At Any Cost P500 Page

“The tragedy is that, obsessed with avoiding defeat, he was blind to a beckoning victory.” – David Ascoli, author of A Day of Battle, referring to French Marshal Francois Bazaine

The Battle of Mars-la-Tour was fought on August 16^th, 1870 and is considered to be one of the more remarkable battles of military history. Not only were the circumstances under which it was fought most singular, but its impact on the future of Europe was monumental. The importance of the engagement on that “day of battle” alone makes it ripe for study in the wargaming community, having had such a significant impact on the rise of the German Empire and the fall of Napoleon III’s Second French Empire. Yet, the very uniqueness and oddity of that “murderous day” make it almost impossible to simulate accurately on the game board. Such was the challenge that Fred Manzo and I decided to take on with the design of the Mars-La-Tour scenario for At Any Cost: Metz 1870. So how does At Any Cost attempt to accurately simulate such an odd and convoluted battle? Well, let me tell you ……

The French army in the summer of 1870 was already in full retreat after its first series of engagements. A significant portion of the French Army of the Rhine was defeated at the Battle of Spicheren by parts of the Prussian First and Second Armies and being pursued, albeit loosely, to the fortress town of Metz. Without the possibility of any support, the French army huddled around the fort as it decided its next course of action. Emperor Napoleon III, pressured to return to Paris in order to deal with various defeatist political issues, turned over command of the Army of the Rhine to Marshal Achilles Bazaine. Not his first choice, Bazaine nonetheless reluctantly took the reins from Napoleon and received his final, somewhat contradictory, instructions – protect the army under all circumstances and get it to Verdun and Chalons to rejoin the Emperor to form a new army.

These multiple and divergent goals are reflected in the game’s Victory Track mechanic. The French player must not only try to open his retreat route to Verdun by capturing key towns and map edge hexes, but he must do so without losing too many units or – even worse – being cut off from Metz. The Prussians don’t need to worry about casualties at all and simply strive to take important towns on the map that threaten the French army’s position and thwart its mission.

August 16^th marks the anniversary of the Battle of Mars-la-Tour and August 18^th the anniversary of the Battle of Gravelotte-St. Privat, both fought in 1870 during the Franco-Prussian War. These two battles were titanic struggles, yielding approximately 60,000 casualties in total. Both battles were tremendously important military events when placed into proper historical perspective. In fact, Bismarck himself stated that the Battle of Mars-la-Tour – “beyond argument” – decided not only the Franco-Prussian War, but the future of Europe as well. The subsequent Battle of Gravelotte-St. Privat, two days later, sealed that fate by locking the French Army of the Rhine into its tomb at the Metz fortress. These battles simultaneously killed an aging French Empire and gave birth to a new German Reich.

Two such important battles fought in a war that, despite its undeniable influence on European and world history, seems to garner little attention or enthusiasm in the wargaming community. Aside from the obvious historical importance of the conflict, most of the battles were hard-fought, brutal affairs with the Prussians suffering the majority of the losses. Yet most gamers hold to the prevalent misconception that all Franco-Prussian War games are “slam dunks” for the Prussians. At the grand-strategic level, this may be true. The Prussian Army at this time was an efficient war machine that was well-prepped, well-led and confident after mauling the Austrians in 1866. Helmuth von Moltke, Chief of the Prussian General Staff, was a master strategist and well-served by the talented General Staff. Moltke grabbed the initiative and outmaneuvered a lethargic and ill-prepared French Emperor Napoleon III and his “laissez-faire” generals. The French army in 1870 lived in the shadow of its former glory and its elite reputation was still alive around the world (particularly in the U.S.). Realistically, however, the French aura of military power and superior generalship was a mere facade. So indeed, on the grand-strategic tier alone, the Franco-Prussian War was probably a mismatch. Yet, most wargames that have been published about this war have covered it exactly at that level – a scale at which the game is unavoidably unbalanced in favor of the Prussians and their German allies.