Wargames

by Martin van Creveld

  For example, the New Zealand Military Reenactment Society is prepared to impersonate eight different units.97 Out of those three are World War II-vintage German. Of those again, one was the “3rd Company, 1st SS Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler,” whose one-time commander, Obergruppenfuehrer (General) Joseph Dietrich, ended up by being tried for war crimes and sentenced to life in prison. Other groups impersonate the SS Viking, Hohenstaufen, Das Reich and 9th Panzer divisions as well as the regiment called after “der Fuehrer” with the objective, as one of them puts it on its website, of preserving their way of life and combat behavior.98 In 2009, incidentally, the Viking Division alone held no fewer than nine reenactments. One group explains that its members are not forced to reenact SS units exclusively and that they never use the “German raised arm ‘Heil Hitler’ salute.” Another says that it “does not support or hold any political beliefs in any banned political parties or subscribe to any neo-Nazi Movement whatsoever.”99 This particular group boasts of having “eight motorcycle outfits, three Kuebelwagen [a kind of jeep-like vehicle much used by the Wehrmacht in World War II], one Borgward B2000 troop truck, one Zundapp solo KS600 [motorcycle], one 222 armored car, a 2 centimeter flak gun, [and] a pak-37 [antitank] gun.” A fine collection indeed: and one that not only cost a lot of money to acquire but requires careful and loving attention if it is to keep running.

  All this betrays a certain uneasiness, as it well may: at least one group has gone so far as to reenact the execution by Waffen SS troops of “partisans,” probably in France at some time in 1944.100 Paradoxically, post-1945 German law prohibits public display of symbols dating to the days of the Third Reich. Hence German nationals desirous of doing so are obliged to hold their games in foreign countries where the authorities do not mind people dressed up as Nazis running about; even more paradoxically, many such shows are held in Ukraine, a country specifically selected by those Nazis for permanent enslavement and exploitation.101 Overall, there probably has not been an important army in history that did not spawn its enthusiasts bent on reenacting its battles. Even an army that had little to show for its efforts except defeats, such as the World War II Italian one, has some enthusiasts who dress up and act like one of Mussolini’s units in Russia.102 Women, one reenactor claims, love the Italians.

  Different groups of hobbyists vary greatly according to the degree of authenticity they require. Some will be content if members dress up more or less as the occasion demands and take up some tolerably appropriate weapon. They do not even mind, say, having the soldiers of Frederick the Great, or the Civil War, or World War II, use cellphones. Others are much stricter, not to say fanatical, in this respect. They want to make sure, as far as possible, that history is reenacted exactly as it was and that participants feel exactly as their predecessors did. They insist that every detail should be carefully checked and that the encounters as a whole should be as authentic as close research and money can make them. A rifle, a pocket knife, a watch even, that do not fit the time and the place about to be reenacted are considered enough to spoil the fun. The same applies to a piece of clothing that looks either too new or too old. In the former case this is because the item in question is probably a fake; in the latter, because it does not appear as it did at the time it was actually issued and worn.

  These and similar problems often lead to heated arguments. Groups of reenactors, almost always loosely organized because of the voluntary and unpaid nature of the activity, have been known to break up because of disagreements over what is and is not acceptable. May a Napoleonic reenactor drink a bottle of Coca Cola, or should he stick to eau de vie? One website tells enthusiasts how to bake hardtack, a form of dry bread which, though much disliked by those who had to eat it, was a dietary staple for soldiers and sailors for centuries on end. Another advertises everything Civil War reenactors need, starting with a model 1851 US Navy pistol and ending with officers’ spurs.103 There appears to be no limit to what some people may do: for example, in making sure that the gun they carry while reenacting some episode in the 1940 German campaign against France should be a Maschinegewehr 34 and not the slightly different Maschinegewehr 34/41 which only made its debut a year later.104

  As with most collective activities, “real” military ones specifically included, much, perhaps most, of the time devoted to the hobby is spent making technical preparations on the one hand and socializing on the other. The logistic foundations must be put in place and travel arrangements made. Once the participants have arrived at the appointed location greetings and reminiscences are exchanged, equipment is cleaned and made ready for action, and so on, often with the aid of liberal doses of beer. Post-action hours too may provide plenty of opportunities for a pleasant community life. However, some of the time is spent digging trenches in the soil, dragging heavy equipment into position, running up and down hills under the hot sun, wading through the slush and snow that cover some fields, lying on the ground pretending to be dead, carrying or being carried on litters, eating K-rations, and in general doing almost anything to experience or reexperience what war at the time and place selected was like. Here it should be said that, like the maneuvers of which they are the smaller and less elaborate brothers, reenactments come closest to capturing at least some of the friction, deprivation, and physical effort real-life war involves even in the absence of battle. To that extent they also provide the most realistic training for it: as one reenactor says, being cold, wet, dirty, and miserable is what reenactment is all about.105

