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Updated: June 13, 2025
It is also true that the war games and problems there do lead occasionally to recommendations by the War College to the General Board as to various matters; but the connection between the conclusions of the War College and the decisions of Congress via the General Board and the secretary of the navy is so fragile and discontinuous, that it may truthfully be said that the influence of the war games at our War College has but a faint resemblance to the determining force of the Kriegspiel in Berlin.
Imagine now a strategical system of training for the navy, in which a body of highly trained officers at the department will continuously regulate the exercises of the fleet, guided by the revelations of the Kriegspiel: the commander-in-chief will direct the activities of the main divisions of the fleet, carrying out the department's scheme; the commander of each division will regulate the activities of the units of his command in accordance with the fleet scheme; the officer in command of each unit of each division will regulate the activities of each unit in his ship, destroyer, submarine, or other craft in accordance with the division scheme; and every suborganization, in every ship, destroyer, or other craft will regulate likewise the activities of its members; so that the navy will resemble a vast and efficient organism, all the parts leagued together by a common understanding and a common purpose; mutually dependent, mutually assisting, sympathetically obedient to the controlling mind that directs them toward the "end in view."
So, the vast and new machine of the German navy was designed in the drafting-room of the Kriegspiel; and though it has been gradually strengthened and enlarged since then, each strengthening piece and each addition has been designed in accordance with the original plan, and has therefore harmonized with the original machine. Thus the navy has expanded smoothly, symmetrically, purposefully.
Amiable and charming as Groome was, there was in him a singular vein of dogged obstinacy after he had formed an opinion; and he not only refused to recast his story, but refused to abandon the absurd name of ‘Kriegspiel’ for a volume of romantic gipsy adventure.
It would be no less extraordinary if an army that had never been under fire, did not regard every bullet that came its way as unauthorized, because it was inconvenient, and indeed as somehow a violation of the rules of the Kriegspiel, which then constituted its only experience of war.
I suspect that a large proportion of people who asked for ‘Kriegspiel’ at Mudie’s and Smith’s consisted of officers who thought that it was a book on the German war game. I tried to persuade him to begin another gipsy novel, but found it quite impossible to do so. But even then I waited before bringing out my own prose story.
Old campaigns were fought over; the mistakes made by the world's greatest commanders, from Alexander the Great to Grant and Lee were pointed out; Kriegspiel was played; essays written and discussed, recommendations made as to ammunition and food supply; use of artillery in attack and defense; the proper method of employing the telegraph in the war; and a thousand and one things relative to the machine militaire were gone over.
'I suppose that is to show us that when the Day comes the first thing will be to get us thoroughly uncomfortable and rotten. We then proceeded to Kriegspiel, according to the mysterious ideas of those in authority over us.
The same thing is to be noticed in ‘Kriegspiel.’ Romany students alone are able by reading between the lines to discover how deep is the hidden knowledge of Romany matters, so full is the story of allusions which are lost upon the general reader—lost, indeed, upon all readers except the very few.
He was ploughed for his “Smalls,” and, remaining up for part of the “Long,” he went one night to a fair at Oxford at which many gipsies were present—an incident which forms an important part of his gipsy story ‘Kriegspiel.’ Groome at once struck up an acquaintance with the gipsies at the fair. It occurred also that Mr.
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