Did a forged seal ever seriously compromise a political or military operation?
Upvote:0
I was just reading The Tartar Khan's Englishman by Gabriel Ronay and in it he states how King Bela had lost his seal in the fleeing of a battle and this seal was used by the Mongols (through the Englishman who spoke Hungarian) to issue edicts ordering the militia not to muster and for peasants to return from hiding to the fields (where they could later be easier found and killed)
Upvote:7
Seals were less about verification of identity, and more about verification of non-tampering. As with all significant documents today, the presence (and seals or signatures) of witnesses was the most important aspect of identity- and authentication-verification. Placing the author's/authorizer's seal at the bottom of the written text was more about preventing after-the-fact tampering, and in-transit reading.
As an example: When on June 15, 1815, Ney and his one-horse cart caught up to the Grande Armee in Charleroi, Napoleon had to signal to Generals Reille and D'Erlon that Ney had Imperial authority as the Left Wing commander. He solved this dilemma neatly by giving Ney command of the Imperial Guard Red Lancers (with the direction to "use them gently"). There could be no doubt about Ney's authority while he was escorted by such an esteemed regiment.
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