This post continues the translation of the diary of a German soldier who fought in the First World War. Readers can find links to other installments in this series in the following guide.

At one in the morning, the battalion marched from Marcelcave to its new battle position. En route, we suffered heavy casualties from enemy shrapnel shells.

The accommodations for the men and us were as bad as they were in our old position.

Quiet reigned until noon. In the afternoon, however, we received lively artillery fire.

Thick clouds of gas constantly roll towards, and over, us.

Lieutenant Hartmann and Reserve Lieutenant Rockenberg led a trench raid. It was supposed to be prepared by a half-hour bombardment of the enemy position from our own heavy artillery (Trommelfeuer). However, our artillery fire fell short.

Lieutenant Rockenberg and two men died. Nearly all of the others suffered wounds. Two of the heavily wounded men lay next the shell hole where we had set up our headquarters.

As I gave them something to drink from my canteen, and asked if their pain was bad, they simply replied, with great sadness, ‘our lieutenant has died’.

In the morning, from six to eight, heavy shell fire fell upon our headquarters. For the rest of the day, it lay to the north of us, on the highway. At dusk, when we thought we could move again, heavy machine gun and artillery fire fell upon us. For nearly all of the night, the spell of this fire (Feuerzauber) maintained its strength. We had not had anything to eat or drink for several days.

We did not eat. Neither did we drink, or sleep!

(Our inability to sleep) owed much to the incessant detonation of artillery shells in our vicinity. It also resulted from the small size of our hole. If we enlarged it, we would deprive it of some of its ability to protect us from the shells.

We came close to losing our humanity, becoming barely-human creatures who, silent and grim, performed our duty, awaiting the certain death that we have only avoided by dumb luck and serves as the only way to escape this wretched existence!

Time passed slowly. Tag came too soon, and night too late.

An unwelcome sun shed its light upon us.

Obstinately, defenseless, and powerless, we huddle in our shell craters and let the concentrations of artillery fire of an enemy who can afford to spend unbelievable amounts of ammunition, fall around us.

The smell of decay filled the air.

Our coffee carrier arrived at dusk.

As soon as he began to fill the canteens of the inhabitants of our hole, a machine gun bullet hit him in the neck.

He fell on top of us.

His blood and our coffee flowed together.

to be continued …

The text comes from Alwin Lyding Meine Kriegstagbuch (My War Diary), an unpublished manuscript that I found at the Bundesarchiv (German Federal Archive) (Folder N 382/1).

‘Mel! Thanks for joining us. We could use your expertise.’

‘Happy to oblige! Melpomene’s the name. Narrative’s the game. How can I help?’

‘We’re offering some advice to folks who craft decision-forcing cases. Hints from Heloise, so to speak.’

‘I remember her well. I always thought that she was Auntie Hera in disguise … Goddess of Domesticity and all that.’

‘Makes sense …’

‘So, Sweet Sister, what advice do you have for folks who would build historical map problems.’

‘Well, at the risk of being obvious … devote a lot of time, toil, and trouble on the provision of maps. A good map provides a lot of context, and thus reduces the amount of exposition required to get the players started.’

‘The more you draw, the less you need to write.’

‘Or say. Better yet, if you can find a suitable base map, then all you have to do is add the symbols that depict units and other moveables. Best of all, you can sometimes find a copy of the same map that the historical protagonist used while wrestling with the real-world problem.’

‘Where can folks find such maps?’

‘I recommend looking through the posts already published by The Tactical Notebook.’

‘All fifteen hundred of them?’

‘Good point. I think you have uncovered a mission for the Green-Garbed Goddess. Thalia, what do you think?’

‘I think that it’s time for me to write a post about the art of finding maps.’

‘Splendid. What other suggestions can you offer?’

‘You should try to put Clio out of business.’

‘Excuse me? Is that any way to treat your big sister?’

‘No offense, Sis. Here’s what I mean. Rather than doing full-fledged historical research, you should look for a pre-existing narrative, something written by someone else. You will still have to fill in gaps and place the piece in context, but, unless you have a whole lot of time on your hands, you shouldn’t try to build a case from scratch.’

