Page 166 - The Secret War in the Italian front in WWI (1915-1918)

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

units would certainly indicate the beginning and the end of wide-ranging actions and also the main
direction of the attack” .
37
As an additional defensive method, the Italians frequently changed the station names - which
were made up of two letters for mobile stations and three letters for fixed ones - with the aim of
increasing the difficulties to identify the origin and destination of dispatches and their attribution
to Headquarters associated with the radio stations. The effectiveness of this provision obviously
decreased or ceased when telegrams provided sufficient clues to identity the station or, even
worse, the Headquarters to which the station reported, as it occurred above all during the early
months of war.

8.3 A LEADING FIGURE ARISES: LUIGI SACCO

concerns of The suPreMe coMMand

As already mentioned, after the beginning of the war, the Italian radiotelegraphic stations
had intercepted many ciphered radiograms, but great difficulties were encountered for their
interpretation. Being aware of the serious difficulties in this domain, the Secretariat of the Chief
of the Army Staff charged the Intelligence Office the issue and required it to interpret, according
to the mandate of April 1915,not only the field dispatches of the Austro-Hungarian army but also

diplomatic dispatches .
38
The Chief of the Intelligence Office, Colonel Garuccio firstly verified that neither the Ministry
of Foreign Affairs nor the Ministry of the Navy had the capability to break the cipher used for
instance in radio communications between Austria and Spain: a clear sign of Italy’s extensive
cryptographic incompetence at that time. He then answered to Cadorna’s secretariat ensuring that
he “would try to find the way to decrypt the intercepted dispatches also by relying on any relevant
studies conducted by the Allied armies, which might become known through military missions” .
39
When the Intelligence Office sent this memorandum, Captain Luigi Sacco had been in France for
about 15 days with the mission of asking the French Allies, who were considered masters in that
field, also for cryptologic support . At the end of June, he had left for Chantilly, where the General
40
Headquarters of the French Army was located for a mission lasting about one month .
41
During his stay in France, Captain Sacco could observe, among other things, the organization and
operational methods of radiotelegraphic stations in the French and English armies, visiting radio
stations on the frontline and interviewing some Officers of both nationalities .
42

37 ibidem.
38 See the mentioned document by the Headquarters of General Staff Corps Norme generali per la costituzione e funzionamento
del Comando Supremo mobilitato (General regulations for the creation and functioning of the mobilised Supreme Headquarters).
39 Intelligence Office, Memorandum for the Secretariat of the Chief of the Army Staff, ref. no. 2292 of 16 July 1915,
AUSSME, Series E2, env.26.
40 In June 1915 Captain Sacco had been seconded to the Supreme Headquarters, where he immediately started to intercept
and pinpoint enemy radiotelegraphic stations (General Sacco’s Biography, AUSSME, biographies, 54/109).
41 From 24 to 26 June, Sacco had been discussing the goals of the mission with colonel Natalino Mazzone, Chief Inspector
of the STM, and with Ugo Levi, the Captain in charge of Telecommunications. He then left for Rome, continued his trip to
Paris, and finally reached Chantilly, General Headquarters, on 1 July.
42 These were Lieutenant Colonel Simon, Chief of the Telegraphic Office of the General HQ, Major Fraques, Chief of the
radiotelegraphic section within that office, and Major Blandy who was in charge of radio communications of the British Army
on the Western front.

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