Page 67 - The Secret War in the Italian front in WWI (1915-1918)

CHAPTER FOUR

The first period of War: challenges and new tasks

4.1 INTELLIGENCE AND SITUATION OFFICES ENTER THE WAR

The MobIlIsaTIon

At the time of the mobilisation, the Intelligence Office, also known as I Office (I stands for
Informazioni) of the Headquarters of the General Staff Corps directed by Colonel Rosolino
Poggi, relied on seven staff officers plus 18 officers from the combat arms, two officers from the
1
Carabinieri, nine officers as interpreters and translators, and one public security officer.
A brief description of its organisation is found in the Office logs kept since 22 May 1915, date of
the general mobilisation, issuing:

The Office - located in the usual rooms on the mezzanine floor of the offices of the Headquarters
of the General Staff Corps in Rome - consists of a Secretariat, the 1 and the 2 Intelligence
st
nd
Sections, a Counterintelligence and Military Police Section and an Encoding Section. The 2
nd
Section was responsible for collecting, screening, and transmitting information concerning
the border from the Stelvio to Peralba. The 1 Section had assigned similar functions for the
st
border from Mount Peralba to the Adriatic Sea.
Following mobilisation, most of the Intelligence Office staff moved to the Office with the same
name at the Supreme Command in Udine. A small team remained in Rome to create the ‘Territorial
Intelligence Office’, in charge of maintaining the relations with the government bodies in the Capital .
2
On 23 May 1915, the logs of the Intelligence Office reported: “All preparations are being made for
the departure for Treviso”, where the bulk of the Office arrived on the morning of the 25 . The I
th
Office soon changed its name after it was assigned the Encoding Section of the Supreme Command
and became known as the “Intelligence and Encoding Office”.
The logs also inform that the ‘detached’ offices formed in April 1915 and located in Milan, Verona,
Brescia, Palmanova, Udine, Tolmezzo, and Belluno passed immediately under the jurisdiction of
the Armies , merging with the Intelligence Offices of the Armies, except for the Milan Office, which
3
became the ‘Special Military Office’. It was tasked with the coordination of informer networks in
Switzerland, Austria-Hungary, and Germany - having their collection centre in Bern - and with the
counterespionage activities in the border area between Italy and Switzerland .
4

1 Rosolino Poggi had replaced Colonel Silvio Negri in September 1912. The Staff Officers were: Lieutenant Colonel Giovanni
Garruccio, Major Giuseppe Boriani, and Captains Carlo Bergera, Emilio Granelli, Odoardo Marchetti, Camillo Caleffi, and
Carlo Vecchiarelli.
2 It served also as a relay station for telegraphic communications from abroad, directed to the war zone.
3 Logs of the Intelligence Office, AUSSME, Series B-1, 100/S, 1a. The 1 Army received the previous offices of Verona and
st
Brescia; 4 Army that of Belluno; the Carnia Area Headquarters, that of Tolmezzo; and the 2 and 3 Armies received those
rd
nd
th
of Udine and Palmanova, respectively.
4 The Military Special Office (formerly Detached Office) merged with the Monographs and Guides Office. It settled in the
premises of the latter in the Magenta Barracks in via Mascheroni. In 1916, other Special Counterespionage Offices were
activated in Feltre, Vicenza, etc.
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