Page 331 - The Secret War in the Italian front in WWI (1915-1918)

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

troops of the 17 Austro-Hungarian Division must maintain their “ALERT” status from 4 to
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6 a.m .
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In short, it seems that the cryptographic skills of the Italian Army were no longer concentrated in
a single centre of excellence.

The radIo coMMunIcaTIons In The fInal baTTle

Picture 14.8 shows the deployment on the field, a few days before the final attack, of the Italian
radio stations which, adding those operating in France, Albania, and Macedonia amount to a total
of about 700 units . Considering the number of the reserve equipment, of those being installed or
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distributed and of airplane radios, the total resulted close to one thousand pieces. Radiotelegraphic
operators had grown from a few hundred at the beginning of the conflict to about 9,000 personnel
serving in 18 Sections with 22 groups embedded in Corps.
The transition from static trench warfare to a war of quick movement after the enemy lines were
broken had been long planned by the Italian Headquarters. For each unit, they had identified a limited
number of routes known as assi di collegamento (linking routes) along which the troops could
move, together with the localities where the tactical commands and intelligence gathering centres,
including communication centres, could be set up. In the instructions given by the Headquarters
of the Armies, priority was given to telecommunications systems over other traditional means,
notably acoustic or optical, as per the latter two, it was noted that usually “in territories like ours,
their range is quite short” .
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The Headquarters of the 3 Army planned for instance, that telephone and telegraph lines had to
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cross the Piave river by means of underwater cables laid away from the bridges or gangways - as
these were open to enemy fire - and to be developed along the linking routes at the same speed the
Headquarters advanced, thus ensuring connections among them, respecting the hierarchical order.
The radiotelegraphic sections had been prepared to accommodate the sudden shift from trench
warfare to war of movement. No less than 600 vehicles ensured their mobility so that they could
follow the Headquarters closely in the rapid advance. It was a movement of exceptional size, with
more than a hundred transceiver stations involved which preserved the integrity of the command
chains, producing a volume of traffic never recorded before.
To protect radio communications, the Headquarters of the Armies ordered that, “all Headquarters
up to and including divisional Headquarters communicated with each other by delivering radio
telegrams already encoded with the grey code to radiotelegraphic stations. Only in case that one of
the two correspondents should be not equipped with the grey tables, telegrams could be delivered
to radiotelegraphic stations as plain texts. The messages would then be encoded at the radio stations
using the SA service cipher. For radiotelegraphic communications directed to Headquarters of
allied armies, the messages would instead be encrypted with the I.A. code”. Instructions were also
distributed for the protection of geophonic communication within the Brigades .
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40 Headquarters, 4 Army, I.T.O. Office, Message to the Supreme Headquarters - Operations Office and HQs, 21 October
1918, AUSSME, Series E1, env.90.
41 Chief Inspector STM, Relazione Tecnica sul Servizio Radiotelegrafico dell’Esercito operante, op. cit., p.12.
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42 Headquarters, 3 Army, General Staff, Collegamenti nella guerra di movimento (Links in the war of movement), 21 October
1918, AUSSME, Series E1, env. 111.
43 ibidem.

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