Part 3
An essential element of modern espionage, one of the elements which has revolutionized all that was done and attempted in past wars, is the aeroplane. The small reconnoitring machine which flies over the enemy defenses at great heights, is almost safe from the fire of enemy anti-aircraft guns, and that the observer may make his observations unmolested and lose no time in defending himself from possible attacking enemy planes, several chasing machines are sent out with him as sort of guardian angels. Nothing should escape the vigilant, educated eye of the observer. His mind, well-acquainted with the enemy situation, his vision, accustomed to the appearance of terrain from on high, examines the roads, searches the railroads, observes both fields and camps, and since at times some detail may escape the notice of the observer, the other eye, the faithful lens of the camera, completes the picture by recording what the observer may have overlooked. These are exact, useful, tangible records of what has been seen; records which can be consulted under any circumstances.
The aeroplane is used in the field of tactics and in the field of strategy. In the former it is especially useful in compiling a series of uninterrupted photographs in which not a millimeter of the enemy’s territory escapes the sensitive negative. By studying these photographs one gathers a notion of the course of the enemy trenches and the position of their artillery. In the field of strategy the aeroplane penetrates far into the enemy territory to observe points of especial importance. After our retreat, for instance, at a certain time, it was necessary for our command to know whether the enemy had restored the bridges on the Isonzo, on the Tagliamento and on the Livenza. A patrol of five chasing machines started out together each entrusted with the task of observing and photographing a small zone. Several hours later, our command was informed of all it wanted to know. To frustrate these observations the enemy had recourse to several agencies.
“Camouflage,” introduced by the enemy to render everything less visible from on high, is now universally known. But besides this, there are other tricks used in warfare to fool the enemy. When we were on the Carso, during one of our offensives, while the enemy was amassing great forces to oppose our advance up the back of the Faiti, the aviators who for many days had been flying over the large valley of Brestovizza, were able to observe from on high long lines of wagons and great columns of artillery directed from Goyansco towards the Nabresina valley. From information later received from deserters we learnt that the wagons were empty, that the cannons were of wood, and that the enemy had planned all that complicated demonstration show of force as a fiction to deceive us about its real center of reinforcement. The Germans were also in the habit of constructing entire fictitious aviation camps so as to induce Allied aviators to believe that great offensive preparations were being centered at that point whereas in reality the enemy planes were gathering quietly elsewhere.
Similar methods have at times been adopted by us to protect our stations from enemy bombardments. At Udine the various stations were kept completely dark at night and nearby a fictitious station was erected which was always kept light, in the hope that some deceived aviator might waste his bombs upon it.
An important means of observing what happens behind the enemy lines are the Drago balloons. Their task is not only to direct the fire of our artillery and to discover, from the flashes, the position of the enemy guns, but to notice all that which happens within the inner lines of the enemy. Their observations are in certain cases more efficient than those from the aeroplanes, since being ever at a constant altitude, they can follow with greater attention every small particular.
Our balloons, for example, used to give the alarm to our chasers on the field every time an enemy plane arose. They observed all the movements of trains, so that we were able to compile a schedule of all arrivals and departures of Austrian trains, a feat which greatly aided us in the correct concentration of our fire.
The Drago balloons are also entrusted with the task of recording the aerial activities of the enemy. Every fifteen days, the observers in the balloons must record upon a special chart, the number of enemy planes and balloons which have passed over our lines, and indicate the exact line over which they passed. The study of these charts is extremely interesting. An attack is usually directed against the spot which has been most photographed, and over which the enemy planes have passed most frequently. Therefore, if a record of the enemy flights is kept, it is easy to deduct which points of our defense are most interesting to the enemy.
A practical method of discovering secrets of the enemy is the interception of the radio-telegrams which the enemy stations exchange among themselves. These telegrams, however, are always in code, and it is very difficult to learn the key to the code. There are certain cryptographers, highly experienced, who spend the entire day trying to decipher the hissing sounds which are intercepted by our receiving stations. At times they succeed in unraveling a few threads, but often, the enemy, who knows the heavy penalties to be paid by not changing codes frequently, has changed the mode of the cipher just when our experts had begun to understand it. It is all a duel of wits, a complicated game of stratagems and deceits, in which the adversaries study each other vigilantly in an attempt to take such advantage of any slight slip as may afford the opportunity for the striking of a fatal blow.
