Which war games did Napoleon practice with his generals?
score:2
In "The Prince," Machiavelli opined that a good ruler should conduct "mock" battles with his generals. That is, in rides through open country, he should ask his generals, suppose we were here and the enemy were there. Who would have the advantage and why? What is our best line of attack, what is their best line of retreat? (and vice versa).
If your general staff does this on enough mock battlefields, they will be able to anticipate each other's reactions on a real one.
Upvote:5
According to Napoleon: His Army and His Generals: Their Unexamples Military Career (Jean Charles Dominique de Lacretelle, Page 382), Napoleon played vingtun "21" (aka Blackjack) and chess when he was being taken into exhile. As a somewhat complex strategy game, it would be a telling example of a general's behavior, though I don't have proof that he played it with his generals.
Upvote:15
As far as I know, David's correct - the wargame as we know it today was invented shortly after Napoleon's time by a Prussian man named Reiswitz.
Without knowing your source on this, I see three possibilities for Napoleon's wargames:
1) It was something like chess (variations were popular at the time), which could provide the psychological insight you describe even if it wasn't an accurate depiction of battle.
2) He discussed hypothetical military campaigns with his generals as if they were real, ie moving pointers around on a map, but without the elabourate rules that we associate with wargames today. Such meetings could have been described as games because they weren't preparations for an actual battle.
3) He did actually develop something like Reiswitz's game, and his version didn't catch on (either it wasn't as good, or because he lost the war).
(Option number 4 would be that I'm wrong, but that theory is always a last resort ;)).
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