Page 35 - The Secret War in the Italian front in WWI (1915-1918)

CHAPTER TWO

Origin and first development

2.1 THE PIEDMONTESE GENERAL STAFF AND ITS INTELLIGENCE ACTIVITIES

The royal corPs of general sTaff In The sardInIan arMy

The Italian military Intelligence Service derives from that established in the Kingdom of Sardinia
by Victor Emmanuel I after the Napoleonic period, when the Savoia family, coming back to Turin
in 1814, began to reconstruct the Army and to reform its High Command. The organisation and
functions of the Royal Corps of General Staff, created by the Decree of 12 November 1814, were
ruled by specific Resolutions, which included instructions about Intelligence activities .
1
A colonel was appointed head of the Corps with the title of Quartermaster-General, while in 1819,
this task was entrusted to a major general and in 1830 to a lieutenant general .
2
The Royal Patent of 6 October 1831, entitled Regolamento pel Real Corpo di Stato Maggiore
Generale della Regia Armata (Rules for the Royal Corps of General Staff of the Royal army) ,
3
established that in peacetime the Royal Corps’ main concerns entailed the collection of information,
especially military and topographic by patrolling “the areas of the kingdom that are more vulnerable
to attacks from the enemy” and mapping “the most strategic places, mainly in the bordering areas
of the state”. In wartime, the Corps had to “identify the enemy army’s lines, study the enemy’s
forces, positions, moves, trends, etc., and manage the services provided by guides, scouts, spies,
escorts, safeguards, etc.”
The Royal Carabinieri Corps established in July 1814, following the examples of the French
Gendarmerie and of the Gendarmerie of the Cisalpine Republic, was regulated by the ‘General
Rules’, approved on 12 October 1822, defining the Corps as “a force created to watch over public
security and to ensure law and order within the state and, on the battlefield, within the Royal army”.
The ‘Service Rules for Campaign Troops’, issued in January 1833 included detailed instructions
for the Royal Carabinieri Corps in war operations when its Officers had to “arrest marauders and
plunderers, keep unauthorised people away from troops and camps, monitor spies and suspects,
prevent unknown people from approaching the army troops and their quarters, chase and arrest
outlaws and deserters, […], provide Army Headquarters with all useful data in order to keep them
informed about the moves of the enemy” .
4
A whole chapter of the 1833 Rules was devoted to the “parties at war”. According to the ancient
military terminology, a partita or partito (party) was a corps of irregulars or of light regular troops

1 Determinazioni di S.M. per la nuova formazione, regolamento e doveri del Corpo dello Stato Maggiore Generale (King’s
decisions about new organization, rules and duties of the Corps of General Staff), Act of the Government no. 407, 26 June
1816, pp. 815-837.
2 By Royal Decree of 18 May 1850, The Royal Corps of General Staff changed its name to Royal Staff Corps and the office
of Quartermaster-General was replaced by that of General Commander (“Giornale Militare” of 1850, p. 335).
3 “Giornale Militare” of 1831, pp. 95-129.
4 Giornale Militare of 1833, p. 145-146. The Royal Decree of 1 May 1892 approved the new Regolamento Organico (Organic
Rules) and the Regolamento d’Istruzione e di Servizio (Training and Service Rules) for Royal Carabinieri officers that
repealed the General Rules of October 1822.

33