Page 202 - The Secret War in the Italian front in WWI (1915-1918)

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

ES WURDEN DREI PUNKTE GESEHEN ÖSTLICH WEITER SUCHEN (three points were
spotted towards east; seek further)
This dispatch apparently refers to the sighting of ships.
The following pages show two other codes with 8x8 even grilles, therefore with no blackened
box at the centre. On the right-side page (picture 9), Sacco analyses the ciphered text and suggests
a general solution method, but until now, the solution of the cryptograms was not found in the
notebook. In this case, a software allowed the two messages to be decrypted and they seem to be
ciphered with the same grille.

Picture 9

The decrypted text of the first message reads:
FEUER EINGESTELLT FEINDLICHE FAHRZEUGE ABGEWANDTE AUSSER SICHT
FLOTTEN, K (Cease-fire, enemy craft out of sight).
This message is probably of the Austro-Hungarian navy since, apart from the submarines, the
German fleet did not operate in the Adriatic Sea.
The second cryptogram achieved by the same grille reads: KRIEG MINISTERIUM IST ERSUCHT
BEANTRAGTES GUTHABEN VON ZW (the ministry of war is kindly asked to provide the
requested financial report zw).

The ausTro-hungarIan dIPloMaTIc code
On a page dated 20 October 1916, Sacco formulates some initial comments on the Austro-Hungarian
diplomatic code, about the code typology and the figures number of code groups (picture 10).
Moreover, the notebook contains the list of the telegrams exchanged between Karl Macchio, the
Austrian ambassador in Rome, and Stephan Burian, the Austrian Minister of Foreign Affairs,

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