More than Child’s Play? War Toys; Then and Now
In 1902, E. J. Hawley, a writer all but forgotten today, published a short story, The Toy
Soldier: A Children’s Peace Story. In the tale, an aunt comes across her nephew, Bertie,
playing with a toy British soldier and an enemy Boer. Bertie delights in imagining the
former killing the latter, reflecting a British war patriotism that had reached its zenith with
the mass celebration after the Relief of Mafeking two years earlier. That victory had made a
hero of Robert Baden-Powell, the founder of the Boy Scouts movement, and in the story
Bertie creates his own imperial hero; valiantly protecting the British Empire from her foes.
To complete the scene, Bertie insists on burying the fallen Boer. His aunt agrees to play
along, but only if she can appear as ‘pastor’ at the funeral. Bertie agrees and his aunt
eulogises; reminding her nephew of the Boer’s humanity by providing the latter with a
touching backstory:
This man, whom we have just buried, lived in a farmhouse on the veldt. He was a
very good husband and father. All his children loved him very much. When he went
away to the war his little girl threw her arms around his neck and hugged him tight,
and said she hated war because it took father away. Then her mother cried, and
said she hoped father would come back again for, if not, who was to see to the farm,
and get food for the children to eat? The eldest boy, who was named Bertie, after an
English man who had been kind to the farmer, stood very quiet and still, and when
his turn came to say “good-bye,” he clenched his little hand and vowed that if ever
he became a man he would not let people fight. (Quoted in Kimberley Reynolds,
‘“A Prostitution Alike of Matter and Spirit”: Anti-War Discourses in Children’s
Literature and Childhood Culture Before and During World War I: 2013).
Later the same evening, Bertie, profoundly affected by his aunt’s words, asks whether the
Boer can be brought back to life and returned to his loving family. And because this is a
game, he can.
Just over a decade later, in 1914, and with another, more catastrophic war looming, the
National Peace Council published a letter in a London morning newspaper. Quoted in
Antonia Fraser’s A History of Toys (1966), the Council argued that, “there are grave
objections to presenting our boys with regiments of fighting men, batteries of guns, and
squadrons of Dreadnoughts [battleships].” To counter this, “At the Children’s Welfare
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Exhibition [held in London’s Olympia Exhibition Hall], the Peace Council will make an
alternative suggestion to parents in the shape of an exhibition of “peace toys”. In front of a
specially-painted representation of the Peace Palace at the Hague will be grouped, not
miniature soldiers but miniature civilians, not guns but ploughs and the tools of industry…
Boys, the Council admits, naturally love fighting and all the panoply of war… but that is no
reason for encouraging, and perhaps giving permanent form to, their primitive instincts.”
There is little record today of how contemporary readers reacted to either Hawley’s story or
the Council’s request, but a few years later the latter was mocked in a short story by the
satirist, Saki (H. H. Munro); a contemporary of Oscar Wilde. In Saki’s story, The Toys of
Peace (1919), an uncle presents his nephews with miniature models of John Stuart Mill,
municipal dustbins and the Manchester branch of the Young Women’s Christian
Association; all in an effort to instil civic, rather than military virtues. Left to their own
devices, however, the children soon circumvent their uncle’s intentions. The dustbins are
punctured to accommodate cannon, Mill becomes Maurice de Saxe – the 18th century
Marshal General of France, whom the children have recently learnt about at school – and
the Young Women’s Christian Association is the scene of a bloodbath, in which a hundred
of the women are killed and the rest enslaved by Louis the Fourteenth. The experiment has
failed, bemoans the uncle to his sister; “We have begun too late.”
Saki’s satire, though, was tragically ironic; by its publication, the author was dead. Having
refused a commission, he served as a soldier during World War One and was killed by a
sniper at the Somme in 1916. The debate between Saki and the Peace Council, however,
endured. It was, in many ways, the first iteration of a series of moral panics (albeit, in this
case, of relatively small stature) that have defined the ‘war play’ debate for the last hundred
years. At various intervals, from World War One to Vietnam to the War on Terror,
questions have been asked of the effect that violent games have on the minds of (most
frequently) young boys. Does violent play prefigure violent lives? Do toy guns eventually
become real guns? Or perhaps less drastically, does war play teach children military history
in particular kinds of ways?
