We became acquainted with Maurice Suckling with his game Freeman’s Farm 1777 from Worthington Publishing in 2019 and really enjoyed the mechanics and how they all came together to create an interactive and interesting look at the Battle of Saratoga during the American Revolution. Since that time, Maurice has designed several other games that have went on to successful Kickstarter campaigns including Hidden Strike: American Revolution, Chancellorsville 1863 and 1565 Siege of Malta. He is now working on a game that is tied to the buildup of tensions that led to the outbreak of The Great War called Crisis: 1914 from Worthington Publishing, which was successfully funded on Kickstarter this past summer. He has prepared a series of Event Card Spoilers for the game and we are hosting them here on the blog. These posts will share the cards basis in history as well as how they are used in the game.
If you are interested in ordering Crisis: 1914, you can pre-order a copy for $65.00 from the Worthington Publishing website at the following link: https://www.worthingtonpu
Card #16 – Sergei Witte – Statesman, First Russian Prime Minister (1905-1906)
A representative of the anti-war opposition, Sergei Witte “presided over Russia’s industrialization drive since the 1890’s [and his] star had gone into eclipse after his fall from power in 1906” (McMeekin 2013, 54). Witte had history with the Czar, with whom he clashed, and was either removed from the influential position of Finance Minister in 1903 or resigned over protests of Russian interests in Korea, which would soon lead to war with Japan (Massie 2000, 90). Witte was the one person the Czar expressly did not want handling the negotiations to end the Russo-Japanese War (Wien 2017, 67). Yet Witte did handle them and secured the Treaty of Portsmouth – something of a diplomatic success for Russia, given their poor military performance in the war to that point (Wien 2017, 124-6).
Witte also features in the game Peace 1905, about the Treaty of Portsmouth, designed by Nathanial Berkley, S.P. Shaman, Maurice Suckling, and Bill Sullivan, to be published by Fort Circle Games.
Card #17 – General Yuri Nikoforovich Danilov – Director of Intelligence Section of the General Staff, Quartermaster General
Director of the Russian General Staff’s Intelligence Section from 1909 to 1914 (Leonard 1999, 2-3). Early in his tenure, General Danilov guided the creation of Plan 19, a mobilization strategy that centered upon the invasion and neutralization of Germany (McMeekin 2013, 292). He was on leave for an unspecified period during the crisis (Otte 2014, 357).
Danilov is here tied to Russian code-breaking through his role in the General Staff. By 1914, its Intelligence Section had come to rely upon “three intelligence-gathering mechanisms: a system of military attachés; the intelligence departments of the various military districts […]; and a limited number of officers and assets directly subordinate to the Intelligence Section” (Leonard 1999, 3). In the process, Russia acquired a reputation for its code-breaking prowess – understood today to have been then-unparalleled in Europe (Clark 2012, 427; Williamson 1991, 201).
Card #22 – Maskirovka – Russia Begins a Secret Partial Mobilization
Preparatory mobilization begins in Russia on July 25th. On July 28th, Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia; a German partial mobilization begins that same morning and, by the afternoon, the Russian partial mobilization is fully underway (Ham 2013, 355-360). A partial mobilization – one against only Austria-Hungary – was essentially impossible without utilizing the railway hub in Warsaw, which would in turn make any mobilization appear to Germany to be a general mobilization targeting both Austria-Hungary and itself (McMeekin 2013, 180). Improvising an Austria-only mobilization would be risky and could jeopardize Russia’s ability to transition to a general mobilization (Clark 2012, 477). That the partial mobilization included the mobilization of the Baltic Fleet, which could do nothing helpful in a war solely against Austria or Serbia, demonstrated the absurdity of the situation – if the hope was that this partial mobilization would not antagonize Germany (Clark 2012, 477).
The partial mobilization was discovered as early as July 26th, when it was reported by the Belgian military attaché in St. Petersburg. By July 27th, the Austrians and Germans were well informed by numerous reports of Russian movements (Clark 2012, 479-80).
Card #24 – Summit in St. Petersburg
An official state visit by French President Raymond Poincaré, Prime Minister René Viviani, and the Foreign Ministry’s Political Director Pierre de Margerie to St. Petersburg. The summit itself, which was scheduled the previous year and only took place during the July Crisis by coincidence, began on July 20th with the arrival of the battleship France in Kronstadt; it would conclude three days later on July 23rd (Clark 2012, 426, 442-443). Prior to the crisis, the trip had been intended to further solidify the Franco-Russian Alliance – in the face of potential aggression by Austria-Hungary and Germany, though, the ties between the two nations became that much more important. The crisis thus came to dominate the meetings between Poincaré, the Czar, and their respective contingents, and Poincaré and the Czar at least appeared to be in complete agreement about their commitments to one another (Clark 2012, 443-444).
Viviani, newly appointed as Prime Minister, was somewhat less enthusiastic, but it is entirely possible that this was a result of his being “politically out of his depth” (Clark 2012, 438, 440). Still, just prior to the end of the trip, he worked with Sazonov to send parallel instructions to their ambassadors in Vienna: “The ambassadors were to mount a friendly joint demarche recommending moderation to Austria and expressing the hope that she would do nothing that could compromise the honor or the independence of Serbia” (Clark 2012, 448-449). Concurrent with the summit was a general strike in St. Petersburg that had begun at the start of the month; strike movements spread or continued in other cities across Russia, including Odessa and Baku, at the same time. While violent encounters with police forces took place throughout the entire month, the situation in St. Petersburg had devolved into widespread riots by July 22nd (New York Times 1914b; Neuberger 1993, 257-261). Both sides experienced “a large number of casualties” over the course of several days – until the French delegation departed and local authorities deployed multiple military regiments to suppress the movement in the city (New York Times 1914c).
If you missed the previous entries in the series, you can catch up on the posts to date by following the below links:
Series Introduction and General Mobilization Cards
If you are interested, we posted an interview with the designer and you can read that at the following link: https://theplayersaid.com/2023/07/12/interview-with-maurice-suckling-designer-of-crisis-1914-from-worthington-publishing-currently-on-kickstarter/
-Grant
The Players' Aid 