“La Manille”: The Poilus’ Favourite Card Game?
Illustration taken from Charles Guyon, Nos poilus dans les tranchées, (Larousse (Paris), 1916).
« … surtout la manille qu’ils préfèrent à tout. Ils s’y appliquent si bien qu’une bombe ne les dérange pas. »
“…especially Manille, which they prefer above all else. They apply themselves to it so well that even a bomb doesn’t bother them.”
Charles Guyon, Nos poilus dans les tranchées, p. 28.
Some things only permeate gradually into my mind and my awareness. That’s been the case with la Manille. Only when reading what’s now become perhaps the most celebrated poilu account of the war, Les carnets de guerre de Louis Barthas, tonnelier, did the pieces fall into place. Some checking of digital sources and internet searches confirmed the impression and, although some translations rendered une partie de Manille as “a game of cards”, it was clear that la Manille was actually a specific card game, and an incredibly popular one amongst French soldiers in the First World War.
« Les obus des Allemands ne viennent pas jusqu’à ce châteaufort. Artilleurs, fantassins, brancardiers au repos s’y promènent, ce dimanche, 29 novembre [1914], et en prennent des photos, pendant que d’autres font, dans les estaminets, l’éternelle et passionnante partie de manille. »
Raffin, Léonce, Les carnets de guerre d’un prêtre-soldat, 1914-1918.
« Les gourbis sont étroits, encombrés de munitions; l’eau y coule les jours de pluie, des claies pourries y recouvrent le sol, les rats y foisonnent, mais on y goûte un bonheur réel. Sans bruit, l’escouade s’y groupe et y joue d’interminables parties de manille, indifférente aux explosions qui secouent le sol. »
Gabriel-Tristan Franconi, Un Tel de l’Armée Française.
“That evening, despite our limbs being worn out with fatigue, my friend V… . and I went out to buy a couple of bottles of good Meuse beer, and we looked for a quiet corner in which to enjoy them in an interminable game of manille, of which we were fanatical players.”
“The most terrible accident had befallen my former section. Three of my old pals, fooled by either a moment of calm or their own bravado, decided to make up a game of manille, without finding a fourth hand. No sooner had the cards been dealt than a 105mm shell fell right in their midst, blasting them to bits.”
“It was a lousy shelter, a simple staircase with a dozen steps around which stretcher-bearers and orderlies were already crowded. At the bottom, a little square of ground where four crazy cardplayers were busy in a game of manille.”
Louis Barthas, Poilu: The World War I Notebooks of Corporal Louis Barthas, Barrelmaker, 1914 – 1918
“Four poilus join in a game of manille that will last until night blacks out the cards.”
Henri Barbusse, Under Fire: The Story of a Squad
Frequently, in memoirs, diaries or more fictional accounts based on lived experience, like the ones quoted above, there are references to the game. And, as these references indicate, there’s often an almost obsessional dedication to the game by the players – under shot and shell, by roadsides or in shell holes, amidst carnage and disorder, from first light till last.
So, what is la manille, how is it played and why was it so popular?
What’s in a game?
La manille is a trick-taking game played with a 32-card piquet set. A piquet set of playing cards has suites of trèfles (clovers or clubs ♣), carreaux (tiles or diamonds ♦), cœurs (hearts ♥), and piques (pikes or spades ♠). A piquet pack is like a standard 52-card French pack with the Twos (or Deuces), Threes, Fours, Fives and Sixes removed. Here’s a lithograph from the period showing the cards. It’s of particular interest because it seems it was intended to be cut up to make a piquet pack.
Title : Le piquet des tranchées : jeu à découper : [jeu de cartes, estampe]
Publication date : 1915
Publication : Imp. Eug. Verneau H. Chachoin succ.r 108, r. Folie-Méricourt, PARIS, [ca 1915]
Imprimeur / Fabricant : Imprimerie H. Chachoin. Imprimeur
It’s also worth noting that the cards in this set have been ‘themed’ to represent aspects of the Entente and key Allied personalities.
Meanwhile, in the collection of the museum at Fort de la Pompelle, there’s this well-used set of cards in a storage pouch in horizon blue wool cloth with service button to fasten it. Time and trouble taken to create something portable and accessible – a real sign that the owner was an enthusiast of piquet card games.
Jeu de 32 cartes à jouer accompagné de leur pochette de rangement en drap de laine bleu horizon / Set of 32 playing cards accompanied by their storage pouch in horizon blue wool cloth.
