Page 31 - The Secret War in the Italian front in WWI (1915-1918)

CHAPTER ONE

One of the two valuable and well-documented volumes about Drahtlose Telegraphie in der k.(u.)k.
Armee und Marine (Wireless telegraphy in the Austro-Hungarian imperial army and navy), written
by Colonel Johann Prikowitsch and published in 2016, contains some chapters dedicated to the
cryptographic war with, of course, an Austrian perspective . Also in this book, the statement by
55
the Commission of enquiry on the Battle of Caporetto which appeared in the Corriere della Sera
of 19 August 2019, is shown highlighted in bold .
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on The need for a coMPrehensIve analysIs
In general, from the scrutiny of the publications listed above, it appears that some works are quite
biased, and all studies ignore the information contained in the Italian archives which could have
modified the overall assessment regarding the cryptographic struggle in WWI.
This type of research could have revealed the codes and ciphers that had remained unknown to
the Austrians or those that had been solved long after their introduction into service, as well as
the time required to solve the others. As will be seen below, we analyzed those aspects also by
comparing the information on the date of introduction of many codes or ciphers contained in the
Italian documents with that coming from the Austrian sources.
On the other hand, listing the successes achieved by the Italians in decrypting Austrian messages
also required some in-depth archive research, which brought to light general information and
provided several concrete examples.
Another noteworthy topic, generally neglected by many authors, was the Italians’ ability to analyse
radio traffic, facilitated by their mastery of radio-goniometric technologies largely utilized on the
land front and in maritime combat much earlier than their adversaries.
With the aim of extending the investigation to every method employed to achieve useful information
from the enemy’s telecommunications, without omitting for instance eavesdropping of wired
telephone communications, it seems appropriate to apply the modern approach offered by the
unifying concept of COMINT (Communication Intelligence) .
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55 J. Prikowitsch, op. cit.
56 ibid., p.386.
57 During WWI denominations such as “Radio intelligence” or “Wireless Intelligence” were used in the American army.

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