The Bell of Treason: 1938 Munich Crisis in Czechoslovakia is the next installment in GMT Games’ informal ‘Final Crisis’ series. It is a successor to Mark Herman’s Fort Sumter, which depicts the secession crisis that culminated in the U.S. Civil War, and Fred Serval’s Red Flag Over Paris, which depicts the crisis following the formation of the Paris Commune to its defeat in the Bloody Week of May 1871. As such, The Bell of Treason shares many mechanics with both these games but adapts them to specifically portray different aspects of the Munich Crisis in 1938. During this crisis, British appeasement policy clashed with Czechoslovak readiness to fight Nazi Germany, while the Soviet Union encouraged Czechoslovakia but was seemingly unwilling to provide any concrete military or political support. One of the central game systems is an abstract map showing four dimensions in which the crisis developed. Each ‘Crisis Dimension’ consists of three spaces where arguments and ideals for and against appeasement clashed, with one of them being a ‘Pivotal’ space that has some additional leverage over the other two spaces. This basic system was already present in Fort Sumter, but Red Flag over Paris introduced the novel idea of adjacency between spaces, including some spaces connected by arrows representing unidirectional adjacency. The Bell of Treason reuses this latter system to model some key aspects of the Munich Crisis. Let’s take a look at each of the Dimensions in its historical context.

The International Dimension is marked by yellow spaces on the board. It consists of the three major European powers of the period upon which Czechoslovakian’s defense policy relied: the United Kingdom, France, and the Soviet Union. Each of these powers was influencing Czechoslovakia, mainly through Czechoslovak President Edvard Beneš, but this influence did not exist in the other direction. The unidirectional arrows between the spaces brings a clear message of this reality to the player’s table, with each International space being able to influence the President space, but not vice versa. Furthermore, the United Kingdom is pivotal both in game terms and in historical reality. France did not want to go to war without the British, and was therefore a weaker partner in that dialogue, as indicated by the unidirectional arrow from the United Kingdom to France. France itself was seen as a protector of Czechoslovakia, with both countries signing a defensive treaty against the growing Germany in 1925. It also closely cooperated with the Czechoslovak army for many years, represented by an additional unidirectional arrow connected to the General Staff space.

The Soviet Union was of course a different case, as democratic countries had feared this communist state since the Bolshevik revolution two decades earlier. With the growing power of Germany, however, president Beneš was looking for any other formidable ally. He also pursued the idea of Czechoslovakia being the bridge between the Soviet Union and the democratic west, as it had a perfect geographical and cultural position for such a purpose. Some later commented that a bridge is something everyone stomps on. Czechoslovakia signed a defensive treaty with the Soviet Union in 1935, which stated that the Red Army would help against German aggression, but only after France had also committed military support. It made sense at the time, as nobody wanted to sign a treaty that could potentially drag Czechoslovakia into some communist war far away. The French condition seemed right, and Beneš hoped that he could count on support from France. In the game, this is represented by another unidirectional arrow from France to the Soviet Union, but don’t expect that as a player you can so easily change the Soviet political stance. Between each game turn the “Stalin’s Politics” mandatory effect will remove all but one green Defend cube from the Soviet Union, reflecting the inscrutable and often unpredictable Soviet foreign policy. The Soviets wanted any war between Germany and the democratic powers to prepare the ground for future proletarian revolutions, and their involvement would only come on this basis. Their political rhetoric also blurred their real intentions, and neither was easy to predict or influence from within Czechoslovakia.

In the purple Political Dimension, we find the President, Government, and Opposition spaces, laid over a map of Prague, the capital of Czechoslovakia. In the center of this Dimension is the President of Czechoslovakia, which is a Pivotal space and also a key space for victory. Dr. Edvard Beneš was a skillful politician, previously Foreign Minister under the popular President Masaryk, and an architect of international treaties securing the future of Czechoslovakia. He counted on his international allies and could not imagine going to war without their support. He was also personally determined to prevent bloodshed if the odds for victory seemed low. This means that the Defend player must either convince the president to fight or overthrow him in a coup. In game terms, in the final round they must have as many Influence cubes in any space adjacent to the President (or in the President space itself) as the Concede player has in that space (representing his determination to avoid war). You may notice that there is no ‘parliament’ space in the Political Dimension, which is even more interesting knowing that legally the government could not concede any Czechoslovak territory without ratification by the parliament. Yet that is precisely what happened historically: Czechoslovakia conceded the disputed Sudetenland territory to Germany after an unconstitutional decision by the president and his government. Beneš later claimed it was his intent that the decision would be illegal, so it could be reversed. Time was short and pressure was high, and while there was certainly opposition to this decision (including protests outside Prague Castle), it was not enough to prevent the territorial concession from going ahead.

The green Military Dimension consists of General Staff, Moravian HQs, and State Defense Guard. The General Staff in Prague is of course the Pivotal space in this Dimension, reflecting the importance of the army command. In the event of general mobilization, the military staff would be moved to Moravia as it was expected that the Germans would try to cut the country in half, leaving Prague surrounded. The wartime general headquarters in Moravia allowed for a possible retreat to Slovakia and to continue fighting from there. There were also influential generals in Moravia who were very determined to fight. The last space in the Military Dimension is the State Defense Guard, a unit composed of financial guards, gendarmes, state police, and local reserve soldiers, activated in the event of a threat to the national border. Members of the State Defense Guard were already fighting with German paramilitary forces during the crisis, a point which we will return to in the next article. Its ineffective dual leadership is portrayed in the game with a unidirectional arrow connecting to it from the Government space, allowing a player who is in control of the Government to bypass the usual military hierarchy and influence the State Defense Guard directly.

Last, and by no means least, is the red Public Dimension. It consists of the Czechoslovaks space (which is of course pivotal space), ČSR Germans (which represents ethnic Germans living in the country), and the Press space. The Press connects the other two spaces as well as the Opposition space. There was a large number of newspapers and magazines circulating in Czechoslovakia in the 1930s, comparable to any western democracy. Every political party and interest group had its own newspaper, and these were widely read across the country. The ČSR Germans space represents the ethnic German population of Czechoslovakia (about one-third of the total population), including not only the Sudeten Germans who opened their arms to Hitler, but also plenty of antifascist Germans living in major cities and even the Sudetenland, many of whom were tragically rounded up and sent to concentration camps after Nazi forces occupied the country in 1939. Finally, the Czechoslovaks space represents the majority population of the country, who were very actively involved in the national conversation leading up to the Munich Crisis. Public protests demanding the defense of Czechoslovakia took place in many major cities, chanting memorable slogans like “We will give you our sons, just give them weapons”, and at one moment nearly breaking into Prague Castle. These protests caused the fall of Prime Minister Hodža’s government after he accepted the Anglo-French ultimatum (more than a week before the Munich conference), followed by the appointment of a new caretaker government led by General Syrový. The one-eyed general resembled the national medieval hero Jan Žižka and was widely respected, so it seemed that the country was in good hands. In reality, politicians hadn’t much listened to people during the crisis, and the appointment of Syrový was just a strategic move to calm the masses. This lack of attention is represented by having almost no connections from the public to the political spaces, with rare exceptions portrayed in the game by several event cards.

These twelve spaces, divided across four Crisis Dimensions, form the core areas that players will compete over during the game. In the next article, we will touch on the topic of how Germans are portrayed in The Bell of Treason,and how this portrayal affects the choices made by each player.

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