The first wargame in history?

[Antonio J Carrasco]

Well, everybody knows or has read about Mr. Wells' Little Wars as the first commercially available ruleset for wargaming. Published in 1913 is regarded as the first ancestor of wargaming. Of course, kriegsspiel predates Little Wars by several decades, but Kriegsspiel wasn't a game as much as a tool for the training of staff officers. The fun part was missing.

So I thought.

But this morning, in a Facebook page, an Italian guy informed about an unknown ruleset by a certain Francesco Giacometti, published in Genoa in 1793 (yes, 1793; it is not a typo!) with the intention of being of "entertaining evolution of chess" that will teach the curious in the arts of war, at the same time it serves as gentlemanly pasttime, Il giuoco de la guerra, literally The War Game.

It is a short booklet of 60 pages. If you are interested, you can check it in the link below:

https://archive.org/details/giacomettigiuoco1793/mode/2up

[FifteensAway]

Googled it up and there is more information here:

https://books.google.com/books?id=0O02DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA280&lpg=PA280&dq=%22Francesco+Giacometti%22+%2B+1793&source=bl&ots=GoUAb0OjEI&sig=ACfU3U1kVClQMXxqQsTfhFg4jS-1gnFYeA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiql8LGpbvqAhUHpp4KHeYbDPcQ6AEwAHoECAcQAQ#v=onepage&q=%22Francesco%20Giacometti%22%20%2B%201793&f=false

Seems very much a stylized version of chess at quick glance, or a big step on the way to the game Feudal which I just might still have somewhere around the house or garage.

Curious bit of history.

[Arrigo]

There are mentions of some games derived from Chess in XVII century France, but if we go down that route... why not chess? No I am not supporting this interpretation, but it could be a logical conclusion...

I think that Von Reisswitz original Kriegspiel is the first wargame that can be clerly recognized as such. As it purpose, people easily forget that it was developed not as a training tool but as a royal family pastime by von Reisswitz father and then his son pushed it more 'professional' adaptation, but it never lost the 'entertainment' side.  Regimental Kriegspiel clubs flourished after Von Muffling supported the game, and these were not for formal training, but for entertainment. Moltke the elder was deeply involved in them (and this cast some strange light on certain comments by Verdy du Verois...).  I played it once and it was engaging, certainly more than some commercial games I played.