Page 45 - The Secret War in the Italian front in WWI (1915-1918)

CHAPTER TWO

According to the new mobilisation tables, in 1902 the intelligence functions were taken away from
the Operations Division and transferred to the ‘Intelligence Secretariat’, an independent office
under the command of Colonel Vincenzo Garioni, who reported to the Secretariat of the Chief of
the Army Staff.
In 1903, the Chief of the Army Staff, General Tancredi Saletta, who had replaced Domenico
Primerano, reorganised the Headquarters of the General Staff Corps, and transformed the Southern
Theatre into a Colonial Office with jurisdiction, among other things, over the Italian colonial
possessions. After the bitter experience of the Battle of Adwa, the Headquarters of the General Staff
Corps was finally involved in the operational planning process and in the search of information
aimed at supporting the Italian forces deployed in Eritrea .
31
From August 1906, the Secretariat of the Chief of the Army Staff included the ‘Special Intelligence
Secretariat’, under the direction of Colonel Silvio Negri, who had replaced Garioni in July 1905 .
32
The following November, that Secretariat became an Office as permanent part of the General
Staff Corps and embracing a Military Intelligence Section and a Secret Information Section .
33
The Office, gaining larger importance and autonomy, was placed under the direct authority of the
Chief of the Army Staff.
The entire structure of the Headquarters of the General Staff Corps, shown in picture 2.4, takes also
into account the organisational changes made in 1907, when the Istruzioni per il Funzionamento
Interno del Comando del Corpo di Stato Maggiore (Instructions for the internal functioning of the
Headquarters of the General Staff Corps) came into force to govern every activity of the Army’s
operational leadership, including Theatres.
The Western Theatre had to deal with fortifications and military forces of France, Switzerland,
Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, and their colonies” .The Eastern Theatre carried out
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the same tasks, for Germany, Austria-Hungary, Russia, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and their
colonies, as well as Asian countries under Russian influence. The Section for Austria-Hungary of
this Theatre collected information about “the imperial Austro-Hungarian military forces, reporting
and updating the structure of the Austro-Hungarian Army and the most important political-military
information about that Country” .
35
The Colonial Office extended its jurisdiction over: the Eritrean colony, Benaadir, independent
African countries; colonial troops and troops deployed abroad; the Mediterranean Sea, Albania,
Tripolitania; Balkan countries, Britain, the USA and their colonies, South America, Japan, China,
and independent Asian countries.

31 Agenda of the Office of the Chief of Army Staff no.6, 28 March 1903, AUSSME, L-3 Series, env.297.
32 Office of the Chief of the Army Staff, Agenda no.37, 3 August 1906, Ripartizione degli uffici e personale che vi è addetto
(Subdivision of Offices and of the addicted personnel), AUSSME, L-3 Series, env.297.
33 Istruzione per il funzionamento interno del Comando del Corpo di Stato Maggiore (Instruction concerning the internal
operation of the Headquarters of the General Staff Corps), Ufficio ordinamento 1874-1955, 1907, AUSSME, F-4 Series,
env.8.
34 In 1900, monographs were completely reorganized into two new Series: the former including geographical-strategical
monographs, the latter military guidebooks. In November 1913, there was a new reorganisation of the monographs.
35 Headquarters of the General Staff Corps’s, Promemoria circa i lavori compiuti dalla sezione A/U nel decennio 1897-1907
(Memorandum on the works carried out by section A/U In the years 1897-1907), 2 December 1907.

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