World War II: The last "good" war, the stuff of legends: D-Day, Dunkirk, the Desert Fox, Pearl Harbor, Tarawa... You have as one protagonist Adolph Hitler, who has come to be the standard for measuring evil. On the other side, the democracies of the world, standing for all that is good. Is it any wonder that World War II is a favorite topic for games? This isn't a mere squabble or cattle raid. The future of the World is seriously at stake. So, we would expect to find, at the top of the popularity lists, global and theater World War II games, right? These are games for all of the marbles. One game we find is Avalon Hill's "Third Reich". You start out in 1939 with Germany attacking Poland, with France and Britain having declared war. You know the Russians will be in it one way or the other in 1941, along with all the minor axis allies, and the US just a bit later. The German player knows what he has to do, and the allies know that he knows it. Some variants can modify this a bit, but the future structure of the war is set pretty well from the beginning. But it didn't have to be that way. Things were actually pretty murky in 1939, and many people did not believe a war was necessary at all. Hungary, Poland, Romania, Yugoslavia, Italy, Spain, Finland, Bulgaria ... All these countries were in play. How and when (or whether) they join one side or the other ought to be an interesting, uncertain, and important part of the theater level game. Success in bringing one country into your camp should drive that country's rivals toward the other side. Treaties, defeats, and victories should matter. What if Germany starts the war with an attack on France instead of in the East? It happened that way in 1914. Suppose there is no Soviet German (Molotov) treaty, and perhaps the USSR allies with France, and attacks westward, with Poland becoming an ally of Germany. Or, maybe Germany delays a declaration of war. These possibilities can only occur if there is some system for managing the political swings of the various non-belligerent countries. The purpose of this article is to discuss what the attitudes and possibilities of each of these countries in play were, and outline an approach that could be added to the European Theater game of your choice that could bring a wider scope of possibilities to this aspect of the game. Each country's situation and attitudes are discussed below. On a scale of 0 (Firmly Axis) to 10 (Firmly Allied) each country's leanings are (subjectively) assessed for each of four periods: late 1938 (after Munich), late 1939 (after Poland's collapse), late 1940 (after France's collapse) and late 1941 (after the German invasion of the USSR, but before Pearl Harbor). On the same scale, a 1 or 9 might mean entry into the war, perhaps at the axis or allied option, and a possibility that the country would enter, desired or not, perhaps even by doing something stupid like attacking Greece with an inadequate force. Adding Politics to Your WWII Game A Model Introduction Poland Great Britain France, Belgium, Holland Italy USSR USA Spain and Portugal Hungary and Romainia Yugoslavia and Bulgaria Greece and Turkey Finland Norway, Sweden, and Denmark Political Event Table Treaties Back to Table of Contents -- Against the Odds vol. 1 no. 2 Back to Against the Odds List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 2003 by LPS. This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com * Buy this back issue or subscribe to Against the Odds direct from LPS.