‘Where can people procure pre-fabs of that sort?’

Read more

The following problem appeared in the first semi-annual volume of the Infantry School Mailing List, which rolled off the press in 1931. (This periodical, which might well be described as a journal in all but name, replaced the collections of instructional materials that the US Army Infantry School sent out to subscribers in the 1920s.)

For the philosophy behind this problem (and the fifteen that followed), please see:

This problem builds upon the second part of the solution to Short Problem 1:

E’s the man that done us well, an we’ll follow im to ‘ell.

Kipling, Bobs

You are the captain commanding the partially-trained, inexperienced rifle company ordered to attack from E.

Please

1. designate the route that the company will take from its position on the improved road (near B) to E

2. indicate the formation the company will take during the approach march, to include your position and that of the 1st Sergeant

3. describe the actions that you intend to take upon approaching E

Your company consists of a headquarters and eighteen standard (eight-man) rifle squads. Three squads form a section. Two sections form a platoon. Thus, you have three platoons, each of six squads.

I invite full-bore subscribers to use the comments section to share their own answers to the questions posed.

Please note that the problem asks players to provide two distinct solutions: one that presumes well-trained, experienced units and one that presumes units with little training.

I will post the original (1931) solution to the problem, as well as my own commentary, on Sunday, 24 May 2026.

‘Infantry Problems’ Infantry School Mailing List (Fort Benning: US Army Infantry School, 1931) Volume 1 (1930-1931) page 27 (Internet Archive)

The Internet Archive preserves scans of microfilmed copies of all thirty volumes of the Infantry School Mailing List. However, it catalogs them under the heading of the Infantry School Quarterly, which succeeded the Mailing List in 1947. (Internet Archive)

The Hathi Trust provides links to scanned-from-paper copies of some, but far from all, issues of the Infantry School Mailing List (Hathi Trust)

The following problem appeared in the first semi-annual volume of the Infantry School Mailing List, which rolled off the press in 1931. (This periodical, which might well be described as a journal in all but name, replaced the collections of instructional materials that the US Army Infantry School sent out to subscribers in the 1920s.)

For the philosophy behind this problem (and the fifteen that followed), please see:

PROBLEM NO. 1

‘The Lacedaemonians are not wont to ask how many, but where the enemy are.’

Plutarch, King Agis

SITUATION

An infantry battalion advancing northwest encounters a small hostile force on the hill at A. The advance guard, one rifle company, has been stopped at the little stream west of hill B. The rest of the battalion is under cover behind (to the east of) hill B. At 9:00 AM the battalion commander decided to attack. His troops are well-trained veterans.

REQUIREMENT

(1) What is each company, in the attack order, ordered to do?

(2) How is the attack coordinated?

(3) If the troops have had little training, what is each company ordered to do?

(4) How (then) is the attack coordinated?

Weighing in at 852 officers and men, a war-strength infantry battalion of the US Army of 1931, consisted of a tiny headquarters (6 mounted officers), a small headquarters company (1 officer and 62 men), a twelve-gun machine gun company (6 officers and 182 men), and three rifle companies (each with 5 officers and 193 men.)

Most of the men carry M1903 Springfield rifles, bolt-action weapons of the type carried by most riflemen in the world in 1931. Each rifle company, however, rates eighteen Browning Automatic Rifles and eighteen grenade launcher cups. The latter allow the aforementioned rifles to fire three-pound rifle grenades out to a range of two hundred yards.

The machine gun company employs M1917 Browning machine guns: tripod-mounted, water-cooled, rifle caliber weapons of a type adopted towards the end of the Great War.

I invite full-bore subscribers to use the comments section to share their own answers to the questions posed.

Please note that the problem asks players to provide two distinct solutions: one that presumes well-trained, experienced units and one that presumes units with little training.

I will post the original (1931) solution to the problem, as well as my own commentary, on Sunday, 17 May 2026.