Another element of great importance are the intercepting telephone stations. Special detachments, highly trained and equipped with special devices, leave our trenches by night to lay telephone lines along the ground as near the enemy trenches as possible. Powerful microphones, capable of enlarging the smallest sound, receive the sound vibrations in their travel along the ground and transmit them to our lines where a person who knows German well, and all the languages and dialects spoken on the other side is delegated to listen day and night to such messages as are intercepted.
But counter-schemes have been found even for this method of espionage.
Telephone lines with double wires are the only ones used now near the front line trenches, and with these it is much simpler to intercept messages. Furthermore, orders were issued that all important communications be transferred in code language. An expert trained ear, and an alert mind, however, can readily unravel the little disguises and stock words used by the troops at the front. For example, it is not very difficult to interpret the significance of the following message overheard on the fifteenth of January by our station at Grave di Poppadopoli:
“Hello—Hello Adler. Who is on the wire?”
“Weiss. Bad day to-day.”
“The katzelmacher has molested us a great deal this morning. It has made a great noise with its rattle and we had three bananas and a few wounded. I beg you to send us by foreign exchange many caramels because those of the Kaiser Stellung are almost finished.”
This Kaiser Stellung was beginning to annoy us. For some time we had heard her mentioned continually in the messages we intercepted and had not been able to discover from the prisoners or others what the enemy referred to by that name. Purposely to keep us ignorant of its designs, the enemy troops opposite us had given special names to every important locality and position, names which differed from those assigned to them on the maps and charts. Finally, after numerous researches, we succeeded in guessing the three different points, each of which had the characteristics which we had noticed mentioned about the Kaiser Stellung. At a fixed hour, our artillery opened fire on all three points which we thought to be the Kaiser Stellung. Shortly after, one of our intercepting stations picked up the message, “Time, 1.15 P. M. The enemy has fired three shots of large caliber near the Kaiser Stellung. No wounded.” The Kaiser Stellung had been discovered!
There are also special observers in the trenches who compile nightly bulletins of every incident or sound which has been seen or heard in the adversary’s trenches. For example the observatory of Case Bressanin communicated on the night of January 13, that an unusual rumbling of carts was heard near the first lines and that all night there were many voices of persons apparently engaged in transporting material. The same night, the noise of pick-axes in use in the trenches was distinctly heard. The enemy was constructing bridgeheads in his trench lines. Periscopes, cunningly hidden in the trees, can examine the level ground of the zones nearby, but observations from them are not very fruitful because the enemy usually refrains from any movement during the daytime.
The most fruitful and interesting of the methods of getting information is the study of the documents found on prisoners and the questioning of prisoners and deserters. Often the prisoners have no desire to talk, and armed with the pride which every soldier should feel before the enemy, they refuse to give any interesting information about their own troops. But sometimes, that which cannot be obtained by frankness, is obtained through deceit.
In the rooms in the concentration camps in which the prisoners are placed, microphones which receive everything said in the room, even if in an undertone, have been installed. At the other end of the wire there is a constant attendant who listens and records everything, and often overhears something of importance.
But often one cannot trust to luck. It is at times necessary to force a conversation from an important prisoner supposedly in possession of many valuable secrets. And for this too, there is a method, if one knows how to be prudent. In the concentration camps there are always several persons, usually deserters from the other side, who have passed to our service. Whenever necessary these persons disguise themselves as prisoners and in this way they often succeed in gaining the confidence of the most reserved and those who have enveloped themselves in the most profound silence whenever questioned. When spoken to by these disguised prisoners they have at times revealed important news, in the belief that they were talking to a comrade.
In this service the Czechs have been especially valuable and have often furnished us with precious information. All these reports when compiled, all these details however insignificant at first sight, when sifted through the intelligence of a man accustomed to collect and co-ordinate, furnish our commanding officers with an exact notion of what is happening in the enemy territory. The news thus gathered is far more valuable than that which could be collected by spies two or three hundred miles inside the enemy lines. For example, let us examine the reports for several days in January:
(From questions asked a Czech prisoner of the 21st Infantry Regiment, on January 16.)
“It seems as if the Austrians are preparing a surprise attack to drive the Italians from their bridgehead at Capo Sile. The 21st Regiment will soon be relieved by a regiment of Hungarians.”
(From the observation post at Taglio of Sile.)
“_Night of January 17._ Heard the rumblings of wagons, and observed great commotion on the part of the enemy as though there had been the relief of a regiment.”
“_Time 9.35._ Our reconnoitring apparatus in front of the 23rd Corps has observed a column of wagons about half a mile long, near Torre di Mosto.”
