The Man Who Broke Napoleon's Codes

by Mark Urban

  A couple of hundred yards behind the outpost, two squadrons of British light cavalrymen were already sitting in their saddles, awaiting the sun’s warmth on their stiff bodies. Their supports, two more squadrons from Brotherton’s regiment, the 14th Light Dragoons, were also saddling their mounts nearby and readying themselves for whatever the day might bring.

  As the grey gloom of the Castilian horizon began to brighten, Brotherton saw movement in the trees below their vantage-point. ‘Don Julian, are those men yours?’ he asked.

  ‘Most certainly, Captain Brotherton, our forward pickets coming back from their patrol.’

  ‘Are you sure, sir? They seem too numerous.’

  ‘You may rely upon it, they are ours.’

  To Brotherton, the silhouetted figures who appeared fleetingly between the branches seemed too many altogether for pickets. A few more minutes passed. The sun had crowned the horizon and was shining straight into their eyes as Brotherton tried to discern movement elsewhere in the copse. Men were leading their horses through the trees to their left as well as ahead of them. Familiar noises began to surround them; the tapping of sword scabbards on men’s thighs, the jingling of horses’ bits as the beasts swayed their heads from one side to another.

  The Battle of Fuentes d’Onoro

  Captain Badcock, commanding one of the squadrons to Brotherton’s rear, could hear the sounds too. And then the more ominous noises; men shouting in Spanish, the crack of a pistol shot. Badcock’s troopers scanned the treeline ahead of them. Their squadron was drawn up in line, ready to receive whatever issued from the woods. But Badcock knew the Spanish irregulars were ahead of them, so his soldiers could not simply charge the first troops who appeared in front of them.

  Then, at last, men began appearing from the trees a couple of hundred yards ahead of them. They formed in clumps and began mounting their horses. Badcock shared the doubts of all of his men: were they French or were they Spanish? The shape of the shakos on the heads of these horsemen told the Light Dragoons nothing, since Don Julian’s men were clad in the stuff they had stripped from the corpses of Frenchmen.

  Eventually the squadrons ahead of Badcock’s men began moving towards them at a gentle trot. It did not have the appearance of a charge, to be sure. The British troopers strained their eyes, scanning the faces of the men moving towards them to see if they recognized any of Don Julian’s scouts. Captain Badcock’s horse stood alone, several yards ahead of the squadron. The officer approaching them was ahead of his troops too. Badcock was at a loss: should he greet him cordially or draw his sword? As the other officer was closing in on him, the unknown man drew his sword, stood in his stirrups and swung it with the practised motion of a seasoned cavalry officer. It hit Badcock on the side of the face, slicing it open and breaking several of his teeth. His mouth filled with blood. Perhaps only the brass scales of his chinstrap and a slight error in the Frenchman’s aim had prevented Badcock’s head being taken off in one terrible motion. No doubts remained: the 14th Light Dragoons and the French set about one another like possessed men.

  Brotherton and Don Julian, meanwhile, were galloping through the copse, ducking branches and swerving around the trees like the accomplished huntsmen they were. The Spanish troops around them had scattered through the undergrowth, hallooing, firing and trying to grab a few scattered possessions. The English and Spanish officers galloped past two squadrons of British light cavalry drawn up on the French side of the campo stream. As hundreds of enemy horsemen emerged into the clearing, the British officer commanding these 110-odd cavalry had the choice of fighting or fleeing. Since there was a stream and boggy ground to their rear and trees behind the Frenchmen, whoever came off worst would have their formation broken, and once cavalry lost its order there was every chance of a slaughter.

  The British commander ordered his trumpeter to sound the charge. One officer of the 16th Light Dragoons related:

  this is the only instance I ever met with of two bodies of cavalry coming in opposition, and both standing, as invariably, as I have observed it, one or the other runs away. Our men rode up and began sabring, but were so outnumbered that they could do nothing and were obliged to retire across the defile in confusion, the enemy having brought up more troops to that point.

  Dozens of the British cavalry were hacked down.

