This little game is my response to reading an eyewitness account of one of the lesser known combats of the Franco-Prussian War; If is really non-fiction, since it is closely based on one man's war - that of Pierre Van Bockstael. His military memoirs have been printed in full in the excellent "Un Mobile de l'Armee de Faidherbe" by Jules Brenne (Annales du CROP de Lille, 1972); They are remarkably clear, precise and realistic, Tres Zola, in fact. On pages 105-110 he gives a vivid accpunt of the battle of Boves, near Amiens and its aftermath. Everything that happens in this game is taken from the pages. Now sit back and imagine you are a French conscript, age 25, from the provincial backwater of Rexpoede - a small village in the Department du Nord. The date is 22nd November, 1871, You are a "middling peasant," running a sizeable farm to support yourself, your mother and sister. Fortunately you have some loyal labourers who can keep it going while you are in the army. You were nonetheless reluctant to join, since this war has little to do with you or your village. The sooner it's over and done with, the better. Nevertheless as a solid Fleming you saw your duty lay in defending 'la Patrie en danger', so when your papers came you declined many tempting offers to go into hiding. You did a couple of months drilling at Dunkirk, but it was still a very rude shock when your unit (5th Company, 5th Battalion, 47th Regiment of Gardes Nationales Mobiles] finally marched out on campaign. Living rough in this cold weather is no joke, especially with the appalling supply services which Faidherbe's Armee du Nord seems to be landed with. Why, you are certain that the meat last night was horse -- a considerable insult to your patriotism! But at least you have been able to get home several times during your 'service', to reassure your family that you are OK. Your main priority is to make sure that your mother is all right, after which comes your own personal welfare and (especially) food. The Prussians run in third. It is clear to everyone that 5/5/47 Mobiles is a pretty ramshackle outfit. No one was in the army before August this year, and all the officers were elected for their personal popularity rather than their military skills. Then they appointed the NCO's from among their friends. You have had proper uniforms for only a few days, and you are armed with an old fashioned musket converted to breach loading by someone who knows more about modern art than about ironmongery. To cap it all you lost your haversack last night because you had loaded it onto the company wagon to make marching easier, but someone pinched it when you weren't looking. This morning you have been marched across muddy fields towards the sound of cannon and rifle fire which indicates a battle. You have been halted in a sprawling village in a shallow valley. Ahead of you is a wooded rise in the ground, with the summit perhaps 400 metres from your position. From this wooded rise come rifle shots which knock slates off the rooves and flatten themselves against the walls of the village. This solves the problem of whether the men seen on the rise were Prussians or French! The whole company is snapped out of its bemusement and complacency as it realises that this is a real battle and we are right in the middle of it! The War Start at 6 1- You try to get to the rear but are spotted by an enraged officer, Roll one D6; 1 go to 3; 2-6 go to 11, 2- You are hit by a burst of Needle-gun fire. Killed for 1-2 on D6, badly wounded for 3-4. Either way you lose the game. But for 5-6 you are only lightly hurt and can still walk. Go to 19. 3- The officer is shouting to stop the men running away. There are so many of them, and panic is spreading so fast, that he resorts to extreme measures. He takes out his revolver and shoots you dead, as an example. You lose the game and the other fugitives run away all the faster. 4- You throw away your own old gun and pick up this gleaming new Chassepot. Roll one D6. 1-3 you fail to find ammo for it but take it along anyway. 4-6 you get ammo and are hence better armed than you started. Either way, go to 13. 5- You reach Amiens in total disorder, and you have no idea where the rest of your unit has got to. You are dead tired. Do you accept the offer of a billet in a large house near the centre of town, and go gratefully to sleep? (Go to 15) Or do you press on to the station and try to get a train home to Rexpoede? (Go to 19). 6- Some men are hit. The whole company suffers a moment's shock and paralysis. The enemy fire seems to be coming closer. Do you grit your teeth and resolve to stick it out? (Go to 10) Or do you try to slink to the rear? (Go to 1) 7- In the general sauve qui peut there is total confusion. Do you try to rally to your officer? Go to 3 Or do you just try to go to the rear as fast as you can? (Go to 11) 8- You get home safely and see your family, You win the game and die peacefully in 1921. Congratulations! 