This year’s VCOW (Virtual Conference of Wargamers) took place over the weekend, and I was able to take part in several sessions.
On Saturday, alongside two other members of WD (Wargame Developments) who are experienced intercellular wargamers, I was a ‘talking head’ about wargaming the interwar period. My contribution was to give a brief outline of the conflicts that took place and some sources of inspiration that potential players might find useful. These took the form of two short MS PowerPoint presentations.
Wargaming the Interwar period
Wargaming the Interwar period: Some sources of inspiration
I also took part in Vishalji Odedra‘s excellent DUNE game, where I was a member of the House Atreides team ...
... and Russell King's game about degenerate art in Nazi Germany.
It was a great weekend of online wargaming, talks, and discussions ... and was almost as good as being at COW proper!
During a short break in VCOW, I got talking to a fellow history teacher (I am retired but he is still working at the chalkface) about the different ways we and our students perceive what 'modern history' is. To them, it is what happened in the recent past, but to us it is about events that we actually lived through.
I related the story of teaching an A-level History class about the Cuban Missile Crisis and having a student comment that 'you talk about it as if you were actually there' ... and the shock on their face when I told them that I was a teenager at the time! My colleague responded that there were now no children in the UK school system who had been born before 9/11, and how sobering a fact that he found it to be.
This set me thinking. It is my 72nd birthday today (please, no congratulations!) and the day I was born was halfway between 1878 and 2020! I suddenly realised that I was born closer to the date of the Anglo-Zulu War than I to today!
A somewhat sobering thought, isn't it?
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First off happy birthday Bob! I saw something recently that pointed out that 1970 is the halfway point between the end of the First world War and now, which did make me ponder a bit. Sobering thoughts indeed.
ReplyDeleteMy former younger colleagues at work struggled to comprehend that I was old enough to just remember man landing on the moon and seeing one of them on the TV. When chatting with our daughter she thinks the 1980's as a hell of a long time ago yet for me it seems like only yesterday and I was in my prime!
The powerpoint slides make for very interesting reading, so thanks for sharing these.
Steve J.,
DeleteCheers! Some years ago I was discussing the Great War with some students who were shocked and amazed that my paternal grandfather had served during the conflict as a thirty something, and that my A-level maths teacher had served as a subaltern in 1917/18. I might as well have said that I’d known Oliver Cromwell or Julius Caesar; I doubt that they would have been very much less incredulous.
I well remember watching the Moon Landings on TV … and taking part in Cold War Civil Defence exercises. History now … but it was what we lived through.
Glad you enjoyed the slides. I think that quite a few people who attended that VCOW session had not realised how ‘unquiet’ the interwar period had been.
All the best,
Bob
This all looks very interesting. I'm rather drawn to the inter-war period - the Interbellum blog was very good and probably should be revived!
ReplyDeleteMy son (in his mid-20s) recently messaged me to say that the gap in years between now and 1970 is the same as 1970 to 1918! As a child 1918 seemed like ancient history...
PS (Whispers) Happy Birthday
Maudlin Jack Tar,
DeleteI think that you’re right about reviving the Interbellum blog. Perhaps I ought to copy the relevant part of this blog post over to it.
It’s interesting how the passage of time brings psychological distancing and affects people’s perceptions. It’s rather like the ‘this is small and close but that is big and far away’ discussion in FATHER TED.
All the best,
Bob
PS. Cheers!
Congrats and Happy Birthday Bob, celebrate all your achievements
ReplyDeleteVCoW was just exemplar :)
Wrt your age calculation, although I am younger I am not as brave as you to go work out "which past world event I am closer to than today!"
Respect
Geordie an Exile FoG,
DeleteCheers … and do that calculation; it will be an eye opening experience!
All the best,
Bob
PS. During the DUNE game I realised that I had known Tom Mouat for longer than some of the other participants had lived!
PS: The number of "inter-war" wars (and they were real wars as any) was absolutely amazing!
ReplyDeleteGeordie an Exile FoG,
DeleteIt was a very unstable and violent period of history that is frequently ignored and/or misunderstood outside of a smallish circle of historians and wargamers.