‘Infantry Problems’ Infantry School Mailing List (Fort Benning: US Army Infantry School, 1931) Volume 1 (1930-1931) page 27 (Internet Archive)

The Internet Archive preserves scans of microfilmed copies of all thirty volumes of the Infantry School Mailing List. However, it catalogs them under the heading of the Infantry School Quarterly, which succeeded the Mailing List in 1947. (Internet Archive)

The Hathi Trust provides links to scanned-from-paper copies of some, but far from all, issues of the Infantry School Mailing List (Hathi Trust)

During the last two weeks of May, participants in the on-line meetings of the Decision Game Club will work through some of the tactical problems posed to students at the US Army Infantry School during the interwar period.

These one-hour Zoomdezvous will take place on …

• Saturday, 23 May 2026 at 1200 (Noon)

• Saturday, 23 May 2026 at 2000 (Eight PM)

• Saturday, 30 May 2026 at 1200 (Noon)

• Saturday, 30 May 2026 at 2000 (Eight PM)

Please note that all times are those of Washington, DC.

For more information, please see the following description of our merry band.

This post continues the translation of the diary of a German soldier who fought in the First World War. Readers can find links to other installments in this series in the following guide.

The number of enemy aircraft grew at a terrifying rate. I sometimes counted fifty to eighty planes a day engaged in combat in the skies above us.

Despite the enemy advantage in numbers, the German aviators shot down many planes.

Life in our sector often proved hellish.

Another unit relieved us as battle battalion. After five days of putting up with shell holes, shell fire, and gas, we (looked forward to) a few days of rest.

(When we were in our rest area), planes dropped bombs on us and artillery fired upon us. Nonetheless, we were away from the gruesome field of corpses, and could sleep, eat, and, at times, even wash.

An artillery shell scored a direct hit on the battle battalion headquarters we had recently left. It tore to pieces First Lieutenant Miller of the regimental staff of the 97th Infantry, who had taken the place of the battalion commander, who had fallen ill.

At night, my battalion (I/97) moved into Marcelcave to relieve the Third Battalion (III/97) of its duty the ready battalion. We took up residence in the cellars of the shot-up houses.

The enemy fired many concentrations of artillery fire against us. At eight or so, shell landed on top of the house next to ours. Many men were killed, badly wounded, or buried alive. Marcelcave had become nothing more than a pile of ruins and rubble.

At night we marched into Hell to relieve the Third Battalion (III/97) from its service as battle battalion. We wondered if we would survive five days in such a place.

To be sure, some of us would survive, perhaps only the smallest part of our tiny band.

It seemed ludicrous to call our unit a ‘battalion’. It consisted of four groups of twenty-five men piece, and thus mustered fewer men than half of a full-strength company.

In the afternoon, the British used heavy gas shells to subject us to a surprise gas attack.

Gas filled all of our cellars.

to be continued …

The text comes from Alwin Lyding Meine Kriegstagbuch (My War Diary), an unpublished manuscript that I found at the Bundesarchiv (German Federal Archive) (Folder N 382/1).

‘Milstack Saturday’ showcases the best articles on military subjects (other than the current conflict in the Persian Gulf) that I read in the preceding week. For links to noteworthy articles on the excepted topic, please see Milstack Special: the War in the Persian Gulf.

Commander Salamander implies that, when Shahed drones go off duty, they like to watch reruns of Murder, She Wrote.

Rwizi Rweizooba Ainomugisha converts a submarine simulation into a ‘how to hire a spy’ game.

The Operational Art of War runs the numbers on two very different air campaigns.

Brandon Rapp describes the mobilization systems of European armies of 1914 as ‘engines of catastrophe’.

OODA synthesist Mark McGrath recommends that you audit your orientation.

.

This post continues the translation of the diary of a German soldier who fought in the First World War. Readers can find links to other installments in this series in the following guide.

At midnight, I/97 (1st Battalion, 97th Infantry Regiment) marched from Marcelcave into the forward position. The headquarters of the commander of the battle battalion (the commanding officer of I/97) was located in a shell crater.

