Sherlock Holmes, Consulting Diplomat by Eric Pederson Master Aenigmatist

The next day, when Holmes finally roused himself, I accosted him angrily. "How could you just go to sleep with Masters languishing in jail. Didn't you owe it to him to do your utmost to solve the case?" I was referring, of course, to The Case of the Lethal Alliance which had been presented to Holmes and myself the night prior by the valet of General Masters, the accused.

Holmes looked at me while rubbing his scalp. "My dear Watson, of course I owed that to him. Furthermore, I did indeed solve the case. Would you care for an explanation?" Holmes continued without looking up to see whether I had nodded (I had): "I didn't know whether or not I had sufficient information to solve this case. Now that I know that I did, of course, the solution is obvious, but that is the crisp beauty of hindsight.

"Since we are assuming a single killer who wished to remain undetected, we need simply to determine whether anyone was alone with Whipple during conference at the fateful moment.

"Examining the board we see that builds have been made, so we have direct evidence of a Winter 1901 adjustment. Further, we see that some built units have been moved two spaces – for example, the Fleet built in Marseilles. The Turkish fleet in Tunis also guarantees that moves progressed through Fall 1902. This gives us all the information we need to establish the time line of the evening's diplomatic activities.

"Adding up the time periods which Masters always allowed we see that there was time between 6:00 and 8:35 for four movement seasons with no retreats and two builds, four movement seasons with two retreats and no builds, or four movement seasons with one retreat and one build. Since we don't have evidence of a second build we can rule out the first option and conclude that play was halted after the resolution of movement orders Fall 1902 and before build orders were processed (Winter 1902). Since we know that there was one build, we can also safely rule out the second option.

"Thus we had one build and one retreat through Fall 1902. The question, then, is when was the retreat? As any beginning player knows, the initial set-up on the map guarantees that a retreat is impossible in Spring 1901. So let us consider, in turn, the possibility that the retreat occurred in each of the other three seasons of this game… Would you like me to do this on paper?"

"Yes please," I said, rather weakly.

"Since Whipple became ill around 8:35, the poisoning would have occurred ca. 7:45-7:50. Of the three candidate timelines, only the one with the Fall 1901 retreat allows for a conference at that time. This places the administration of the poison during the Spring 1902 diplomacy conference period. Spring 1902 is commonly a crowded session as alliances are becoming more reliably established and detailed plans can now be drawn. Plus there are the new builds to discuss. So the murderer could count on a reasonable amount of time alone with the victim during Spring 1902!"

"But Holmes", I interrupted, "Knowing when the retreat phase occurred doesn't tell us anything about the murder!"

"My dear Watson" -- Holmes began to fill his pipe with a particularly aromatic tobacco -- "if you have learned anything from our association, I would hope that it is the necessity of methodical deduction, which if done properly and with full knowledge of the relevant facts of the case, should inescabably lead one to the correct and unique solution."

Holmes smiled and busied himself for long minutes lighting his pipe before continuing. "Now you see, this is where the case becomes interesting. What might the single retreat in Fall 1901 tell us about the game a full year later?" Holmes paused dramatically. "Actually, it is the absence of a retreat in 1902 which is most informative about the disposition of units that year. To start with, since there were no retreats in 1902 and the build phase was never reached, we can begin to determine the supply center count for the end of Fall 1901. The units on the board at the end of Fall 1902 movement become a fairly reliable indicator of the supply center distribution at that time, especially since builds were not allowed to go unused in this game."

Now that Watson has provided a sense of the time-line and some additional clues towards the full solution can you deduce who poisoned Whipple? The more patient among us are invited to stop here and try to work further.

Holmes pulled himself closer to the board. "Perhaps we should now begin a more detailed examination of the board. Consider for example the curious positioning of the Austrian fleet..."

"But Holmes, there is no Austrian fleet!" I interrupted.

"Precisely. The starting Austrian fleet has been disbanded. It could not have been disbanded during Winter 1901 adjustments because clearly Austria built a third army. As any Diplomacy player should know, a forced disband for that fleet is impossible in 1901, so it must have been disbanded when forced to retreat in 1901 or it was forced to disband without a retreat possible in 1902 (this latter possibility is obviously unlikely and we can rule it out definitively once we have determined the movement of the Turkish units). If Austria disbanded the fleet during the Fall 1901 retreat, then it must have been immediately rebuilt with an army. This would suggest that it is most likely that Austria had a count of three supply centers at the end of 1901.

"We can examine how Italy would have dislodged the fleet later. Before deciding that, we should examine a few other pieces in this puzzle. We see tactically and strategically interesting battles with Turkey and Austria emerging by the end of 1902. However, nothing about them suggests immediate relevance to the Spring of 1902. However, there is a single Italian army which is quite revealing."