All the best,
Bob
Hi Bob...There are some sobering comments in your final points. I am just a couple of years behind you in "maturity". It never occured to me that all the kids at school now were born after 9/11...That said I have a 42 year old daughter which is equally thought provoking. Just where have the years gone?? Have a good day ..Regards.
ReplyDeleteTony Adams,
DeleteTime slips past … and we hardly notice it’s passing.
During our last cruise I was talking to a retired Royal Marine who had taken part in the Falklands War as a nineteen year old … and he was on the cruise to celebrate his forthcoming sixtieth birthday! He posed the same question as you did … where have the years gone?
All the best,
Bob
I won't wish you a happy birthday on this forum, I'll just think it! Many people tend to view history from a snap shot perspective, focusing only on major events without realizing the weight of the "little stuff" is often what tips the scales and leads to the major events.
ReplyDeleteTime does fly as one gets older. I'll be 60 this May, but before I know it it will be Christmas again!
Mark Cordone,
DeleteCheers! As an historian, it’s filling in the gaps between the ‘snapshots’ that I find most interesting … and often it’s in those gaps that one finds the real causes of those major events.
Tempus fugit … sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly …
All the best,
Bob
I find the Interbellum website / blog very interesting; good to see Tintin recognised as a source ...
ReplyDeleteThis time passing thing is not just about decades (says this 70s Airfix kid). There is an interesting quote that “Tyrannosaurus rex lived at the end of the Cretaceous, some 68–66 million years ago. Stegosaurus we find in the late Jurassic, 155–150 million years ago. So indeed, between T-Rex and (us / the iPhone) now is less time than between T-Rex and Stegosaurus.”
https://www.quora.com/Is-it-true-that-the-T-Rex-is-closer-in-time-to-the-iPhone-than-it-is-to-the-Stegosaurus
Mark, Man of TIN,
DeleteI must try to resurrect the Interbellum blog. Perhaps adding my slides might help to do that.
You mean that T-Rex didn’t eat Stegosaurus for lunch! I am truly shocked … and I’ll never be able to watch JURASSIC PARK again! ;^)
All the best,
Bob
Happy Birthday Bob. I know a physicist who can prove to you that the years really are getting shorter...
ReplyDeleteJon S,
DeleteCheers! Can this physicist also explain why the twelve pairs of socks I put into the washing machine turn into eleven pairs and two odd socks.
All the best,
Bob
Fascinating Posting! Judging by what appears on your power point screens, that must have been one - or two? - interesting presentations! By the way, you could have added H.G. Wells 'The Shape of Things to Come' - the basis of the 1936 movie - as a literary connexion to interwar conflicts. The book backgrounds the outbreak of war between Germany and Poland that soon breaks down into a prolonged deadlock. It seems that the crude and reckless redrawing of national frontiers in Eastern Europe left a seething resentment that simply HAD to lead to violent international conflict.
ReplyDeleteOne of the signals of advancing age is just how time shrinks. I recall as a kid in the 1960s (I turn 71 later this month) reading books on what 1985 would look like (very optimistic they turned out to be!). 1985 seemed so remotely distant. Forty-seven years AFTER that date, it doesn't seem so long ago...
I often think of historical events or figures, and work out how many of my lifetimes lie betwee,. King David flourished over 3000 years ago - just 43 of my lifetimes. Human history is pretty bally short, don't you reckon? If it were true that our world came into being in 4004BC - 6026 years ago, that's less that 87 of my lifetimes. The longer I live, so history gets shorter!
So your physicist acquaintance is quite right. My first year of life took my whole lifetime to complete. This last year of life has been just one-seventieth as long. QED.
Cheers,
Ion
Archduke Piccolo (Ion),
DeleteThe presentation were two short ones, with no fancy animations etc., to distract the audience.
It is a long time since I read Wells' THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME ... but I really ought to do so again soon. From what I can remember, the film extrapolated and built upon the book, which I understand Wells intended to be more of a discussion than a novel.
As Einstein is supposed to have written, time is a relative concept: 'To simplify the concept of relativity, I always use the following example: if you sit with a girl on a garden bench and the moon is shining, then for you the hour will be a minute. However, if you sit on a hot stove, the minute will be an hour.' In truth, a lot of our lives feel like that!
All the best,
Bob