d flank attack, the plucky destruction of a
bridge, or the stubborn defence of a town, might each become a factor in
changing the face of the war and materially alter the course of
campaigns.

It must not be supposed that the enemy ever knew your precise strength,
or that it could divine your intentions by the simple expedient of
looking at your side of the attic and counting your regiments. Numerous
numbered cards dotted the country wherever the eye might fall; one,
perhaps, representing a whole army with supports, another a solitary
horseman dragging some ammunition, another nothing but a dummy that
might paralyse the efforts of a corps, and overawe it into a ruinous
inactivity. To uncover these cards and unmask the forces for which they
stood was the duty of the cavalry vedettes, whose movements were
governed by an elaborate and most vexatious set of rules. It was
necessary to feel your way amongst these alarming pasteboards to obtain
an inkling of your opponent's plans, and the first dozen moves were
often spent in little less. But even if you were befriended by the dice,
and your cavalry broke the enemy's screen and uncovered his front, you
would learn nothing more than could reasonably be gleaned with a
field-glass. The only result of a daring and costly activity might be
such meagre news as "the road is blocked with artillery and infantry in
column" or "you can perceive light horse-artillery strongly supported."
It was only when the enemy began to take his shots that you would begin
to learn the number of his regiments, and even then he often fired less
than his entitled share in order to maintain the mystery of his
strength.

If the game possessed a weakness, it was the unshaken courage of our
troops, who faced the most terrific odds and endured defeat upon defeat
with an intrepidity rarely seen on the actual field. An attempt was made
to correct this with the dice, but the innovation was so heart-breaking
to the loser, and so perpetual a menace to the best-laid plans, that it
had perforce to be given up. After two or three dice-box panics our
heroes were permitted to resume their normal and unprecedented devotion
to their cause, and their generals breathed afresh. There was another
defect in our "Kriegspiel": I was so much the better shot that my
marksmanship often frustrated the most admirable strategy and the most
elaborate of military schemes. It was in vain that we--or rather my
opponent--wrestled with th