Rilevamento speciale in Francia e in Italia durante la Prima Guerra mondiale. Vito Volterra e il servizio fonotelemetrico
Résumé
During the First World War, new engines and new ways to do war appeared: among these the “special detection” of enemy batteries or the determination of the position of the shooting cannon on map by sound. Focusing respectively on a French detector, the Cotton-Weiss, and on the Italian fonotelemetro and their respective community of actors, my aim is to place the instrument in its working context. Taking into account the Italian context in particular, the sound detection mobilised a large community of scientists in the Servizio fonotelemetrico which Vito Volterra annexed to his recent creation: the Ufficio invenzioni. Focusing on the techniques, I will also show that the more “rudimentary” or less precision of the instrument makes no sense when considered in the logic of its military use. Indeed, even if abandoned after the war, the special detection was at the origin of new fecund domains of scientific and military investigations, as the submarine detection.