Even if Aristotle had nothing near modern chess in mind compared with Petteia, I like the sentiment. Here is a website for more information on Petteia (and other protochess games):

J'ACCUSE

Neither by Zola nor by Dr. Tartakover, but by R.Spielmann.

Honored World Champion Dr. Alekhine!

The past is dead, but in the history of chess Spielmann will have a place of honour as the last upholder of the romantic tradition.>

October 10, 1938 a letter was sent from Prague. It was written by Rudolf Spielmann and was adressed to a well-known chess worker, writer and publisher Ludwig Kollin. It was impregnated with a cry of desperation. Here's an excerpt:

<It's sad, that I've not only been exiled from Austria, my home, but I have also lost any privilege of free movement around the world. Almost every country with at least some chess life, have closed the doors for imigrants and refugees. I can't go anywhere with my worthless Austrian passport. For the past 6 months I have shared my fate with people on the edge of hunger, without homes, that we have lost - not by our fault. We don't receive any financial support and don't have any chance whatsoever of making money. The only thing that keeps me alive is the hope, that someday I will find work connected with chess. It's the only thing I can do!

That's why I'm begging you: can You provide me any work in Your Stockholm or any place else in Sweden? I don't need a full-time job. Just something that can help me get to Sweden and help me gain back some morale and strength for times to come. Maybe it would make it easier for me to emigrate to America or England.

I beg you, don't leave me in my misfortune. I accept any condition, just so I could work. The only important thing for me is - to escape from this damned Central Europe. Antisemitism is very strong here and is getting new dimensions in Prague as well, which is slowly taking my last hopes of survival away. Our 30-year acquaintance and friendship gives me hope, that you will answer me...>

Just two weeks befor this letter, the famous AVRO tournament ended in Holland. Did any Grandmaster there think about the fate of their good friend and comrade? Not a single word about Spielmann can be found in many written sources, although many probably knew, what was going on. Did people not think back then? Or did the fear, that was spreading throughout Europe, paralyze people's emotions and apath has, like many times before and after, predominated?

The fate of the Spielmann family is a typical story of a family, that lived in Austria at the wrong time. The Nazi terror destroyed many a human life.

At the end of the 1870s Moritz Spielmann, Rudolf's father, moved to Vienna. The law from 1867 gave the Jews the same rights as Austrians. Vienna became a refuge for Jews from all over Europe. There Moritz met Cecilia Neustadt, whom he married in 1879. Moritz was the editor of one of the many Viennese newspapers and was a renown critic. Soon the family had expanded - they had 6 children. The two oldest sons, Leopold (born 1881)and Rudolf (born 1883) had exceptional talents. Their father had introduced them to chess when they were still young. There were many cafe's in Vienna, where people used to play chess for money. And that was Moritz' passion. Soon, the two sons began following their father's footsteps.

The artistic genes were carried by the Spielmann children. Rudolf's chess fame overshadowed Lepold's musical talent, which was appreciated the most by his brother Rudolf. Leopold's talent was soon noticed by Anton Rubinstein, the famous musician, who introduced him to the royal family and in 1891 he performed for Franz Joseph. himself. Rudolf was attracted by mathematics, but the romantic call of sacrifices had prevailed (fortunately!).

Rudolf dedicated his entire life to chess. He ramained in Vienna, although he traveled a lot to tournaments. He had very inconsistent results and brilliant performances were followed by disasters. He was mostly a man of moods and he seeked beauty above all in chess. He won many brilliancy prizes.

In autumn of 1938, he moved in with his brother in Prague, where he saw him for the last time. In March 1939 the German army marched into Prague and, with his last force, Leopold arranged the papers for his daughters to go to London. It was too late for him, despite having arranged a stay in Canada. He was arrested by the SS and died in 1941 in the concentration camp in Teresenstadt. Two sisters, Jenni and Irma, also ended in a camp. Jenni survived, but became mentally ill and committed suicide in 1964, while Irma didn't make it from thecamp at all.

Ludwig Kollin helped Spielmann to Sweden, but died soon afterwards. Rudolf had lost his last ally. He dreamt of England or America, played innumeral simuls, annotated games and saved every penny for the very expensive passport. He spent all his free time writing the book "Memories of a chess master" (I hope I got it right) and with the money from it he intended to buy a ticket to America. But in those days, Sweden was living in terror from Hitler's invasion. A part of the Swedish chess federation was pro-nazi, and the presence of a Jewish master was not appreciated. So, the publishing of his book was delayed year after year...