  Brotherton and Don Julian galloped two miles to Poco Velho, with scores of French cavalry at their heels. ‘As I approached,’ wrote Brotherton, ‘I saw [Poco Velho] occupied by redcoats and began to breathe and feel secure.’ For some reason, though, the infantry were not opening fire. ‘I rode up to the first officer I could approach and asked him why he did not fire and stop the progress of the enemy. He replied with astonishment, “are those the French?”.’

  The right of Wellington’s line had been completely surprised. Between Poco Velho and Nava de Haver, a village almost two miles south, around 3,500 French cavalry had erupted from the treeline. The British general had stretched his men over a dangerously long distance and now his light cavalry and the 7th Division, holding Poco Velho, were paying a heavy price. A cry of ‘No Quarter!’ went around the British cavalry as a couple of hundred troopers tried desperately to stem the flow. In truth this was more an attempt to give them courage than a reflection of who might really be taking whom prisoner, or refusing them mercy.

  Among Wellington’s Staff, about two miles away, near the centre of the allied position, initial reports of these events caused deep alarm. ‘The consequence [of the French attack] was that there was a general, I might say, flight, but the disorder was really terrible,’ Major FitzRoy Somerset wrote home with a candour that would be absent from the official account, ‘and it was at one time to be decided that during this disorder the enemy cavalry might advance and not only destroy ours but put our infantry out of a situation to resist them.’ With the survival of Wellington’s right wing in doubt, some members of the Staff set spurs to their horses and galloped across to Poco Velho in an attempt to save the situation.

  Captain George Scovell was one of the first to appear, trying to rally the cavalry who had been broken by the initial French onslaught. Don Julian Sanchez’s guerrillas were attached to the corps of Guides, so Scovell had every reason to be there. He rallied some troopers and led them back into the hand-to-hand fighting. It was, wrote Edward Cocks, captain of the 16th Light Dragoons and sometime intelligence officer, ‘complete confusion: Spaniards, French and British all mixed together hacking and sabring’. Many of those fighting were soon drenched with blood for they delivered and received wound after wound without the death blow being given. Scovell noted in his journal later, ‘I saw several men receive 5 or 6 cuts fall on the arms and shoulders without any impression.’ Many a British horseman was learning belatedly that only a razor-sharp weapon could disable another rider swiftly.

  Brotherton, meanwhile, had joined his own squadron of the 14th in time for an untimely order from another member of the Staff who had just arrived on the scene. Major-General Charles Stewart rode up and directed Brotherton’s little squadron to attack the French. It was, the junior officer wrote, ‘an injudicious order … a dangerous step’, since the tide could only be turned by using the few remaining British squadrons in concert, not committing them piecemeal. Brotherton, however, had no choice but to obey the Adjutant-General, a senior cavalry officer who should have known his business, and order his men forward, ‘at a brisk trot; for, in action, the least hesitation or slowness in executing an order is inexcusable in an inferior officer’. His squadron had only covered 100 yards when Wellington himself ‘rode up to me and asked me where I was going. I told him of the orders I had received from [Major-General Stewart]. He made no further observation than “Go Back!”’

  With Wellington’s arrival, Stewart’s irresponsible intervention was at an end. The British commander quickly assessed the situation. The 7th Division, securing the southern or right end of the line, was too far from the main group of his forces, further north along the s
ame ridge. French cavalry were swarming around the open plain between Nava de Haver and Poco Velho. Wellington needed to rally his cavalry and bring the infantry of the 7th Division back north, closer to his main position. This would be a delicate operation, for if there was any unsteadiness during these manoeuvres, the French horsemen would pounce. Wellington ordered his crack troops of the Light Division forward to cover the withdrawal of the 7th. As the Light troops came up, the French would be distracted from pressing home their attacks on the battalions abandoning Poco Velho.

  Fortune at last began to smile on the British. The French horsemen had been charging about and slashing away for an hour or so. Their sword arms were leaden, their horses gasping for breath and lathered in sweat. Some troopers had become faint from the sabre wounds that had drenched their uniforms in blood. They needed immediate support from infantry and guns if they were to maintain their pressure on the British. These reinforcements did not, however, appear quickly enough. The 7th Division began making its escape through the squadrons of exhausted enemy horsemen.

