Page 26 - The Secret War in the Italian front in WWI (1915-1918)

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

and sometimes even the time required to decrypt some dispatches completely or partially, also
providing useful information to identify codes and ciphers that withstood their attacks.

Poorly docuMenTed crITIcIsMs
Ronge’s statements concerning the Italian Intelligence Service and, particularly Italian cryptology,
spread internationally, also due to the volume’s translation into French and to a remarkable work
by Yves Gylden, a Swedish cryptology expert who summarised in a book the contents of the
essays and memoirs which appeared until 1930 about interception and cryptology activities on the
Western, Eastern and Italian Fronts during WWI .
29
For Gylden, there was certainly no shortage of information sources because of the several papers
published in the 20s, as pointed out above, by cryptanalysts operating during the war on all
the fronts with exception of the Italian - Austrian one. As a matter of fact, he admitted that his
information about the Italian-Austrian front was exclusively originated from the books by Ronge,
adding: “Having access to reliable Italian documentation and using it to make comparisons would
have been really interesting, but unfortunately, as far as this author could ascertain, to date, there
are no published documents on these activities” .
30
Nevertheless, the Swedish cryptographer accepts as correct the negative statements made by
Ronge about the deficiencies of the Italian military cryptographic service without making any
critical analysis. This often leads him to regard the Italian cryptographic service’s performance as
a bad example.
In order to provide general indications and suggestions about cryptologic methods and techniques,
Gylden goes beyond the information given by Ronge’s book since he sometimes draws inferences
and formulates hypotheses not supported by the information contained in that book.
One of his mistakes, possibly based on a misinterpretation of some Ronge’s statements, concerns
the assumed Austrian failure to decrypt Italian radio dispatches since the beginning of 1918,
shortly after the arrival of the British and French troops in Italy, in November 1917 . On these
31
grounds, Gylden argued that the Italian cryptology changed more considerably during the last
year of the war in comparison to what happened on other fronts because “the highly experienced
French and English experts effected a radical reorganisation of the Italian cryptographic service”
and therefore “the Austrians had to confront adversaries who were cleverer than the Italians” .
32
However, Ronge himself openly states that the Austrian decrypting of Italian radio dispatches
decreased in 1918 but did not cease entirely ,and in the 1947 edition of his ‘Manual’, Luigi Sacco
33
strongly criticised the statements made by the Swedish author, claiming that the progress achieved
during the last part of the war originated only from within the Italian Cryptographic Unit itself .
34
Among the controversial aspects of Gylden’s work, we cannot but remember the sharp contrast
between his admiration for the “splendid Austrian cryptographic and cryptanalytic services” and

29 Y. Gylden, Chifferbyrliâernas Insatser I Varldskriget Till Lands (Contribution of the Cryptographic Bureaus in WWI),
Stockolm, 1931. The Gylden book became internationally known after its publication in abridged form on the Revue Militaire
Française in August 1931 and its complete translation into English, which appeared in instalments on the Signal Corps
Bulletins from the end of 1933 up to and including 1934. The integral English version is titled The Contribution of the
Cryptographic Bureaus in the World War and was published in instalments in the Signal Corps Bulletins Nos. 75 - 81,
November 1933 - November 1934, with notes by Major W. F. Friedman, who was one of the major American cryptologists.
30 Y. Gylden, op. cit., Publications of Riverbank Laboratories, p. 77.
31 ibid., p.81.
32 ibid., p.77, 82.
33 M. Ronge, Spionaggio, op. cit., p. 354, 355, which mentions some cryptanalysis operations carried out in October 1918.
34 L. Sacco, Manuale di Crittografia, op. cit., p.309.

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