The Man Who Broke Napoleon's Codes (54 page)

172. “The way the English conducted themselves …”: Soult's letter to Berthier of 17 April 1812, in W037.

173. “it took him just three days to travel from the Portuguese capital to Fuente Guinaldo …”: Scovell's journal again.

173. “Wellington remained in the handsome mayor's house in Fuente Guinaldo's plaza”: the building is still there. Alas, when I visited, the lady who owns the part of the building that Wellington had used as his office was out.

173. “Wellington did not feel free to make his next move …”: Wellington's Dispatches make clear that he had not finally made up his mind which way to attack until mid-May.

173. “Further study also allowed certain deductions to be drawn …”: these observations about the pattern of the cipher are mine. Scovell's notebooks give a general sense of how he attacked the codes but are not so specific as to tell us, for
example, which code number he worked out first. Having worked on the French originals for months I can say, though, that once familiar with the patterns of these letters, the recurrence of numbers like 13 or 210 pretty much leaps out at you. It becomes the fastest way of checking quickly whether the letter in question is in Joseph's
Grand Chiffre
or some other code.

177. “Since Marmont was assuming many of his messages would fall into British hands…”: in a letter of 6 July 1812 to Jourdan (it is in the Scovell Papers), Marmont says explicitly that pretty much everything he writes ends up in enemy hands. He was just hoping that one of the duplicate or triplicate messages would actually reach its addressee as well.

178. “There was hardly a general in Spain who had not reflected on the emperor's imminent departure for Poland … and what it meant for their own expectations”: this is apparent, for example, in Jardet's letter to Marmont cited in the previous chapter. The expectation of the Russian war was so widespread that cleverer British officers were reflecting on it in their journals of spring 1812 too—Cocks and D'Urban being two examples.

179. “The harvest came a little later in the north, which bought him a week or two more to fight the Army of Portugal … on more favorable terms”: Wellington discusses the question in these terms in a letter to Lieutenant General Graham on 24 May 1812, reproduced in Dispatches.

180. “On the last day of April, one of Marmont's messengers was seized by Don Julian Sanchez's lancers …”: that they were responsible for the coup emerges in McGrigor's journal.

183. “Early on the morning of 19 May, soldiers of the 71st and 92nd Highlanders … “: my account draws extensively on
A Soldier of the Seventy First,
originally published in 1819. Some controversy surrounds the identity of the author, or indeed whether the experiences related were actually those of more than one man.

185. “Wellington dwelt long on Major General Lumley's panic …”: see Wellington's letter of 28 May to Liverpool, in Dispatches.

185. “Wellington, behind his customary mask of inscrutibility, awaited the outcome of this new campaign at Westminster …”: that he discussed London politics is clear from the letters of FitzRoy Somerset that mention these topics (e.g., Perceval's assassination). Somerset was also part of a big Tory family, but it is apparent reading these missives (in the Beaufort Papers, FmM 4/1/7 and FmM 4/1/8) that Wellington was careful about expressing strong personal opinions.

185. “an altogether safer topic for table talk than London politics”: Cocks's and D'Urban's journals.

186. “A further package of captured letters, dated 1 May …”: preserved in the Scovell Papers, W037/1.

188. “By the end of May 1812, Scovell was beginning to get a real toehold on the slippery precipice of the code”: the key evidence of this is the report of some
London decipherers who later attacked the code. Their results reside in the Wellington Papers, as WP 9/4/1/5. These careful men noted on their chart which codes had already been cracked by Wellington's staff before work began in London. Since we know they were asked to help on 25 June 1812, this record of what had been achieved up until that date is critical to understanding Scovell's early results. Scovell's own table is part of W037/9 and seems to represent his achievement up until late 1812.

189. “Wellington was impatient…”: his impatience on this point emerges in several letters in his Dispatches; for example, on 7, 18 and 25 June 1812.

189. “There was also the little office in London, off Abchurch Street, where the foreign secretary and prime minister retained a few fellows …”: see Ellis,
History of the Post Office,
Oxford University Press, 1958, for an account of these decipherers.

