The Man Who Broke Napoleon's Codes (53 page)

117. “A message from General Montbrun … provides a good sense of how Scovell attacked the cipher …”: my vagueness here is deliberate, since I must confess that the original ciphered version of this message does not appear in Wellington's Dispatches, only the deciphered one, with passages in italics to show which words were ciphered. This French text was therefore enciphered by
me
in the year 2001 using an actual Army of Portugal cipher. It remains the case, of course, that the passage “HE Marshal the Duke of Ragusa” was in code, surrounded by uncoded words, just as it is shown in the chapter, hence the code-breaking technique would have been the same in 1811.

121. “One of them noted they had formed ‘an extremely favourable notion of the judgement and good sense' of Marmont”: this was Charles Stewart, writing as Lord Londonderry in his
History of the Peninsular War.
Perhaps it is wrong of me to quote Stewart's opinion of anything or anyone, but although I have generally condemned him as a dangerous fool, like all people of this kind he occasionally succumbed to outbursts of good judgment.

123. “Henry, aged twenty, had come out to fill a lowly civilian post, as a deputy assistant paymaster …”: a record of Henry Scovell's service was passed to me by his descendant Martin Scovell and its principal points are confirmed in the Challis Index of Wellington's officers at the Royal United Services Institute.

123. “In Ciudad Rodrigo, the principal agent was a former member of the town
junta
… ”: this emerges in a letter from Wellington to his brother on 17 May 1812. The general says his Spanish spy performed service of “utmost importance to the cause.”

123. “In Salamanca, Wellington's principal correspondent was an Irish priest…”: quite a few contemporaries wrote about Curtis, including Tomkinson in his journal. There are also many references to him in Wellington's Dispatches. It is unclear exactly when he began his career as a spy, but it seems to have been in the summer of 1811.

124. “General Regnaud, the governor of Ciudad Rodrigo, had been captured by Don Julian Sanchez”: this event was described in very different terms by General Dorsenne, writing to Paris, and in Wellington's Dispatches. The British general says Regnaud had an escort of twenty cavalry and was captured under the guns of the town. Dorsenne's version is that Regnaud only had three or four people with him and stupidly rode more than one league from the city.

124. “D'Espagne had first wanted to shoot Regnaud …”: this detail and some others in this account come from two letters from FitzRoy Somerset to his brother, dated 16 October and 22 October 1811. Their Beaufort Paper references are FmM 4/1/6 and FmM 4/1/7 respectively.

125. “Wellington's table in the Frenada headquarters …”: a delightful description of the general's dining arrangements in Frenada is contained in the journal of Captain Thomas Browne, an officer of the Staff, published by the Army Records Society in 1987.

126. “Wellington's spy in Ciudad Rodrigo immediately fled the city …”: this is described in Wellington's letter of 17 May 1812, in Dispatches.

126. “Lieutenant Colonel John Grant… presented himself”: his arrival at Frenada is recorded in Scovell's journal, W037/7.

126. “At the end of October a ciphered message from Marmont to General Foy was captured …”: it is reproduced in Wellington's Dispatches.

127. “When Regnaud's successor as governor of Ciudad Rodrigo arrived on 30 October (escorted by an entire division of infantry), he most likely brought new codes with him …”: this is my deduction, since Scovell's journal talks about the meanness of the French cipher and the fact that he has just finished deciphering the message. If it had been one of the ciphers already known to him, making sense of it would have been light work. Scovell's papers contain a deciphering table for at least three different versions of the Army of Portugal code.

127. “Scovell had been doing it, but so had Somerset, and even Wellington himself. … ”: Wellington told Ellesmere that Somerset had been good at deciphering and it is contained in Ellesmere's memoir of the duke. Scovell's papers never mention anyone else being involved in this work. Since he remained a lifelong friend of Somerset it is hard to imagine Scovell wanting to deny him any legitimate credit. On the other hand, Somerset, as military secretary, used ciphers in the course of managing Wellington's own correspondence with other potentates, so we may assume he was familiar with them and was probably involved in deciphering in its early stages.

