Page 224 - The Secret War in the Italian front in WWI (1915-1918)

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

Such an improvement, largely
determined by the application of some
Sacco’s principles, could not prevent
Italian service ciphers from being
broken due to the considerable quantity
of cryptographic material given to the
enemy and especially to the frequent
carelessness or mistakes made by radio
telegraphists who had not been adequately
trained to perform their coding tasks.

10.9 Decryption time in number of days, and dates of adoption
of some Italian Service Ciphers

10.5 RADIO INTELLIGENCE IN LATE 1916

The ausTrIan renounce To radIocoMMunIcaTIons
Rules limiting the radio use in the Austrian Army date back to October 1915, when a very strict
directive imposed radio silence to all field stations and the systematic resort to wire connections
also for telegraphy, with the exception of emergency circumstances . Such directive was reiterated
62
and gradually made stricter over the next years whenever alarming news was gathered regarding
Italian interceptions: in 1918, orders were given to even seal transmitters on parts of the front line .
63
The frequency of the Italian interceptions shows that radio silence was applied more severely
from May 1916 to October-November 1917, although this behaviour was ‘fluctuating’ probably
due also to internal conflicts caused by opposing thoughts in the Austrian army. Therefore, radio
telegrams intercepted by Italian listening stations were, for a large part of the war, fewer than
Italian dispatches transmitted and mostly intercepted .
64
Austrian countermeasures did not only depend on some alarming information about the Italian
radio capability gathered from prisoners’ statements, decrypted Italian radiograms, etc., but also
aimed to avoid providing the Italians with enough cryptographic material and radio information.
As a matter of fact, the strategy of the Austro-Hungarian commands was well founded since, also
in the period preceding the Cryptographic Unit successes, the Italians’ ability in interceptions and
radiogoniometry allowed to identify the positioning of radiotelegraphic stations - and therefore of
enemy Commands - whenever a transmission of some unavoidable service communication began.
Furthermore, interception techniques became more and more refined, actually on both sides of
the front, as familiarity increased with wavelength and names of stations, with correspondence

62 J. Prikowitsch, op. cit., p. 436.
63 M. Ronge, Der Radiohorch, op cit., p.11, 14 e 24, 30.
64 In 1917 and 1918 the overall number of decrypted dispatches transmitted by the Italian cryptographic unit to other offices
was a few hundred per month. In addition, there was an unknown number of less important decrypted radio telegrams that
were not transmitted outside the unit. Between April and December 1917, the encoded Italian dispatches intercepted (the
number of decrypted dispatches is not known, A/N) in the area controlled by the 11 Austrian Army - where more than half of
th
the intercepting stations were located - amounted, according to Ronge, to an average of 840 per month, excluded repetitions
- that is telegrams intercepted by several stations.

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