Page 341 - The Secret War in the Italian front in WWI (1915-1918)

CONCLUSIONS

messages began, the control over foe communications, in scenarios well beyond the limits of the
Italian-Austrian front, provided relevant contributions to the Italian intelligence.
Given the reduction of Austrian field radio transmissions on the Italian front and following the
reorganisation of the Intelligence sector effected in October 1916, Luigi Sacco, and some members
of the radiotelegraphic office in Codroipo, were reassigned to manage the Cryptographic Unit of
the Intelligence Service in Rome, expecting they could also fill the gaps in specialised skills of
some Ministries, notably Foreign Affairs, Interior, and Navy.
After settling in Rome, the Cryptographic Unit started to break- in addition to some codes and
ciphers of the Austrian, German and even Turkish armies and navies - more than a few enemy and
neutral diplomatic codes, together with many systems used by actual or suspected spies.

Thanks to the abovementioned reorganization of the Intelligence sector, the intelligence tasks were
split between a ‘tactical’ component dedicated to investigating about the Austro-Hungarian army
on the Italian front entrusted to the Situation Office, and a ‘strategic’ element dealing with struc-
tures and political-economic issues of the Habsburg Empire assigned to the Intelligence Office,
now renamed Intelligence Service.
The year between the reform of October 1916 and the Twelfth Battle of the Isonzo was a ‘crucial
period’ for the entire Italian intelligence since it evolved into a complex organization with various
resources specialised in the numerous branches of Intelligence. The information network became
wider and stronger, including a larger number of important centres abroad, and the increasingly
disruptive force of the ethnic components within the Austro-Hungarian army was finally exploited .
4
Telephone interceptions carried out in even more extensive and systematic way became a relevant
information source, together with the development of traditional human intelligence - notably,
interrogation of prisoners and deserters, theft of enemy documents, reports from agents, etc. - and
of radio communications decrypting, albeit occasional.
In general, mass telephone interception carried out during WWI on all fronts yielded a significantly
greater amount of information than that obtained through cryptanalysis of radiotelegraphic
dispatches. On the other hand, due to the limited distances covered by eavesdropping stations -
usually less than one or two kilometres - the results of telephone listening were mainly of tactical
nature, even though tracking back strategic orders and instructions turned out to be feasible, in
some circumstances.
Only by reviewing the documents captured during their advance after Caporetto, the Austro-
Hungarian Headquarters became fully aware of the danger posed by the Italian extensive telephone
interception network. Throughout 1916 and most of 1917, Austrian underestimation of their
opponents’ capability in this field had given the Italian a significant competitive advantage.
Before the most important Austro-Hungarian attacks, the Italian intelligence structures provided
correct and timely information to their Headquarters. As a matter of fact, the reason behind some
so-called ‘surprise attacks’ was the result of factors external to the Intelligence Service, such as
the ‘filtering’ of data by General Staff offices which wanted to validate the personal convictions
of the ‘Boss’, instead of offering him objective contributions. In particular, the planning for the
Twelfth Battle of the Isonzo - like what happened before the Strafexpedition - was discovered
in time, including information about the main avenues of enemy attack. However, operational
presumptions prevailed which disregarded the possibility of enemy offensive operations at the
time and place they occurred.

4 The Information Centres were established in Paris, London, Bern, Lugano, Vlore, The Hague, Copenhagen, Stockholm,
Freetown, Christiania, Petersburg, Bucharest, Athens, Cairo, Thessaloniki, Corfu, and Buenos Aires.

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