GI Joe, Action Man and HMAF Action Figures
One way to approach this history, at least that of the latter part of the 20th century, is
through GI Joe; the action figure known in the UK as Action Man and one of the most
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successful toys of all time. Introduced in the US in 1964 and the UK two years later, their
history mirrors the history of mid-to-late 20th century Western military conflicts. In their
first iterations, both versions were based upon World War Two troops; GI Joe represented
the four branches of the US Armed Forces – the army, airforce, navy and marines – and
Action Man appeared in regular army cut denim. Later, other uniforms were introduced as
US and UK forces engaged in differing conflicts around the globe. Perhaps the most clearcut link to a contemporary military operation was Action Man’s SAS outfit; introduced just
four months after the 1980 Iranian Embassy Siege, when the Special Air Service first
shifted from the shadows into the full glare of publicity. John Newsinger (Dangerous Men:
The SAS and Popular Culture: 1997) has traced the contribution of popular culture to
forming the popular image of the SAS, and Action Man, for younger citizens especially,
was part of this process.
Bob Brechin, the chief designer at Palitoy (the makers of Action Man), has also spoken of
the intersection between Action Man and contemporary geopolitical climates (interview
with PK: April, 2014). Brechin suggests, for example, that one of the reasons why the
Falklands War never featured in Action Man’s final years was because of the recentness of
that conflict and the well-publicised deaths of British servicemen in the same campaign. In
this way, the SAS was a safer commercial bet, because their exploits at the Iranian Embassy
had been extremely successful and had resulted in no (British) deaths. The same was true of
World War Two, the ‘good war’ which continually provided Action Man with
commercially successful outfits and paraphernalia. In Brechin’s opinion, at least part of the
popularity of this range came from the fact that World War Two has been sustained in the
popular consciousness in a variety of ways; from films, to television series, to books. It
provides, as such, a set of durable stories from which producers of such media can draw;
knowing that their productions will likely find a receptive audience.
There is also evidence that Action Man taught young boys about war in particular ways.
Men that later joined the British Army have reflected that one of the ways that they were
introduced to this career path was through play with Action Man (The Story of Action Man:
2013). The detail of early Action Man models is also one of the reasons that they are so
popular amongst collectors today, and accurately depicted for children everything from
uniforms, to medals, to the exact weapons that soldiers, during particular eras, would have
carried. It is well established that one of the earliest ways children come to understand the
world is through play and in this way toys like Action Man are crucial in developing
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knowledge of war, nationalism and the military. From personal experience (KD), Airfix
models have served as introductions to topics as diverse as the Korean War (MIG fighterjet), the Tudors (the Mary Rose) and, especially, World War II (an assortment of soldiers
and planes). Playing with British and American-themed Action Man models also taught
much about who the ‘good guys’ and ‘bad guys’ of international politics were (and they
were always ‘guys’ not ‘girls’).
Across the Atlantic, GI Joe was also seeing a shift in his military credentials around the
same time as Action Man was being re-evaluated in the wake of the Iranian Embassy Siege.
The large and vociferous anti-Vietnam peace movement had adversely affected GI Joe’s
sales during the 1970s, as much of the US became disillusioned with war and its devastating
effect on young lives. To combat this ennui, the designers of GI Joe introduced a more
action-orientated range, which dispensed with the figure’s military characteristics in favour
of a new, ‘Adventure-Team’ approach. This included, amongst other outfits, a scuba
costume, with which the more pacifistic figurine could explore the oceans; harming no one
in the process, except the occasional shark. The message was clear: there were plenty of
ways to keep young boys entertained; ways that did not require violence in any form.
The Adventure-Team range, though, was a commercial failure and within a few years
Hasbro, GI Joe’s makers, had reintroduced more militaristic qualities to the toys, including
new uniforms and weapons. Perhaps, as Saki said, they had started too late; children were
already accustomed to the more militaristic version of GI Joe. And G. Wayne Miller (Toy
Wars: The Epic Struggle Between GI Joe, Barbie and the Companies that Make Them:
1998) has mapped this shift onto the presidential administrations of the time. For him, the
figure was altered in direct response to the Reagan-era, losing the pacific qualities it
possessed under the less belligerent policies of Jimmy Carter and becoming more bellicose
as Reagan dramatically expanded Cold War military programmes, such as Star Wars. We
might recall here, too, Reagan’s stated ambition to rid the US of its ‘Vietnam Syndrome’; a
broad, public malaise toward future wars, triggered by the massive unpopularity of that
previous conflict. GI Joe and other military toys were one way in which the Syndrome
played out.
There is an interesting comparison to be made here to perhaps the most famous children’s
toy of all time – and certainly one of the most commercially successful – Lego. Founded in
1932 by Ole Kirk Kristiansen, Lego has always attempted to adhere to the principles of
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pacifism. To this day, Lego refuses to produce models of contemporary military hardware.
