Play Diplomacy Online

Hi
I wonder if someone can help me with this one.
In a game I'm playing with friends, the following moves occurred. Eng and Germany are allied, hence why England is supporting a german unit to hold:

ENG
Fleet Spain (SC) Support Marseilles Hold

GER
Army Marseilles - Burg
Army Paris - Burg
(these two moves were to create a bounce to stop anyone else moving to Burgundy)

FRA
Army Gascony- Marseilles
Army Pied Support Gascony- Marseilles

The result was that the German army in Marseilles was defeated and had to be destroyed because there was no retreat option.

I was under the impression you could support a unit to hold, even if that unit was commanded to move, in the event that the move order did not work out (in the case here, bounced).
Obviously I was wrong for some reason! IS this because it was being supported by another country? Or perhaps because the move given was to create a bounce with a unit from the same country?
Any advice greatly appreciated!

Per the rules, a unit may not be supported to hold if it is ordered to attempt to make a legal move. Whether the attempted move succeeds or not is immaterial.

Slightly surprised to be recommending these to someone registered on the PlayDip site for a decade, but by way of outrageous self-publicity I recently posted my own 'Beginners' Guides' that started out life as a one-stop point of reference for some newbies in my family playing for the first time:
viewtopic.php?f=13&t=61004

The bottom line is that David is right, this is clear in the official rules and it should be made clear in any summary of them anyone might ever put out there. You can Support to Hold a unit that is ordered to Hold OR a unit that is given a Support order where that Support is cut. You can Support to Move a unit that is ordered to Move, BUT that means Support it to Move, NOT help it not to be dislodged if the Move fails. Despite that being (I think) clear in the rules, and in case this makes you feel better at all, I have seen in my few months playing online here (after lots of playing the original board game years and years ago) that you are by no means the only one to misunderstand that the second type of valid Support to Hold (where the supported unit had a Support order but that Support was cut) somehow translates to an entitlement to Support to Hold a unit ordered to Move where the Move fails.

In your game example, and if I assume no unit elsewhere is relevant, the only way to save Marseilles was if the orders were for Spain to Support Marseilles to Hold, as actually ordered, and for Marseilles to Hold or to Support the Move by Paris to Burgundy, but then obviously you would not have got the 'bounce' you say you wanted.

If a unit is supported to Hold, the supported unit must not move or the support fails.

While the information provided above is correct it is not complete.

TO be exact "If a unit is supported to Hold, the supported unit must not be given a legal move order or the support fails."

Thanks to everyone who managed to answer that in two sentences or less