Page 86 - The Secret War in the Italian front in WWI (1915-1918)

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

Regarding the relationships between the Intelligence Office and the Situation Office, the latter
never really accepted to receive from the former all the information it needed to keep the Chief
of Staff constantly abreast of the situation of enemy forces […]. Therefore, it had organized its
own irregular intelligence service, which tended to overlap with the regular service performed
by my branch. […] The competing Office always managed to impose its own views, especially
because of the more frequent and direct contacts it could keep, due to the specific nature of
its own functions, with the Secretariat of the Supreme Commander and with him personally.
Thus, after about a year of troubles and frictions, I finally succeeded in implementing a more
rational distribution of tasks between the two Offices .
5

The reorganIzaTIon of The InTellIgence secTor
In October 1916, the Intelligence of the Army was
completely reorganized and subdivided into two distinct
areas. One of them, dealing with the war zone, was assigned
to the War Situation and Operations Office of the Supreme
Command, which incorporated the first two sections of
the Intelligence Office . The Intelligence Offices of the
6
Armies were placed under its technical supervision. The
other sector comprehensive of the remaining parts of
the previous Intelligent Office and named ‘Intelligence
Service of the Supreme Command’, dealt with the rear
line and foreign countries. Its main branch was transferred
from Udine to Rome.
As a matter of fact, the Intelligence Office/Service lost part
of its responsibilities regarding the reconstruction of the
enemy military organization - which was assigned to the
Situation Office - and focussed on the relationships with
centres abroad and with the missions to Allied Countries,
on economic matters, on information collected in the rear 5.1 General Carlo Porro, Assistant Chief
line and on counterintelligence . of Army Staff, supervising the Intelligence
7
The adopted settlement aimed not only to solve the disputes Office from 1915 to November 1917
between the Intelligence Office and the Situation Office,
which took over the entire responsibility of assessing enemy battle order and intentions, but also
to make more effective the information transmission chain. In fact, all the information collected
by the two Sections previously included in the Intelligence Office, as well as the information from
the Armies, could now immediately reach the bureau charged with its processing and arranging
to be as fruitful as possible.

5 Commission of Enquiry on the Battle of Caporetto, Minutes of General Garruccio’s questioning before the Commission,
AUSSME, series H-4, env.30.
6 The two Intelligence Sections of the Intelligence Service were incorporated and continued to receive all the military or
political-military news collected by the service yet, they were now reporting to the Chief of the War Situation and Operations
Office.
7 Once the war was over, the Intelligence Office of the Supreme Headquarters wrote: “During the war […] the bodies of the
Intelligence Service, both in the country and abroad, focused on the collection and analysis of all political economic, financial,
commercial and industrial news that could in any case be related with the military situation on the front line, as well as on the
effectiveness of the block that the Allies had created and surrounding enemy countries (Intelligence Office, letter no.480/S,
22 August 1919, AUSSME, Series F-3, env.28.

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