres which ‘like war itself, is too costly to
be attainable except on rare conditions.’49 Due to improvements in map-making accurate large-
scales were now being produced cheaply, aiding war-gaming immensely: ‘the officer to whom a
good map speaks clearly requires nothing but a strong imagination to see armies manoeuvring on
the country it represents,’ but unless an officer can read a map well, he will conduct his
operations ‘no better than a blind general,’50. The essays provide advice on how to best conduct
war-games, warning against complexity in calculations, and recommending finding a good
umpire as the best factor in a successful Kriegsspiel. Wilkinson was influenced by a Prussian
officer’s findings, a Captain Naumann, who in 1877 attempted an empirical study of the effect of
casualty rates in the 1870 conflict. Naumann found that a unit’s capacity to sustain casualties
depended if conditions were ‘favourable’ or ‘unfavourable,’- a unit in a favourable condition, i.e.
attacking with artillery and cavalry support, could sustain far more casualties than a unit in an
unfavourable position, i.e. pinned in a ravine, before breaking.51 Wilkinson recommended
Naumann’s tables for accurately reflecting casualties in the War Game.

Although Wilkinson never authored a war-game himself, he drew from his experience with
the Manchester Tactical Society to become an important civilian expert clamouring for military
reform, including the seminal work on the Prussian General Staff The Brain of an Army, which
significantly influenced the formation of the British General Staff. Moltke, upon reading it, was
said to have exclaimed ‘that it should have been left to an Englishman to produce such a work!’52
The Society published numerous translations of French and German military texts, including the
German Order of Field Service in 1893, which Wilkinson described as ‘perhaps the most valuable
book on the details of war that has ever been published,’53 and was the chief exponent for Verdy
du Vernois in Britain, who he described as the ablest writer who ever dealt with war games. For
Wilkinson, war-games were the best method of testing the strategic and tactical understanding of
its participants- ‘the only difference from actual war is the absence of danger, of fatigue, of
responsibility, and of the friction involved in maintaining discipline.’54 Spenser Wilkinson never
served in any capacity in the regular military and never saw active conflict; thus one may forgive

48 Wilkinson (1887), Introduction.

49 Ibid.
50 Ibid.
51 R. Naumann, Das Regiments-Kriegsspiel.(Berlin:1887) in Andrew Wilson, The Bomb and the Computer,

(London: Cresset Press: 1968) p. 10.

52 Quoted in Wilson, p. 7.
53 Spenser Wilkinson trans., The German Order of Field Service (Manchester: Manchester Tactical Society,

1893) Introduction.
54 Wilkinson (1887), introduction.

18
the enthusiasm of an interested amateur, although he remained influential as a war-
correspondent and eventually the first Chichele professor of military history at Oxford. His
instructions for war-games were sound, but his tactical advice on real military manoeuvres
possibly too intellectualised for the average infantry officer, recommending long reading lists of
military thinkers, and he retains the naiveté of an innocent to actual war in his writing.
Nevertheless, his influence on British war-gaming can be felt in the official 1896 edition of the
War Game, published as The War Office Rules for the Conduct of the War-Game on a Map, 1896.

The Victorian Army’s 1896 War Game

The 1896 edition followed the usual rules for Kriegsspiel, requiring maps, counters, two
players, an umpire and a General and Special ideas for the scenario to be played. Three maps
were used, as according to Wilkinson’s suggestions; combat results were to be resolved by the
Umpire’s judgement, but the difference with Verdy du Vernois’ version is that the War Office
included incredibly detailed tables for each aspect of contemporary warfare: rates of march,
length of columns on the march, daily advance distances, the speed of rail transport, and the
amount of time a unit would take to prepare itself for an attack. In addition guidelines were
provided for the different combat effects infantry, artillery and cavalry would have upon each
other depending on situation and distance; contrary to latter-day opinion of military tactics of the
day, the game prohibited prepared defensive positions being taken by infantry in a rush- the
game did not consider infantry charges to be viable unless the attacking force had an
overwhelming superiority of force.55 The game also noted that ‘framing of orders is perhaps the
most valuable training to be derived from war-games,’56 and special attention should be paid to
the players issuing their orders correctly.

The rules for the 1896 War Game were possibly the pinnacle of British war-gaming design
thus far- simple to learn and adjudicate, playable with a minimum of pieces, useful for training
and simulating reality to an acceptable degree. Most importantly, its scaled well for bodies of
troops of any size; the game itself limits the engagement to the division level, but applying the
principles of ‘free’ Kriegsspiel, as Verdy du Vernois’ version came to be known, would only
require a change of map scales and different sized-counters. It would form the basis for the
strategic war-games played officially, the first of which being the Defence of India in 1903 by

55 The War Office Rules for the Conduct of the War-Game on a Map, 1896 (London: HMSO, 1896), in Curry
(ed.) (2008), p. 133.
56 Ibid, p. 117.

19
GHQ India at Simla, the summer capital of the British Raj.57 The Reiswitz Kriegsspiel was not the
only war-game in circulation in the period, however; war-gaming had begun to capture the
imagination of the general public and British war-games were being invented independent of the
Prussian tradition.

