Page 171 - The Secret War in the Italian front in WWI (1915-1918)

CHAPTER EIGHT

was signed at a higher level, namely between French General Ferdinand Auguste Pont and Colonel
Breganze, who had previously sent a draft of the document to the Supreme Command .
54
After Sacco’s return to Italy, Italian stations intensified interception activities, as evidenced by
the records of the Armies’ radiotelegraphic sections. Intercepted Austrian dispatches that were
apparently the most interesting ones were generally sent from Udine to Paris through a dedicated
telegraphic circuit. Unfortunately, the much-expected decrypted versions did never get to Italy.
In this regard, O. Marchetti clearly affirmed: “no one ever knew anything about this matter and
therefore our transmission did not occur anymore” .
55
The reasons why the agreement failed remain unknown. Considering the characteristics of some
Austrian ciphers that will be illustrated further along, French analysts supposedly had no difficulty
decrypting at least part of the dispatches. On the other hand, one can presume that they were busy
for solving constantly evolving ciphers, especially of the German army, for decrypting diplomatic
messages, dispatches of enemy navies, etc., and therefore assigned low priority to telegrams from
Italy.
In addition, many cryptograms intercepted in Italy were from the German army and navy and
since Italy had not declared war on Germany yet, it would have been imprudent to let the Italian
know about French capabilities to break specific German ciphers. This case was not the only one
of ‘extreme reserve’ regarding cryptography, concerning the Allies of both parties.
The waiting of French response caused a waste of precious time and led to further delays in the
development of the Italian military cryptology, also because the impossibility of comparing the
encoded versions of dispatches with the plaintext versions eventually received from the French
reduced the opportunity to improve the analysis skills of the Italians.

consensus on sacco’s ProPosals
Despite the disappointing outcomes of the expected French-Italian cooperation in the cryptologic
domain, Sacco’s mission in France caused useful implications. In fact, some suggestions comprised
in his report helped the Italian army’s radio capabilities to evolve in the following months.
On 6 August, upon his return from France, Sacco had a meeting with the STM Chief Inspector,
Colonel Mazzone, reporting information and views he had got from his interviews with the Allies.
Significantly, on the same day, the Chief Inspector sent a service order to all radiotelegraphic
stations making total encoding of telegrams mandatory .
56
A few days lter, when he received Sacco’s report, STM Chief Inspector sent it to the Supreme
Command, along with his own remarks. The Mazzone opening comments have no tangible
evidence since he asserts that: “the organization of our telegraphic service is more complete than
in the French and the English Armies” because - in his words - it met fully “all requirements for
transmission of dispatches between large units” . Moreover, Mazzone ensured that radiotelegraphic
57
communications were completely encrypted - we know that this ‘innovation’ was introduced only
after his meeting with Sacco - and in answering indirectly to potential comments, he incautiously

54 Correspondence between Paris and the Supreme Headquarters, comprised in the Series of AUSSME, proves that the Italian
Command had the draft of the agreement since 18 August. See also: O. Marchetti, op. cit., p.158.
55 O. Marchetti, op. cit., p. 158.
56 Chief Inspector of the STM Capo STM, Military History Journal, 6 August 1915, AUSSME, Series B1,105 S, vol. 87.
Sacco had come back to Italy on 3 August.
57 Supreme Headquarters, General HQ of the Engineer Corps, Missione del Capitano Sacco cav. Luigi presso il G. Q. G.
francese (Captain Sacco mission at French General Headquarters), ref. n° 1222RG, 29 August 1915, AUSSME, Series B1,105
S, vol. 87.

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