The ground was entirely flat. It lay in full view of the enemy and was entirely covered by his machine guns. If we tried to move during daylight, we ran the risk of betraying the location of our command post. Our companies lay in short stretches of trench, shell holes, and small bunkers some 350 meters in front of us.

The British artillery shelled us all day. I could not wait for the sun to set.

At midnight, the some ration carriers showed up. Yesterday, their predecessors fell prey to artillery fire, and neither we nor our men got anything to eat or drink.

The captain (the battalion commander) and I visited our companies. The smell of corpses was everywhere.

At night, especially strong enemy fire fell around us. The troops in front of us suffered greatly from it.

Each company could only muster twenty-five to thirty men, but each of the survivors proved willing to do his duty until the bitter end.

Between two and five in the morning, the British gassed all of the terrain we occupied. Gas filled our command post. As a rule, our gas masks protected us. At dawn, the gas shells stopped falling, so we were able to take off our gas masks.

Just before noon, two heavy shells exploded near us and threw a great deal of earth into our hole.

The weather was clear and sunny. We prayed ‘Lord, let evening come!’ All day, we sat in our narrow hole, waiting for the darkness that would let us move again.

The smells we smelled at night left much to be desired. At least one was not obliged to remain seated in a narrow shell hole, in order to avoid being seen by enemies surveilling the flat ground.

When the enemy fired, he hit us with surprise volleys of shells punctuated with short pauses. Nonetheless, those of us who occupied the command post worked feverishly. Messengers from the companies brought reports of, among other things, the losses suffered during the day.

We reduced these reports to three numbers:

1. Officers lost

2. NCOs lost

3. Rank-and-file lost

Thus, a report might look like ‘2/97 1/3/15’. These short messages spoke volumes!

It hurt my heart to think of the way that our men were torn apart and ripped up by artillery and machine gun fire without being able to reply. But I had no time to ponder such things.

Each time I received a message, I needed to make a quick, but well-considered, decision and write out an order for the messenger to take back to his company. In cases where a company lost its last officer, I had to find a replacement. At other times, I had to transfer a squad from one company to another. When a messenger from the regimental headquarters arrived, I had to process and execute it. Thus, for example, orders from on high required me to do things like adjust the boundaries of our battle battalions.

All of this had to be accomplished, in pitch-black darkness, before dawn.

I had to read and write messages and orders with the aid of a pocket flashlight in a shell hole covered with a shelter half, while enemy shells fell around us. Sometimes, poison gas lay so heavily upon the ground that we had to do this while wearing our gas masks, which made our tasks even more difficult.

Our precious hours of darkness passed quickly. At dawn, we all disappeared into our narrow holes.

to be continued …

The text comes from Alwin Lyding Meine Kriegstagbuch (My War Diary), an unpublished manuscript that I found at the Bundesarchiv (German Federal Archive) (Folder N 382/1).

In 1918, the American rifle platoons that fought on the Western Front consisted of:

• three four-man hand bomber teams

• three three-man rifle grenade teams

• two seven-man automatic rifle squads

• two eight-man rifle squads

These teams and squads belonged to sections, each of which provided an administrative home for elements of a particular type. Thus, each platoon contained:

• a twelve-man hand bomber section

• a nine-man rifle grenade section

• a fifteen-man automatic rifle section

• a seventeen-man rifle section

In the larger sections, the extra man, who ranked as a sergeant, held the billet of section leader. In the smaller sections, the senior team leader performed that role.

Prior to going into action, each platoon shuffled its elements in a way that produced two half platoons, each of which consisted of an ad hoc combination of squads and teams. (As a rule, the leaders led the larger sections took charge of the half platoons.)

Soon after the end of the World War, the organizational architects of both the Army and Marine Corps replaced the four specialized building blocks of rifle platoons with a single type of rifle squad, an all-purpose element that employed all four of the weapons found in the rifle platoons of 1918.

Read more

This post continues the translation of the diary of a German soldier who fought in the First World War. Readers can find links to other installments in this series in the following guide.

At noon, we received, via our own 108th Infantry Division, an order from the Jägerdivision that provided details of the upcoming relief.

We will have to provide five officers and fifteen men to orient incoming units.

