Arguably the most decisive wargames of all time were played in 1905. That was the only year Count Alfred von Schlieffen’s plan for a wide-turning movement through neutral Belgium and Holland was wargamed before his retirement. Virtually all present were on the Kaiser’s (German) team, while two first lieutenants played on the side of the armies of France, Britain, Belgium, and Holland. The wargame concluded with the destruction of the French army so quickly that the British did not have time to come to the aid of France. The Kaiser was pleased.

top: von Schlieffen; bottom: Moltke the Younger

In the same year, at Wilkinson’s urging, the British played a wargame examining the consequences of a new war between Germany and France. The British game also envisioned a German turning movement through Belgium. Like the German wargame, the British game also indicated that the Germans would destroy the French army before a British Expeditionary Force (BEF) could intervene.

Wilkinson and his colleagues were not nearly so pleased with that outcome. This wargame led to a host of actions, in no small part due to Wilkinson’s ensuring that the results of the wargame came up on the floor of Parliament. Repercussions ranged from reworking mobilization and cross-channel plans to informal staff talks with the French. Ironically, British wargaming was short-lived.

Wargames dropped in popularity as it became evident that wargames of the period could not address the psychological and political dimensions of the Boer War. Still, as the Germans lost the key first campaign of World War I because the BEF was in the wrong place at the right time, the impact of Britain’s brief flirtation with wargaming on world history would be hard to exaggerate.

One wargame that did not shape history, but should have, took place in Saint Petersburg, Russia, in April 1914. The same two generals who would command Russia’s two most modern armies in the event of war directed the Russian side in the wargame. Both Russian armies advanced into East Prussia against little opposition. When the Russian armies entered an area of lakes that made cooperation between the armies difficult, the players for the German side placed a thin screening force in front of the Russian army to the north, then shifted the bulk of their forces to surround and destroy the Russian army in the south.

Just four months later, the same two Russian generals commanding the same two armies implemented what appears to be the exact same plan. Once again, both armies made good initial progress. Once again, they reached the area of lakes that made cooperation between the armies difficult. Now the real Germans placed a light screening force in front of Russia’s northern army and shifted the bulk of their forces to surround and destroy Russia’s southern army—near the town of Tannenberg. The lessons learned in the wargame had been completely ignored.

In Germany in the decade before the First World War, something of a wargaming renaissance was under way due to Helmuth von Moltke the Younger (the nephew of the great Moltke). This Moltke has received much abuse over the years for “ruining” Schlieffen’s master plan. While the wisdom of decisions he made during execution can at best be called debatable, he clearly did much to improve planning methods before the war.

The younger Moltke started by going to the Kaiser, a childhood friend (thanks to his famous uncle). He privately told the Kaiser that the latter’s strategizing during the staff rides was closing off rigorous debate. The Kaiser agreed to desist. Next, Moltke examined the wargames themselves. When he discovered that the effect of machine guns on the games was not being considered, he was told there was insufficient data to precisely predict their impact on attrition. Moltke saw to it that data acquired from the Russo-Japanese War could be used. He then asked why logistics were not being included. When told that wargames could not account for logistics, he pointed out that the Italian wargames had included logistics for decades.

Moltke then used his more objective and comprehensive wargame to test the Schlieffen plan. The game indicated that the two armies on the outside of the great wheel would run out of ammunition two days before the campaign ended. Moltke saw to it that Germany organized the first two motorized units of any army anywhere in the world—two ammunition supply battalions. Of course, when war came, the plan did not work as well as the Germans hoped.

Why not? Moltke’s efforts to make the wargames more fully depict contemporary combat results did produce positive effects in that Germany was relatively less surprised by the nature of the early fighting. What got Germany into trouble was not what the Germans wargamed wrong but what they failed to wargame.

They did not simulate the diplomatic and political consequences of their actions. Spontaneous efforts by Belgian civilians to destroy their own railroads caught the Germans by surprise. There were no such contingencies in German wargames. Even more serious, they did not simulate the diplomatic consequences of invading Belgium. The invasion of that country brought the British Empire into the war, the British were eventually influential in bringing in the United States, and the additional weight of US force ultimately defeated Germany. The Germans got most of the details right, but their wargames failed to adjudicate the most decisive consequences of their invasion of Belgium—the political consequences.

These consequences were also ignored when Germany conducted wargames prior to each of its 1918 “peace offensives.” Germany had a “window of opportunity” when its recent victory over Russia had freed up a great many forces, and few Americans forces were yet on the Continent. But if these offensives failed, Germany’s prospects were bleak. While they achieved spectacular advances by World War I standards, these offensives did not reach any truly strategic objectives and hence ultimately failed.

Delbrück, writing in his defense journal during the war, criticized the General Staff. He stated that the wargames had roughly predicted the indecisive outcomes that took place—yet the General Staff went ahead. He claimed that if representatives of the Foreign Ministry had been present at the wargames, they would have realized that the initial advances would have caused panic in Allied capitals. He claimed that if Germany had offered generous peace terms before the offensives had lost momentum (returning most of Belgium, for example), the offer might have been accepted. Now Delbrück feared Germany could not get such peace terms. He was right.

Toward a History-Based Doctrine for Wargaming

Introduction
1811-1904: Wargaming Beginnings
1905–18: Wargaming and the Great War
1919–38: Interwar Wargaming: The Visionary and the Blind
1939-1945: World War II
1946-1980s: Decline and Revitalization
1990s: Gulf War and More