Current Issue
Previous Issues

The Regi Carabinieri:
Counterintelligence in the Great War
by ALESSANDRO MASSIGNANI -- abstract

The Royal Carabinieri was constituted in 1814 to defend the state and to be the primary branch of the Army. They were mobilized as Italy entered the Great War, deploying three battalions and two cavalry squadrons, which were disbanded in November 1915, to be incorporated into the major units of the Army to perform the duty of military police.
Having two upper echelons in the chain of command, the Interior and the War Ministries, the Carabinieri duties in wartime were counterintelligence and security (military police), as well as that of the defense of the State. The unexpected prolongation of the war and the corresponding expansion of the armed forces made an increase of the numbers of Carabinieri necessary.
By October of 1916, 2,500 men were raised. At the beginning of 1917, there were 52,390 police officers, of which 31,005 were devoted to the home front. Their role between military and civil fields, had become vitally important during the war.
In Italy, the fields of counterintelligence and intelligence were viewed with suspicion; the Army intelligence service was developed at the eve of the war by the amateurish activity of a group of officers while defences against espionage was not organised before the begining of the Great War.
The Carabinieri branch had to cooperate with the counterintelligence section of the secret services, reporting espionage suspects and performing operations the services needed.
The "Italian secret war" during the First Wor1d War does not offer great moments of glory. However, some good human sources were operating behind Austrian lines and the penetration of the office of the Austro-Hungarian navy at Zurich made it possible to eliminate part the Austro-Hungarian network in Italy. This several successful sabotage operations included the sinking of the battleships Leonardo da Vinci and Benedetto Brin.
According to an in house study of the Historical Office of the Carabinieri, the effectiveness of the Carabinieri was the result of a careful selection and training, but above all their membership of the Army, because the military condition, in fact, would were the basis of their sense of the duty.
The historical judgement is, that the out of the twelve operating intelligence services in Italy the Carabinieri "was one of most serious and effective even if contrasted with the competence of the organs of the Ministry of the Interior and that one of the Comando Supremo and of the War Ministry".