Little Wars Turns 100!

For a historical wargamer, I saw a lot of talk about celebrating anniversaries last year.  There was a rather vocal minority that wanted every HMGS (East) con theme to cover the 200th Anniversary of certain Napoleonic battles, or the War of 1812, and most of them weren't the manufacturers of product for that era.  A few of my reenactor friends are miffed that there's still no public hubbub over the the continuing 150th Anniversary of the Civil War.  I scoff at all them, as with the coming of 2013, we can give proper thanks for a true event that shaped our lives.

This year is the 100th Anniversary of the publishing of Little Wars by H.G. Wells. One hundred years of "recreational" wargaming. Sure, the kriegspiels done by Prussian staff officers could be recreated as a leisure activity, but they had a primary educational goal of training the officer corps.

The idea of well-to-do men clearing out rooms of their house to build imaginary towns and terrain to be conquered by legions of toy soldiers seems preposterous today, much less back in 1913.

Despite there being roughly a 40 year gap between Little Wars and the dawn of modern wargaming, Wells deserves praise for admitting his little hobby to the world, and a simple concept at that.  Firing was a skill was a skill of manual dexterity, flinging objects (toothpicks and such) at opposing units. Melee was a matter of utter annihilation, as equally matched units would simply kill each other to the man (unequal combatants may lead to the capturing of prisoners, although no POW camps out of blocks made it into the book.)

It also promoted the concept of Garden Wargaming, setting up your soliders outside in good weather and having a go at it.  As a child of the 80's, when anything spring loaded was banned, the idea of actually shooting stuff would have made resolving our own backyard battle squabbles a bit easier.

After 100 years, this version of "tin murder" is still being played out in drawing rooms and backyards today.  One of the blogs I follow, Funny Little Wars has even expanded to a full web site, here, and is even hosting a "competition" this April.  On the blog section of the new web site they even managed to to celebrate the new year by recreating the epic combats between Norway and Denmark, circa 1905.

I may need to dust off my copy of Little Wars (and it's predecessor, Floor Games) and give them a thorough review.  Both are available online as part of Project Gutenburg, although Floor Games is lacking any pictures.

With demos of Wooden Wars at Cold Wars to stoke the fires, this might just be enough to break out and reinforce my Britains.  Perhaps the Autocracy of Bubbania can rise again and find a worthy competitor in Pennsylvania.

Project Gutenburg - Little Wars
Project Gutenburg - Floor Games