I reported to the headquarters of the 5th Infantry Brigade in Méricourt.

The guides and I returned to the rest quarters, where I assigned them to particular outfits. I attended a merry officers’ evening hosted by Schmalenbach, the commanding officer of 2/97 (2nd Company, 1st Battalion, 97th Infantry).

At seven thirty, I returned to the headquarters of my battalion (I/97) and slept until eleven. The sun shone wonderfully all day.

At ten (in the morning) we issued gas masks for the horses. A gas warfare intensifies, and we have lost many horses to gas, we have been doing more and more of this.

Life in our ravine was thoroughly pleasant.

In the afternoon, we tested our gas chamber. In the evening, an order for the advance party (Vorkommando) arrived.

As leader of the advanced party, I was went out to visit the new position.

At seven forty five, I rode a bicycle through Méricourt and Morcourt to Bayonvillers (a distance of some 72 kilometers). In the last named place I reported, as leader of the advance party of the relieving battle battalion, to the headquarters of the 5th Ersatz Infantry Brigade.

(Not to be confused with the 5th Infantry Brigade of the 108th Infantry Division, the 5th Ersatz Infantry Brigade provided an organizational home for the three Jäger regiments of the Jägerdivision.)

I went to Marcelcave, to visit the regimental headquarters (of Jäger Regiment 13). From there, I went, with a messenger, to the headquarters of the battle battalion (KTK=Kampftruppenkommandeur), Reserve Jäger Bataillon 21; the ready battalion, Reserve Jäger Bataillon 8; and the resting battalion, Reserve Jäger Bataillon 20.

(Each of the three Jäger regiments of the Jägerdivision had been formed by placing three stand-alone Jäger battalions under the headquarters of a disbanded cavalry regiment.)

I gave my bicycle to the messenger so that he might deliver a detailed report to the adjudant of I/97, Lieutenant Spengler.

The headquarters of the battle battalion that we were to relieve was located in an old British trench, the so-called ‘Tommy Trench’, in a small hole covered with a shelter half. There I found a captain of Jäger and his adjutant. I explained to him the many details of the relief.

As the enemy knew a lot about this position, which had only been in German hands for a short time, I feared that the flapping of the shelter half might let a little light shine through, thereby causing heavy artillery to target us.

A small number of well-placed shells landed in our neighborhood. After the second one of these came close to hitting us, I told the captain that we should move to a new location.

At first, he told me that that ‘Tommy’ would soon calm down and that he had managed to occupy this place for five days. However, when I told him again that we ought to leave, he picked up his map case and other things, and moved with me to a shell crater.

Soon after our change of position, a screaming heavy shell crashed into the battle battalion headquarters we had just vacated. If we had tarried for a few more seconds, it would have torn us apart.

The only items that survived the explosion were a canteen and a belt. The captain said to me ‘my guardian angel must have sent you to get me to move at just the right time’.

The adjudant of the Jäger battalion and I spent the rest of the day in the shell hole. We had nothing to eat, and nothing to drink but a bottle of schnapps. We also had a few cigarettes. We shared both like brothers.

Time crawls when one is obliged to sit in a hole and wait for the fall of night, and the freedom from the daylight that steals the ability to move.

Unbidden, the sun beat down upon us. Our shelter half was gone. At 11:30 at night, I/97 (my battalion) arrived to relieve the Jäger.

to be continued …

The text comes from Alwin Lyding Meine Kriegstagbuch (My War Diary), an unpublished manuscript that I found at the Bundesarchiv (German Federal Archive) (Folder N 382/1).

The Three Musketeers have returned from their little holiday … tanned, rested, and ready to host the online meetings of the Decision Game Club.

On Saturday, 16 May 2026, they will begin a series of decision games, both imagined and historical, from the 1930s. One week latter, they will resume the series of decision-forcing case studies based on the experience of the American expeditionary force that landed in Siberia in 1918.

Athos, Constance, and Porthos invite all full-bore subscribers to join in the fun. To get on the distribution list for the weekly announcement - which provides times, readings, and log-in information - please send an e-mail message to thecasemethodclub@gmail.com.

