Page 71 - The Secret War in the Italian front in WWI (1915-1918)

CHAPTER FOUR

Austro-Hungarian armies, the progress of operations at the front, and the economic and financial
situations.
The exchange of information with the Allied intelligence services was of utmost importance for
the reconstruction of the war scenarios of the enemy powers and the deployment of their higher
echelons on the European fronts. Cooperation with the Russian mission was crucial to control the
frequent movements of the Austro-Hungarian units from the eastern front to the Italian one and vice
versa. Given the intense trade and imports of arms and equipment from France (see picture 4.3), the
relations with the French mission were particularly tight.
The Italian intelligence service in France
took care of two activities: the first one was
military, conducted mostly in a war zone
under the control of the Paris Intelligence
Centre; the other - entrusted to a special
detached section - involved the liaison with
the intelligence services of the Entente. The
heads of the Allied intelligence services,
meeting in Paris in mid-September 1915,
decided to establish a Bureau Interallìée de
l’Etat Major de l’Armée (Interallied Office
at the General Staff of the French Army), to
be integrated in the French 2 Bureau. To 4.3 Equipment for aerial photographs, made in France
eme
this purpose, in October 1915, all the armies and used by the Italian Air Force Corps
of the Entente detached a Mission près du
Ministère de la Guerre (Mission at the War Ministry), each becoming a section of the Interallied
Office. The Italian section had minimal staff, with one officer and six other ranks; it was headed
by Colonel Nicola Brancaccio, also responsible for the Paris Intelligent Centre .
16
In November 1916, disagreements between the Italian and French representatives led to the
withdrawal of the Italian section from the French Ministry of War. On the other hand, the
relationships of the Italian Intelligence Service Officers with their French colleagues as well
as with the Maison de la Presse (Press House) and the French censorship bodies were never
broken.

PrIsoners and deserTers quesTIonIng
Among the sources of information regarding the Austro-Hungarian army, the questioning of enemy
prisoners and deserters covered a major role to reconstruct the battle order of the enemy army, to
know its offensive intentions and to get an idea of the morale of its troops .
17

16 The Bureau Interallìès attended to several tasks, namely the mail and telegraph checks, passport checks, control over
press and propaganda, economic limitations, censorship over press, navigation police, inter-allied propaganda, exchange of
deserters and people who failed to report for conscription, border surveillance, drafting and distribution of the list of suspects,
unification of the intelligence services of neutral states.
17 According to circular letter no.113, 28 June 1915 on Trattamento ed interrogatorio dei prigionieri e disertori (Handling
and Interrogation of Prisoners and Deserters), the Corps’ Headquarters were required to notify the Intelligence Office of
the Supreme Command by telegraph, the number and rank of captured soldiers and accepted deserters, the unit to which
they belonged, the location and day of capture or presentation (Filippo Cappellano, Servizio Informazioni e posta militare
nemica, in Gilda Gallerati - Cosmo Colavito, La comunicazione nella grande guerra, Conference, Ministry of Economic
Development, Rome, 2016).

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