131. “A gentleman could hardly hope for better sport”: accounts of these activities are contained in Londonderry's
History
and several journals, including Larpent, Cocks and Tomkinson. Although Scovell was revealed in later life as a keen huntsman, his journal makes no mention of him hunting in Beira Baixa.

132. “One of Colonel Le Marchant's correspondents in the peninsula informed those back at Wycombe …”: Captain Tryon Still, 10 May 1810, LMP Packet 2a, Item 4.

132. “On hearing of Orange's imminent arrival, FitzRoy Somerset had written home …”: Somerset's letter to his brother of 14 July 1811, BP, FmM 4/1/6. Wellington's treatment of Orange provided one of the best examples of his favoritism toward blue bloods. Wellington mentioned the young ADC in his dispatch for the combat of El Bodon in September 1811, and in a letter of 12 June 1812 to Whitehall asked that the prince should be given a special medal, “although he is not exactly in the situation which would entitle him to it, he has rank, and certainly deserves it, and would be highly flattered at obtaining it.” The contrast with his refusal to write similar testimonials to obscure officers who most definitely
were
in the situation to
receive the favor (for example, Captain Norman Ramsay of the Royal Horse Artillery, who saved his guns in the desperate fighting of 5 May 1811) is striking.

133. “You may suppose the Puff …”: Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Gordon in a letter to his brother, 27 November 1811. It is reprinted in
At Wellington's Right Hand,
a book of Gordon's letters edited by Rory Muir and published by the Army Records Society.

133. “The officers in the lower branches of the Staff are sharp-set …”: this quote comes from Francis Larpent, later judge advocate in Wellington's HQ. Although he is referring to the atmosphere during the staff's second winter in Frenada (1812–1813), this passage beautifully sums up a situation that study of journals and letters shows was apparent long before.

134. “On 19 November, Napoleon started dictating a series of terse orders”: these are drawn from the official record of vol. 23 of his
Correspondance
and vol. 8 of Du Casse's
Correspondance du Roi Joseph.
In most cases they consist of his notes to Berthier to pass on to the relevant generals, which is why I have written the passage in this way.

135. “Berthier informed Joseph …”: this message is reproduced in Du Casse.

136. “Jourdan's arrival seemed to turn this volatile assembly …”: the evidence for this will become clear in following chapters. Jourdan in his
Memoires
said he believed Soult, his most implacable enemy, never got over the snub of not being appointed himself to this top job.

137. “The enciphering table arranged words, syllables, phrases or letters alphabetically”: Scovell copied out the enciphering table in W037/9.

137. “the person deciphering would use the other table, one in which the codes were listed in numeric order, each followed by its meaning”: King Joseph's personal deciphering table can be found in the Wellington Papers, WP 9/4/1/6. Close examination of the document reveals the way the last two columns (giving ciphers 1201–1400) have just been glued on to a standard 1750 table.

138. “It was a code of such strength that Napoleon considered it safe to send letters about matters of the utmost importance in the hands of some local peasant”: I am paraphrasing the emperor's actual words in a letter to the duke of Taranto during the 1812 Russian campaign and contained in vol. 24 of the
Correspondance.

139. “In sending out the tables, Marshal Berthier urged the recipients…”: this comes in a letter from Berthier to Marshal Davout written 18 March 1812.1 found it on the Russian State Military Historical Archive in Moscow in Fol 440/1/348. Berthier's letter and the instructions for the use of the
Grand Chiffre
had been captured by Russian troops when they seized Marshal Davout's baggage at Krasnoie in November 1812, during the retreat from Moscow.

141. ‘“During this march,' one of its young officers recorded …”: this was John Cook of the 43rd Light Infantry.

141. “That night the infantrymen had worked away feverishly in the darkness with picks and shovels…”: the account of the Ciudad Rodrigo siege is based largely on the testimony of three eyewitnesses: Private Edward Costello of the 95th, Lieutenant John Cook of the 43rd, and Sergeant William Lawrence of the 40th. Happily for the modern reader, all three of these valuable journals have been reproduced by Eileen
Hathaway's Shinglepicker Press (28 Bonfields Avenue, Swanage, Dorset BH19 1PL). Mrs. Hathaway has done an invaluable service in collating the accounts of other eyewitnesses and using them to confirm or amplify details given by these three soldiers. The result is a very strong historical record in each case. Some additional details (e.g., the number of siege guns opening up on the fifteenth) come from Scovell's journal.

