The Battle of Königgrätz as a Meckel Kriegsspiel

by Jorit Wintjes

The Battle of Königgrätz as a Meckel Kriegsspiel

For the 160th anniversary of the Battle of Königgrätz Austrian television produced a documentary on the battle. It included a small section briefly explaining the Prussian Kriegsspiel. It also featured a setup of the whole battlefield using the apparat of the Meckel Kriegsspiel on a copy of an original 1867 Kriegsspiel map.

The documentary (in German) can be found here:

https://www.arte.tv/de/videos/123937-000-A/habsburg-gegen-hohenzollern/

The section on the Kriegsspiel starts at 41:00.

Below are a few additional impressions of the facilitating table.

Thee first picture shows all of the facilitators’ table.

The Elbarmee has pushed across the Bistritz in the second picture; in the distance the Saxonian army is deploying on the Austrian left flank.

An impression of the First Army in the Prussian centre.

And two pictures of the Austrian centre.

From this angle the cavalry kept in the rear is prominent.

Many thanks to director Felix Kalteis and his team for making this possible!