About this time a foreign Government approached the inventor with a view to purchasing the game and its secret. The offer was declined, but Mr. Jane gave a similar option to the British Admiralty, which, however, made no reply whatever beyond an official acknowledgment of the receipt of the letter. Perhaps, like Mr. Jane, the Permanent Secretary remembered the old meat-tin!
After an interval the game was produced—the very first set to be sold being secured by, of all people, the Chinese! This particular set later on helped to make history; indeed, it has been seriously surmised that it caused the Chinese attack on the allied fleets at Taku. After that affair a British landing party found the ground inside one fort littered with war-game models, each model ship being stuck full of pins. The leader of the party being a war-game player followed up his find, to discover a shed laid out for naval war game and "scorers"[1] of all the allied fleets in various stages of destruction!
[ [1] For particulars of "scorers" see later.]
The Chinese had apparently worked out things by war game before opening fire. They had, however, made one little mistake—they had made no allowance for the allied fleet firing back!
Following China, the United States, Germany, Russia, and Japan secured early sets, and a little while afterwards the British War Office. That much-abused department was, curiously enough, the very first to recognise the utility of the game for the chief purpose its inventor designed it for—the teaching of the guns and armour of possible enemies. It was procured for the use of artillery officers in sea forts, and in his last report Lord Roberts emphasized the vast difference between those officers who had played the game and those who had not. The former knew the weak points of every possible enemy; the latter, on hearing the name of any ship, could not tell whether she were a battleship or gunboat, dangerous or harmless. Every War Office has since followed suit in adopting the "Kindergarten war system."
A STANDARD NORWEGIAN NAVAL WAR-GAME SET.
From a Photo. by Symonds & Co.
And now for some account of how the game is played. A large table is the primary requisite. This is covered with blue cards divided into a multitude of little squares, each of which represents half a cable—that is to say, a hundred yards. Over these squares are moved the pieces—model ships on the same scale as the board.
These models are a most important part of the game. They are made of cork, painted, and most accurate representations of actual ships; and this they need to be, for the players have to recognise them. Each model is fitted with tiny guns—little bits of wire set in at various angles which indicate the arcs of training of the corresponding guns in the real ships, while long pins mark the bearings of the torpedo tubes. Other pins, fitted with delicate little military tops, make the masts; and, to digress a moment, hereby hangs a tale.