Unlike the GI Joe and Action Man ranges, there are no Lego tanks, warplanes or modern
weapons, and one of the earliest iterations of the toy even attempted to teach children about
traffic safety. In recent years, this rule has been somewhat relaxed and Lego ranges
pertaining to Star Wars, Lord of the Rings and the Lone Ranger have all been released.
Toys in these ranges come replete with blasters, swords and revolvers, respectively, but
these are fantasy and/ or historical weapons, rather than contemporary armaments. The
Lego policeman, for example, despite being modelled on the US police force (who are
armed), carries no weapon; he possesses only an identification badge and a pair of
handcuffs.
Perhaps sensing an opportunity in the market, the British-based toy designer, Character
Group, have recently introduced a Lego-compatible range of toys of their own. Designed in
conjunction with Her Majesty’s Armed Forces (HMAF), these include miniature rocket
launchers, combat vehicles and artillery, and are modelled on actual soldiers and materiel
employed in the theatres of Afghanistan and Iraq. Some of the controversies that have
surrounded this range, though, perhaps explain one of the reasons that Lego have been
reticent to replicate existing military hardware in their product lines. In 2012, Character
introduced the ‘RAF Reaper Aircraft & Remote Pilot’, which consists of a Reaper drone
and ground control station. And we might recall here, too, Airfix’s model of a ruined
‘Afghan Single Storey Dwelling’ (presumably wrecked by Coalition bombardment). It is
perhaps an oversimplification to suggest that, because these toys are inspired by these wars
they necessarily naturalise the same for children. Such an assertion ignores the fact that
children do not necessarily play with toys as intended. While, as the example at the head of
this essay suggests, children may militarise non-military toys, the reverse is also true. In this
way, future work might offer an ethnography of children’s play, to understand not just some
of the messages that are being relayed by certain toys, but how children actually play with
them.
Building upon the historical success of Action Man, Character has also introduced a posable
action figure based upon serving British soldiers. These can be purchased in a variety of
uniforms, from standard infantryman, to Commando, to parachutist. A selection of vehicles
can be acquired, too, including an attack helicopter, fast pursuit battle tank and 105mm field
gun. Again, given the reticence of Action Man’s designers to engage with contemporary
conflicts such as the Falklands, it is perhaps surprising that this range has been released
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(and to, it appears, at least some commercial success). But what does this trend mean? Has
militarism expanded in Britain in recent years? Perhaps; as the ‘Help the Heroes’ campaign
and widespread media coverage of Royal Wootton Basset repatriation ceremonies attest.
But perhaps, too, realistic conflict has simply become more accepted in children’s culture.
Contemporary video games, for example, now contain a graphic realisation of war that was
previously impossible.
Computer Games, Console Controllers and Visceral Warfare
In 2012, the Labour MP, Keith Vaz, sponsored an Early Day Motion in the UK Parliament
to “provide for closer scrutiny of aggressive first-person shooter video games.” He was
reacting, in part, to the claims of Anders Breivik; the far-right Norwegian who murdered 77
of his countrywomen and men in 2011. Breivik claimed that, prior to his killing spree, he
had trained on the computer game, ‘Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2’; using the game to, in
his words, “develop target acquisition” (‘MPs Call for Violent Video Game Ban after
Breivik Claims that he “Trained” on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare’, The Telegraph: May,
2012). This instalment in the Call of Duty series was also controversial for other reasons,
featuring, as it did, a mission which necessitated the player murder several hostages; an
action that maintained, for the purposes of the game, the cover of a double-agent. Whilst the
mission could be skipped without penalty, there was no way for the mission itself to be
completed without killing the civilians.
This is not to suggest, of course, that games have not always been used, whether
intentionally or not, to promote war and violence. One of the most famous games of all
time, chess, is an abstract representation of a battlefield that has been used to teach military
strategy for centuries. Originating in India around the 6th century, chess was based upon an
earlier game called ‘chaturanga’; a Sanskrit word for battle formation first mentioned in the
Indian epic poem, Mahabharata. From its origins, chess was entwined with martial
practice, being both a form of entertainment and a didactic tool for teaching battle tactics
(centuries later Peter the Great would take chess sets on his military campaigns). More
recently, the game has been entwined with war in other ways. During the Cold War, the
‘match of the century’ between the Soviet Union’s Boris Spassky and the United States’
Bobby Fischer served as a proxy for the wider ideological clash between these two nations.
