Kriegsspiel

Kriegsspiel is a genre of umpire-moderated wargaming developed by the Prussian Army in the 19th century to train army officers, in place of relying on field rides or training maneuvers.¹² The word translates literally from German as “war game,” but in English usage it refers specifically to the Prussian systems devised by Georg von Reisswitz and adopted by the Prussian Army, and to the later games built on their principles.³¹² It is frequently described as “the mother of all wargames,” with later wargaming traditions held to descend from it.⁴¹² The first modern wargame is generally considered to be Kriegsspiel, published in Prussia in 1824 by First Lieutenant Georg Heinrich Leopold Freiherr von Reisswitz.¹⁸

The game was invented in the first years of the 19th century by Baron George Leopold von Reisswitz, a civil administrator with an interest in military history.²⁰²² Numerous attempts to produce a war game were made at the time, but they were all based on either chess or cards; Reisswitz broke with this by adopting flat blocks scaled to correct troop frontage, which implied a definite scale for troops and terrain.²⁰ His prototype replaced the two-dimensional grid of board games with sculpted three-dimensional terrain, first in wet sand and later using modular tiles that could be rearranged to form different battlefields, and it was presented to King Frederick Wilhelm III of Prussia.¹³ His son, First Lieutenant Georg Heinrich Rudolf Johann von Reisswitz, working with a circle of junior officers in the Prussian army, refined the system into a training tool through an iterative process of testing and revision, and the rules he developed in 1824 are the most famous of the early versions.¹³⁵

The younger Reisswitz’s system replaced three-dimensional terrain with detailed topographical maps, traditionally at a scale of 1:8,000, so that any historical or anticipated battlefield could be simulated.¹³ Where earlier games treated a piece’s defeat as an all-or-nothing removal, Kriegsspiel introduced the idea that units could be partially defeated but remain on the field, taking damage over several rounds before being overwhelmed — the concept later gamers would call hit points.¹³ A notice in the Militär-Wochenblatt of March 6, 1824, signed by Field Marshal von Müffling, the Prussian liaison officer to Wellington at Waterloo, spoke highly of the game’s instructional value.²² The chief of the Prussian General Staff, Helmuth von Moltke the Elder, thought highly enough of the concept to insist it be made available to all his men, and the result was a notable improvement in his officers’ ability to think and act independently.¹⁴

Method of play

What distinguishes Kriegsspiel from most later wargames is its method of play.¹² The game is played double-blind: the players on each side do not see what their opponents are doing unless they are in direct contact, while an umpire — a game master — reports what each player can observe, enforces the rules, and resolves movement, combat, and other events.¹²¹⁵ The umpire keeps a master map on which the positions of both sides are tracked, determines what happens in the event of contact and fighting, and at the end of the battle reveals the umpire’s table to the players and offers a critique.¹²¹⁵ Additional devices that heighten realism include limiting a commander’s view-range, order delays, and dispatch delays, all of which reproduce the friction and fog of war experienced by commanders in the field.¹⁵ Players need not know the rules, as the umpires handle all the details and players simply give orders ⁴; rulesets are often kept secret so players do not “game” the system to win, focusing instead on the tactics and dilemmas they confront.¹²

Games are typically structured around a chain of command, so that low-level players control a group of six to ten unit pieces — infantry, artillery, or cavalry depending on the setting — while intermediate and overall commanders direct them, allowing players to experience both giving and receiving orders amid incomplete and outdated intelligence.¹⁵ A nominal move in the original game represented two minutes, and an action begun in one move could be continued into the next, or over however many moves it required.²⁰ Combat was resolved with dice and tables, with specially made Kriegsspiel dice intended to abstract combat effects.⁵

Rigid and free Kriegsspiel

Historically the rulesets ranged from the heavily detailed “rigid” Kriegsspiel to the minimal “free” Kriegsspiel, with the choice depending on the historical context to be represented and the level of detail and player command required.⁵ Reisswitz’s 1824 rules, aimed at the detachment level with two-minute turns, are the most famous but are slowed by minutiae.⁵ In 1871 the Prussian officer Tschischwitz published his “Guide to Kriegsspiel,” a more streamlined version of Reisswitz’s system, and in 1873 Jakob Meckel fostered the game further with his “Studies on Kriegsspiel” and several fictional maps, arguing that many elements of rigid Kriegsspiel discouraged play.⁵ The general Julius von Verdy du Vernois was the most famous advocate of free Kriegsspiel, the radical counterpart to Reisswitz’s rigid system; in his 1876 book he argued that to speed up play the umpire should simply judge the outcome of a combat situation, assigning odds and rolling a common d6, or using no dice at all.⁵ Verdy’s 1876 free Kriegsspiel is credited with launching a new generation of wargames using minimal rules and tables, with realism decided by the umpire.¹¹

The 1824 game was designed to be played by up to ten players, with rules for ordering the command hierarchy, and — being played purely as a military exercise — carried no story within its rules.²¹ Because Kriegsspiel was played with modular terrain and adjudicated by an impartial confidant who declared the victor, it anticipated the game-master role later familiar from role-playing games.²¹

Modern practice and legacy

Kriegsspiel remains in use by the world’s militaries and has a substantial hobbyist following.¹² The International Kriegsspiel Society, described as the world’s largest online association dedicated to the game, unites over 4,100 members from around the world.⁴ It plays largely through Tabletop Simulator over the internet, running both play-by-post games — often requiring only five to ten minutes a day — and live games lasting between three and eight hours.¹²¹⁵ The society endorses the Derby House Principles for inclusion and diversity in professional wargaming and charges no dues, fees, examinations, or tests for entry.⁴¹² Professor Phil Sabin of King’s College London, an authority on the design of tabletop wargames, was contracted by the British Army’s Centre for Historical Analysis and Conflict Research to design a Kriegsspiel for officers to practice battlefield tactics.¹⁴

The historical rules continue to be reprinted and sold; Too Fat Lardies publishes English editions of the 1824 and 1862 rules along with scenario and map compendia, and Command Post Games produces Kriegsspiel blocks, dice modeled on 1828 originals, a measuring apparatus, and scenario sets for battles including Waterloo, Brandy Station, Brandywine, and Bunker Hill.¹⁰¹⁹ The late Bill Leeson was pivotal in reviving modern Kriegsspiel, publishing the first reprint of the original rules and conducting extensive research on other Kriegsspiel publications of the 19th and 20th centuries.¹⁷ Computer descendants include real-time titles such as Kriegsspiel ~ 7 Years’ War by La Forge du Code, in which the player commands large armies but depends on couriers to send orders and to learn the situation on the battlefield.¹⁶

Kriegsspiel like it’s 1824: Practitioners are fighting it out at Rivoli, 1797International Kriegsspiel Society

The game is widely held to be the ancestor of all modern wargames, which according to enthusiasts are descended from it, though most lack its central fog-of-war element.¹² The science-fiction writer H. G. Wells is credited with ushering in mainstream wargaming with his game Little Wars, whose pieces included cavalry, infantry, and artillery with simple rules for movement and fire.¹⁴ Dungeons & Dragons is described as directly modeled from Kriegsspiel.¹² Modern wargames now range from grand-strategy games covering entire nation-states to tactical games focused on single battles at company or platoon level, and have been adopted by big businesses to test strategies in a safe environment.¹⁴