Polemos, A New Game of War

In December 1883 a war-game was published entitled Polemos, the New Game of War,
invented by a Dr. David Griffiths in Brighton, possibly assisted by a retired German army
engineer, Lt. Col. G.J.R. Glunicke, naturalised and now living in England.58 It went through
several revisions, a second edition being published in 1886 and a third in 1890, and had been
awarded a prize medal at the 1885 International Inventions Exhibition, and was also played at
the Royal United Services Institution.59 A picture appears in the Illustrated London News, 1888,
of the game being played on a square cloth grid with military miniatures representing blocks of
soldiers instead of the wooden or metal blocks associated with Kriegsspiel. The game itself was
described as follows:

It may be described as a kind of military chess, and can be played on a dining table on
which is spread a cloth which is marked off in two –inch squares and representing a
battlefield ten miles by five. (Each square represents 440 yards.) The pieces are made of
lead, and represent each arm of the service... a very instructive game may be played by two
or more players... the moves are sufficiently simple to enable young officers to play the
game with very little practice, and the combinations often become sufficiently intricate to
interest even field officers.60

Another article describes it:

There is no element of chance in it. A move has its consequences, as in chess and in actual
warfare. .. the objection made to the war game (Kriegsspiel) has been applied to Polemos... it
is more apt to teach strategy than tactics, and minor tactics scarcely enter into it. At the
same time it lends itself to dash, decision, ‘nerve’, as well as caution, foresight and the

57 Curry (2008), p. 7.
58 Bob Cordery in Curry (2013), p. 41.
59 Introduction to Polemos in Curry (2013), p. 28.
60 Article in the The Times, 1885, quoted in Curry (2013), p.28.

20
 calculation of consequences... it has, it is stated, been adopted at the Cadet College of
Prussia.61

The actual game took place on a cloth grid of inch squares, in which players were free to deploy
terrain, buildings and rivers to vary the scenario. Each player was then issued an equal number of
blocks of soldiers, called Regiments in the game, consisting of the three arms of Infantry, Cavalry
and Artillery, as well as the new addition, the Staff. The Regiments are meant to be
representational of a larger body of men; each Regiment has a symbolic base strength of ten
men, and when this is reduced by combat to nil the regiment is removed from the board. Each
player receives a reserve of twenty men to add to any Regiment in secret, thus introducing the
main element of strategy and uncertainty of the game, as players are never certain of the total
strength of a Regiment. During play casualties sustained are drawn from the reserve and placed
on the board, for an interesting morbid touch, but also serves to keep track of how much
damage a Regiment has sustained. Each arm has special rules governing their actions, and excel
at the arm they represent- cavalry cannot shoot but have a strong charge, artillery is slow and
cannot charge, but may shoot greater distance than infantry, etc. The staff serves no purpose
except should they be destroyed, the player loses- which may have lead to interesting strategies
for play- they have to be protected, the designers intending them to represent ‘in a measure the
necessary communications which must be kept open in the rear of an Army,’62. Each turn was
limited to ten minutes, kept track with two sand hourglasses, and no umpire was required.
Curiously enough the infantry have the ability to form square, which protects them against
cavalry charges- while ostensibly still used in colonial warfare in 1883, forming square would
have been suicidal in the European conflict the game is meant to simulate given the profusion of
needle-rifles and Maxim guns. The tactics the game represent seem antiquated, reflecting almost
a Napoleonic form of warfare- no provisions for machine guns in the later editions seem to have
been made- but Polemos does introduce several innovations in war-gaming, not least
representing a meeting of Prussian military technicality and British ingenuity vis the aesthetics
and design of the game. While the game does seem in some ways a regression to the rigid chess-
style war-games of the past, it retains the spirit of Kriegsspiel by allowing a multitude of scenarios,
free movement, an element of uncertainty, and combat vaguely based upon an empirical rate of
attrition. As a military training aid, it sacrifices realism for playability and while not as strategically
useful as Verny du Vernois’ Kriegsspiel, is a great deal easier to play.

61 Article in Otago Daily Times, 1889, quoted in Curry (2013), p. 29.

62 Dr. David Griffith, Rules of the Game, in Polemos, A New Game of War, in Curry (2013), p 33..

21
Chamberlain’s New Game of Invasion

Not all war-games of the period took the form of the Reiswitz Kriegsspiel; an entirely novel
strategy game was published in 1888 by Lt. Henry Chamberlain of the Royal Navy, titled the
New Game of Invasion, which was also possibly one of the first amphibious-warfare, inter-service
games of its kind. The game was meant to address the pressing issue at the time during the Naval
Manoeuvres in 1888, which was ‘if the British fleet were to suffer a crushing defeat in the
Channel, could we successfully repel an invading force, and secure London against capture?’63
The game was intended for civilians who would be able to play the game even if they were ‘not
in the slightest degree... acquainted with a single military term.’64 The game board consisted of a
19 inch by 19 inch map of South East England divided into grid squares, each square
representing 10-12 miles across. In the basic version of the game, British player receives fourteen
counters, representing divisions, but must place them in specified positions - the invader twelve,
and may place them in any position off the coast of England. Each piece may move one square
in any direction, unless assisted by railways, where they can move two. The British player wins by
successfully capturing all enemy pieces, but the invader wins if it can reach the central grid
squares of London. The game itself operates more or less like a version of chequers played on a
larger grip map. Curiously enough the game includes the yet un-built Channel Tunnel – whether
Chamberlain assumed one would be dug, or was planning of the contingency of one being dug is
unclear, but if included in the game, being optional, gives a significant advantage to the invader.
Designed to be a relatively simple strategic game, Chamberlain includes ‘for the benefit of those
who consider this game too simple,’ an expanded rule set for more serious play, which
necessitates a screen to render enemy movement unseen and an umpire to officiate. In the
advanced rules the number of counters is halved, each side may move all pieces simultaneously,
although the British require a ratio of 2:1 to be able to capture the invaders pieces, and rail travel
is increased to a distance of 10 grid squares for the defender and six for the attacker. The game is
simple enough to learn and play, with a significant advantage for the attacking player in both
versions- although clearly not complex enough to simulate any manner of military invasion, as a
tool to raise civilian awareness of the difficulties of defending the South-East it succeeds, in the
unlikely military scenario of this happening. John Curry sees the game as having an ‘underlying
political subtext which was to persuade the player certain measures needed to be taken by the

63 Lt. Henry Chamberlain, Introduction, New Game of Invasion (London: Ayres 1889) in Curry (2013), p.
48.
64 Ibidem.

22
British government as an invasion of Britain was feasible’65, although the sum political influence
of the game is probably difficult to gauge.