  The Light Division, meanwhile, having drawn off much of the pressure, was ordered to turn around and return to the safety of the main British position. If the French cavalry wanted to pursue them there, right to the mouths of several batteries of British cannon, they were welcome to try. Before the Light troops could reach this comparative haven, though, they would have to march one and a half miles across an open plain, with swarms of French horse milling about them. When faced with the prospect of a charge, the infantry’s best defence was to form a square, the troops facing outwards with fixed bayonets, defending themselves from assault on any side. A square was an immovable thing, however, since soldiers could not walk backwards or sideways in this formation. In order to withdraw in the face of thousands of French cavalry, the Light Division therefore marched its men towards the main position, but still formed battalion squares. Whenever the enemy threatened a charge, the light infantry, who were the most highly trained footsoldiers of Wellington’s Army, would stop, face outwards with their bayonets pointing at the enemy, and deter any further onslaught. When the cavalry moved away, they would once again turn to face the direction of march, and continue onwards while maintaining a box formation. This feat of drill and steadiness won the Light Division the admiration of many spectators.

  The crisis of the Battle of Fuentes d’Onoro having passed, the French restricted themselves to a costly but fruitless frontal assault on the village of that name. Wellington had beaten off the French attack. Captain Cocks wrote in his journal: ‘I heard Lord Wellington say afterwards at his table he thought he had never been in a worse scrape.’ The British general was grateful to those who had saved the day, most obviously Major-General Robert Craufurd, commanding the Light Division, a man whose allegiance to the principles of scientific soldiering and Whig politics might have made him suspect two or three summers before. Wellington was also sufficiently relieved that he bore no grudge against Don Julian, for in truth this Spaniard and his band were as excellent at gathering intelligence as they had been execrable at the business of regular soldiering. Perhaps, also, there was some small mite of gratitude for Captain Scovell.

  It was still Captain Scovell, two years after the interview in Oporto when Colonel George Murray had promised him promotion in return for taking command of the Guides. Murray was a charming fellow, but where was this blessed step of rank? Might this battle produce the majority he had waited so long for? Wellington appreciated physical courage, even if he had little time for men like Scovell under other circumstances, and there was no doubt that his Commandant of Guides had exposed himself to considerable danger on 5 May. A successful commander could bring distinguished officers to the notice of the Commander in Chief in his victory dispatch. But when Wellington drafted it on 14 May, Scovell’s name was not among the eighteen listed for promotion. There were eight officers from the cavalry regiments involved in the butchery near Poco Velho. Tomkinson of the 16th Light Dragoons obtained his captaincy. Badcock of the 14th took the step to major, lucky fellow. But Scovell was disappointed yet again.

  *

  Between the end of 1809 and May 1811, the campaign had followed precisely the pattern predicted by Wellington back in those autumn days after the Battle of Talavera. The French had indeed invaded Portugal and marched right up to the lines of Torres Vedras. Wellington had administered a heavy defeat to Marshal Massena, one of Napoleon’s most talented subordinates, at Busaco and then watched his myrmidons starve at the gates of Lisbon. The British had followed them out of Portugal early in 1811 and the fighting for the next year centred on the border fortresses. Three of the four key fortified places – Ciudad Rodrigo, Badajoz and Almeida – had fallen into enemy hands.

  The French had left a garrison in Almeida, and Wellington had surrounded it before pushing beyond it to the Spanish frontier. Realizing that the British could starve the Almeida garrison at their leisure, Massena had attempted to fight his way back towards those stranded troops. Wellington had anticipated this, and had chosen a strong position to block him, producing the battle of Fuentes d’Onoro. After his failure on 5 May, Massena had no choice but to send word to the Almeida garrison under General Brenier that they would have to fight their way out. Massena’s headquarters found three soldiers who were willing to risk trying to penetrate British lines and get the message to Almeida. Each of them had been given a message in code for Brenier.

  Two of the French messengers, leaving shortly after the battle, disguised themselves as pedlars and tried to make their way through. Apparently they were intercepted and executed as spies, although it is not clear what became of their secret messages. The third soldier, Andre Tillet of the 6th Light Infantry, made his way in uniform, often crawling through the fields close to the Spanish border and up to the French outposts at the fortress.

