View source for Georg von Reisswitz

{{Short description|Wargaming pioneer.}}
{{Infobox military person
|name= Georg Heinrich Rudolf Johann von Reisswitz
|birth_date= 1794
|death_date= {{dda|1827|9|1|1794|df=y}}
|birth_place=
|death_place= [[Breslau]], [[Province of Silesia|Silesia]], [[Kingdom of Prussia]]
|boyhood home= 
|college= 
|placeofburial= 
|image= Georg Heinrich Rudolf Johann von Reisswitz.jpg
|caption= 
|allegiance= [[Kingdom of Prussia]]
|branch= [[Prussian Army]]
|serviceyears= 1810 - 1827
|rank= Captain
|awards= [[Iron Cross|Iron Cross 2nd Class]]<br/>[[Royal Prussian Order of Saint John|Order of St John]]
|battles=
*[[Napoleonic Wars]]
**[[War of the Sixth Coalition]]
***Siege of Glogau
}}
'''Georg Heinrich Rudolf Johann von Reisswitz'''{{efn|Sources disagree on the correct spelling of Reisswitz's family name. An 1812 rulebook by his father spells its author's name as "Reiswitz". His own 1824 rulebook spells it "Reisswitz". Articles that appear in various issues of ''Militär-Wochenblatt'' spell it "Reißwitz". In the German language, ß is a ligature of "ss" and is so transliterated into English.}} (1794–1827) was a Prussian army officer. Reisswitz is regarded by many as the father of [[wargaming]], as he developed the first wargaming system to be widely used as a serious tool for training and research. The particular genre of wargaming he developed is known in the English-speaking world as ''[[Kriegsspiel]]''. It is characterized by high realism, an emphasis on the experience of decision-making rather than on competition, and the use of an umpire to keep the system flexible.

==Life and career==
Reisswitz's father was George Leopold von Reisswitz, a Prussian baron.

In 1810, Reisswitz was a volunteer in an artillery unit in [[Nysa,_Poland|Neisse]]. In late 1813, during the Siege of [[Glogow]],{{efn|1 Sept 1813 - 10 April 1814}} Reisswitz was promoted to second-lieutenant and awarded the [[Iron Cross|Iron Cross 2nd Class]]. By 1819, he was a first-lieutenant in the Guard Artillery Brigade in Berlin.<ref name=Dannhauer1874>{{harvp|Dannhauer|1874}}</ref>

Reisswitz was a skilled fencer and a skilled violinist.<ref name=Dannhauer1874>{{harvp|Dannhauer|1874}}</ref>

===The wargame designer===
In 1812, Reisswitz's father developed a wargaming apparatus which he presented as a gift to the Prussian king, which the royal family embraced and regularly played. The father hoped that wargaming would eventually become a regular tool of instruction and training for army officers, but he never perfected the system, probably because of the upheavals caused by the [[Napoleonic Wars]]. By 1816, Reisswitz's father seemed to have lost interest in wargaming altogether, and his son decided to continue the development of the game.

Reisswitz steadily developed his father's game with the help of his fellow junior officers. His project caught the attention of [[Frederick William IV of Prussia|Prince Wilhelm]], who joined Reisswitz's gaming circle. In 1824, the prince invited Reisswitz to demonstrate his wargame to the king and his chief of staff, General [[Karl Freiherr von Müffling]].  They were all impressed and officially endorsed Reisswitz's game as a training tool for the army. Reisswitz established a workshop to mass-produce and distribute his game.

The king awarded Reisswitz the [[Royal Prussian Order of Saint John|Order of St John]] as a reward.<ref>{{harvp|Peterson|2012}}:<br/>"The King awarded Reisswitz the Order of Saint John in recognition of his invention—apparently, he was the first member of the artillery branch ever to receive this honor."</ref> Reisswitz frequently hosted wargaming sessions for senior officers, and once for the Russian court.

