Vive le Nation

Here's a summary of last Saturday's French Revolution game at Darren Dorna's house, written by the host and game-inventor himself:

We had seven players, so I chose to sit out and instead act as referee. The Convention started off leaning extremely conservative, which left the Leadership on the map extremely radical - an interesting situation. A powerful conservative government quickly formed, made up of the highly influential Petion (Craig), the royal wannabe Philippe Egalite (my sister-in-law Jenny), and another conservative statesman (forget which one - played by David). A radical Opposition coalition formed shortly thereafter, consisting of two propagandists Desmoulins (Bruce), Saint-Just (Jonathan), as well as a legislator (Lindet? - played by Salim). A seventh statesman (brother-in-law Patrick) went moderate as a swing voter, although he fairly quickly sided with the conservatives.

Through some clever maneuvering and politicking, the radicals managed to quickly organize the little support they had in the convention, and were soon in a position to threaten the conservatives for leadership in the government. The opening shot consisted of having one of their own appointed President of the convention, a move that greatly alarmed the conservatives. The conservatives responded by ruthlessly attacking their factions politically, stealing Deputies and Officials in an open bid to maintain their hold on power. This effort was viewed very negatively by the radicals (surprise, surprise), who became extremely uncooperative and began working to take advantage of their influence in the provinces to undermine conservative power. Through their leadership, the Paris commune reached a highly dangerous level of organization, and when bread riots broke out in Paris the conservatives were powerless to refuse their demands for reform, further threatening their hold on power.

On the military scene, the conservatives (who controlled the noble-dominated officers) managed to train a very competent army to counter the Austrian and Prussian armies poised to invade the northeast. Ironically, however, on the eve of battle, the radicals proposed to reform the military, and were able to push the legislation through despite conservative opposition. The Austrians attacked shortly thereafter, and the First Army, caught in a dangerous period of transition in the wake of reforms, were roundly defeated and sent reeling back to Paris. The northeast was secured by the Republic's enemies later that year (1794), crippling France's economy and contributing to the rapidly growing inflation. The Second Army, which found early success campaigning in Italy, was unexpectedly defeated by an Austrian counter-attack around the same time and was sent retreating back to France.

The conservatives were clearly unable to pull the government together, and having initiated an all-out war with the radicals they found themselves paralyzed, with all their effort going into clinging to what little power they had left, and staving off the efforts of the radicals to overturn them and take the helm. At one point they resorted to assassination - a desperate measure that managed to temporarily fend off a radical coup, but which ultimately solved none of their problems. The conservatives finally admitted defeat indirectly (but loudly) when they openly declared themselves to have royalist sympathies. Clearly, their hope now was that Philippe would be installed as King should the Republic fall, Louis XVI having been guillotined early in 1793. David, seeing that he would be left out of a royalist victory, abandoned the conservative coalition giving the remaining radicals the oppotunity they needed to sieze power.

Alas, it was too late. Before giving up the reins of power the conservatives had quite deliberately sabotaged the financial health of the Republic, and inflation had gone through the roof. When bread riots broke out again in mid-1794, with the Prussians at the gates of Paris, the entire convention was dragged off to the guillotine by the vengeful mobs. Thus, the now-royalist conservatives met their end even as their saviors (the Prussians) were poised to deliver them. And the radicals themselves were destroyed by their own supporters, bitter and disillusioned by the inability of the convention to deliver them from their enemies.

All in all a most enjoyable session...