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Reminiscences of Chess in War Time
November 11, 2019
There was a chess magazine that appeared in 1927 entitled “Canadian Chess Review”, published in Winnipeg.
In the December 1927 issue, pages 5-8, there was an article by Percy M. Chiswell with the heading “Reminiscences of Chess in War Time”.
I have long thought it was suitable for Remembrance Day.
December’s Chess Chat
Reminiscences of Chess in War Time
Percy M. Chiswell
When the troop train sped eastwards on the first lap of the great adventure, one evening late in August, 1914, there was included in my kit a board and a set of chessmen. It did not see much use during the period of hard training at Valcartier camp, but there were a few games played on shipboard on the way to England, when the exigencies of military training were relaxed somewhat, and I well remember one particular game played in the wee small hours of the morning in a smoky hut on Salisbury Plain, after everything had been packed up, and we were waiting for the order to fall in for departure to embark for France. This was early in February 1915, and my opponent on that occasion was a private of my battalion destined afterwards to command it as colonel, and to become a respected and well-nigh famous character in the battalion. His aptitude in the field was greater than on the chess-board, however.
After the first few weeks in France, I found the box of chessmen and board too cumbrous to lug around, as our accommodation for such things was limited, and so one day I left it in care of the woman at the farmhouse where we were billeted, telling her that I would be back some day for it. I had ordered, in the meantime, a small folding board with miniature pegged men, which I carried with me throughout the rest of the war, and it was not until many tragic experiences occurred and the lapse of eighteen months that I was again in the vicinity of the farmhouse where I had left the original set. On going there to enquire, I was received as one risen from the dead and was told that, “Le petit garcon jouait avec les echequiers et ils son maintenant tout perdus.”
After the first heavy battle in ’15, there came to my company in a draft, a kindred spirit in the person of one J.H. Smith, a man much older than myself, but an enthusiastic chess player, and we spent most of our spare time in constant communion over the board. There was one particular sector of the line in front of Messines where things were quiet at the time and the demand for working parties had not reached the proportions it did later din the war, and many a game was played behind the parapets on a sunny afternoon. In fact, we were objects of ridicule with some of the boys, and there was one sergeant by the name of Spalding, a rough diamond, whose favorite exclamation as he came around the corner of a traverse and beheld us so engaged, was: “My God, they’re at it again.” The sands of poor Spalding’s life were running out though he knew it not, and he was killed in that very trench. There was another occasion, too, when we were so absorbed in our game, that we had forgotten there was such a thing in the world as a war, and hardly heard the howl of an approaching shell until it was almost too late to duck, and we were rudely recalled to the stern reality of things by the burst on the parapet almost directly over us, and the accompanying deluge of clods of earth and sandbags. Needless to say that particular game was never finished.
I remember another particularly enjoyable game with a chance met enthusiast in a deserted house on the slope of Hill 63 in the same locality. We were both on some working party, though from different units, and had taken shelter from the heavy rain. We never knew each other’s names, as my opponent was called suddenly away just as we finished the game, and I never saw him more.
After my friend Smith went away, it was quite a while before I got any regular games, but I was for a time attached to a special detail where I was associated with a French-Canadian named Guimon, another “rough diamond.” He had a friend whom he said was a great player and who had taught him the moves. He was very enthusiastic but of an excitable temperament and a poor loser, and had no conception of chess strategy. With him one of the essential accompaniments requisite for the commencing of a game was “un mess-tin plein de biere”, and I spent several evenings massacreing him while he massacered the content of the “mess-tin plein.” He used to get very excited and would voice his thoughts aloud and curse the pieces heartily for getting on the wrong squares where he could make no use of them, as though they had intelligence. It was a most amusing performance, but after a few games he began to get discouraged, and I had to give him odds to get him to play. He used to select his own odds, and finally stipulated that it should be a knight, a bishop and four “pauls” (pawns)!!! Truth is stranger than fiction!
Later on when I returned to duty with the battalion, there came some boys to the platoon to whom I taught the game. I was much too strong for any of them, but as beginners they liked to play among themselves. I well remember one occasion when I lent two of them the board and men, and after we had moved out of the trenches to rest billets some miles in the rear, I discovered that they had lost of one of the white bishops from the set. They were conscience stricken, and without telling me of their intentions went back the five miles “up the line” to find the white bishop in the dugout where they had been playing. Needless to say it had forever disappeared in the welter of mud and chalk of the Vimy Ridge, and they came back without it. Poor lads, the grass grows over both of them now. The loss rather spoiled the set for a time, but I got over the difficulty by finding an old composition table knife handle, and by patient and tedious whittling with a penknife evolved something resembling the lost bishop from it.