J.M. Grierson and the British Army 1905 War Game

Possibly the most important war-game of the pre-war period took place in 1905, when the
newly formed General Staff conducted an extensive war-game to simulate the outcome of the
outbreak of war between Germany and France. While Russia had traditionally been the perceived
military opponent in the years following Crimea, growing awareness of German hostility was
mounting in the British Army, as Anglo-German trade rivalry escalated with the new Kaiser’s
imperial ambition causing friction, and their ship-building programme a direct challenge to
Britain’s naval security. The key proponent of this shift to continentalism was Major General
J.M. Grierson, who was to succeed Nicholson, an old friend of Spenser Wilkinson’s, as Director
of Military Operations in the General Staff. Grierson had been a long standing admirer of the
German Army- at Sandhurst he had a statuette of Moltke on his shelf- and had published a book
on the British Army in German in 1897, which was only translated into English two years hence-
it was said in 1890 he was ‘almost as well known at Berlin as at Woolwich.’66 Grierson served as
the military attaché to Berlin from 1896-1900, no doubt participating in many games of Kriegsspiel
– where his experiences with the ‘Anglophobic tirades of its officers, and particularly the Kaiser,’
robbed him of any abiding affection for Germany and ‘convinced him that war between the two
countries was likely.’67 His experiences with the on Lord Roberts’ staff during the Boer War
convinced him of the need for a British General Staff, who would be then be able to conduct
war-games, or staff rides, to teach the control of armies in the field, without which ‘there is no
system about it, and without a system a large army cannot be properly handled.’68
Continentalism, the need for a continental military commitment with the outbreak of war, most
probably with Germany, began to spread in the War Office as Grierson exerted his influence. In
1902 the head of the Foreign Section of the Military Intelligence Department, Maj-General
William Robertson authored a paper stating ‘that in no other European country is hatred of
England so general or so deeply rooted as in Germany,’ and the balance of power in Europe was
shifting due to ‘a new preponderance now growing... of which the centre of gravity is Berlin.’69 In
1903 a memorandum was circulated in the Committee of Imperial Defence, essentially Britain’s

65 Curry (2013), p. 48.

66 D. S. Macdiarmid, The Life of Lieutenant-General Sir James Moncrieff Gierson (London: Constable, 1923),
p.87.
67 Ibid, p. 115, 130-4.
68 Ibid, p. 271.
69 Report by Robertson, submitted by Sir William Nicholson to the C-in-C, 11 November 1902, p. 3, 9,

Robertson papers, LHCMA 1/2/4

23
highest war council, by the Secretary of State for War, Arnold Foster, considering the growing
threat of the German military to Britain’s national security.70 It concluded that an invasion of the
British Isles was unlikely with the supremacy the Royal Navy enjoyed, but did not discount the
need for intervention in a continental conflict. When the British General Staff was finally
established and Grierson appointed the new Director of Military Operations, he pushed for a
war-game to study the consequences of outbreak of war between Germany and France.
Grierson, once a keen admirer of the Prussian military tradition, was no less convinced of the
efficacy of their methods despite now being opposed to their intentions- he was going to use
their Kriegsspiel against them: German methods to divine German intentions.

The format of the war game was to take on a much larger scale than had been attempted
before in British war-gaming history. Three commanders were appointed- Col. William
Robertson, under Grierson’s patronage now Assistant Director of Military Operations and
commanding the Germans, Col. C.E. Callwell, who was to be Deputy Director of Operations in
1914 commanding the British and the Belgian contingent commanded by a staff officer, Major.
A. Lynden-Bell.71 All were assigned teams of staff officers from Military Operations and Foreign
Intelligence. The game was to be conducted with a modified strategic version of the 1896 War
Game rules, which required more detailed planning and taking place in real time, umpired by
Grierson and his staff. Excellent details were provided by German cycling maps, which detailed
many of the lesser known by-roads in the province of South Belgium. Curiously enough the
French were not represented in the game by a commander, as it would mostly take place in
Belgian territory. The ‘General Idea’ of the game was that

War had broken out between France and Germany on 1 January 1905. At this time
neither side had the help of allies. Germany had taken the initiative with an offensive
against the French defences between Sedan and Belfort; but after two months when these
attacks had failed, had decided to outflank the French by passing north through Belgium
with six Army Corps, three cavalry divisions, and two Reserve Army Corps... it was
assumed that Britain would be brought into the war by this violation of Belgian
neutrality.72

With incredible prescience, Grierson had anticipated the Schliffen plan and the British
commitment to Belgium in 1914. Given the strength of the French defences in the centre,

70 Wilson (1978) p. 21.

71 Records of a Strategic War Game, Directorate of Military Operations, W.O. 33/364 (A 1017), National
Archives.
72 Ibid.

