Das Kriegsspiel

The word “Kriegsspiel” is obviously German, as is its inventor a military writer from Schleswig, Georg Vinturinus, who in 1798 invented War Games on actual terrain. It was based on the “Kings Game” invented in 1664 by Christopher Weikhmann of Ulm, Germany, and on a game Helwig, master of pages to the Duke of Brunswick, developed.

Not until 1811, when a Prussian father-son team, moved it to the next level, rulers took serious notice of war games as tactical training and not just a form of entertainment. Baron von Reisswitz, was a civilian war counselor to the Prussian court at Breslau, during the dark days of Napoleonic domination. In 1824 Reisswitz’ son, Leutnant George Heinrich Rudolf Johann von Reisswitz of the Prussian Guard Artillery, updated the rules and wrote them down in “Anleitung zur Darstellung militarischer maneuver mit dem Apparat des Kriegsspiels” (Instructions for the Representation of Tactical Maneuvers under the Guise of a Wargame).

In 1882 U.S. Army Major W.R. Livermore started the War Game tradititon in the US, when he published the book American Kriegspiel.

In 1940 400.000 soldiers fought a mock war in Louisiana to prepare for WWII.

In 2003 the U.S. Army’s 3rd Infantry Division conducts a live-fire Kriegsspiel on the border of Iraq and Kuwait to prepare for the invasion of Iraq.

Today it is hardly possible to think about army training without war games and hopefully being prepared for the worst keeps soldiers from never having to experience it. Like George Washington said: To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace.

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