"An Italian unit in Holland is most peculiar this early in the game! Is that what you mean?" I asked.

"Well," said Holmes growing amused, "how then do you suppose it got there?"

The next step in the solution is to determine the unit orders necessary for the Italian army to be in Holland by the end of the movement phase for Fall 1902. It may be that you are able to find the full solution from there. Give it a try!

I looked at the map for a few moments and decided that this was a fairly simple question. Holmes was right when he had told me while solving other cases that all solutions are simple if you just break them down into small enough parts. "Well," I began, "there are only two direct routes around Switzerland. To the West requires five moves, which you showed is impossible in terms of the timeline. So VEN-TYR-MUN-RUH or KIE - HOL is fairly obvious." I smiled graciously to Holmes to indicate that I too could be adept at solutions. I thought for a moment longer and frowned. "However, this still doesn't show us anything about conference communications."

Holmes smiled in a way that seemed more patronizing than usual. "By itself, it does not. But let us keep what you just said in mind and now turn our attention to the East and the puzzle of the missing Russian. I think you will find this considerably more informative. "

On this matter, I must admit, I was more uncertain. "But Holmes! This disappearance of the Russian units is surely impossible!" Holmes raised an eybrow at me when I uttered the word "impossible." Undaunted, I continued, "We saw from your very first case (The Double Elimination Conundrum) that Russia cannot be eliminated in the first year. If the game ended before adjustments in 1902, he should still have…" At this point I glanced at the board, "…at least two units remaining. Perhaps only one if you assume that Russia himself convoyed a German army into STP."

Holmes smiled. "No, Russia made a disasterous opening, but there is no reason to assume that he was suicidally helping the German to take Russian SCs. The solution to the Russian’s disappearance shows a clear interest in self-preservation. Indeed, without Russia’s attempts at self-defence, he would not have been eliminated so quickly!"

I frowned at the board. "So you suggest that Russia would not have disbanded his last units instead of retreating?"

Holmes continued, "There would be no point in disbanding when you are losing your supply centers and have no hope of rebuilding. Besides, even if Russia had wanted to issue disband orders to dislodged units, they would have needed to have been written during a retreat order phase -- which we have already demonstrated could not exist. The Russian units constitute the counter case to my general claim that the unit count indicates supply center ownership at the end of 1901. The original F STP/sc is missing and if you study the board for a minute, you can confirm that it could not have been from a forced disband." Holmes looked at me for confirmation. I nodded assent on the usual assumption that trust in Holmes' reasoning was warranted -- although the reader might wish to confirm this as well.

Holmes smiled and continued, "Further, how might F SEV have disappeared? While this could have been disbanded during the F01 retreat, it or its replacement from W01 could not have been disbanded with both of the other Russian armies in 1902 as should be clear after we consider disbanding just the two Russian armies. So, Russia was obviously reduced to two supply centers by the end of 1901 and exactly two Russian units were dislodged in 1902. However, they both could have had no opportunity of retreat since we have already determined that there were no retreat orders in 1902!"

"Ah yes, obviously…" I muttered.

"James gave a useful hint to this effect when he reported that a player had remarked at the suspension of play that he had just become the only player to have issued orders in all phases. We can be fairly confident that Austria and Russia both issued retreat orders in Fall 1901. Only Russia could have had no orders to issue for movement in Fall 1902, and only then if his two armies had already been forced to disband in Spring 1902. In principle, the moves could have been infered without that hint, but that casual statement allowed me to get to sleep considerably earlier than if it had not been made."

"Even with this hint, there was still some work necessary to determine the positions of the two Russian armies at the beginning of Spring 1902. Since Russia disbanded both fleets, he could not have had control of any supply centers beyond Saint Petersburg and Moscow at the end of Fall 1901. That means that the armies could only have been located in GAL, BOH, PRU, LIV, FIN, SIL, UKR, ARM, or of course STP and MOS themselves. Finding a way in which one army in one of those positions could have been eliminated is trivial. Fortunately, the task is a bit more complex when two armies must be dislodged with no possibility of retreat!"

The next step is to determine the unit orders that allow for this state of affairs. Keep in mind the final position of all units, of course. Perhaps determining Russia's road to ruin will suggest a solution as well. If you feel you have a solution, please send it to The Pouch. Note that virually all orders for all powers will need to be determined before you can be confident of a solution. If you cannot determine a solution, then you will need to wait for the next issue to watch Holmes finish laying out his solution. Happy sleuthing!

-- Dr. John H. Watson

via Eric Pederson
(epederso@darkwing.uoregon.edu)

If you wish to e-mail feedback on this article to the author, and clicking on the address above does not work for you, feel free to use the "Dear DP..." mail interface.