Kriegsspiel, from the German word for wargame, was a system used for training officers in the Prussian army. The first set of rules was Instructions for the Representation of Tactical Maneuvers under the Guise of a Wargame, produced in 1824 by von Reisswitz, a lieutenant in the Prussian army, based on earlier work by his father. Today it is considered the grandfather of modern wargames. This rules set established several conventions for wargaming which hold true to the present day, such as the use of maps, color coding the opposing armies as red and blue, using umpires, and uniform, complex rules for movement and combat.[1] Map scale was 6 to 8 inches to a mile, and the time scale was 2 minutes per one turn. Blocks were used to represent units.citation needed
These German wargames were implemented by Helmuth von Moltke the Elder, Chief of Prussian General Staff. Moltke made several reforms to the Prussian military with the backing of Otto von Bismarck. The reforms including Kriegsspiel were the first of its kind; lending priority to education. As a result, this allowed Prussian officers to become more independent and responsible.citation needed
The French filmmaker Guy Debord designed his own version of Kriegsspiel called "Kriegspiel" (one s has been dropped) in 1977 that was later adapted to an online game. Despite Debord's use of the title, however, his game bears no real resemblance to the Prussian military tradition of Kriegsspiel. It has more in common with early Avalon Hill and SPI wargames, such as Tactics II and Blitzkrieg, as well as military-themed chess variants.
After its initial development, this particular style of war games became very popular among the Prussian Army officer corps. After numerous successful Prussian campaigns in the late 1800's, Kriegsspiel became more widely adopted by many militaries.[2]
Notes
^ Schramm, Helmar; Schwarte, Ludger; and Lazardzig, Jan. Collection, Laboratory, Theater: Scenes of Knowledge in the 17th Century. Walter de Gruyter, 2005.