190. “Jourdan had drawn up a memorandum at the end of May outlining what needed to be done to defend French interests in Spain”: which he helpfully printed in his
Memoires,
also quoting from Clarke's fatuous reply.

191. “Antoine Fee, the young pharmacist to a dragoon regiment…”: who left us the memoirs referred to previously.

193. “Marshal Beresford had been sent out to examine this inhospitable country …”: on 24 May, according to Scovell's journal.

194. “On the evening of 12 June, the soldiers of Wellington's army rested around their bivouacs …”: our old Light Division companions, Lieutenant Cook and Rifleman Costello, are the source of these details.

197. “shouts of
Viva!;
cups of local wine; petals scattered from upstairs windows …”: these scenes come from Tomkinson, Warre and Scovell's journals.

198. “an intercepted letter the following day that contained,
en clair,
nothing less than the Army of Portugal's Morning State …”: referred to in Wellington's Dispatches, 14 June 1812.

200. “Among the rank and file, Marmont was a popular leader”: the descriptions of Marmont come from Robert Christophe's
Les Amours et Les Guerres du Marechal Marmont,
a rather purple text, giving much space to the notion that Napoleon was sleeping with Marmont's wife while the marshal was on campaign. The unnamed officer is Captain Charles Parquin in his
Les Souvenirs du Capitaine Parquin,
an account considered unreliable by the historian Charles Oman, but containing some good color nevertheless.

201. “I will maneuver about Salamanca …”: Marmont's letter of 22 June is in the Scovell Papers.

202. “a round shot, eight pounds, went very near Major Lawrie who stands in my way for promotion!”: the ambitious officer in question was Edward Cocks.

202. “‘Very little confusion was occasioned,' noted one of those present…”: this was Tomkinson, who was acting as an ADC to General Stapleton Cotton at the time.

203. “The British troops had slept on beds of flattened corn …”: details of the scene atop the San Christoval ridge from our indefatigable Light Division diarists Lieutenant Cook and Rifleman Costello.

204. “For the general, there was an opportunity to receive his secret correspondent, Father Patrick Curtis …”: Tomkinson tells us they met at this juncture, also that the open way Curtis was received might pose problems for him in the future, an accurate prophecy.

205. “Wellington resolved that he must obtain the services of the best decipherers in Britain …”: Wellington's letter to Bathurst is in Dispatches; the above-mentioned document, WP 9/4/1/5, tells us what Scovell knew by 25 June.

207. “The British had started firing red-hot shot at the roof of the massive building and succeeded in setting it on fire”: this was the idea of Major Sturgeon, another Wycombite who was a source of almost as many good ideas as Scovell.

207. “The landscape, with its tall fields of billowing corn, vineyards and orchards, seemed lush and wonderful …”: details from our reliable guides to this campaign, Tomkinson, Warre and Scovell himself.

214. “young Guards officers took advantage of the hiatus…”: according to a letter from Charles Cocks (Edward's brother), who was serving with them. It is reprinted in Julia Page's book.

215. “One British major wrote home grumpily …”: William Warre, who I will quote a good deal on the Salamanca campaign, since his description of these events is both insightful and often funny, unlike some of his earlier ramblings.

215. “The staff were perplexed that he had not given battle on the San Christoval position …”: all of our usual informants in the British officer corps (Warre, Tomkinson, Cocks, and Scovell himself) commented in their journals on how puzzled they were that Wellington had not given battle. In their polite, understated way it is clear that many of them thought their commander had missed his golden opportunity.

215. “he did not care one jot for their opinions”: the operative quote from Wellington being, “the staff officers of the army are attached to me to enable me to communicate my orders to my inferiors, and otherwise to assist me in the performance of my duty,” Dispatches, 14 October 1812.

217. “The most interesting of the dispatches was written on a tiny slither of paper … ”: it resides in W037/1.

