MANUAL FOR THE SOLUTION OF MILITARY CIPHERS
BY
PARKER HITT
Captain of Infantry, U. S. A.
PRESS OF
THE ARMY SERVICE SCHOOLS
Fort Leavenworth, Kansas
1916
MANUAL FOR THE SOLUTION
OF MILITARY CIPHERS
BY
PARKER HITT
Captain of Infantry, United States Army
Introduction
The history of war teems with occasions where the interception of dispatches and orders written in plain language has resulted in defeat and disaster for the force whose intentions thus became known at once to the enemy. For this reason, prudent generals have used cipher and code messages from time immemorial. The necessity for exact expression of ideas practically excludes the use of codes for military work although it is possible that a special tactical code might be useful for preparation of tactical orders.
It is necessary therefore to fall back on ciphers for general military work if secrecy of communication is to be fairly well assured. It may as well be stated here that no practicable military cipher is mathematically indecipherable if intercepted; the most that can be expected is to delay for a longer or shorter time the deciphering of the message by the interceptor.