24
Grierson anticipated that the Germans would attempt an outflanking manoeuvre through
Belgium, although he believed it ultimately would not be successful due to the weaknesses of the
Belgian railway system necessitating a march on foot, which would mean the thrust arriving too
late and possibly critically weakening the main attack in the south. Preparatory studies had
discovered the central Belgian plain north of the Meuse was the most likely avenue of approach,
and serious weaknesses in the Belgian defences- the fourteen mile gap between the outer forts at
Antwerp, and the limitations of the Belgian army to simultaneously garrison their fortresses and
maintain a field presence. In the General Idea it was agreed upon that the German forces would
upon invading Belgium first seek to destroy the Belgian field army, or failing so isolating it and
preventing joining up with the British deployment- this resulted in the Germans choosing the
southern approach through the hilly plateau instead of crossing the Meuse below Liege, and
moving south across the Sambre.

The game lasted nearly five months from 1st January 1905 to the 24th of May. The
Germans began by feinting a cavalry division and infantry division north of Liege, while the main
body of troops proceeded south of the river Meuse, which prompted a hasty Belgian
redeployment from the South to the North, to garrison Antwerp and defend the British landing
areas. The Germans then crossed the river Ourthe, threatening both Huy in the north and
Dinant in the south. Convinced that the British were still disembarking and the Belgians unable
to act independent of British support, Robertson wasted no time and continued the advance on
Dinant. The British and Belgians counter-attacked on the 30th day of mobilisation and at this
point the game was ended in favour of a German victory, Grierson arguing that even if the
Anglo-Belgian counterattack had succeeded, it would have been unable to hold the salient as the
Germans had managed to secure their lines of communication and their advance ‘could not have
been materially interfered with, until the arrival of the greater portion of British troops.’73 The
game had highlighted a number of strategic dilemmas for the Belgian army, and more
importantly the serious deficiencies in mobilising the British Army and transporting it across the
channel. Callwell, commanding the British, argued that the Belgians should have deployed in the
North, protecting Antwerp and the landing ports and forcing the Germans to deploy more
troops to safeguard their flank, delaying their overall movement and allowing the French time to
concentrate around Dinant. Lynden-Bell demurred, arguing that the Belgians could not have
been seen to be giving up their southern territory too easily and opening herself to accusations of
collusion and of not sufficiently defending her neutrality, and that the German force was

73 Grierson, Ibid.

25
insufficient to conquer northern Belgium, and were able to redeploy north if it was threatened in
any case, which they did.

Grierson ruled in favour of the Belgian decision, citing the political situation. The
Admiralty originally envisaged the convoy of the British deployment, three Army Corps and
three cavalry Brigades, would require forty-two vessels and a shipping time of seven days. In the
game itself it was discovered that available troop transports were so limited that by the tenth day
of mobilisation only twenty-two were in operation, and it would take seventeen days before the
full number of vessels were available for use- the total convoy took thirty four days to complete,
and a further day for each unit to disembark and be equipped for the field. The result was by the
time a sufficient Anglo-Belgian response could be organised, the Germans had control of the
field. It was thus apparent that existing military preparations were insufficient, and the game
ruled that alone, France would be defeated before Britain and Belgium could militarily intervene.
This verdict was to have significant influence on British military strategy in the years to come-
possibly the first time a war-game had directly influenced the course of British history.

Was it wholly unexpected that Grierson, keenly committed to preparing Britain for a
continental conflict with Germany, would adjudicate a war-game which vindicated his stance and
could be used to influence policy in years to come? Grierson himself in the notes to the war-
game indicate he doubted the wisdom of committing an army to the conflict, as given the size
and potency of the Continental armies any British deployment was liable to being swatted aside74,
and the proper course of action should be a token commitment while maintaining maritime
pressure and the threat of an amphibious invasion. The question of Belgian neutrality was soon
discussed in the Foreign Office and three questions were posed to the General Staff, by the
Prime Minister, Arthur Balfour- What military advantages might Germany or France obtain by
violating Belgian territory? Would the Belgian army be expected to offer any effective
opposition? What is the duration before two British Army Corps can be deployed on the
Continent?75 The General Staff issued responses clearly influenced by its findings during the war-
game: Belgian neutrality could not be guaranteed by the military situation in the continent, as a
likely stalemate on the front would make a flanking attack through Belgium ‘imperative’,
especially for Germany. Belgium did not have the capacity to offer sustained resistance alone,
and the transportation of two British Army Corps would take a total of twenty three days,
assuming improvements to the convoy system.76 The weaknesses of the system were apparent to

74 Introduction, Ibid.
75 Wilson (1968), p. 25.
76 Ibid.

26
the government that within weeks joint Anglo-Belgian staff plans were organised and in 1906,
the Entente Cordiale was consummated with the beginning of joint planning with the French
General Staff, which would see come to fruition with the outbreak of war in 1914. Causality
here, of course is a dangerous thing; if the results of the war-game had been in favour of the
Anglo-Belgians, would events have turned out any differently? It seems unlikely, because the
Great Powers were locked on a trajectory of conflict that the results of a single planning exercise
would have done little to deflect. The 1905 war-game served as it vindicated their judgement and
lent credence to their policy- history is replete with the discarded results of war-games ignored to
the peril of their players.

Bellum, A 1909 Kriegsspiel

As late as 1909 Kriegsspiel was still being played and refined in the British Army- the
Illustrated London News reports on a variant invented by A.W. Mercer, commanding the Somana
Rifles on the North West Frontier.77 ‘Bellum’, as the variant was called, addressed many issues
with the current incarnation of Kriegsspiel with simple solutions which greatly eased play,
especially for units lacking the resources to conduct proper Kriegsspiel sessions.

The old conditions under which the exercise necessitated a copious supply of maps drawn
to a large scale... after two or three exercises all the players got to know the configuration
of the country by heart, and the maps became worthless for instructive purposes and new
ones had to be purchased at considerable outlay.78

Bellum eschewed expensive topographical maps for a white cloth gridded with two-inch squares,
over which coloured ribbons are stretched and pinned to represent rivers, railways and roads,
with to red string contours show at a glance the outline of the country and woods, lakes and
villages represented with signs.