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The first volume of the Infantry School Mailing List, which rolled off the press in 1931, offered readers a set of sixteen short tactical problems. On 12 May 2026, The Tactical Notebook published the first of these.

This article provides a paraphrase of the solution published at the end of that problem. So, if you would like to play your way through the series, please engage that exercise before reading this post.

The paraphrase changes the voice and person of the text, replacing passive constructions with active ones and the impersonal third person with the Verantwortungsfreudig ‘I’.

Please note that the problem asked players to provide two distinct solutions: one that presumes that the battalion in question enjoys both combat experience and first-class training and another that assumes the absence of those advantages.

Assuming both combat experience and good training …

• I order the advance guard company (already in contact with the enemy at the intersection of the stream and the road) to attack astride the road in the direction of A.

• I attach a four-gun machine gun platoon to the second rifle company. I order that reinforced company to move to the general vicinity of D and attack to the southwest.

• I order the third rifle company to move into the general vicinity of H, where it will serve as my reserve.

• I order the machine gun company (which retains two of its three platoons) to support the attack from positions on B.

• I order the second company to fire a rocket when it is ready to attack. This rocket will serve as the signal for the overall attack.

Assuming neither experience nor extensive training …

• I order the advance guard company (already in contact with the enemy at the intersection of the stream and the road) to attack astride the road in the direction of A.

• I order the second company to move to E and attack ‘slightly south of west’.

• I order the third company to move to the woods at C, where it will serve as my reserve.

• I order the machine gun company to the hill at B, where it will support the overall attack.

• I order each company to report (by messenger) its readiness to attack.

• I will be located with the second company.

• I will fire the rocket that signals the start of the attack.

Rationale

A new company commander will have his hands full directing his three rifle platoons. Thus, I decided against attaching a machine gun platoon to any of my rifle companies.

I wished to preserve my companies from the need to make abrupt changes of direction. Thus, I avoided setting up a situation that would call for rifle companies to converge.

With experienced troops, I could trust the decision to begin the attack to one of my company commanders. With a green outfit, I kept that decision to myself.

I wished to provide my inexperienced troops with routes marked by easy-to-find terrain features. Thus, I ordered my second company to launch their attack from E, which is the only place where the rough road intersects the only stream on the battlefield. Likewise, I placed my reserve company in the only patch of woods in the area.

Solutions Proposed at the Decision Game Club

On Saturday, 16 May 2026, participants in one of the weekly meetings of the Decision Game Club worked through this problem.

Some decided to conduct a double envelopment, ordering one company to attack from positions north of the road and one from positions south of the road.

Others opted for a single envelopment, with two companies attacking from positions north of the road.

Some ordered the first company (which made contact with the enemy at the place where the road crossed the stream) to attack. Others ordered it to withdraw to hill B, thereby creating a trap just east of the junction between the road and the stream.

Some attached machine gun platoons to companies.

Marvelous to say, no one kept a company in reserve. When asked to explain this decision, all responded with words to the effect of ‘I wanted to be as aggressive as possible’.

‘Infantry Problems’ Infantry School Mailing List (Fort Benning: US Army Infantry School, 1931) Volume 1 (1930-1931) (Internet Archive)

The Internet Archive preserves scans of microfilmed copies of all thirty volumes of the Infantry School Mailing List. However, it catalogs them under the heading of the Infantry School Quarterly, which succeeded the Mailing List in 1947. (Internet Archive)

The Hathi Trust provides links to scanned-from-paper copies of some, but far from all, issues of the Infantry School Mailing List (Hathi Trust)

The first issue of the Infantry School Mailing List contained much of interest to folks fond of decision games: a personal experience monograph (suitable for conversion into a decision-forcing case), a substantial tactical problem, and a series sixteen short tactical problems. The anonymous author (or authors) of the latter began the last-named set of exercises with a foreword that described their purpose.

The following problems are intended to bring out:

1. The difference between operations which, in a given situation, may be undertaken with veterans, and those advisable with partly trained or slightly trained troops.

