THE BEGINNINGS OF MODERN LITTLE WARFARE
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The Beginnings Of Modern Little Warfare
THE beginning of the game of Little War, as we know it, became possible
with the invention of the spring breechloader gun. This priceless gift
to boyhood appeared somewhen towards the end of the last century, a gun
capable of hitting a toy soldier nine times out of ten at a distance of
nine yards. It has completely superseded all the spiral-spring and other
makes of gun hitherto used in playroom warfare. These spring
breechloaders are made in various sizes and patterns, but the one used
in our game is that known in England as the four-point-seven gun. It
fires a wooden cylinder about an inch long, and has a screw adjustment
for elevation and depression. It is an altogether elegant weapon.
It was with one of these guns that the beginning of our war game was
made. It was at Sandgate--in England.
The present writer had been lunching with a friend--let me veil his
identity under the initials J. K. J.--in a room littered with the
irrepressible debris of a small boy's pleasures. On a table near our own
stood four or five soldiers and one of these guns. Mr J. K. J., his more
urgent needs satisfied and the coffee imminent, drew a chair to this
little table, sat down, examined the gun discreetly, loaded it warily,
aimed, and hit his man. Thereupon he boasted of the deed, and issued
challenges that were accepted with avidity. . . .
He fired that day a shot that still echoes round the world. An affair--
let us parallel the Cannonade of Valmy and call it the Cannonade of
Sandgate--occurred, a shooting between opposed ranks of soldiers, a
shooting not very different in spirit--but how different in results!--
from the prehistoric warfare of catapult and garter. "But suppose," said
his antagonists; "suppose somehow one could move the men!" and
therewith opened a new world of belligerence.
The matter went no further with Mr J. K. J. The seed lay for a time
gathering strength, and then began to germinate with another friend, Mr
W. To Mr W. was broached the idea: "I believe that if one set up a few
obstacles on the floor, volumes of the British Encyclopedia and so
forth, to make a Country, and moved these soldiers and guns about, one
could have rather a good game, a kind of kriegspiel.". . .
Primitive attempts to realise the dream were interrupted by a great
rustle and chattering of lady visitors. They regarded the objects upon
the floor with the empty disdain of their sex for all imaginative
things.
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THE BEGINNINGS OF MODERN LITTLE WARFARE 2
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Of The Legendary Past
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