Thus any map can be portrayed with about three quarters of an hour’s preparation- the
new game necessitates only one table and one umpire, the players divided by moveable
screens, all signs and blocks of troops are easily visible, and can be recognised at a once,
interest is stimulated throughout and kept awake as move follows move in quick
succession, the losses in killed and wounded being deducted by the umpire according to a
carefully schemed table of losses.79

77 Bellum, the New War-Game, Illustrated London News, March 6th, 1909, in Curry (2013), p. 20.
78 Ibid.
79 Ibid.

27
It seems improvements to the playability of Kriegsspiel enabled the return to loss tables for the
Bellum variant, as play takes place on a single table the speed of play seems to have been very
much improved. The simplicity of these refinements to the game enabled play with a minimum
of equipment, and it was adopted first by the Indian Army as the preferred variant, and
eventually used as a training tool in the expanded British Army after 1914.80

By 1913 war-gaming was no longer restricted to the military sphere- Kriegsspiel had captured
the imagination of interested amateurs. Although miniature military figurines had existed as the
province of the wealthy for centuries, in 1893 an English toymaker, William Britain Jr., had
discovered a process to cheaply manufacture pewter toy soldier figurines, which soon flooded
the British market- the Germans having their own industry.81 It was not a stretch to use these
figurines to represent soldiers in an actual game, and in 1905 rules appeared for using the
figurines in game entitled The Great War Game For Young and Old. Linking war-gaming with
military figurines was most probably a British innovation- Robert Louis Stevenson was have
known to played war-games with his toy soldiers in an 1898 account82, as early as 1881; H. G.
Wells possibly being the most famous exponent of this manner of war-game with his 1913
edition of Little Wars in which he encouraged lavish battles liberated from the narrow universe of
the tabletop to the vast spaces of the floor, with corresponding miniature buildings, trees and
landscape. The common denominator in these war-games was the introduction of a kinetic form
of casualty simulation; miniature cannon would fire dried beans or, as the Great War Game
suggested, ‘the most effective, exciting and quickest method is to fire by throwing with the
hand,’83 and the soldiers getting knocked down being removed as casualties. Despite H.G. Wells’
recommendation for use in military war-games84, this method of combat resolution did not see
any adoption by the military of the period- being entirely too random and not scaling well to
larger engagements. It was not until the advent of computer technology that simulating the effect
of actual projectiles became a viable method of determining casualties from combat, and as
absurd Well’s suggestion may have been at the time, it is has become the method, albeit vastly
improved, used today in the most advanced and realistic war simulations.

Despite the profusion of war-gaming in both the civilian and military sphere, even in 1914
the tradition never became as established in British military culture as it had become in Germany.
Andrew Wilson attributes this to the ‘tendency to obey tradition and instinct, and in the Army,

80 Peterson (2012), p. 271.

81 Ibid, p. 261.
82 Lloyd Osbourne, ‘Stevenson at Play,’ in Scribner's Magazine, Volume XXIV, No. 5, November, 1898.
83 Quoted in Peterson (2012), p. 263.
84 Peter de Perla, The Art of Wargaming (Annapolis: USNI, 1990) p. 46.

28
an antipathy for professionalism’ and that ‘once the Prussian vogue had been superseded by the
Anglo-French Entente, the tactical war game was regarded as altogether too Germanic for the
serious consideration of gentlemen,’85 the social makeup of which most of the officer caste in the
British Army consisted of. Unique cases like Grierson aside, the higher echelons of the General
Staff seem to have had little interest in their utility- Haig’s diary mentions war-games in passing,
but takes no special interest in them, while Lord Roberts, Sir John French and Sir William
Nicholson fail to mention them at all. This lack of commitment to war-gaming may be
symptomatic of a lack of general commitment to serious continental war- despite the reforms of
the half century, the British Army at the outbreak of the Great War still remained designed for
colonial intervention. With the outbreak of war itself the use of sand-table and map exercises,
mock battles and rehearsed manoeuvres would eventually become standard practice before an
attack, given that actual lives were at stake; although the process by which war-gaming took
shape in the Great War still remains an area which requires further research. It would take,
however, another half-century and another war before the full potential of applying war-gaming
to conflict would be fully realised by the British Army.

85 Wilson (1968), p. 11.

29
 3. War-Gaming in the Royal Navy

The British Navy of the late Victorian era was the most foremost naval military
organisation in the developed world. Unlike the hidebound, conservative British Army, the Navy
was acutely aware of its responsibility in safekeeping the most important British territory of all,
the sea, and would brook no laxity in maintaining the supremacy of its fleet; the complete
transformation of the pre-dreadnought British fleet to all-dreadnought modern navy in the
period 1900-190986 is testament to the technocratic nature, pliability to change, and commitment
to superiority in both the Admiralty and the Government. It is unsurprising then the first naval
war-games were created by British inventors- what is surprising, however, is they were not first
created by Naval personnel, but by civilians- and no formal war-gaming system was officially
adopted until 1901. The lack of a war-gaming tradition in the Royal Navy is puzzling, because
war-gaming naval combat is vastly simpler than designing an equivalent game based on land,
with no terrain to model and existing ship capabilities more or less known and quantifiable. One
explanation remains that the standard of naval education and promotion was sufficiently
advanced so that in most situations the Captain of a vessel would already know and be able to
predict the courses of action available and their outcomes; unlike combat on land, naval combat
is a simpler affair involving certainties of speed, armour and gun calibre. For a dreadnought in a
fleet under the command system of an admiral such as Jellicoe, little in the way of independent
thought is required, as one takes the lead from the flag-ship; tactical independence was less
important than running a tightly-drilled ship and achieving a good gunnery score. If war-games

