Page 114 - The Secret War in the Italian front in WWI (1915-1918)

THE SECRET WAR ON THE ITALIAN FRONT IN WWI (1915 – 1918)

or other telecommunications circuits, without forgetting the potential exposure to enemy
eavesdropping.
Telegraph communications, unlike telephone communications, needed specialized personnel and
relatively longer time for transmitting messages, especially encrypted ones, but telegrams recorded
on paper tape were a written documentation, more difficult to contest than phonograms. Due to the
time needed for transmission and the potential complications just described, electrical telegraphy
had a larger diffusion across long distances and between high commands down to division-level
than on the front first line.
Telephone communications also had some downsides, as the voice transmission impairment
due to the battle noise and the talking difficulty when wearing anti-gas masks. However, despite
those disadvantages, the field telephones became the favourite mean of communication among

6.5 “Anzalone” telephone (Museum of Communication, Rome)

combatants of World War I, since they allowed practical, fast, and immediate communication, so
that at the end of the conflict approximately 25,000 devices were operating in the Italian army, as
shown in picture 6.6. A considerable increase also in the number of telegraphic systems, despite
not being comparable to that of telephones, can be remarked in this picture.
The demand for telephone equipment was much higher than the figure mentioned above, but
not entirely met due to the problems encountered in their procurement, because of the limited
industrial output in all the Countries of the Entente.
Since 1917, TPS (Télégraphie Par le Sol), a special type of telegraphy, has been successfully
employed by subordinate units of Italian army, for short distance communications.

radIo coMMunIcaTIon

In the early stages of war, radio communications systems were provisioned only to highest Headquarters,
which used them for ‘Command and Control’ at the strategic level. During the war in the Italian, as in
all belligerent armies, radio systems were adopted for an increasing number of applications ranging
from communications between flying aircraft and ground stations to dissemination of weather forecasts,
from anti-aircraft alert networks to trench radiotelegraphic systems, and turned out to be indispensable
whenever the static trench warfare turned into a war of movement.
Especially during the last year of the conflict, many forward Italian units required and achieved
transportable radio devices, to cope with the vulnerability under artillery fire as well as with the
scarce reliability of physical lines in extreme weather conditions. Therefore, despite the limits and
drawbacks in radio communications - first and foremost their potential risk of interception by the

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