2. The vagueness of information which may be expected in mobile warfare, the necessity of making decisions despite this, and the desirability of aggressive action; this lack of detailed information in regard to the enemy, the element of the unknown, has been, and probably always will be, the usual situation in war; situations in which very detailed information of the enemy is known, as in some of our map problems, will be the unusual case.

3. Employment in various kinds of attacks of infantry units of the new organization.

A problem with a sketch or diagram is stated on one page. To get the most from these problems the reader should come to a definite decision in each case before turning the page to find the solution.

While one definite solution is given in each case it is realized that there are frequently other solutions which might work as well or better. There are many elements or considerations which cannot be indicated on a sketch or in a map problem; therefore readers are requested to consider solutions as tendencies rather than cut and dried ‘thou shalts’.

No one standard method will answer all cases; in map problems we usually show all our attacks beautifully coordinated by the commander. This is highly desirable but often impracticable. If we never do anything in war that is not coordinated to the Nth degree, we stand an A1 chance of not doing anything.

Aggressiveness, simplicity, maneuver and surprise should be striven for. If your solution contains these, it is better perhaps than the one given.

The problems are not intended to lay down rules; they are meant to stimulate thought.

The sixteen problems that followed this foreword will appear, in the course of the summer of 2026, in the pages of The Tactical Notebook.

‘Hey, Thalia, what’s with the thirties vibe?’

‘It illustrates my plan for the summer.’

‘Your plan?’

‘For the next fifteen weeks or so, I, Thalia Avatar, Muse of Historical Simulation, will be filling the pages of The Tactical Notebook with tactical exercises from the Golden Age of Decision Games.’

‘That explains the back issues of the Infantry School Mailing List piled high upon your desk.’

‘And the orders I placed with our sisters in the archives for a full set of Deutsche Infanterie.’

‘That sounds like a splendid plan. How can I help?’

‘Why don’t you write articles that complement particular games?’

‘So, rather than writing stand-alone descriptions techniques, equipment, or organizations, I should write pieces about things of that sort that play important roles in your games.’

‘Bingo.’

‘I can do that. But what about the Three Musketeers. I’m sure that they would love to take part in this adventure.’

‘I’ve already spoken to them. They will be presenting some the Golden Age games that appear in the pages of The Tactical Notebook at regular Zoomdevous of the Decision Game Club.’

Parseval’s Quest invites readers of The Tactical Notebook to work through a tactical decision game that, in 1893, Alfred Count von Schlieffen asked officers of the Prussian General Staff to engage. For more of these exercises, see Robert T. Foley, Editor, Alfred Von Schlieffen’s Military Writings (London: Taylor and Francis, 2003). (Publisher) (Thrift Books)

‘Milstack Saturday’ showcases the best articles on military subjects (other than the current conflict in the Persian Gulf) that I read in the preceding seven days or so. As the name suggests, it usually appears on, you guessed it, Saturdays. This week, however, it will mark the start of our little vacation by appearing in the middle of the week. Happy reading!

Fabian Hoffmann provides a handy taxonomy of missiles, drones, and the hybrids thereof. (The article includes a link to a longer treatment of the subject that, courtesy of the European Union, you may download for free.)

The Librarian of Celaeno celebrates the Semiquincentennial with Independence, Redneck Style.

David Axe (of Trench Art) and JG (of Modern Warfare) debate the utility of the attack helicopter in an age rich in robot weapons of various sorts.

Statecraft, Strategy, and Warfare uses a memorandum from 1938 to illustrate what happens when defense policy and international ambitions diverge.

I have just begun an exercise in family logistics that will keep me away from my writing desk for the next two weeks. Thus, in a few moments, I will take advantage of the feature that allows me to suspend billing.

During this fee-free fortnight, I will continue to post pieces for readers who have taken out full-bore subscriptions to Extra Muros. (As these already exist in half-baked form, I can prepare them for publication during breaks in the aforementioned adventure.) So, if you have yet to explore that part of my little flotilla that celebrates self-directed education, I encourage you to make use of the upcoming drought of more martial material to do so.