86 Peter Padfield, Rule Britannia: The Victorian and Edwardian Navy (London: Pimlico, 2002) p. 209.

30
were to have relevance, they would be played at the higher levels in the Admiralty, although no
records of formal strategic war-gaming on the lines of Grierson’s 1905 war-game have been
found in my research. Furthermore, between 1870 and 1914 naval technology was advancing at
such a pace that no one was entirely sure of the capabilities of a new class of vessel as they were
gaps of entire generations of technology- from iron-clad to battleship and then dreadnought- all
untried in combat. Lastly, the fleet manoeuvres held every year could be construed as a large-
scale war-game, and as conducting them was a fraction of the difficulty and expense of
mobilising and conducting large-scale army manoeuvres, simulating them on paper was less
necessary. Thus, war-gaming in the navy was never institutionalised in Navy the as per the
Prussian tradition; independent leadership and initiative in the lower ranks was far less required
or desired.

Early naval wargaming and Colomb’s The Duel

Nevertheless, British war-gaming at sea has a long pedigree which dates back to John
Clerk, an amateur naval enthusiast, whose modelling of fleet tactics in 1779 using ‘small models
of ships.. disposed in a proper arrangement, gave most correct representations of hostile fleets...
being easily moved and put into any relative position required,’87 in a proto-war game discovered
the novel fleet tactic called cutting the line of battle, which may have influenced Rodney at the
Battle of the Saintes 1782 against De Grasse88, and later used by Nelson at Trafalgar in 1805. The
victory at Trafalgar ceded dominance of the sea to the British Navy, and some years elapsed
before credible challenges began to emerge to challenge this supremacy. In 1873 Lt. W.M.F.
Castle of the Royal Navy described a war-game invented by an old messmate, a certain Rev. Fred
Davies, which was played in the wardroom several times with wooden blocks representing ships
on a naval chart, where an umpire and two assistants directed two players moving fleets in turns
of two minutes real time. One game came to grief as once both players had

brought our squadrons within 800 yards of each other... then came the knotty point as
to who had the advantage. A discussion followed. Instead of the umpire giving a final
decision, every one present argued the point for themselves... the result was that the next
day none of us was satisfied.’89

The timing of the game, the format and the year it was played, not to mention the arguments
about combat resolution with the umpire, all suggest an attempt at a translation of the Reiswitz

87 John Clerk, An Essay on Naval Tactics, (Edinburgh: Longman, 1790) , Author’s Preface, xl.
88 Wilson (1968), p. 14.
89 W.M.F. Castle, Journal of the Royal United Service Institution, Vol 17, 1874.

31
Kriegsspiel to a naval format was attempted, though it seems unsuccessfully as interest in
developing the game further seemed to have waned. The next recorded attempt at a the naval
war-game was a more original concept, titled The Duel by a Cpt. P.H Colomb in 1879. It was an
attempt to simulate ‘on paper, as nearly as may be, what might happen between two ships
fighting in smooth water, in the open sea.’90 The game took a format similar to the Reiswitz
Kriegsspiel; two players, an umpire, and two ships starting on a naval chart 2,000 yards apart. The
umpire would ask each player his move, and he would reply with his orders, and moves were
measured in one-minute increments, with points scored for shots fired or ramming the enemy.
Special attention was made to ensure each ship would be reflecting the capabilities of an ironclad
in real life- empirical measurements were made of the HMS Thunderer’s speed and turning circle
in 1877 and reflected in the game, as were its gunnery records. If ramming seems to be a strange
way to achieve victory, Ironclads of 1870 had superior armour to gunnery power and after the
Battle of Lissa in 1866 where Austrian ships had sunk Italian ironclads by ramming whilst
gunfire proved ineffective, ramming enjoyed a brief revival in naval circles as a viable tactic.
Neither attempts at adapting a naval Kriegsspiel proved popular, possibly due to the awkwardness
of using the Kriegsspiel system with its umpire and complicated order system to reflect more
dynamic and kinetic naval combat. Colomb was later to bemoan the lack of enthusiasm for his
game:

The Government took no notice of it whatever, and naturally one got a little tired when
one found Russia, for instance, hard at it, spending considerable sums of money on it,
using it regularly officially, and making it part of their training course at Cronstadt – it did
not encourage one to enter into anything again of the same line.91

With the characteristic arrogance of a Royal Navy officer of the period, designing a system
enthusiastically adopted by a foreign military and used as a training tool in their naval education
was insufficient for Cpt. Colomb, as he clearly desired the adoption of the game and recognition
from his peers within the Royal Navy itself. Yet the question does again resurface unbidden:
what would it take to get the British interested in a war-game?