Musée du fort de la Pompelle (inv. P.SN.42)
Manufacturer (cards): FERD. PIATNIK ET FILS S.A. (Vienna)
Propriétaire / Owner: Ville de Reims
NOT the Rules of the Game
La manille can be played by 2 or more individuals depending on the variant, but playing as 2 teams each of two players seems most favoured and can add a particular dimension to the game, as we’ll see. The objective is to be the first player (or team) to win the most tricks at the end of each round. Points are then awarded for the hands won. Confusingly, the card values are defined in this order: 10, Ace, King, Queen, Jack, 9, 8, and 7!
The highest card, the 10, is called the manille. The second highest card, the Ace, is called the manillon. Thus, the deck consists of four manilles and four manillons. The game is also played with trumps (atout). This means that the suit of the cards is taken into account, depending on whether it is the trump or not.
It’s the kind of game you could quickly and easily start (or, indeed, stop) virtually anywhere. One reason, I think, for its popularity. It’s actually even quicker to start because the cards are generally dealt in two lots of four to each player, after an initial shuffle and cut.
In the collection of ecpad, there’s what I think is a good representation of the spirit of the game (sadly, a black and white photograph of an original artwork).
[Veuillez consulter la note sur la page Contact de ce site concernant l’utilisation des documents provenant des musées et archives français.
Please see the note on my Contact page regarding use of material from museums and archives].
Photographe(s): Paul Queste
Référence : SPA 71 B 4812
© Paul Queste/ECPAD/Défense
It’s the socialising aspect of the game that I think is captured so well here. The game is the means to draw a group of comrades together (notice there are others looking on with the main players as the centre of attention). To me, it feels like the focus is on the skill of the play, rather than how the cards fall. And that also connects with the aspect of the game that encourages ‘teamwork’.
In one version of the game at least, what’s asked by each player of their partner concerning the hand the latter may be holding is where the cunning of a player can mislead (or help) other players. Because that’s the idea. Questioning of one’s partner by the player who leads off each hand is allowed. There needs to be skill in eliciting clues as to your partner’s hand and not giving information to your opponents, and the interrogating needs to be done quickly.
As with most card games, you can read the rules of the game (many of which are arcane and, in some cases, dreadfully convoluted – as in many other games), but there’s really only one way to learn how to play and that’s by having a go. Watching a few hands of the game beforehand can help considerably. Even sets of rules for the game tell you that “you have to devote a few days to observation, and the skill of la manille will come naturally. You will then really like this game…”.1 The following advice from the same rule book is also relevant to getting a feel for what the game involves: “With questions and answers as short and dry as a drum roll, the calculation of probabilities, and the science of the game, the details and application of which will come to you quickly, you will make an excellent player of spoken manille, and you will be amazed when you remember the time when you threw down your cards almost at random.” The question of probability (of what cards each player is holding and likely to play) is important and gives the game some of the characteristics of Bridge.
What I’ve described is only one variant of the game: “Spoken manille” with four players. In other options (muette or ‘silent’, or with three players – manille à trois avec un mort, or even two players – manille à deux avec deux morts, etc), the game play is somewhat different. With the ‘silent’ version, the rules and advice on how to play Whist are almost all applicable and the player who leads has to try to indicate to his partner, by his attack, the strong and weak aspects of his hand. In manille à l’envers, as the name suggests, the aim is to win as few points and tricks as possible. There are lots of other variants.
Final Thoughts.
The purpose of this post isn’t to teach anyone how to actually play the game. Having read the rules in various versions, I’ve still no better idea of how a game might look and the questioning element in ‘spoken manille‘ is absolutely opaque to me! I doubt, however, that in the war it was ever played on a cloth covered card table in an open trench in the manner illustrated by this carte postale from les Archives de la Somme. Rather than as something genteel, sources indicate this was a game played in any possible circumstance, at any and every possible opportunity. And one final observation: in all the references to the game I’ve found, it’s never been suggested the game was played for money. Of course, it may have been, but it doesn’t seem primarily to have been a gambling game. By all means, however, prove me wrong!
La Manille‘s still played to this day. So, if you’re a card buff and know how to play this game or one similar, do please share your thoughts in the comments section. Or, if you have anything else that comes to mind from reading this post or the blog generally, do get in touch.
And in my mind’s eye, somewhere (perhaps in a ruined village or a trench dugout or shelter) there’s a group of men watching the shuffle, cut and deal of the cards and listening to the back and forth of the question and answers of the lead player and partner, ignorant to the occasional earth-shattering explosion from a shell not so very far from where they are gathered. But all eyes and minds are occupied with THE GAME.
- Renaudet, Benjamin, La manille : règles complètes et séparées de tous les jeux de manille avec le calcul des probabilités et l’étude des coups difficiles..(A. Michel (Paris), 1951) ↩︎
Debout les Morts! 