Fischer triumphed having been persuaded to compete by, amongst others, US National
Security Advisor Henry Kissinger.
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Computer games, though, have perhaps a particular ability to indirectly educate on matters
of war and geopolitics. This is because their ‘universes’ can be extremely detailed; unlike
traditional toy soldiers, action figures, Airfix and the like, they leave little to the
imagination. In other words, perhaps more than with any other medium, computer games
provide the player with the feeling of actually ‘being there’. Thus, one of the most popular
World War Two-themed games, ‘Medal of Honor’ (which runs to twelve instalments),
allows players to cycle through a myriad of different weapons – from Browning rifles, to
Thompson submachine guns, to Webley revolvers – and campaigns – from Pearl Harbor, to
D-Day, to the Battle of the Bulge; a level of detail impossible for all but the most ardent
collector of material toy soldiers and weapons/ enthusiasts of World War Two. Moreover,
special attention is paid to ensuring that the weapons not only look, but also sound exactly
as they would have done during the 1940s. It is this immersive quality that perhaps
inculcates war more deeply in the minds of those that play such games. While they are
mostly targeted at teenagers, younger children can and often do play with such games. In
this way, they are very much part of youth and childhood culture.
This aspect of the debate over the interface between virtual and actual warfare was
crystallized by one of the more famous soldiers of recent years: Prince Harry of Wales.
Returning (with great media fanfare) from a three month deployment in Afghanistan in late
January, 2013, the Prince was asked for his reflections upon his experiences as an Apache
helicopter pilot. In a series of interviews, Prince Harry spoke of his satisfaction at being on
active duty. In particular, he cited his ability to play computer games as an advantage in the
fighting that he had undertaken; fighting that included, he implied, shooting and killing
Taliban fighters. “I’m one of those people who loves playing PlayStation and Xbox, so with
my thumbs [on the trigger] I like to think that I’m probably quite useful.” He then continued
to say that, if the Taliban were a threat to him or his comrades, he’d have no hesitation in
taking them, “out of the game” (‘Prince Harry Compares War to PlayStation, and Taliban
are not Amused’, The New York Times: Jan., 2013).
Whilst the initial media response to the interview focused on the Prince’s admission that he
had killed people, later reflections considered the Prince’s language and the fact that he had
likened his war experience to a computer game. The Prince’s reference, though, was hardly
novel; the British Army themselves have endorsed the kind of connection that he made. In
2009, they introduced a recruiting campaign called, ‘Start Thinking Soldier’, which
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involved playing through a set of virtual missions to see whether one had the ‘right stuff’ to
enlist in the armed forces. This followed a similar approach in the US, where the military
introduced a recruitment tool, ‘America’s Army’, which required comparable actions from
its users. The principle demographic targeted by military recruiters is also, of course, the
leading consumer of computer games, which makes this strategy logical. That the controls
of Apache helicopters and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles are broadly similar to those of,
amongst other consoles, the PlayStation (indeed, the former are often designed with this in
mind), only makes this overlap more useful to Western militaries.
Compared to games like chess, though, what is notable about virtual games is how they
create immersive worlds. Modern combat computer games, such as those for the
PlayStation, as well as Start Thinking Soldier in the UK and America’s Army in the US,
attempt to make the experience of playing as realistic as possible for the gamer. Through
the screen, a close-up perspective of the action is given, in which the viewer is frequently
invisible. As the geographer, Derek Gregory (‘From a View to a Kill: Drones and Late
Modern Warfare’: 2011), has suggested: “video games do not stage violence as passive
spectacle; they are profoundly immersive, drawing players in to their virtual worlds”. And
Apache helicopters, such as Prince Harry’s, recreate just such an experience, with a zoomed
video display of the target and controls akin to a games console. Prince Harry’s comparison
of war with computer games, then, might be read less as a suggestion that Western soldiers
are becoming increasingly divorced from fighting (although this may be true, too), and
more as evidence that the experience of computer games is being replicated by militaries to
facilitate easier and simpler killing of increasingly distanced enemies.
We have come a long way from E. J. Hawley and the attempt to humanize the little toy
Boer. What seems certain is that there is much more to children’s play than might, at first,
seem apparent. And with the advent of digital games, the issues addressed here will become
increasingly complex in the future.
Acknowledgements: Thanks to Bob Brechin for reflecting upon his experiences as Chief
Designer at Palitoy. This research was funded by the Economic and Social Research
Council as part of a project on ludic geopolitics (award no. ES/L001926/1).
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