===Late career and death===
In 1826, Reisswitz was promoted to the rank of captain and transferred from Berlin to the provincial city of [[Torgau]]. This posting was interpreted as a banishment from the Prussian court. Allegedly, Reisswitz had made offensive remarks about his superiors. According to an 1874 article by Reisswitz's friend and fellow officer Heinrich Ernst Dannhauer, there were people in the Prussian court who were jealous of the attention and honors that this junior officer was attracting from the elite circles, and they sabotaged him by misreporting innocent remarks as insults. Reisswitz fell into depression, and on 1 September 1827, he shot himself.<ref>{{harvp|Dannhauer|1874|p=531}}</ref><ref>{{harvp|Peterson|2012}}</ref> Reisswitz's father died a year later, and they were buried in the same cemetery.<ref name=Dannhauer1874>{{harvp|Dannhauer|1874}}</ref>

Reisswitz's disgrace and suicide hampered the progression of his wargame for obvious reasons, but it was kept alive by a small number of wargaming clubs, and in later decades it was widely played by the officer corps. Reisswitz's name was rarely mentioned, however, in subsequent literature on ''kriegsspiel''. In 1874, his old friend and fellow officer Heinrich Ernst Dannhauer, now a general, rehabilitated Reisswitz's name in an article published in ''Militär-Wochenblatt'' #56.

==Reisswitz's wargame==
[[File:Kriegsspiel 1824.jpg|thumb|right|A reconstruction of the wargame developed in 1824 by Reisswitz Jr.]]
{{Main|Kriegsspiel (wargame)}}
Reisswitz invented [[professional wargaming]]. ''Kriegsspiel'' was the first wargaming system that was embraced as a serious tool for training and research by an army. Previous wargames were dismissed as mere toys because they were not realistic enough. Reisswitz took advantage of new advances in [[cartography]] and [[probability theory]] to create a battle simulator that was sufficiently realistic for instructional use. Reisswitz did not like calling his system a "game", but he could not find a better term for it.<ref>{{harvp|Heistand|1898}}:<br/>"The one thing which did not satisfy Von Reisswitz was the word "game;" but not finding anything to take its place he retained it."</ref>

Reisswitz's wargame was designed to simulate battles at the tactical level (it did not concern itself with operational matters such as training and logistics). It was played on a paper map which represented the battlefield, and the troops were represented by little blocks of lead placed on the game map. The game was played by two teams, each commanding an imaginary army of little lead blocks, and was overseen by an umpire. The game was turn-based. Each turn, a team would give written orders for their troops to the umpire, who would then move the little blocks across the game map according to how he judged the imaginary troops would interpret and execute the orders. Each turn represented two minutes of time, and during a turn the troops would do only as much as they realistically could in two minutes. Reisswitz's manual provided tables denoting exactly how far the troops could move in two minutes, according to the type of troop and the terrain they crossed (cavalry moved faster than infantry, marching uphill was slower than downhill, etc.). When the two armies engaged each other, the umpire would use dice rolls and simple arithmetic to compute how many casualties they inflicted upon each other, and when a troop formation was defeated he would remove its block from the game map.

==References==
{{notelist}}
{{Reflist}}

*{{cite book| title=Playing at the World: A History of Simulating Wars, People and Fantastic Adventures, from Chess to Role-playing Games |author=Jon Peterson |publisher=Unreason Press |year=2012 |isbn=9780615642048 |ref={{harvid|Peterson|2012}}}}
*{{cite magazine |author=Heinrich Ernst Dannhauer |date=11 July 1874 |title=Das Reißwissche Kriegsspiel von feinem Beginn bis zum Tode des Erfinders 1827 |trans-title=The Reisswitzian Wargame from its Inception until the death of the inventor in 1827 |url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015076659534;view=1up;seq=555 |magazine=Militär-Wochenblatt |issue=56 |pages=527–532 |ref={{harvid|Dannhauer|1874}}}}
*{{cite encyclopedia
 | title = Foreign War Games
 | encyclopedia = Selected Professional Papers Translated from European Military Publications
 | pages = 233–289
 | translator1 = H. O. S. Heistand
 | year = 1898
 | publisher = US Government Printing Office
 | location = Washington D.C.
 | url=https://archive.org/details/selectedprofess00divigoog/page/n244
 | ref={{harvid|Heistand|1898}}
}}

{{Wargames}}{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Reisswitz, Georg von}}
[[Category:1794 births]]
[[Category:1827 deaths]]
[[Category:Prussian military officers]]
[[Category:Suicides by firearm]]