  Above all, reenactors of this kind cannot hope to compete with the public shows in the number of participants they enlist. On the one hand, this has the effect of preventing them from playing out the larger and more important battles that are the stuff of which military history is made. On the other, it provides them with a certain freedom their larger brothers do not enjoy. They do not have the organization and resources required, say, to stage the battle of Gettysburg (although some of the less fastidious among them will participate in such large shows as extras). But they can and do stage what, based on the carefully researched weapons and equipment and modus operandi of the time, must have happened to a “typical” platoon or company at some point and place during that battle. Provided only the terrain is suitable and sufficiently large, many kinds of tactical moves may be and are simulated. Thus, even though there is no shooting and no fighting – this, of course, is something reenactments share with military maneuvers – at least a modicum of strategy is involved.

  Forming a genre within a genre, reenactments of this kind are sometimes known as “tacticals.” Participants are assigned objectives – say, reaching an objective or capturing a defended position – and engage in reconnaissance missions. They consult maps, prepare plans, move about on the terrain, stalk each other, ambush each other, take each other by surprise, outflank each other, surround each other, and the like. Often the fog of war plays as important a role as it does in real operations. “Soldiers” on mission lose their way, run about in rain or sleet that cover the terrain and bump into the “enemy” who seems to have come out of nowhere and rakes them with withering fire from the flank or pops up at such close quarters that they have no option but to “surrender” − all without having the slightest idea of where the remaining members of the group are, what they may be doing, and what the “big picture” is like. To make up for the absence of “real” fighting, often there are rules to decide who has been killed, injured, or captured, although making people observe them is not easy. Sitting or lying down is boring; nobody wants to set a weekend apart and travel perhaps hundreds of miles to an event simply in order to pretend that, no sooner has the fun got under way, they are dead. As with many computer games, normally even dedicated reenactors are given, or give themselves, several consecutive lives.

  Take the following list of instructions, intended for rookie Civil War reenactors:106

  When the line moves, you may get pushed or pulled in a certain direction by a line-mate. This is just to make s
ure that everyone goes in the right direction and stays in their proper place. Make sure you stay with your unit. Remember the faces around you, so that if you do get separated, you’ll be able to find your place back in line. If you do get totally lost from your unit, fall in with the nearest friendly force and follow them until the conclusion of the action, or until you see a few familiar faces and can regroup with your unit. If you do end up with another organization, follow their roles and orders, and respect their officers as your own . . . Do not question the officers’ orders to send you straight to a grisly “death”. . . Stay elbow-to-elbow (not shoulder to shoulder), and make sure to fill any holes made in the front rank with men from the rear rank . . . Stay in line, and do not charge ahead unless ordered.

  The quotation marks before and after “death” apart, did the orders issued by Confederate company and battalion commanders before Pickett’s charge, for example, sound so different?

  Some reenactors are notorious for the deadly seriousness with which they exercise their hobby. Others do so more in the spirit of light-hearted burlesque: they play around, engage in all kinds of antics, allow inexperienced spectators to have a go at it, and the like. Many try to strike a middle-of-the-road posture, claiming that:

  we are a good group of people that are able to straddle the line between a serious hobby and a fun time. Some groups seem too rigid in some areas, and they suck the life and fun out of the hobby. Others are too lax, allowing all sorts of inappropriate behavior and corner cutting. We’re positioned nicely between these extremes. We strive for high authenticity while having a good time.107

  However it is done, unkind souls are certain to say that reenactments, being based on make-believe, merely represent a trivial form of amusement for boys who have never grown up. Like other wargames they contribute to that dread disease militarism; perhaps more than other wargames, they may even cause damage by reviving or intensifying existing rivalries and enmities, as has been known to happen during reenactments of US Civil War battles.108

  Up to a point the criticism rings true. Personally I find a photograph of an American reenactor proudly displaying a trophy he received for participating in the maneuvers of some Waffen SS division hard to stomach, perhaps even more so than one that shows the original. It seems to me that the real SS man at any rate has a kind of innocence. He may have been ordered to do what he did, or he may have been deceived by a society gone mad. After all most SS men, having grown up during the 1930s, never heard anything but the most intensive, comprehensive, most successful propaganda campaign of all times; as the New Testament puts it, God forgive them because (at least in some cases) they did not know what they were doing. That is something his latter-day reenactor, who is in possession of all the facts, does not share. By choosing to impersonate the SS man, he consciously and deliberately piles evil on evil.

  Even putting aside this case as a special one, reenactments, like any kind of historical theater, carry the risk of stirring up memories not all of which may be friendly or pleasant. On occasion a scheduled event has had to be cancelled because the local population did not want to be reminded of a defeat their ancestors had suffered long ago.109 However, it is also true that organizing reenactments inevitably requires a considerable amount of cooperation between “opposing” groups. War is essentially a zero-sum activity in which each side’s gain comes at the other’s expense, but reenactors must have quite a lot in common if the event is to take place at all. To that extent reenacting may help to assuage and perhaps overcome the enmities of the past. Indeed northerners have been known to play the part of Confederates, and southerners that of Federals.

