Before I write my review, I must make the reader aware that I have known the author for many years and have taken part in several wargames that he has organised. These include:
As a result, the reader might think that my review will be in some way biased ... and in all honesty, it probably is, but only because I know how much thought has gone into this author's writing and how much fun his wargames have been to take part in!
Back in 2013, Paul Holcroft Wright published FUNNY LITTLE WARS: A GENTLEMAN'S PREOCCUPATION ...
... and LITTLE CAMPAIGNS: RULES FOR THE CONDUCT OF WAR GAME CAMPAIGNS IN MINIATURE ...
... to commemorate the hundredth anniversary of the publication of H G Wells's LITTLE WARS in 1913.
The latter contained a wonderful campaign map …
… and a history of one of the campaigns that he had fought, The Herring War.
In 2022 he published a new, revised edition of his FUNNY LITTLE WARS book …
... and he is now going to publish a new volume in this series, GARDEN CAMPAIGNS: INCORPORATING THE KRIEGSPIEL SUGGESTIONS OF MR HG WELLS.
The author has taken H G Wells' Kriegspiel rules as his starting point for the rules in this book. Wells' original Kriegspiel rules were written in conjunction with Colonel Sir Mark Sykes and form part of Wells' LITTLE WARS. It was the intention of the authors that these rules would be used by the British Army in place of the existing kriegsspiel-based system that were described as being 'over-umpired' and 'very dull, lacking in realism, in stir and the unexpected ... and of very doubtful value in waking up the imagination'.
The book is split into two parts.
- Introduction
- HG Wells and Kriegspiel
- The Garden Campaign, yesterday
- Playing Garden Campaign, today
- Logistics and supply
- New Rules for Garden Campaigns
- Railways for Garden Campaigns
- The war in the air
- The campaign by the seaside
- The campaign as a siege
- Campaign scenarios
- The Edwardians depart
Garden Campaign notes
- The map-based campaign
- Campaign resources
- A Medical interlude
- Further Campaign reading
- Playing Aids
Although these campaign rules have been written for wargames that are going to be fought on a garden lawn or the floor of a large room, they are eminently suitable for use in any wargame campaign. In particular, the logistics and supply rules can easily be used or modified for any campaign set after the large-scale introduction of firearms.
It is worth noting that the chapter entitled THE CAMPAIGN AS A SIEGE is almost a separate set of wargame rules in itself, and covers the three main stages of siege craft:
- Investment,
- Bombardment, and
- Assault.
The CAMPAIGN SCENARIOS chapter draws heavily upon William Le Quex's book, THE INVASION OF 1910. Le Quex wrote the book as a warning about the growing threat of Imperial Germany and Britain's military unpreparedness to resist an invasion, and it was published in instalments by the national newspaper, the DAILY MAIL. (It is worth noting that this was not the only book that contained such warnings. Others include Sir George Tomkyns Chesney's THE BATTLE OF DORKING, Le Quex's earlier THE GREAT WAR IN ENGLAND IN 1897, Erskine Childers' RIDDLE OF THE SANDS, and Saki's (i.e. Hector Hugh Munro's) WHEN WILLIAM CAME ... the latter being published in the same year as Wells; LITTLE WARS.)
The author uses the Battle of Royston and the Siege of London as featured in Le Quex's book as the basis for two scenarios, respectively for a map campaign and three interlinked games covering the investment of, bombardment of, and assault on London. He provides a set of Army Lists and Victory Conditions for each, and in my opinion, these scenarios alone are worth the price of the book!
In conclusion, I have no hesitation in recommending this book to any wargamer who has ever contemplated fighting a wargame of their lawn or on the floor of a large room, or who enjoys fighting wargames set in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, or who enjoys reading well-written and thought-provoking wargame books.
GARDEN CAMPAIGNS: INCORPORATING THE KRIEGSPIEL SUGGESTIONS OF MR HG WELLS has been written by Paul Holcroft Wright and will be published in 2025 by Battlefield History Ltd. (ISBN 978 1 4583 7005 1.
Some notes
- I have use two spellings of the German word for wargames, kriegspiel (the Anglicised spelling) and kriegsspiel (the original German spelling). Paul Wright favours the former whilst I prefer to use the latter ... but neither of us is wrong.
- Colonel Sir Mark Sykes (Colonel Sir Tatton Benvenuto Mark Sykes, 6th Baronet, 1879 to 1919) was the heir to a baronetcy (an hereditary knighthood) and served in South Africa during the Second Boer War with the 5th Battalion, The Green Howards (Alexandra, Princess of Wales's Own Yorkshire Regiment; 19th Regiment of Foot). After working as Parliamentary Secretary to the Chief Secretary for Ireland, George Wyndham from 1904 to 1905, after which he was honorary attaché to the British Embassy in Constantinople until 1906. Whilst serving in this role, he travelled extensively throughout the Middle East. Sykes was elected as a Unionist Member of Parliament for Kingston upon Hull Central in 1911. During the Great War he was selected to work in the Army's Intelligence branch and advised the Cabinet on Middle Eastern affairs. As a result, he was one of the driving forces behind the creation of the Arab Bureau. It was therefore not surprising the he was chosen to be the British diplomat who was chosen to negotiate with the French regarding the post-Ottoman boundaries and spheres-of-influence. The result was the Sykes-Picot Agreement. Sir Mark Sykes died in 1919 during the Influenza Pandemic. At the time he was attending the peace negotiations in Paris.
- The 1912 Army Manoeuvres revisited a similar scenario to that used in 1904, namely an invasion of England at some point along the coast of East Anglia. In 1904, the invasion area was between Clacton and Holland-on-Sea in Essex, and in 1912 it was between Hunstanton and Wells-next-the-sea.
