Hitler gave two speeches targeting Czechoslovakia during the Munich crisis. The first speech at the Nazi party rally in Nuremberg was mainly a message to Sudeten Germans that they are “not helpless and abandoned”. Two weeks later, during the second speech at Berlin Sportpalast, Hitler targeted Czechoslovak president Dr. Edvard Beneš, revealing his world view of a fight between two men embodying their nations. Beneš was so tired from his hard work trying to manage the crisis that he slept through the whole speech. When he was later told about Hitler’s personal attack, he just smiled and replied: “That’s an honor.” The Bell of Treason is a game about the Czechoslovak decision to either concede the demanded Sudetenland territory to Germany, or to stand and fight against German aggression, even without allies and with little hope for victory. From the perspective of the decision itself, achieving victory is simple, with victory points representing the popular legitimacy of the decision to Concede or Defend. However, the strong personalities of Beneš and Hitler complicate that decision for both players. Let’s start with Beneš.

Dr. Edvard Beneš was the right hand of the first Czechoslovak president Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, even before the country was founded. He was a skilled diplomat, and international affairs were his main battlefield. As the first foreign minister for the newly formed country, he represented Czechoslovakia at Versailles in 1919, and later forged key alliances with both France and the Soviet Union. All of this work would later be in vain, with Britain’s appeasement policy causing France’s stance to change, and the Soviet Union being unwilling to commit to a potential war without France. President Beneš was also the kind of person always trying to reach a winning condition, and the idea of a desperate defensive war with nearly no hope for victory was something against his nature. For the Defend player to win, they must therefore overthrow the president in a political or military coup, or in a counterfactual edge case, somehow convince him that war with Germany is the right choice. This is represented by having to have, at the end of the game, at least the same number of green cubes in any space in or adjacent to the President as there are white cubes there. This could come either from the International dimension, which is the area Beneš was most involved in, or more likely from any space in Prague (President, Government, Opposition, or General Staff). The game culminates in a very short special turn, called Final Decision, that represents the crucial hours immediately after the Munich conference. During regular turns, players set aside cards for this Final Decision turn. The only thing that matters on these cards is a space indicated on the bottom, (or in some cases the lack of a space), where the player will be able to act during the Final Decision. Defend players can therefore plan which direction their final push against the president will come from, while Concede players need to try and predict how best to respond. During the Final Decision turn, players set these cards in any order and then reveal them one-by-one. The cards may cancel each other out if they indicate the same space, or else allow a player to do a one-point action in the indicated space (or no action if no space is indicated).

Early prototypes of the game were focused on political decision-making only. Playtesters were asking: Where are the Germans? I don’t see any blood here. Historically there was, of course, blood, and I have added the Sudeten German track and its interaction with other game mechanics to account for this (discussed in my previous article about the representation of Germans in the game). An intentional feature of the game is that international affairs are largely outside of the control of the players, who each represent Czechoslovakian political ideals. Players have some limited influence over the attitudes of Britain, France, and the Soviet Union, and over the speed at which German aggression escalates, but for the most part, their decisions focus on opinions within Czechoslovakia. The deliberate effect of this is to make players feel the same pressure that Beneš and his political opponents did historically, trying to make the best of a bad situation without the luxury of time and space for ideal reflection. This is a crisis, an accelerating ride in which players must try to do their best to promote their ideals, against the flow of international pressure and German escalation. And there is one man chiefly responsible for the German escalation, Adolf Hitler.

We know what Hitler‘s plans were. We now know what he was eventually going to do. But people facing the crisis back then didn’t have this luxury. It is very easy to see what was wrong with Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement policy from todays’ perspective. On the other hand, it should not be so hard to understand the reasons why some European leaders pursued this policy. The idea of London being bombed with chemical weapons must have been equally as terrifying as the idea of nuclear conflict was during the Cold War. Germany had a dominating airforce and both sides had used chemical weapons during the Great War. I wanted somehow to touch on those emotions within the game. I wanted the players to hold their breath when one of the Hitler‘s speech cards is played, at least in some games. To add these moments and the atmosphere of uncertainty I included the Hitler’s Decision mechanic. Hitler’s Decision is automatically checked after Neville Chamberlain returns from one of his negotiations with Hitler (at the start of the second and third turns) and can also be executed by playing one of the Hitler’s speech strategy cards. If Czechoslovakia seems to be willing to concede Sudetenland (the Concede player is ahead on victory points, or at least not far behind), Hitler is calm and nothing happens. But should Czechoslovakia be signalling its intention not to surrender to German demands (Defend player is ahead by 2 or more victory points), the die is rolled. This is the only occasion a die is rolled in the game. And this die can end the game with an immediate German attack on Czechoslovakia (so-called Case Green). If this happens before the Partial Mobilisation of the Czechoslovak army has been executed, then both players lose. Or in most cases, after Partial Mobilization, then the Defend player wins, as the war has begun and Czechoslovaks rally to the cause. 

Why a die roll? Why so much randomness? Well, the man leading the Third Reich was violent, impulsive, and unpredictable, prone to making sudden decisions without necessarily considering the consequences. How do you model such a man’s behavior? How do you model the uncertainty of people around the world, scared by his words and writings? In the game, this is reflected by a die roll against the determination of Czechoslovaks to fight (Defend victory points), with greater Czechoslovak determination serving to provoke Hitler to violence (which ultimately serves the cause of Defend, by demonstrating that war is inevitable).

The possibility of the game ending by the result of a die roll has another purpose. To win, the Defend player has two victory conditions to fulfill at once. They must have enough Victory points and must also meet the condition for a coup, as outlined above. The Concede player simply wins if any of these conditions is not fulfilled at the end of the game. What prevents the Concede player from focusing just on preventing one of these conditions? A player could ignore victory points completely and just focus on preventing the coup during the Final Decision. This could present an interesting counterfactual history, but should not be a common way to approach the game. Hitler’s Decision is the mechanic that prevents this behavior. You as the Concede player can try out this strategy, but very probably the Hitler’s Decision die will be rolled and you could lose the game. On the other hand, if you focus instead of keeping the Defend player’s victory points down, they will have more opportunities to position themselves for the Final Decision. 

In addition to this interaction of victory conditions and strategies, there is a card that can change the basic premise. The Political Strategist event allows the Concede player to completely switch off the Hitler’s Decision die rolls, and therefore adjusts the options available to both players. There is an open debate about whether Dr. Edvard Beneš was so strong of a political visionary that he could anticipate Hitler’s next moves. We can leave this debate to the historians, and you can decide whether or not to play this card for the event. It should be said that Beneš resigned shortly after the Munich conference, but later become the Czechoslovak president again, leading the exile government in London. In the end, he was unsuccessful at preventing the Communists from seizing power after the war. We could even say that he helped the Soviets with the process a bit, perhaps because the bitter taste of the Munich Agreement was left in his mouth even then.

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Previous Articles:

Arrows in a CDG? How the Map of The Bell of Treason Outlines the Upcoming Crisis

When Did WWII Start? Germans in The Bell of Treason