9 A local man advises you that the only way to escape the Prussians is to change into civilian clothes since they are rounding up all soldiers as prisoners of war. Do you hasten to follow this advice? (Go to 19) Or do you remember the way francs tireurs have been shot out of hand, and politely decline (Go to 16) 10 Everybody is grim, anxious and nervously checking their equipment and weapons. Enemy shots are still falling around the company. Your officer breaks the tension by ordering everyone to lay down their packs and advance against the enemy. Roll one D6. Go. to 2 for 1-2, otherwise to 14 for 3-6. 11 You successfully make yourself scarce, avoiding the officer (and losing most of your companions in the scramble), You see a bright new Chassepot on the ground. Do you throw away your old gun and pick up the new one? (Go to 4) Or do you just throw away your old gun and keep running? (Go to 13) 12- The battalion commander calms the rising panic by his presence and holds the men in line after all, He starts to lead you all to the rear, Go to 14. 13- Your precipitate flight from the battle stops when you are finally out of breath. You follow a herd of other soldiers moving down a main road away from the fighting. Go to 5, and throw away your rifle if you have one! 14 - After moving a short way another officer intervenes with a counter-order. He tells you to stack arms and stand at ease even though still under enemy fire! Roll one D6; 1 go to 2; 2-5 go to 18; 6 go to 10, 15 - You wake up next morning to the sound of a general alarm that the Prussians are in the town! Do you run outside to see what's going on and make good your escape? (Go to 2) Or do you wait indoors until the situation has been clarified? (Go to 9). 16- Prussian soldiers find you and take you as a prisoner to Germany. You lose the game. 17 You are arrested by the gendarmes who are looking for deserters at every station. You are condemned to five years' hard labour and lose the game. 18- The agony of doing nothing while in danger is too much for the men, and blind panic starts to spread. There is a general movement to the rear. Roll one D6. Go to 7 for 1-4; go to 12 for 5-6. 19- Get to the train to Rexpoede with relief, along with many other fugitives, many in civilian clothes. Do you slip off the train at the signals 5 km short of your home (Go to 8), or to you get off at the Rexpoede station? (Go to 17) Real Life In real life Pierre Van Bockstael followed 6-10-14-18-7-11-4-13-5-15-9-19-8. There are many points to note in Pierre's tale, not least the sheer terror he describes when first coming under fire, The Gardes Mobiles were such complete novices to the art of war, moreover, that no one was able to stop them running off before they had fired a shot. Only a 'rearguard' of some fifty men returned a few rounds before they, too, joined the general rout. The account underlines the psychological difficulty of standing still doing nothing when one is in danger, and it also shows the many harsh measures used in battle to prevent desertion - often with more brutality than effectiveness. The story reveals that these unblooded soldiers still thought of themselves more as ,farmers than as troops. They all wanted to get home as fast as possible, with or without their weapons and uniforms and regardless of their military duty. If only the battalion had included a few veterans and experienced `!CO's, the story might have been very different. There are some striking parallels with the American Civil War, in which the armies were improvised practically from scratch, with elected officers and little of they formal discipline of long service regiments. The panics at Bull Rim in the first year of the war also have much in common with what happened to Faidherbe's Mobiles at Boves, Equally the problem of armament loomed large hi-both wars, and throughout the Civil War we read of soldiers discarding their old guns in order to salvage a superior weapon found lying on the ground. And in the Civil War we find that many of the Confederate cavalry, at least, regarding themselves less as true soldiers than as 'gentlemen visitors' to the army, free to go home when they wished and essentially unencumbered by the rigidities of military bureaucracy. Finally, one cannot help noticing distinct similarities with the young soldier's experience in Stephen Crane's THE RED BADGE OF COURAGE. There is the same remorseless, impresonal character to the enemy's fire; the same urge to bolt, and the same lack of coherence or snappy drill in the unit under fire for the first time. Units get mixed up, men get lost, and the whole scene quickly degenerates into a shambles, Pierre Van Bockstael cannot have known Crane's work when he wrote his memoires soon after the war, since THE RED BADGE OF COURAGE was published only in 1894, Nor can Crane have read Bockstael, who was published only in 1972. The similarities between them are therefore purely coincidental, and go to reinforce each other's belief that this is what battle really feels like to the participant. Back to MWAN # 23 Table of Contents Back to MWAN List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 1986 Hal Thinglum 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