His hope was slowly dying. One day, at the end of August 1942, he just locked himself in his room and didn't come out for about a week. When the neighbours finally called the police and they broke in, they found Spielmann's body, perobably starved to death. The medical report states, that he suffered from a heart attack, but there were talks of a more tragic end...

rudolph spielmann was one of that group of great masters,which included nimzowitsch, alekhine and rubinstein , players, whose careers were scarred by the violent political and social upheavals of the first half of the twentieth century. all four were born into the relative security and prosperity of late 19th century europe, yet all had to face , in varying degrees, the horrors of the first world war, the russian revolution, the collapse of the habsburg empire and the nazi persecution of the jews.

alexander alekhine, the only one of the quartet to become world champion, lost two fortunes and ended his days in penury on the margins of lusitania. akiba rubinstein addressed his personal demons by retreating from his finely crafted jewels of chess irridescence into a private world of madness and isolation. when the myrmidons of the nazi schutzstaffeln eventually arrived to haul the aged jewish grandmaster from his asylum to the death camps,the old man was so patently insane that they turned on their heels and abandoned the attempt.

aron nimzowitsch had the pleasure, not to mention the courage, to expel a high ranking uniformed nazi official from the press centre of the 1934 alekhine v bogolyubov world championship match in germany. the nazi lacked accreditation and nimzo, as press chief, was well within his rights.however, the irony, and the attendant peril, of a jew in 1930's germany throwing out a member of the ruling party was not lost on the assembled press corps. fortunately, the natural instinct of the nazi beamte to obey apparently even higher authority prevailed, and the intruder left without incident.yet within months of this glorious act of self assertion, nimzowitsch, his health undermined by the deprivations of the first world war and his flight from his native latvia, was dead, before he had reached the age of fifty.

rudolph spielmann rose to prominence in the leisured tournaments of the europe of the habsburgs and the hohenzollerns, at a time when standard dress for the games was frock coat, wing collar and smartly polished boots. the young austrian excelled when gambit play was prescribed by the tournament regulations, but, as proven by his result in the elite tournament of san sebastian 1912, spielmann could also hold his own with the best in the tough grind of normal competition.with the advent of the first world war and the collapse of his world as he had known it, spielmanns results became wildly erratic. triumphs , such as stockholm 1919, and teplitz-schonau 1922, alternated with appalling disasters, as at carlsbad 1923, where spielmann finished in irretrievably last place.

a further string of mediocre results in baden baden,marienbad and moscow left the chess world doubting whether spielmanns talent had seriously survived the dissolution of the old habsburg empire, to which he had belonged, but now the austrian grandmaster was to produce a coup de theatre which silenced his critics and assured himself a place at the top table of chess for virtually the next decade.at the tournament of semmering 1926, in his home country, spielmann unleashed the result of his life, storming ahead of alekhine and a galaxy of grandmasters, whilst inflicting defeat on his close rivals such as nimzowitsch, vidmar and tartakower.

as a direct result of this triumph, spielmann was to become an indispensable invitee to a whole sequence of grand events: new york 1927, berlin and bad kissingen 1928, carlsbad 1929-where his second prize and defeat of capablanca might be considered superior even to the semmering performance-san remo 1930, bled 1931, matches in 1932 against alekhines world title contenders euwe and bogolyubov ,and finally a creditable appearance at moscow 1935. here he held up well against most of the new soviet generation of masters-his debacle against botvinnik being the one notable exception. even in 1938 spielmann was able to finish an undefeated second to alekhine himself at margate, while at gothenburg the following year he tied with salo flohr ( the official fide challenger for the world title) for first place, again undefeated.

an important component of spielmanns career was match play. indeed, records indicate that he was perhaps the most prolific match player of any great master. spielmann was a specialist in the short match, contests often consisting of six games, and usually no more than ten.during his career spielmann was involved in no fewer than 47 of such personal duels,which may well be the world record for a grandmaster.

as spielmann approached his 60th year the disaster of national socialism and its hatred of the jewish race reduced his homeland of austria to a territory which was no longer tenable for him.flee or face the concentration camp was his stark choice. as it was, spielmann sought refuge in sweden, the home of so many of his triumphs,but upheaval, deprivation and disillusionment soon exacted their toll. born in 1883, spielmann died in stockholm in september 1942-his gravestone reading:

"RASTLOS FLYKTING, HART SLAGEN AV ODET"

a fugitive without rest, struck hard by fate.

fortunately spielmann the creative spirit has triumphed over nazi hatred , prejudice and oppression. his games and comments live on and many of the best are enshrined as a perpetual memorial for those aggressive players willing to embrace the austrian grandmasters philosophy of sacrifice and attack.

"the glowing power of the sacrifice is irresistible: enthusiasm for sacrifice lies in mans nature."

i have been looking at spielmanns wins from karlsbad 1929 and it looks almost as if spielmann found a new way to play that somehow rejuvenated his fighting spirit.the elements were

1 try to castle queen side whenever possible

2 occupy the q6 square (d3 or d6 depending on whether he was white or black) with a piece, preferably a rook.

spielmann castled q side against nimzowitsch capablanca johner colle samisch and sir george thomas

he played r-q6 (rd3 as black--rd6 as white) against maroczy capablanca and nimzowitsch--against colle i think it was he planted a n on d6.