The Life & Games of Lucius Cornelius Sulla (Felix) – Part 1

Do you count yourself fortunate? – Maybe.

Do you count yourself so fortunate you would make it a part of your name? – Probably not.

Today we will examine the life of a man who did just that, feeling that he was one of fortune’s favorites. I’m talking about Charles “Lucky” Luciano, infamous mobster… no, of course not! I’m talking about Lucius Cornelius Sulla (it’s in the post’s title!) who called himself Felix – the fortunate. Today, we’ll look at his rise under Gaius Marius, his first political successes, his winning of the highest Roman military award, and finally, his ascent to the highest office in Rome. We’ll track it along the lines of the board game classic The Republic of Rome (Richard Berthold/Don Greenwood/Robert Haines, Avalon Hill/Valley Games)!

Heal Our Bleeding Wound: The Soviets in Afghanistan, #2

In the first part, we saw how the Soviets got themselves into the mess of their Afghanistan intervention. Today, let’s look at their withdrawal from the long conflict, the domestic repercussions of the war in the Soviet Union and, finally, on Afghanistan after the Soviet withdrawal – as always, with board games. Let’s get straight to it!

“Executive Privilege” (Watergate, #2)

In early 1973, Richard Nixon seemed stronger than ever. The voters had just handed him a landslide electoral victory, a massive mandate for the next four years. Yet within 20 months, his position would crumble, and his presidency would be no more. The cause of his downfall was – of course – the Watergate scandal. As we’ve seen in the first part, through 1972, most Americans did not take much note of the break-in or the irregularities in Nixon’s election campaign finance. In 1973, however, the connection to politics became evident during the trials of the Watergate burglars and then spread when the existence of a secret taping system at the White House became known. Richard Nixon resigned from the presidency, but the reverberations of the scandal kept rippling through America.

A Tribute to Klaus Teuber

Game designer Klaus Teuber, four-times winner of the Spiel des Jahres award and creator of Catan, has died at the age of 70. You will probably have read that elsewhere already: Obituaries have appeared not only on board game blogs or websites, but also in the mainstream media from German national television over NPR to the New York Times. As board game designers are not exactly always A-list celebrities, this does tell you something about Teuber’s impact far beyond the small niche of hobby gamers. Thus, much has been written about his life and creations. As I am somebody who has played his games a lot, let me add my personal perspective on what his games meant to me.

Into the Trap: The Soviets in Afghanistan, #1

Sometimes, political leaders want wars. And sometimes they start them even though they fear that the results will not measure up to the financial, the political, the human cost – but think that they have exhausted any other means at their disposal to no avail. The Soviet intervention in Afghanistan was a case of the latter. It is an instructive case on how policy is made – not only regarding Afghanistan. We’ll have a look at Afghanistan as a hotspot of great power competition from the 19^th century on before we examine the events that led to the Soviet intervention in 1979, and finally, the brutal war of attrition that followed – as always, accompanied by board games.

Fringes of an Empire (1848, #3)

The revolutions of 1848 were a truly European event. We’ve seen how the spark from Paris also set Germany ablaze. Part of that Germany was Austria, the German-speaking part of the Habsburg monarchy. Yet the Habsburgs also ruled over vast non-German territories: Their rich holdings in northern Italy provided a third of the total tax income. Hungary had been essential for Habsburg power projections into the Balkans for centuries. Both the Italians and the Hungarians – and also Czechs and Galicians – yearned to shake off Habsburg domination and chart their own national destinies.

You can read all posts in this series here:

The Spark of Revolution (1848, #1)

Black-Red-Gold (1848, #2)

Fringes of an Empire (1848, #3)

Black-Red-Gold (1848, #2)

When news of the February Revolution in Paris reached Germany, the liberals, nationalists, and radicals which had chafed under the post-Napoleonic restauration of the old order were ecstatic. They quickly set out to make their own revolutions. Soon, they reached complicated and interlocking questions of statehood and nationhood which needed answers – and, as the military interventions in Baden, Denmark, and Poland showed, the defenders of the old order still had an ace up their sleeves.

You can read all posts of this series here:

The Spark of Revolution (1848, #1)

Black-Red-Gold (1848, #2)

Fringes of an Empire (1848, #3)

The Spark of Revolution (1848, #1)

Popular protest is a classic tool to bring about political change. Sometimes the protests are successful – like the revolutions against Communist rule in Eastern Europe in 1989. Sometimes they are put down (like the Prague Spring had been in 1968). Sometimes, the result is mixed – the Euromaidan protests in Kiev during the winter of 2013/14 strengthened democracy in the country by removing its autocratic president Viktor Yanukovych, but the Ukrainians paid a steep price for their freedoms as Vladimir Putin took the removal of his vassal Yanukovych unkindly and has been attempting to dismantle Ukraine since then. And sometimes, the success of revolution is still in the air – like in Iran, where large crowds have been protesting for the last months against their fundamentalist government’s meddling in private affairs.

As these examples show, success and failure are sometimes not so easy to assess. They also demonstrate that protest is often limited to a few cities or one country. Only rarely does revolution leap from one place to another. The closest Europe has ever come to a revolutionary conflagration was 175 years ago, in 1848. This post traces the roots of these revolutions to the French Revolution, takes a look at the restaurationist interlude and the mounting political pressures before 1848, and then looks at the outbreak of revolution in the Paris of February 1848. With that, the stage is set for the 1848 series of posts on this blog!

The Spark of Revolution (1848, #1)

Black-Red-Gold (1848, #2)

Fringes of an Empire (1848, #3)

The Expansion (Early Islam, #3)

Welcome back to the third and last part of our exploration of early Islam in history and (this time, more) board games! We’ve already seen the power of Muhammad’s revelation and his shrewd statecraft. Now, at Muhammad’s death, we find Arabia united under the banner of Islam. Today, we’ll look at the succession of Muhammad in Arabia, the campaigns for Syria and Iraq, and finally, Islamic expansion into the wider world.

A “Third-Rate Burglary Attempt” (Watergate, #1)

Watergate. The most famous of all political scandals. A salacious mix of illicit surveillance, dubious finance, and open felonies. And the president of the United States embroiled in it. Of course, the topic is not only fascinating to politicos, journalists, gossips, and everyone out for a quick buck – but also to the designers and players of board games. Thus, here’s the first half of a two-part piece on Watergate in history and board games – from the mood at the Nixon White House in the early 1970s over the break-in at the Watergate complex itself to Nixon’s irregular campaign finance.