218. “Scovell reflected on the events of the seventeenth with little sentimentality … ”: in his journal, W037/7b.

219. “A troop of Royal Horse Artillery came under attack as it retreated … ”: several interesting details in this account of Castrejon come from Lieutenant John Cook of the 43rd Light Infantry.

220. “One young Guards officer said in his letter …”: this is Charles Cocks again.

223. “After a tiring day with the two armies completing their parallel march down to the line of the River Tormes and Salamanca, Wellington wrote to Earl Bathurst in London”: this letter is actually from 21 July, Dispatches.

228. “General Foy, occupying the end of the French deployment closest to the river, set out to survey the enemy lines”: Vie Militaire, a biography of Foy by Girod de L'Ain, includes long passages of direct quotation from the general's letters and diaries, a vital source on the French side of the battle. Other information on their perspective comes from Du Casse's collection of Joseph's documents, Marmont's
Memoires
and Jourdan's memoirs. I have also referred to Souvenirs
du Capitaine Parquin
by Charles Parquin. Many authorities consider the last unreliable but he is good for color.

229. “Pakenham and the cavalry marching in his company were to make a long trek …”: the British sources on the battle differ on when Pakenham got his orders and where exactly they were in the early part of the day. One thing is clear, though they had moved far enough by 3
P.M.
that their orders
must
have been given early on.

230. “Foy … worried about his chief's judgement…”: these damming meditations by Foy came from a letter to a friend in France on 16 July 1812 and are quoted by Girod de l'Ain. The fact that these reflections were contemporary to the campaign is important, for Foy later became one of the many officers to villify Marmont for his defection from the imperial cause in 1814.

230. “Marmont's uncertainty revealed itself once more in orders that kept his options open”: all of Marmont's rather sad attempts to explain what happened suggest he had not resolved to attack Wellington with his full strength.

231. “Scovell, among several staff officers, watched it happen …”: the journal once more. Scovell was often so careful about what he wrote concerning his master that his remarks might be taken to be the equivalent of rolling his eyes skyward when the orders to attack were canceled.

231. “Major FitzRoy Somerset, ever loyal to his master, detected the insinuations … ”: in a letter to his brother on 27 July 1812, BP FmM 4/1/8.

232. “He looked to his right. The dust still showed the progress of a French force at least a mile away”: standing atop the Teso San Miguel it is clear that Wellington could not actually see the men of Thomières's division moving up, as some writers suggest.

233. “the single figure of the British commander came galloping across the scrub …”: according to William Grattan of the 88th in his
Adventures with the Connaught Rangers.
D'Urban suggests DeLancey and Sturgeon did keep up with Wellington. The two men are the main sources for what happened at this end of the battlefield.

234. “Scovell… found his brother-in-law, Major Leigh Clowes …”: there is an account of their conversation in Le Marchant's papers. It is a letter from Clowes
to Scovell some years later (LMP Packet 17a, Item 5). Scovell copied Clowes's letter, added an account of his own and sent them to Le Marchant's son Denis.

236. “Le Marchant's heavies had mounted and were deploying into line … ”: my account is drawn together from Denis Le Marchant's life of his father, the Le Marchant Papers and R. H. Thoumine's superb but rather rare biography of the general,
Scientific Soldier,
Oxford University Press, 1968.

236. “Cotton lost his temper with the brigade commander and strong words were exchanged”: this was revealed in the biography of Cotton,
Memoirs and Correspondence of Field Marshal Viscount Combermere,
penned by his widow, Mary. It was obliquely confirmed by Tomkinson. I am very grateful to Rory Muir for bringing this curious episode to my attention.

238. “One young officer wrote home, ‘It was a fine sight …”': Lieutenant Norcliffe of the 4th Dragoons, reproduced by Rory Muir in
Salamanca 1812.
He kindly showed me sections of the manuscript before its publication.

240. “Clowes … could not bring himself to tell Carey that his father was dead …”: this touching scene was brought out of the Le Marchant Papers by Thoumine.