The Man Who Broke Napoleon's Codes

Rating:
Summary: The Reign In Spain (And Portugal)
Review: This is a solid, workmanlike effort about a little-known man (George Scovell) and a little-discussed aspect (codes and codebreaking) of the Peninsular War. There are enough maps and enough detailed descriptions of the various battles to satisfy fans of military history and enough biographical information and anecdotes to satisfy the general reader. If you are not mathematically inclined you need not be concerned as the information about how the codes came to be deciphered is pretty basic.Most interesting to me, more so than the battles and the codebreaking, were the human interest aspects of the book. The Duke of Wellington comes across as a snob who wanted to be surrounded by aristocratic subordinates and as a person who had nothing but disdain for the common soldier. On the other hand, although he didn't want to socialize with "the lower orders" he could and would recognize and promote people of talent. However, it is certainly not to his credit that later on in life he seemed to have developed "selective amnesia" regarding George Scovell's codebreaking contributions- probably because he felt it would take away from his own mystique.It was fascinating to read about the contribution made by the Spanish guerillas. If they had not intercepted so many French military dispatches and delivered them to the British, Scovell could not have had the success he had. Without the intelligence that Scovell provided things would have been much harder for Wellington.Another interesting aspect of the book was to read about all the bickering and backstabbing going on between Napoleon's brother, who was King of Spain, and Marhsal Soult and Marshal Marmont. If the French could ever have worked together instead of everyone only looking out for themselves, which caused insufficient manpower to counterbalance Wellington's forces, the Peninsular War could have played out to a different conclusion.This was a very enjoyable book, which should appeal to the general reader.