This post continues the translation of the diary of a German soldier who fought in the First World War. Readers can find links to other posts in this series in the following guide.

Our First Battalion (I/97), which had been employed as ready reserve battalion for the regiment, was scheduled to relieve the Third Battalion (III/97), which had been serving as the battle battalion (Kampfbataillon).

Right before the battalion stepped off, while the sunken road was filled with soldiers weighted down with backpacks and all sorts of other items, and we stood in the entrances to our dugout, a shell exploded in our midst.

We threw ourselves into our dug out. Dead and wounded soldiers filled the sunken road. Captain von Schönfelder was with us (in our dugout).

The change in air pressure extinguished the lights in our dugout. We lay crowded together. Remarkably, none of us had been wounded.

At midnight, we started to move again. The night was pitch-black, so we used a telephone cable that ran towards the enemy as our guide.

What a frightful path. At two in the morning we arrived at the (command post) of the Commander of the Battle Battalion (KTK=Kampftruppenkommandeur).

The shelter was so bad, indescribably so, simply unworthy of human habitation. A small hole, covered with a shelter half (Zeltbahn), which did little to stop the streams of water caused by the rain. Our feet were entirely covered in water and mud.

The 1st Battalion (I/97) completed its relief of the 3rd Battalion (III/97) by four in the morning.

Those of us in the command post of the battle battalion (KTK) lived a grim life. We slept in awkward positions - half sitting, half standing - soaked to the skin, frozen, and hungry. Towards eleven, we climbed into the shallow trench where our bâtmen had been standing in water and mud.

The weather improved, which improved things somewhat. There was, however, not much we could do. We could not enlarge our hole without reducing its ability to protect us against enemy shells. Digging out the sides would increase the danger of large amounts of earth collapsing and burying us.

The British snipers cause much discomfort. Shrapnel bullets fly over us, a hair’s breadth over our heads. In the evening, heavy enemy artillery fire fell.

A surprise concentration of enemy artillery fire hit the 1st Machine Gun Company while it was taking part in a relief, killing and wounding many. Fähnrich Arnold was wounded as well. (The 1st Machine Gun Company was the machine gun company of 1st Battalion.)

Our rifle companies suffer additional losses. We got nothing to eat. Apparently, the ration carriers were killed.

At night, drum-like artillery fire (fell near us). Towards morning, (we were hit by) heavy fire.

The weather was clear, but somewhat cold. A dead British soldier lay in front of our shell hole. As we couldn’t go out during the day, we waited until nightfall to bury him in the nearest shell hole.

The remains of dead soldiers lie all around us.

Towards three, an airplane dropped bombs, causing ammunition to explode.

Towards evening, a few aircraft flew over us. Praise God, I was sent to the rear.

About eleven in the evening, Fritz (my horse), Genwo (my groom), and Minni (my groom’s horse) arrived at the entrance to the village of Lamotte. Shortly before ten, I left the command post of the battle battalion (KTK), taking shelter in shell holes each time surprise concentrations of enemy artillery shells fell near me.

Sometimes, I jumped on top of dead British soldiers.

I wanted to meet up with Dr. Kanzow in Lamotte, so that we could ride together. Alas, (by the time I got there) he had found a car to give him a ride, and so was already gone.

I found my groom Genwo, along with (our horses) Mini and Fritz. Fritz was still somewhat lame from all of the advance party rides we took.

Once in the saddle, I trotted quickly away from the place of horrors. Soon, the artillery started to fire again.

I found myself east of Méricourt, where I found Dr. (Kanzow) and (Lieutenant) Spengler in a Nissen hut.

I slept in a British stretcher. Despite the fact that it was soaked with blood, I slept soundly.

After washing myself - for the first time in ten days - I felt human again. I bought some cigars, got some mail, which made me happy. In the last position, fourteen men of our battalion died and thirty-five were wounded.

to be continued …

The text comes from Alwin Lyding Meine Kriegstagbuch (My War Diary), an unpublished manuscript that I found at the Bundesarchiv (German Federal Archive) (Folder N 382/1).