tabletopgaming.co.uk 43Michael says negotiated with Edan for the
English rights to L’Attaque in the early 1920s
following its success in France.
“I believe that Robert Gibson personally
travelled to Paris to conclude the transaction
and to take possession of the printing blocks,”
he recalls.
PLAN OF ATTACK
H.P. Gibson & Sons – the family-owned business
founded by Harry A. and Robert’s father Harry
Percy in 1919 – began printing Edan’s game in its
London premises on Aldersgate Street. Promoted
with the grand promise of being “a game to
rival chess”, the game retained its French
name of L’Attaque for the British audience.
“We don’t know why the French name was
retained, but maybe at the time there was
some charisma in a game with a French title,”
Michael suggests.
Among the more high-pro le British players
of the game was politician Winston Churchill,
who was noted as being a fan.
“In its heyday, almost every schoolboy
would have enjoyed playing L’Attaque and,
because it is a two-player game, it tended to
generate considerable competition between
school friends, each vying to become the class
champion,” Michael says.
“It is common knowledge that Prime
Minister Winston Churchill greatly enjoyed
a game of L’Attaque, when he wasn’t busyleading Britain to victory in the Second
World War!”
L’Attaque became the rst in Gibsons’ ‘Big
Four’ series of military strategy games based on
a similar gameplay experience. Dover Patrol
was a naval wargame with ships and the need
to return the ag to your base; submarines
and ying boats introduced unique movement
and attack rules. Aviation, meanwhile, took
the action into the air, with planes and airships
weaving around barrage balloons, searchlights
and AA guns that could pick o planes at
range; the objective was to escort a troop
carrier to an aerodrome on the opposite side
of the board. Published not long before the
Second World War, 1935’s Tri-Tactics combinedIt was the ‘rival to chess’ played by Winston Churchill
that inspired Stratego and Dover Patrol. Over a century
since its invention by a female French designer, we
discover the forgotten story of a piece of gaming history
Words by Matt Jarvis