Board Games of the First World War

Could you play a board game about the First World War, during the First World War?

In this episode Jessica, Chris and Angus talk to Holly Nielsen (PhD student at Royal Holloway, London) about board games during the First World War. As a result we learn about games converted into wartime themes, the benefits of the war to the British toy industry, the dangers of channelling the dead in a superstitious household, and what’s leapt to the top of Jessica’s ‘wish list’.

References

Owen Davies, A Supernatural War: Magic, Divination, and Faith During the First World War. OUP, 2018

Krom (T. J. Edwards, 1916)
Recruiting for Kitchener’s Army (Valentines & Sons, c.1914)
The Dash to Berlin (BritishIndoor Games Company, September 1914) The Game of the Way to Berlin (Children’s Magazine, December 1914)
The ‘Strand’ War Game (The ‘Strand’ Magazine, 1916)

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Professor of Modern British History at Leeds University. My research interests lie at the intersection of the histories of gender, particularly masculinity, medicine and warfare.

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A historian focusing on the First World War and popular representations of warfare. I received my PhD from the University of Sussex in 2013. My thesis examined relations between British and French soldiers during the First World War.

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A Postgraduate Researcher at Leeds University. My current research explores all the men who appeared before the North Riding Military Appeal Tribunal, 1916-18.