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4 unusual facts about George Scovell


George Scovell

In 1813 Scovell was given the task of raising, then commanding, the Staff Corps of Cavalry, also known as the Staff Dragoons.

By December 1812, when a letter from Joseph Bonaparte to Napoleon was intercepted, Scovell could decipher enough of it to read Joseph's explicit account of French operations and plans.

It was based on 1400 numbers and derived from a mid-eighteenth century diplomatic code (Grande Chiffre) which added meaningless figures to the end of letters.

Mark Urban

His study of George Scovell, in The Man Who Broke Napoleon's Codes: The Story of George Scovell, established him as a narrative historian who could effectively weave together first-hand accounts of the war without losing grip on the over-all story.



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