Page 327 - The Secret War in the Italian front in WWI (1915-1918)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Ronge testified the resistance of the Grey Tables to any decoding attempt, knowing them only by
the word ‘grey’ .
28
The S.I. and D systems shared at least two other characteristics. In both cases, they were second
editions largely disseminated and employed outside the Army units for which they were originally
conceived.
As far as the Service, T1, SC, and SA are concerned, these were never mentioned by Austrian
sources, except for the SA in the circumstances already shown .
29
The list may not, however, considered as exhaustive because for instance some ciphers, which
Italian documents rarely mentioned, were not found in the archives, preventing any possible
identification and description . Further research on the subject may bear surprising results, also
30
concerning unbroken codes and ciphers.

A List of Unbroken Italian Codes and Ciphers
ID Name Users Date of entry in service

Supreme Command and Armies’
Green Onset of War
Headquarters
D Divisional Initially, within Divisions December 1917 or before
IA Inter-allied Among allied Headquarters Late 1917 - March 1918
Initially, within the Intelligence
SI Intelligence Service January 1918
Service
R Regimental Within Regiments May 1918
T1 Service Cipher Small Radio Stations September 1, 1918
Grey Grey Tables for S.I. High Commands up to Division October 5, 1918
S.I.B. Intelligence Service ‘B’ Intelligence Service October 14, 1918

SA Service Code ‘SA’ Large Radio Stations October 20, 1918
SC Service Code ‘SC’ Large Radio Stations Before October 23, 1918

lasT flashes of The ausTrIan coMInT
Decrypting of Italian dispatches, for example, those still encoded with the Special, Blu and
CFbis continued during 1918, except for limited time spans when new over-encoding tables were
introduced from time to time. There was, however, a falling trend in the number and significance
of Italian decrypted dispatches due to several causes including - inter alia - the internal difficulties
of the Austrian Service, the limitations imposed to Italian wireless transmission and the gradual
adoption of more resistant codes across the Italian Army.
Ronge referred to the first of these reasons at length and explained the drawbacks of the reorganisation
carried out at the beginning of the year and the contrasts between the Headquarters of the Field
Radiotelegraphic Service and the Cryptographic Service.

28 M. Ronge, Der Radiohorch, op. cit., p.41.
29 ibidem. The unique radiogram mentioned by Ronge would be as follows: “we use the 2-part S-A cipher”. Usually, the
Austrian interception dates followed the dates the codes were adopted: in this case, October 27, instead of October 20.
30 Among these are, for example, the Series V ciphers (V1, V2, V3) used before October 1917. Because of an explicit
opposition by Section R, these were not renewed, nor V4 was ever published after the front shifted from the Isonzo to the
Piave.

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