Page 185 - The Secret War in the Italian front in WWI (1915-1918)

CHAPTER NINE

9.2 Map of positions and connections between the Austro-Hungarian stations localised along the Adriatic coast
and in the Balkan area, March 1916 (ISCAG Archive)

in a month or two months between the stations. Data was sometimes compared with similar
information collected by the British navy, also to release additional details to the latter.
Radio traffic analysis provided extensive knowledge about the correspondence between the
stations, their locations and short identification codes, which had been partly found the year
before . Moreover, those findings, along with information from other sources, made it possible to
6
associate the station short codes with military units deployed in the area, for instance:

SSS = Donau Flottillen Kommando in Budapest
RM = Monitordivision Kommando in Rustchuk, etc.

The reports of the Codroipo Office often included a paragraph entitled “Ciphers” which states the
results on decrypting attempts of enemy’ dispatches, interpretation of abbreviations, correspond-
ence between coded words and code groups, etc., in addition to numerous references to other re-
ports regarding the same topic, which were evidently more confidential. As evident from the table

6 3 Regiment of the Engineer Corps, Radiotelegraphic Branch of Codroipo, Relazioni. Gennaio 1916. (Reports. January
rd
1916) op. cit., p.1. Short codes of Austrian stations known since 1915 include: NC = Pola; IY = Lošinj; QB = Rijeka; QB =
Šibenik; PY = Castelnuovo, etc.

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