Page 235 - The Secret War in the Italian front in WWI (1915-1918)

CHAPTER ELEVEN

In addition to the news that show intensified collaboration among the Allies on technical issues in
the cryptologic field, the logs of Section R provide concrete evidence of a constant transmission
of dispatches decrypted by Sacco to the English and French Missions in Rome or, in place of the
latter, to the Italian Mission in Paris. The exchange of information of this type, as well as of letters
and telegraphic messages intercepted by censorship, was a common practice among the allies of
the Entente throughout the conflict.
One cannot exclude that the visits to the Cryptographic Unit of Colonel Cartier and other allied
Officers experts in the field were also intended to exchange codes and ciphers, as happened in the
case of the Austrian naval cipher. Less frequent was the sharing of decrypting methods, which
were part of the most jealously guarded secrets of the Intelligence Services, also because they
sometimes tended to hide the use of their skills about allied diplomatic communications .
8
On the opposite side, it seems that the exchange of enemy codes was not common practice. Ronge
confesses for example, that in August 1916, the Head of German Field Telegraphy had asked
Evidenzbureau for a photographic copy of the Italian Red Code. He only obtained a reply letter in
which the Austrians said they could not send any documentation because their knowledge of the
code was incomplete . We know how this news did not correspond to the truth!
9

11.2 CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE ENTENTE INTELLIGENCE

The falkenhayn dIsPaTch
The following sentence is reported in the log of Section R on 11 January 1917 with reference to the
news of the previous day: “Decrypted two radiograms on Falkenhayn’s journey from an Austro-
German station in Macedonia toward a Greek station. Sent to the British and French Missions, to
the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, to the Navy, and to the Supreme Command” .
10
On the same day, the Section U log of the Intelligence Service informed: “Section R announced
yesterday that the Cryptographic Unit - by its exclusive means - decrypted a radio telegram
intercepted on the day 7 from an important station in Macedonia and directed to a Greek station,
th
which reads, “To the General Staff. I’ll arrive on 8 or 9 January by plane to L. If necessary, I will
continue by car. Make all arrangements for connection. Signed Falkenhayn” . In January 1917,
11
General Falkenhayn was in command of the IX German Army in Transylvania which, as already
said, at the end of the previous year had ‘crushed’ Romania and obtained one of the greatest
victories for the Central Empires throughout the conflict.
Questions arose about the interpretation of the information coming from Sections R and U, for
example on the existence of two radiograms rather than just one, as Section U stated and is
commonly believed. A clarification about these and other questions can be deduced from the
correspondence that took place immediately afterwards among the Sections of the Intelligence
Service. More specifically, a letter of 12 January signed by Colonel Garruccio contains the text of

8 An example of generosity in this area was the delivery, in August 1914, of the SKM code recovered by the Russians aboard
cruiser Magdeburg to the British Cruiser Theseus, which supplied it to the analysts of Room 40 in October of the same year
(A. Santoni, Il Primo Ultra Secret, op. cit., p. 58.).
9 M. Ronge, Der Radiohorch, op cit., p.12, foot note 1.
10 Section R Logs, 11 January 1917, AUSSME,101S, Vol. 255c.
11 Intelligence Service, Section U Logs, Nov. 1916 - Mar. 1917, AUSSME, Series B1, 101D, Vol. 351d. The date of codebreaking
(day 11) indicated by Marchetti (O. Marchetti, op. cit., p.160), must be anticipated by at least one day.

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