We became acquainted with Maurice Suckling with his game Freeman’s Farm 1777 from Worthington Publishing in 2019 and really enjoyed the mechanics and how they all came together to create an interactive and interesting look at the Battle of Saratoga during the American Revolution. Since that time, Maurice has designed several other games that have went on to successful Kickstarter campaigns including Hidden Strike: American Revolution, Chancellorsville 1863 and 1565 Siege of Malta. He is now working on a game that is tied to the buildup of tensions that led to the outbreak of The Great War called Crisis: 1914 from Worthington Publishing, which was successfully funded on Kickstarter this past summer. He has prepared a series of Event Card Spoilers for the game and we are hosting them here on the blog. These posts will share the cards basis in history as well as how they are used in the game.
If you are interested in ordering Crisis: 1914, you can pre-order a copy for $65.00 from the Worthington Publishing website at the following link: https://www.worthingtonpublishing.com/collection/crisis-1914-pre-order-this-game-will-not-ship-until-february-2024
Card #1 – Ramsay MacDonald – Leader of the Labour Party
An opponent of the war, James Ramsay MacDonald served as a founding member of the Union of Democratic Control – an advocacy group that sought to restructure the British diplomatic system and bring about a “permanent [post-war] peace” – not long after its outbreak (Martel 2014, 380, 406). He was a very strong voice against Britain getting involved in the Crisis and during the early part of the war, he was extremely unpopular and was accused of treason and cowardice for his views and position on the matter.
Card #3 – Herbert Henry Asquith, First Earl of Oxford and Asquith – Prime Minister
A close ally to Foreign Secretary Grey. For much of July, Herbert Asquith’s attention was directed toward the Home Rule Crisis, which was a political and military crisis in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland that followed the introduction of the Third Home Rule Bill in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom in 1912, and its seemingly apparent promise of civil war or governmental collapse (Otte 2014, 138). He would later spend most of the end of the month – alongside Churchill – in support of Grey against the non-interventionist wing of the Liberal Party (Otte 2014, 255; McMeekin 2013, 251, 281, 313, 331, 360).
Card #7 – David Loyd George – Chancellor of the Exchequer
Initially aligned with Lord Morley in opposition to British involvement against Germany, David Lloyd George would switch camps and shift his support to Grey on August 3rd (McMeekin 2013, 332, 358-360, 364). His decision came only after Belgium formally rejected Germany’s ultimatum of the previous day (Martel 2014, 383-384); even as late as July 29th, he had exhibited little concern for a then-potential German route through “the furthest southern corner” of Belgium (Clark 2012, 494).
Card #10 – Maurice de Bunsen – Ambassador to Austria
Noteworthy for his failure to act after receiving advance notice of Austria-Hungary’s ultimatum to Serbia. On July 15th, de Bunsen met for lunch with Count Heinrich von Lützow, a friend and neighbor and the retired Austro-Hungarian Ambassador to Italy. Lützow, alarmed by his own conversation with Berchtold only two days prior, informed the ambassador of the broad plan to “indict” Serbia and demand or force its compliance to a list of strict measures; Germany was “in complete agreement with this procedure” (McMeekin 2013, 127-128; Otte 2014, 184; Martel 2014, 144-145).
Although de Bunsen would report the conversation in a telegram to Grey on July 16th and confront Berchtold himself on July 17the, he accepted the latter’s assurances and dismissed the matter entirely by July 18 (McMeekin 2013, 128-129).
If you missed the previous entries in the series, you can catch up on the posts to date by following the below links:
Series Introduction and General Mobilization Cards
If you are interested, we posted an interview with the designer and you can read that at the following link: https://theplayersaid.com/2023/07/12/interview-with-maurice-suckling-designer-of-crisis-1914-from-worthington-publishing-currently-on-kickstarter/
-Grant
The Players' Aid 