““Little Wars” was published in 1913, after Wells — inspired by a child’s discarded toy soldiers and breech-loading cannon — created a set of rules that the “recumbent strategist” could use to wage war across parlor floors or neatly manicured lawns and gardens.”
“According to Padre Paul Wright of the British Royal Army Chaplains’ Department, who is perhaps the world’s leading authority on “Little Wars,” G. K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc were among Wells’s guests while he was developing the game.”
“While miniature war-gaming has never been able to claim a place in the mainstream, it has influenced almost everything we think of as gaming today.”
“Wells — along with much of the rest of the world — could sense something on the horizon, and he did not like what he saw coming: “You have only to play at Little Wars three or four times to realize just what a blundering thing Great War must be. Great War is at present, I am convinced, not only the most expensive game in the universe, but it is a game out of all proportion. Not only are the masses of men and material and suffering and inconvenience too monstrously big for reason, but — the available heads we have for it, are too small. That, I think, is the most pacific realization conceivable, and Little War brings you to it as nothing else but Great War can do.””