Page 68 - The Secret War in the Italian front in WWI (1915-1918)

THE SECRET WAR ON THE ITALIAN FRONT IN WWI (1915 – 1918)

About the Intelligence Offices of the Armies, O. Marchetti wrote: “they initially consisted of a
Captain as the head of the office and some other officer and continued to work as in the detached
offices they came from. […] Soon the heads of those offices found themselves engaged with
prisoners and deserters, who became the almost exclusive focus of their activities” .
5
General Order 1 of 26 May summarised the organisation and mission of the Intelligence Office. In
addition to a Secretariat and two Intelligence Sections, it embraced the following sections: Military
Police and Counterintelligence; Encoding; Translators and Interpreters; Available Officers and,
where appropriate, the Press Section .
6
Each Intelligence Section, responsible for two distinct areas of the front, included a Military Intelligence
Unit dealing with information on composition, strength, location, and movements of opposing troops;
a Field and Politico-
Military Intelligence
Unit, and a Situation and
Correspondence Team
which updated the locations
of both national and enemy
troops of the opposing forces
on detailed maps. It also
dealt with correspondence
with the depending agents.
On 25 May, the War
Situation Office was also
mobilised in Treviso and
assigned to Lieutenant
Colonel Alberico Albricci.
4.1 Alberico Albricci (on the left) Chief of the War Situation Office until It relied on three sections
February 1916 and Enrico Tellini Chief of the same Branch until July 1917 and nine officers .
7

fIrsT sTrucTural changes

On May 30, the transfer of the Intelligence Office to Udine began . In the early days of operations,
8
several modifications occurred to the structure and responsibilities of the Intelligence Office. The
need of initial adjustments depended on many factors such as the importance of this essential
and sensitive branch, the many kinds of Office tasks and the vastity of the covered front, without
forgetting that the information needs regarded areas more extensive than the Italian front alone.
Moreover, the overlapping responsibilities of Intelligence Office and the War Situation Office
soon became evident, especially about the definition of the battle order and the location of enemy
forces on the ground.

5 Odoardo Marchetti, op. cit., pp. 77-81. The Intelligence Offices of the Armies reported to two entities. The Chief of Staff
of the Army Headquarters was the superior officer on the hierarchical side, while the Intelligence Office of the Supreme
Headquarters was the superior entity on the technical side.
6 Intelligence Office, Diari prima guerra mondiale (Logs of World War I), AUSSME, Series B-1 Series 100/S, 1a.
7 Lt. Col. Enrico Tellini replaced Albricci in February 1916 and was replaced in July 1917 by Colonel Riccardo Calcagno.
8 The new Headquarters, which also had an interrogation room, was hosted inside the Iacopo Stellini school and directly
connected with all the remaining branches of the Operations Division. By 8 June, the French, British and Russian liaison
missions joined the Supreme Command in Udine.

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