Before taking any final decision and attempting to study a means for conveying myself within the enemy lines, I decided to get a working knowledge of the great machine, of the delicate and intricate systems on which our service of information is based.
Many believe that the system of espionage is an extraordinary thing which is conducted entirely in the territory occupied by the enemy. Others imagine that all spy work resembles that done in spy plays, plays wherein a fascinating woman devises vast schemes with the help and collaboration of paid rascals. Both these elements exist in real espionage work, but to a much less degree than is commonly believed.
Our spy system subsidises various agencies abroad whose task is to gather and control all reports and rumors which may have a bearing on the national defense. But the majority of the reports which come from the interior regions of enemy countries are vague and not worthy of much consideration, because the persons who have been hired to send the reports cannot and must not always be believed. Furthermore, as it is not easy to get reports through the strict censorship offices established by every country, it is necessary to resort to ingenious tricks, to invisible inks, to a multitude of devices which tend seriously to delay the arrival of messages. As every report, even the most insignificant, is worth much more if sent with all haste than if delayed, it is usually more convenient not to make use of such informers. They may be valuable at times to give a general impression of internal conditions, of the troops, of the civilian population, and the food supply. Even this information, however, may be had without the use of such informers, by a careful perusal of the enemy newspapers. For although such papers are carefully censored before being sent abroad, nevertheless a vigilant and intelligent eye may gather from reading between the lines what the conditions obtaining in the country may be.
The most important part of our espionage system is conducted in our own territory, by sharpening our own spirit of observation, by seeking to gather everywhere all the many scattered rumors heard about the enemy. Details which at first may seem insignificant, may become extremely useful when compared with other details, collated with other observations and completed by detailed, careful investigations. The service of espionage is merely the application on a broad scale of a vast study of analysis and synthesis. It is nothing more than a police system which, instead of trying to discover the secrets of a small drama, seeks to investigate great causes, seeks to penetrate the essence of that great drama in which the major interests of two great nations, the future happiness of two great peoples are compromised. The two opposing armies even as they try to damage each other by the use of arms, endeavor also to bring ruin on each other by the use of an elaborate system of intrigues and disguises through which each tries to discover the secret of the other and to guard jealously his own.
The sources from which information is obtained differ widely. I shall discuss only the principal ones that I may place clearly before the reader the various means at my disposal were I to attempt to do what the Colonel proposed to me.
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!
