Page 283 - The Secret War in the Italian front in WWI (1915-1918)

CHAPTER TWELVE

across the Western front since early 1917. The simple tables known as Befehstafel (command
tables) - with two-letters code groups as the Austrian AK - were not very arduous to interpret and
remained in service in the lower units of the German army until February 1918.
In some passages of his notes, Lieutenant Magni showed knowledge about the orders radioed from
German stations. It seems, therefore, possible that he had decrypted some dispatches with the help
of the analysts sent from Rome in early December.

The ITalIan cryPTograPhIc decenTralIzaTIon
Through the redeployment from the Isonzo to the Piave no important documents about interception
and cryptanalysis activities by the Italians fell into Austrian hands. In fact, the radio-goniometric
Section had removed the most important documents when it left Codroipo and destroyed the
others. Moreover, radio-goniometric, and cryptographic tasks have not been still assigned to the
Armies’ Intelligence Offices.
A Cryptographic Services within the Armies will be established in early 1918, while the
decentralisation of cryptanalysis had already occurred at the beginning of December of the
previous year, as stated in the report of the 1 radio-goniometric Section: “the Intelligence Service
st
established a ‘Cryptographic Detachment’ within the Section to decrypt the telegrams we have
intercepted” .
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Moreover, an entry dated 2 December in the Logs of Section U revealed that the Cryptographic
Unit dispatched Lieutenant Franzot to the 1 radio-goniometric Section to “immediately decrypt
st
the intercepted radio telegrams”, adding that “the Section would make available to him all the
intercepted radio telegrams, in addition to forwarding them to Section R” .
76
After the decentralisation, telegrams of the enemy field stations using codes already broken,
could be decrypted upon interception, and directly sent to the Headquarters deployed on the front,
reducing not only the time required for the entire managing process of intercepted telegrams,
but also the workload on the overburdened Unit in Rome. It is worth to notice that the decision
to decentralise the cryptologic activities was taken during the First Battle of Piave River due to
the increasing number of German and Austrian cryptographic material achieved on the front in
November 1917.
Of course, this partial decentralisation, and mostly the widened spread of cryptologic activity in
the spring of following year, required a stronger commitment by Major Sacco in establishing new
operating units and in setting up a group of analysts who could work on their own, in order to
quickly decrypt the enemy field dispatches and even to cooperate with the Cryptologic Unit for
solving new enemy codes and ciphers.

changes To The ITalIan codes and cIPhres
The number of coding and decoding tables of the Special Code available to the units of the
2 Army at the end of August 1917 was around a few hundred . Some of them were lost and
nd
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captured by the enemy or burned during the Caporetto battle or the retreat, as demonstrated by

75 3 Telegraph Operators Regiment, 1 Radio-Goniometric Section, Relazione sull’operato, op. cit., p.3.
rd
st
76 Section U logs, December 1917, AUSSME, Series B1, 101D Vol. 359d. Lieutenant Franzot returned to the Cryptographic
Unit in Rome on 15 March 1918, and Lieutenant Franchini replaced him (Section R Logs AUSSME, Series B1, 101S).
77 Intelligence Office, Section U, Letter 1022 P, 18 January 1918, AUSSME, Series F4, env.260.

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