145. “In a private letter to the Duke of Richmond …”: see Wellington's Dispatches.

147. “After a few days in Paris, Jardet wrote a twenty-eight-page letter back to his commander in Spain …”: happily this original document survives in W037/1. Although it is clear that Scovell deciphered messages before March 1812, it is only those after this date that (mostly) survive in his papers in the Public Record Office.

153. “On 17th March, the bands struck up …”: according to Lieutenant Cook of the 43rd.

153. “One young officer of the 95th Rifles hoped that …”: this was Harry Smith in his autobiography, first published in 1903.

155. “This vague instruction had been superceded by further orders … from Napoleon on 18 and 20 February …”: these details are drawn from Du Casse (vol. 8) and the French correspondence produced as an appendix to Wellington's Dispatches.

156. “Napoleon had scribbled a most important order to Berthier in Paris”: contained in Du Casse.

157. “Even in the symbolic act of passing the cipher to General Clarke …”: this order was actually only given on 4 May 1812 and is contained in a letter from the emperor to Berthier, reproduced in Napoleon's
Correspondance,
item no. 18685, vol. 23.

158. “The fickle nature of many messengers in French pay”: this account is pieced together from Scovell's journal (alas, he does not say whether
he
was the man who negotiated with the Spaniard) and that of Edward Cocks.

159. “he would continue his journey to Seville with every incentive …”: neither Cocks nor Scovell suggests the messenger was executed or sent back into Badajoz. Whether the man decided to undertake more of these lucrative missions or whether he confined himself to less hazardous business, we can only speculate.

159. “One young officer recorded, ‘It required every man to be actually in the trenches … ' “: Lieutenant John Kincaid in his memoir
Random Shots
(reprinted by Spellmount in 1998).

162. “one diner recalled: ‘There was little conversation …”': McGrigor in his most perceptive memoir,
The Autobiography and Services of Sir Jas McGrigor,
London, 1861.

163. “Sergeant William Lawrence of the 40th had volunteered …”: these details are all taken from the excellent Shinglepicker Press reprint of Lawrence's memoirs,
A Dorset Soldier.

163. “the thought struck me forcibly—you will be in hell before daylight!”:
this was William Green, another diarist of the 95th. So memorable is this phrase that it has provided the title for a recent book on Peninsular sieges.

163. “Rifleman Costello of the 95th was one of a team …”: Costello's memoirs, like Lawrence's, are reprinted by the Shinglepicker Press.

166. “One eyewitness saw: ‘General Philippon …”': McGrigor again.

167. “Scovell's friends Somerset and Hardinge were both promoted lieutenant colonel…”: to be strict, this emerged not in the victory dispatch but in subsequent correspondence.

167. “Many surviving soldiers and officers profited …”: the interesting, if somewhat discreditable, detail that officers were involved in this stealing emerges from the journal of E. W. Buckham, a commissary who encountered the gentlemen in question selling their spoils in Oporto.

170. ‘“The streets of Lisbon glittered with uniforms …”': this detail, and much else in this description of Lisbon, comes from
Recollection of the Peninsula
by Moyle Sherer. This officer was an unusual diarist, confining his accounts of battles to a page or two and devoting great passages of descriptive writing to the country and people, providing details which it is hard to pick up elsewhere.

170. “Major Scovell's leave had only been possible because the main army would take a week or ten days to make its way back …”: Scovell's own journal (W037/3) makes clear he was only allowed to go under these terms.

171. “Marmont's guest was none other than Lieutenant Colonel Colquhoun Grant, Wellington's intelligence officer”: Grant related these details to Sir James McGrigor, his brother-in-law and Wellington's chief surgeon, who left his own Peninsular memoir, mentioned above.

172. “militiamen and Don Julian Sanchez's guerrillas had swarmed about the French rear”: we are now entering the phase of this story where Scovell's papers at the Public Record Office, W037, contain most of the relevant original documents.