Napoleonic Wargame Club (NWC)

What is interesting about this letter beside the fact that it's sent from Moscow and he is talking about blowing up the towers of the Kremlin, it's that it's a coded letter.

"At three o'clock in the morning, on the 22nd I am going to blow up the Kremlin," the letter said, laying out his route of retreat and urging his minions to send rations to the towns to the west. "My cavalry is in tatters, many horses are dying."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wire ... ertainment

It was dubbed "Great Paris Cipher". I have always been interested in ciphers. It took an Englishman, Major George Scovell, to decipher the French code.

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/spie ... ll/sc1.htm

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/200 ... reducation

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Général David Guegan

3ème Régiment de Grenadiers - Bataillon d'élite du 3ème Légère
2ème Brigade
Grenadiers de la Réserve
Réserve
La Grande Armée
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"From the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step."
Napoléon Bonaparte

Military justice is to justice what military music is to music.
Groucho Marx

David,

only recently I've read about the instructions from Berthier to Morthier sent after La Grande Armee left Moscow and Morthier with a provisional corps was left to garrison the city. It explicitly outlined that all of the messages sent must be coded.

This as well as your post made me realise the meaning of numerous reports sent to Kutuzov's quarters or to Alexandr directly by partisans. All of them indicated that they have intercepted a courrier with some important paper and that these papers are sent with the courrier to one of the aforementioned destinations. But never did they say anything about the information contained in the papers. Moreover the reasoning of all the actions taken, as described in reports and memoirs, is based on info gained from civillians and prisoners. Not the papers captured. Despite the fact that on the average every detachment like Davydoff's on the average took about 1-2 courriers every week. Apparently dechiphering was beyong the ability of local light troops officers.

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