By the Slimmest of Chances

 

 

I am fascinated in history by obscure happenings that have major results. I have just finished reading "The Man Who Broke Napoleon's Codes" by Mark Urban. That man was George Scovell who spent the entire Peninsular War on Wellington's Staff in a number of positions. He bought a lieutenant's commission in the Cavalry to get on the staff and ended the war as a Lt. Colonel commanding the Staff Cavalry which were used as spies, military police and guides Scovell was a genius. He almost instantly broke the substitution codes used between Napoleon's Marshals and after much brilliant work broke the "gran chiffre" code used by Napoleon to communicate with King Joseph and with his Marshals. This last fact was not well known. It was very similar in fact to the British/US "Ultra" secret in WWII.

After the war Scovell initially fell on hard times. His total half-time army pay was 150 pounds per annum. He wrote a letter to Wellington who was Commander-in-Chief of the Army (Horse Guards) and shortly later Prime Minister asking for any consideration Wellington could give him as either a military or as a civil appointment. He never received an answer.

As history of the Peninsular War began to be written Wellington made it very plain to Charles Napier, the first complete historian of the conflict, that Scovell's breaking of the minor codes could be included but that he had broken the great cipher of Napoleon must be considered a secret. This was in 1820 or later - long after Waterloo. Wellington wanted to be the sole "genius" of the war and did not want to have that image tarnished by public knowledge that he knew most of the opposing armies moves before they made them.

But Wellington tripped up a bit. In one short dispatch from the Peninsula he had named Scovell as the only one working on breaking the great cipher, and this provided the clue that lead to Mark Urban's book. So Scovell gets the recognition nearly two hundred years later due to one sentence in one dispatch from Salamanca. I think that is neat.