A coded message attributed to Napoleon, sent in 1809 to one of his senior generals, is reported to have been deciphered using artificial intelligence after remaining unreadable for 217 years. News outlets say the breakthrough reveals the contents of the letter that had long been a historical mystery.
The letter’s origin and the fact that its meaning could not previously be determined are common elements across reporting. The outlets also present the same central development: AI techniques are used to crack the cipher tied to the correspondence, allowing the text to be understood for the first time since it was originally sent.
While the three sources share the same overall framing—an AI-based decryption of a long-unsolved Napoleonic-era coded letter—the brief excerpts provided do not detail the specific methods used, the identity of the general, or how the AI results were verified. Further details beyond the shared premise are therefore not consistent or ascertainable from the supplied text.
