The Attack. New game - Military tactics. (France, circa 1910 - Lot 153

The Attack. New game - Military tactics. (France, circa 1910). L'Attaque. New game - Military tactics. (France, circa 1910). Wooden-cardboard box, size 33 x 19 x 4.2 cm, covered with chocolate paper, gold title oblique on the lid. It contains a cardboard game board, format 33 x 30 cm, foldable in two, cut into squares and 72 lithographed and stencil-colored cardboard cards (2.4 x 5.7 cm), mounted on metal bases. The ruler in French is laminated under the cover. 350 €. Military strategy game. The 72 cards represent two armies, French and English. Each army's 36 pieces include four mines, a flag, a spy and thirty soldiers of all ranks, from scout to army commander; each soldier is numbered from 2 to 10. The armies are divided between two players, each occupying a part of the field; the cards are placed on the squares, with the images facing the player so that the opponent cannot see them. The aim of the game is to capture your opponent's flag by moving your pieces towards your opponent's field. The meeting of two pieces ("Attack") results in victory and defeat: lower ranks are taken by higher ranks; mines don't move, and blow up all pieces that attack them, except sappers, who take them; the spy can be taken by all, but is the only one who can take the army commander. The game was patented in 1908 by Hermance Edan under the title Jeu de bataille avec pièces mobiles sur damier, and obtained in 1909. It had little success in France, but excited the English. In France, spirits were driven by the desire for revenge, so it's curious that the adversary, the villain, here is the English rather than the German: the long history of enmity between the two countries and recent colonial rivalries (Fachoda, among others) surely explain this state of affairs. Of course, as soon as the 1914 war broke out, Germany took the place of the enemy army, and from 1920 onwards, the English publisher Gibson, who had obtained the rights, published several reprints, featuring this version of course, but also others opposing the armies of different countries. Wear and tear