Chamberlain’s Naval Blockade

Lt. H Chamberlain RN, in a lecture to the Royal United Services Institution in April 1888,
attempted to directly address this mystery when introducing his invention, a war-game titled

90 P.H. Colomb, Journal of the Royal United Service Institution, Vol 32, 1888, p. 533.
91 Ibid, p. 535.

32
Naval Blockade. ‘We are unlike our German friends, who are pleased when asked to solve intricate
problems and abstruse questions, and derive positive amusement from a brain-racking Kriegsspiel.’
Consequently, ‘war games may be invented ad infinitum, the only difficult part consists in getting
people to play them- the number of men who can be persuaded to play a game varies inversely
to the square of its difficulty.’ 92 Simplicity in war-game thus seemed to be main thrust of the late
1880’s war-gaming revival in the military; Chamberlains’ game was designed to be simple, easily
played aboard ship, and useful in the training of both men and officer. The game was played a on
a board of 24 by 24 squares, each of one inch, with two ships as playing pieces as well as two
islands and rocks to provide some variation in terrain. The ‘General Idea’ of the game is one ship
has received orders to proceed to sea with important despatches, and the blockading ship has
instructions to intercept it before it leaves harbour and reaches open sea. Each ship may move
one grid square alternately, and alter their course 45 degrees. The blockading ship must attempt
to ram or disable the escaping ship before it reaches the other end of the board, and each ship
mounts a gun on each side and a the chasing ship and escaping ship have an extra gun mounted
with a 45 degree traverse on the bow and stern respectively, allowing some manner of exchange
of fire as one ship chases the other. Combat is decided by a six-sided die, with three faces
awarding four, two and one point of damage correspondingly, and the remaining three misses. In
addition there is a disabled result on a roll of four, which compels the disabled ship to
immediately stop. Ramming here again rears its improbable head, with a good portion of the
lecture addressing preparation and training in the art of ramming, as well as arguing his rules
were designed to reflect reality insofar as possible. Two demonstration games were held followed
by an evaluation of the game’s design- as C.G. Lewin notes it is exceedingly rare to find the
discussion of the merits of a war game fully reported.93 P.H. Colomb, the inventor of The Duel,
now an admiral, was present and expressed his enthusiasm for the game design, though
questioning its utility as an instructional tool.94 Admiral Sir George Elliot suggested that it would
be useful to allow the players to modify the rule-set to add variation to the game, for instance
giving one ship a strong bow and one a weak one, and adding an additional gun to the arc
missing one on the ships. Chamberlain concludes saying he feels his game reflects ‘the glorious
uncertainty of war,’ and when later taking his game into the smoking room for general
demonstration was immediately surrounded by ‘at least fifteen young men round me, Gunnery
Lieutenants, acting Sub-Lieutenants, and so on, and before we had been playing twenty minutes
we had disputed and argued more about ramming, more about other professional subjects, than

92 Lt. H. Chamberlain, Journal of the Royal United Service Institution, Vol. 32, 1888, p. 526.
93 Lewin (2012), p. 57.
94 Chamberlain (1888), p. 534.

33
these young men had talked of in the last three months. Why is this? It was because it was not a
difficult game; if it had been difficult they would not have played it.’95 Chamberlain had grasped
the pre-requisite for a war-game to be an effective training tool and apparently to appeal to the
Briton. Naval Blockade however was too simple to achieve widespread success, its author possibly
too junior; Naval war-gaming seems to have languished for the next decade until the arrival on
scene of Fred T. Jane in 1898.

Fred T. Jane and the Naval Wargame

Born to a curate in Richmond, Surrey, in 1865 and educated at Exeter, Frederick Thomas
Jane produced his first work of naval sketches at 17 while still in school titled Ironclads of the
World. An enthusiast of naval affairs since young, when he played games involving sinking model
ships in the village pond, Jane took his trade to London and after a spell of poverty succeeded in
gaining a following for his illustrations of naval events, disasters and battles, appearing in the
Times and other newspapers of the period.96 Jane compiled a naval album intended on selling
‘naval awareness’ to the masses and published All The Worlds Fighting Ships in 1898, which had a
unique approach of presenting ships in silhouette, for the perceived use of the look-out on the
bridge of a ship, or the public imagining themselves in such a position. The album was a great
success, and caught the wave of increasing literacy and interest in the naval affairs of the nation,
as well as being ordered by the Navy in bulk. Adjunct to the album he also published Rules for a
Naval War Game in 1898, subtitled A Sea Kriegsspiel Simulating All The Movements And Evolutions Of
Every Individual Type Of Modern Warship, And The Proportionate Effect of Every Sort of Gun and
Projectile97. Jane’s design retained many of the elements of Reiswitzian Kriegsspiel design, including
a map board, umpires, assistants, interrogative order-movement and the ‘General Idea’, but
involved an entirely novel if somewhat clumsy method of combat resolution, in which strikers
were used to punch holes in cardboard cut-outs of ships from across the board. The holes
punched would then correspond to where the ship was hit, and various damage tables consulted
to resolve the damage. Jane had pioneered his own system of rating ships, dividing guns and
armour into classes, ‘A’ class guns being able to penetrate ‘a-e’ class armour, and so on which
enabled a class of ship to be quickly quantified once spotted. The ratings in the book
corresponded to his ratings in the war-game, which generated interest in his book, and vice
versa. The game was played on a board of 1 inch grid squares, each representing 100 yards, with

95 Ibid, p. 537.
96 Richard Brooks, Fred T. Jane, A Short Biography: The Man and the Wargame in John Curry, The Fred Jane
Naval War Game, 1906 (London: Lulu, 2008) p. 9.
97 Fred T. Jane, Rules for the Naval Wargame (London: Clowes and Sons, 1898).