(Observations from the Drago Balloon of the 23rd section bis. of Porte Grandi.)
“_Time 10.50._ Noticed great deal of dust along the road ‘La Salute Caorle.’
“_Time 11._ Long trains at the station of San Stino of Livenza. Smoking locomotive at the eastern end of the station. During the entire day it was noticed that two more trains arrived than during the other days, and that there was a great deal of unloading on the field near the above-mentioned station.”
(From the interception station at Chiesanuova.)
“_Time_ 1 P. M. (Hungarian language). Hello, Appony. Take good care of the stocks of artillery because I imagine it will be cold to-night. The Captain has ordered that all be at their stations by seven o’clock and that the cadet come back before night.”
All these details united and considered, caused the Colonel to believe that the enemy had planned a surprise attack for the night of January 18. Orders were accordingly given to the troops and the artillery and when, after a brief bombardment, a brigade of Hungarian soldiers attacked our advanced troops at the bridgehead of Capo Sile, and was boldly met by our troops, the enemy suffered heavy losses and was compelled to withdraw after having left several prisoners in our hands.
Such is the value of an acute intelligence service!
IV
That which had the greatest effect on me while at the intelligence office was a description by Lieut. Zannini of the life of the inhabitants of the invaded regions. He told me of their sufferings; he assured me that in every moment, every second, they feel Italian and the more the enemy tries to overcome their sentiments with violence, the greater grows within them the feeling of revolt and exasperation. Lieut. Zannini had been taken prisoner during the retreat and by disguising himself as a soldier prisoner had succeeded in living in hiding for several days among the peasants, who did all they could to protect him from the German gendarmes authorized to seize him. He told me that many of the Italian prisoners, especially those native to the invaded regions, had succeeded in establishing themselves with some family, which welcomed them indeed because a man was of great help in the work on the fields and in protecting the women from the enemy soldiers.
Throughout the invaded regions the enemy used our prisoners freely for work on the roads to construct the new railroad from Sacile to Vittorio. These prisoners, who are held without food and are compelled to sleep in unhealthy places, often attempt to escape. They wander about the country begging bread right and left, only returning to the concentration camp where the whipping post and the prison await them when they have become exhausted by suffering and privation.
Although the enemy’s hatred against our soldiers is great, they cannot always prevent the population from coming to our assistance. At times some of the prisoners, feigning sickness, or because they have special classification papers, are permitted by the Austrian authorities to reside for some time with an Italian family.
Now, why couldn’t I become a prisoner? Why, granted that I succeeded in passing to the other side, couldn’t I join one of these companies? The idea seemed commendable since I would then be able to approach some Austrian soldier, and who knows but that among them I might find one able to give me important information! Furthermore, the plan was especially suitable, since the largest concentration camp for prisoners was at Vittorio, and because at Vittorio also there was established the command of the sixth Austrian army and in the proximity of so important a command there is ever more likelihood of indiscretions. Vittorio is again a point of great strategical importance. At Vittorio begins the great road which leads to Belluno and the Cadore, beside the other road which crosses the valley of Folina to Vidor.
In the latest encounters it had been observed that the enemy had always attempted to force our front on the side of the Grappa. Therefore it would be interesting to attempt to know what was taking place within the enemy’s back area, where undoubtedly he was making huge preparations.
The fact that the German general Von Buelow himself had established his command at Vittorio, indicated the importance of this post. It was indeed one of those strategical points from which branch forth all the ramifications of the enemy’s efforts. At Vittorio I know the land inch by inch; at Vittorio too there remained several persons from my house who could help me greatly and find some food for me, for from all reports it appeared that the food supply in the invaded regions was continually getting worse and that it was difficult even to find a handful of flour with which to make bread.
Nor did it seem difficult to enter one of these concentration camps, because it was reported that the enemy had not as yet made a complete list of all those in the camps, and furthermore there were many with no qualifying mark except their uniform of Italian soldier. Who knows, but that if I were to succeed in passing for a prisoner I might not be detailed, as were certain of our soldiers, to act as automobilists or letter carrier for some Austrian command? That truly would be ideal for I then could have access to many reports which otherwise would escape me. For at bottom I had become convinced that enemy soldiers are little informed of what happens at headquarters. We Italians are ingenuous enough to believe that the humblest specimen from the enemy army knows all the plans of the enemy, whereas, having regard to the fact that the population which forms the Austrian army is as a whole of a lesser grade of intelligence, I believe that they are less informed of the plans than any one of our soldiers. I believed that should a spy try to get important information from a plain soldier he would learn little that would be interesting.