(to be continued)
November 11, 2019
There was a chess magazine that appeared in 1927 entitled “Canadian Chess Review”, published in Winnipeg.
In the December 1927 issue, pages 5-8, there was an article by Percy M. Chiswell with the heading “Reminiscences of Chess in War Time”.
I have long thought it was suitable for Remembrance Day.
December’s Chess Chat
Reminiscences of Chess in War Time
Percy M. Chiswell
When the troop train sped eastwards on the first lap of the great adventure, one evening late in August, 1914, there was included in my kit a board and a set of chessmen. It did not see much use during the period of hard training at Valcartier camp, but there were a few games played on shipboard on the way to England, when the exigencies of military training were relaxed somewhat, and I well remember one particular game played in the wee small hours of the morning in a smoky hut on Salisbury Plain, after everything had been packed up, and we were waiting for the order to fall in for departure to embark for France. This was early in February 1915, and my opponent on that occasion was a private of my battalion destined afterwards to command it as colonel, and to become a respected and well-nigh famous character in the battalion. His aptitude in the field was greater than on the chess-board, however.
After the first few weeks in France, I found the box of chessmen and board too cumbrous to lug around, as our accommodation for such things was limited, and so one day I left it in care of the woman at the farmhouse where we were billeted, telling her that I would be back some day for it. I had ordered, in the meantime, a small folding board with miniature pegged men, which I carried with me throughout the rest of the war, and it was not until many tragic experiences occurred and the lapse of eighteen months that I was again in the vicinity of the farmhouse where I had left the original set. On going there to enquire, I was received as one risen from the dead and was told that, “Le petit garcon jouait avec les echequiers et ils son maintenant tout perdus.”
After the first heavy battle in ’15, there came to my company in a draft, a kindred spirit in the person of one J.H. Smith, a man much older than myself, but an enthusiastic chess player, and we spent most of our spare time in constant communion over the board. There was one particular sector of the line in front of Messines where things were quiet at the time and the demand for working parties had not reached the proportions it did later din the war, and many a game was played behind the parapets on a sunny afternoon. In fact, we were objects of ridicule with some of the boys, and there was one sergeant by the name of Spalding, a rough diamond, whose favorite exclamation as he came around the corner of a traverse and beheld us so engaged, was: “My God, they’re at it again.” The sands of poor Spalding’s life were running out though he knew it not, and he was killed in that very trench. There was another occasion, too, when we were so absorbed in our game, that we had forgotten there was such a thing in the world as a war, and hardly heard the howl of an approaching shell until it was almost too late to duck, and we were rudely recalled to the stern reality of things by the burst on the parapet almost directly over us, and the accompanying deluge of clods of earth and sandbags. Needless to say that particular game was never finished.
I remember another particularly enjoyable game with a chance met enthusiast in a deserted house on the slope of Hill 63 in the same locality. We were both on some working party, though from different units, and had taken shelter from the heavy rain. We never knew each other’s names, as my opponent was called suddenly away just as we finished the game, and I never saw him more.
After my friend Smith went away, it was quite a while before I got any regular games, but I was for a time attached to a special detail where I was associated with a French-Canadian named Guimon, another “rough diamond.” He had a friend whom he said was a great player and who had taught him the moves. He was very enthusiastic but of an excitable temperament and a poor loser, and had no conception of chess strategy. With him one of the essential accompaniments requisite for the commencing of a game was “un mess-tin plein de biere”, and I spent several evenings massacreing him while he massacered the content of the “mess-tin plein.” He used to get very excited and would voice his thoughts aloud and curse the pieces heartily for getting on the wrong squares where he could make no use of them, as though they had intelligence. It was a most amusing performance, but after a few games he began to get discouraged, and I had to give him odds to get him to play. He used to select his own odds, and finally stipulated that it should be a knight, a bishop and four “pauls” (pawns)!!! Truth is stranger than fiction!
Later on when I returned to duty with the battalion, there came some boys to the platoon to whom I taught the game. I was much too strong for any of them, but as beginners they liked to play among themselves. I well remember one occasion when I lent two of them the board and men, and after we had moved out of the trenches to rest billets some miles in the rear, I discovered that they had lost of one of the white bishops from the set. They were conscience stricken, and without telling me of their intentions went back the five miles “up the line” to find the white bishop in the dugout where they had been playing. Needless to say it had forever disappeared in the welter of mud and chalk of the Vimy Ridge, and they came back without it. Poor lads, the grass grows over both of them now. The loss rather spoiled the set for a time, but I got over the difficulty by finding an old composition table knife handle, and by patient and tedious whittling with a penknife evolved something resembling the lost bishop from it.
(to be continued)
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