34
ship silhouettes made from card or cork at the 1/2400 scale, or 1.5 inches long. This made actual
identification of ships difficult from the other side of the board, and was meant to reflect the
difficulties in identifying ships at the distances involved. Each move is calculated to simulate a
minutes’ time in game. A contemporary review described it as

a most instructive lesson in the capabilities of different types of ships to withstand or carry
on attacks; in the practicability of evolution and of their usefulness; in the value of gun fire,
and of the vulnerability of ships... it puts very fairly before the players the actual problems
which would face them were they commanding squadrons in times of war, and if played in
seriousness cannot fail to instruct them.98

If players had doubts about the feasibility of the striking system, the article concedes ‘this
manner of firing seems at first sight crude,’ but reassures readers that ‘all attempts to secure
accuracy which different players adopt end.. in failure, and no matter whether a short stroke or
long stroke is made, the effect is generally the same... strikers do very fairly imitate the conditions
of actual shooting... estimates of the amount done have been worked out from official
statistics.’99 In the first edition it seemed that the prescribed rate of fire was too high and actions
were resolving too quickly, and Jane advises to slow the rate of striking. The article concludes
that ‘it is certainly more realistic than our military Kriegsspiel,’ and that it ‘contains a mass of
information on ships... which cannot be found in so compact a form elsewhere.’100 Jane’s naval
war-game was clearly well received, and he received audiences with as diverse as the naval
attaches from Russia, Japan, Prince Louis of Battenberg, later First Sea Lord, and H.J. May, later
president at the Royal Naval College.101 By 1901 a revision of the rules was issued by the Navy
for use aboard Her Majesty’s ships, with a modified firing system based on rate of fire and
probability, as the physical striker system was impractical aboard ship.102

Jane introduced two innovations important to the development of war-gaming; a strategic

map, where manoeuvres would take place, and a tactical map, where combat would occur, and
the concept of points values in the strategic map. As Jane stated, ‘the close simulation to real
warfare is the sole object of the game.’103 In the strategic game each player would be allocated an
allowance of points, as ‘cost was the dominant feature of modern warfare.’104 Listed costs

98‘Introduction to the Fred Jane Naval Wargame,’ 9 December 1898, The Engineer, Vol. 86, p. 581.
99 Ibid, p. 583-5
100 Ibid, p. 585.
101 Jane (1898), p. 1.
102 Brooks (2008), p. 6.
103 Fred T. Jane, Hints on playing the Jane Naval War Game (London: Clewes and Sons, 1902), p. 3.
104 Lewin (2012), p. 60.

35
included 50 points for submarines, 200 points for forts, 250 points for troopships, and players
lost points for having coastal towns bombarded. Play would proceed from sketch maps on the
scale of 1 square to 100 miles to the tactical map when combat was joined. Regular sessions of
his war-game began to be hosted, and in his 1902 edition Jane was able to boast ‘officially, or
semi-officially, this Naval Kriegsspiel has now been adopted by almost every Navy in the world,’105
and included a fascinating account of an extended campaign involving seventy-five participants
played out over three months in Portsmouth, 1900, even involving a local newspaper providing
daily updates which could and was used to mount a disinformation campaign. Captain Robert
Lowry, who first played Jane’s War Game at RUSI in 1898, introduced it to the syllabus of the
War Course at Portsmouth War College when he became president in 1907, holding sessions
each Tuesday and Thursday afternoon106, and Admiral Jackie Fisher maintained a war-gaming
table in a large room in the Admiralty, where officers were encouraged to gather to discuss novel
tactics and to play war-games.107 In the 1912 edition, which included rules for aerial
bombardment from airships and dirigibles, Jane acknowledged the trend for rule improvements
to edge towards simplicity of play as the more complicated rules tables were substituted for by
umpire judgement, in parallel to the evolution of the Reiswitz Kriegsspiel; the object of the game
was also revised as it now had three aims: to provide a means of adding realism and practicality
to strategy, to simulate real war conditions for the testing of new tactics, and a means of
education of the strengths and weaknesses of warships currently afloat.108 Although the game
ostensibly still suffered from the problems inherent to Kriegsspiel, namely the quality of the game
depending largely on the umpire, Jane’s game adapted well to the rapid advancement of
technology from 1898- although Jane died in 1916, the Navy carried on with the war-game even
post-war; the rules for the 1921 edition of the official Royal Navy War Game are still identifiably
Fred T. Jane’s.

105 Jane (1902), p. 2.

106 Brooks in Curry (2008), p. 6.
107 Robert K. Massie, Dreadnought: Britain, Germany and the Coming of the Great War (London: Vintage,

1993) p. 437.
108 Fred T. Jane, The Naval Wargame: Official Rules (London: HMSO 1912). P. 2.

36
Conclusion: The Outside Context Problem

Did Jellicoe war-game Jutland with Jane’s War Game rules? Unlikely, because Royal Navy’s
doctrine prohibited night-fighting, and consequently the fleet was not trained to engage in
combat at night. The rules provide allowances for night-fighting but not for night gunnery. Had
he done so, if such a scenario had come into play in a session, would the outcome of Jutland
have been any different? It is tempting to ascribe history-altering significance to the results of
war-games in hindsight, but it is important to remember that for the contemporaries playing the
game, the results of a war-game are just that of a game, one of many; often having no perceivable
bearing on actual decisions, despite results, their lessons discarded or ignored- see the Japanese at
Pearl Harbour, the Russians at Port Arthur and Tannenberg, the Germans at Barbarossa. War-
gaming at the outbreak of the Great War had changed significantly since its incarnation in the
crucible of Prussian military science, its potential as a training tool realised but its full value as an
oracle not yet been grasped. It would take another war and half-century before the application of
science to military endeavour begun by Reiswitz became fully realised, and the invention of the
computer to unlock its full potential. And yet with all these tools at our disposal, we still err- as
Jane wrote in 1912, ‘the true test of a war plan is its ability to succeed despite the occurrence of
things outside calculation.’109 Perhaps the lesson of war-gaming in 1914 for today is that no
matter how advanced our simulation or comprehensive our war plan there will always be the
occurrence of events which we did not factor in our calculations, and that even our best
simulations have their limitations.

109 Ibid, p. 6.

37
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40