Page 120 - The Secret War in the Italian front in WWI (1915-1918)

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

range of telephone interception systems amounted to very few kilometres, so that the intercepted
communications directly came from front line units and usually had a short-term operational
relevance. Yet, this kind of activity could in many cases provide interesting results also from a
strategic point of view. Ronge himself acknowledges that “listening (to telephone conversations)
was actually more important for local news. However, it provided valuable data also for higher-
level directives and could be useful to monitor deserters’ statements.” The last part of the sentence
regards the false deserters sent by the Italians to provide the enemy with fake news .
18

radIo InTercePTIon and TraffIc analysIs
The immaturity of radio techniques available at the beginning of the war led to many drawbacks,
including high sensitivity to atmospheric disturbances, to interference generated by the enemy or
friendly transmissions and, above all, exposure to interception.
To exploit this last weakness, opposed armies produced large and continuous efforts to improve
their own organizations committed to listening activities, in terms of quantity and quality of
resources. They developed, for instance, more and more advanced systems to intercept, select,
and classify enemy radio stations according to their main characteristics .
19
However, one should not underestimate the difficulty inherent in interception operations due to
the simultaneous presence of many transmitters belonging to friendly, enemy, or neutral parties
and using the same radio wavelengths. Difficulty was also generated by the previously mentioned
disturbances that sometime made reception uncertain, not only for stations to which dispatches
were directed but also for intercepting stations.
Finally, to intrude effectively on enemy communication flows, intercepting stations must be
positioned on the front line - although in locations not as forward as telephone listening stations
- and advanced as the transmitted power of enemy stations decreased. Therefore, their physical
integrity must be secured reducing, as far as possible, the vulnerability of intercepting posts and of
their connections with data primary processing centres: usually telephone or telegraph lines prone
to be interrupted by enemy artillery fire, adverse weather conditions, etc.
The expression traffic analysis dates to many years after WWI though the activities belonging to
that category were already being extensively carried out during the war. The analysis of traffic
generated by enemy stations entailed studying intercepted signals to mainly identify:
– their power and wavelength;
– frequency and periodicity of communications;
– nature and length of dispatches;
– time of transmission;
– positions of transmitters by means of radio location devices.
To understand the usefulness of traffic analysis, it is enough to think that simply counting
radiograms daily emitted by the enemy is a significant indication of its activity, which usually
increases before the beginning of large operations. In addition, the frequency and addressees of
dispatches help outline the structure of communications networks and therefore the hierarchy of
enemy organization.

18 M. Ronge, Spionaggio, op. cit., p.228.
19 At the beginning of every dispatch, the transmitting station generally specifies its own names and the name of the receiving
station(s), consisting of a limited number of letters and figures.

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