  The reenactments themselves reflect the close relationship that has always existed between war on the one hand and games on the other. Presumably that relationship will continue to exist until the last testosterone-driven male member of our species gives up the ghost. In a sense, they are part of a wider phenomenon. I am referring to what is sometimes known as the “gamification” of modern life: to wit, the process whereby “serious” activities in such fields as business, administration, and education are being redesigned so as to place a great reliance on point systems and prizes. Such fields as weight-losing, fighting depression, and the like are also being affected. The objective is to encourage performance by making them more game-like, and presumably greater fun.110 A website dedicated to recreating the history of Yorkshire in northern England puts it as follows: “The days of shuffling around dusty museums or crumbling stately homes to learn about our heritage have long gone. Today, historical re-enactments bring Yorkshire’s past to life.” Complete with a seaborne attack on the monastic treasures at Whitby Abbey – a ruined building standing on the site of an older one actually demolished by the Vikings – and fully equipped knights on horseback who fight in tournaments almost as real as the real ones.111

  Experience shows that even some of those who criticize reenacting tend to be caught up by it. Every time an event is held in a settled area people will be flocking to watch. They walk around, examine equipment, take snapshots, and loudly express their approval or disapproval of what they see and hear. Before long they start recounting their own military experiences, real or imaginary, and get involved in the reenactors’ own debates. Veterans in particular tend to be critical. Probably this is because they fear that the “silliness factor” that is inevitably present even in the best-prepared, most realistic events may cast some doubt on their own deeds and the status they derive from them. Indeed in most reenactments, including those in which weapons are fired, the most serious dangers result not from “combat” but from slipping on ice or else suffering from dehydration or heat stroke. Yet the spirit of reenactment is contagious: onlookers often end up having as much excitement in trying to find out what is and what is not authentic, what can and cannot be reenacted, what should and should not be done, as well as the meaning and purpose of it all, as the reenactors themselves.112 Some groups will hold special events, known as living history, in order to engage spectators and perhaps attract more of them to join in the hobby.

  Compared to other kinds of wargamers, reenactors have the great advantage that they are simultaneously producers, directors, and actors in their own show. Even as they act out history, they watch it unfold. The objective is to experience “what it was really like” (a phrase borrowed, paradoxically, from that most academic of academic historians, Leopold von Ranke), not to watch comfortably or to engage in abstract reasoning. But that is not to say that preparing reenactments, especially those designed to be as authentic as possible, is always easy. At its best it may involve vast amounts of study of a kind not at all inferior to, though very different from, that which “serious” scholarship demands. While many reenactors scoff at the idea that academia should be in charge of the past, some scholars have turned things upside down. They have organized reenactments in an attempt to resolve historical debates concerning, say, the way that ancient Greek hoplites conducted their battles: whether they fought only as part of the phalanx, pushing and shoving, or whether there was sufficient room for individual combat. Given how unusual some of the gladiators’ weapons were, reenactments have proved even more useful in reconstructing the way they fought.113

  Reenactors may disagree among themselves as to what is worth studying and what requires studying – whether, say, it is more important to get the color of a 1916 trench coat exactly right or to make sure the tactics employed are just the ones the British used at the Somme. Some have been known to wonder whether it was OK to use a straw for sipping some water from a cup when wearing a visored medieval helmet (perhaps they should get themselves a real straw rather than one made of plastic). However, almost everybody agrees that study is absolutely essential. Participants who fail to apply themselves and consequently show up with the wrong kind of equipment or put on the wrong kind of behavior are known as “farby” or “farbs,” those being the worst derogatory terms in a reenactor’s toolbox. Since it focuses on the trees rather than the for
est, largely ignoring both the higher conduct of war and its non-military aspects (although recently there has been a tendency to add medical services, sutlers, camp followers, and the like), the reenacting approach may also be a somewhat narrow-minded one: pedantry may, in fact, be carried to ludicrous extremes.

  It is one of the outstanding characteristics of our postmodernist age that most educated people take history less seriously, and know less about it, than at any time since 1850 or so.114 The best reenactors have the very great merit that they study their own particular piece of history as deeply as anyone can. By acting it out in their own way, they keep it alive for their own edification and that of others. And not without success: whereas all modern armies are shrinking, the number of reenactors and spectators is growing. Of course it is true, as most reenactors are well aware, that their hobby, by taking away the fighting, trivializes the most horrendous activity on earth.115 Yet the same could be said of most of the wargames discussed throughout this book: in fact this has long been among the most frequent charges leveled against them.