In 2022, the blog of Conflict Simulation Group of the University of Würzburg published a short piece that celebrated the service of the five Prussian champions of board wargaming who, on 3 July 1866, found themselves fighting for king and country on the battlefield of Königgrätz.
In the 1820s, one of these wargame enthusiasts, Karl Eberhardt Herwarth von Bittenfeld (1796-1884), had done much to refine the dice-and-tables Kriegsspiel of his day. In 1848, Gustav Weigelt had composed a set of rules for simulations of that sort. In 1862, Wilhelm von Tschischwitz had done the same. The remaining officers, Julius von Verdy du Vernois and Jakob Meckel, would, in the years that followed the Seven Weeks War of 1866, play important roles in the displacement of the aforementioned system with the umpire-centered ‘free Kriegsspiel’.
Sources
Pia Henning ‘Game on! A research project on the Prussian Kriegsspiel’ British Journal of Military History (July 2021)
Pia Hofmann ‘Thilo Wolf von Trotha and the Prussian Kriegsspiel’ Mars and Clio (Autumn 2025) pages 27-33
Wilhelm von Tschischwitz Anleitung zum Kriegsspiel (Introduction to Wargaming) (Neisse: Graveur, 1870) (Note: This seems to be the third edition of the booklet that made its debut in 1862. I have not been able to find earlier editions.)
Julius von Verdy du Vernois
Über Praktischen Felddienst Aufgaben (Practical Field Service Exercises) (Berlin: R. Eisenschmidt, 1889)
Studien über Truppenführung (Studies in Formation Tactics)
Die Infanterie-Division im Verbande des Armee-Korps (The Infantry Division as Part of an Army Corps)
Die Cavallerie-Division im Verbande des Armee-Korps (The Cavalry Division as Part of an Army Corps)
Die Kavallerie-Division im Armee-Verbande (The Cavalry Division as Part of a Field Army)
Studien über Felddienst auf Grund der Felddienst-Ordnung vom 23. Mai 1887 (Studies of Field Service on the Basis of the Field Service Regulations of 23 May 1887)
Heft 1 (Volume 1) (Berlin: E.S. Mittler, 1887)
Heft 2 (Volume 2) (Berlin: E.S. Mittler, 1887)
For Further Reading