  Brenier signalled his receipt of the message by firing heavy guns at a pre-arranged time. He prepared the fortress for demolition and on the night of 10 May his men moved out of Almeida. The British pickets left surrounding the fort were too few in number and too dozy to stop Brenier’s battalions brushing them aside. Most of Wellington’s Army had its back towards Almeida anyway, since it was facing eastwards on the frontier. Brenier escaped the few miles through British outposts to French lines, to the delight of Napoleon who promoted him and gave Private Tillet the Legion of Honour and a pension of 6,000 francs. Wellington was furious, for the escape had nullified the heroic defence of Fuentes d’Onoro. He called it ‘the most disgraceful military event that has yet occurred to us’ and it was the cue for an almighty spleen-venting on the inadequacies of his senior officer corps. ‘I am obliged to be everywhere, and if absent from any operation, something goes wrong,’ he wrote to Earl Liverpool. ‘It is to be hoped that the general and other officers of the Army will at last acquire that experience which will teach them that success can be attained only by attention to the most minute details.’ In his quest to turn the armament at his disposal into the most perfect engine for driving out the French, Wellington could see only the imperfections in its organization and imbecility in many of its officers. Any fair-minded observer in the Army would have said, though, that it had already been thoroughly reformed since 1809. Captain Cocks of the 16th Light Dragoons wrote to his brother that July, making precisely the point that ‘it is a hard task for a man to teach at once soldiers, officers, commissaries, staff, generals and last of all himself. This, however, he has done.’

  *

  The French army also took stock after its retreat from Portugal. Napoleon wanted changes in its command and in the field; many staff officers felt communications had become impossibly difficult. In the spring of 1811, secret writing was blossoming in the French army. Staff officers in different places finally began doing something to protect the contents of their messages.

  During Massena’s campaign against Lisbon, guerrilla activity had been so heavy that his Army of Portugal had been out of contact with Madrid and Paris for si
x weeks at one point. Portuguese partisans had swarmed about the countryside, cutting the throat of any French footslogger who fell behind his column and arresting any suspicious person who might be carrying a message. Massena’s attempt to emulate Joseph’s tactic of sending out a local collaborator in civilian clothes proved unsuccessful. A Portuguese sympathizer, Lieutenant Mascarenhas, had been arrested while carrying messages in the disguise of a shepherd. Pathetically, Mascarenhas’s idealized notion of peasant dress (he had equipped himself with a puppy in a wicker basket) and refined speech gave him away to the locals and he was later executed. In the end, Massena had sent General Foy with an escort of a battalion of infantry and a squadron of cavalry to fight their way through the guerrillas and act as his personal emissary to Napoleon. Foy had travelled all the way to Paris in search of strategic guidance from their imperial master. The cycle of violence between the Iberian peasantry and French army had brought matters to the point where the dispatch of sensitive communications by mail was impossible.

  Change was afoot, however. In April, the Anglo-Portuguese force operating to the south, near Badajoz, had picked up an interesting dispatch. Its message had been translated into a stream of symbols. Lieutenant-Colonel Benjamin D’Urban, Quartermaster-General to Marshal Beresford, commanding this Anglo-Portuguese force, had noted in his journal a ‘letter in Cypher to the commandant of the division that followed Ballasteros intercepted from Latour Maubourg’.* The significance of this intelligence was rapidly understood.

  General Latour Maubourg’s message had been written in a simple cipher. It translated letters of the alphabet into random symbols: for example, a was ‘.’, b was ‘1’, all the way down to ‘+’, ‘–’ and ‘=’ for x, y and z. To anyone with any understanding of deciphering, such a simple code was not hard to crack. Since the most commonly used letters, like the vowels e and a, were only represented by a single symbol in the cipher, it was just a matter of using the known patterns of spelling to break it. Indeed, when Latour Maubourg’s message was brought into Beresford’s HQ, D’Urban and his deputy, Major Henry Hardinge, had little difficulty deciphering it. Hardinge, like his Wycombe classmate Scovell, had learned a little about codes at the college and had a particular interest in them. He and D’Urban discovered the meaning of the captured message on the same day they received it. This knowledge contributed to an appreciation of a large French army building up to challenge Beresford on the plains of Estremadura.