A further difficulty which however did not at once occur to me was that of establishing immediate communications with my own lines. Were I employed by the Austrian command, I certainly would have a great deal to do. The life of the two automobilists I had met was full of action and they had little peace either by night or by day. At times they even had to do the rounds for some enemy soldier if they wanted to get a bit of bread to appease their hunger. Therefore my time would be limited. How too could I explain my sudden disappearances, how explain to my companions all those complex secret manipulations necessary to establish communications with the other side? No, the plan of feigning to be a prisoner would not do. Some other plan had to be studied.
I really cannot understand why I worried my brain so hunting for something extraordinary when the simplest solution was to disguise myself as a peasant. No one can know better than I, who have lived in that region for so many years, the dialect, the customs of its peasants. It seemed therefore plausible that I should seek to become one of them, that I should essay to gain access to some isolated house unhaunted by enemy soldiers, there to establish my general headquarters whence I might get into communication with whatever favorable elements I might find in the nearby regions.
One of the methods I considered valuable for obtaining, without suspicion, the location of the enemy troops, was that of collecting such postcards and newspapers as soldiers often enough forget or leave in the houses where they have dwelt. For on the postcard, beside the address and the number of the regiment, there is always written the number of the Feld Post to which a soldier belongs and this number of the Feld Post corresponds to the number of the division to which the soldier belongs. It follows therefore that if I could communicate to our side many Feld Post numbers, they who had the division numbers corresponding to those of the Feld Post, would easily be able to compile the location of the enemy troops. This method then seemed to me the most feasible in that it did not entail such questions as might evoke suspicion, because the answers to my unspoken questions would be exact, and because before communicating a report it is ever necessary to have a document on which to base it.
The great difficulty of disguising myself as a peasant on account of my youthful aspect did however give me pause. I did not believe that those prisoners who succeeded in establishing themselves in the homes of friends in the invaded region were of my age, but rather men of an older class who furthermore caused the enemy to believe that they were yet older than in truth they were. Yet one way of conveying the impression that I was older than my years, was by growing a beard. I believed it would be well for me to let my beard grow, especially as many of the peasants of our regions, notably the mountaineers around Vittorio, have the habit of wearing a thick, untrimmed beard. I resolved then that from the morrow the barber should see me no more, in the hope that in a few weeks I should not recognize my own image in the mirror.
Lieut. Zannini, in his return flight to our own lines, made use of a small rowboat procured near Caorle. Through a small canal he reached the sea, and on a foggy night putting out further, succeeded in reaching our lines near Cortellazzo. Why couldn’t I do the same only in the opposite direction? It was true of course that Lieut. Zannini was directed towards our lines and that once he had passed the dangerous zone he had been certain of arriving among friends, whereas for me the difficulties were bound to increase rather than lessen as soon as I had arrived on the other side. Then too it was absolutely impossible to venture so blindly towards the enemy territory without the company of some fisherman from those regions who knew the coastline well and on what spot to make a landing. Quite true, but where were we to find such a fisherman and one willing to lend his services for so hazardous an undertaking?
One morning I consulted Lieut. Ancillotio about it. He is one of our expert pilots of chasing machines, and owns vast estates in the invaded regions, especially along the sea. Nearly all the lands of the lieutenant are interlaced with drainage canals. It appeared to me that perhaps one of his peasants would know the entire intricate system of canals which lead to the sea. It was no easy matter however to find a man sufficiently cold-blooded for an attempt at such an undertaking, and one possessing the proper physical and moral attributes necessary for its successful completion.
Who would assure me again that once we had arrived in enemy territory such a man would not lose his courage and betray me by some hasty move or a careless word? However, the more I thought of it, the more I was convinced that for such an enterprise I must have a trusted companion; and one not of officer rank lest there should develop two commands, and two opinions which at times might conflict. This companion must be simple, trustworthy, faithful; one whose sole task was tacitly to obey the orders received, and to be an instrument for furthering my plans and my decisions. There would be, too, moments in which I should need rest but I should not be able to sleep save someone be on guard. The greater my labor, the greater my efforts, the more necessary would it be for me to rest, that I might rebuild and restore my weakened energies for return to further work. In the same manner when my soldier should prove weary, I would stand on guard for him, and thus each would help the other.