John Eugène, 8th Count de Salis-Soglio: Difference between revisions

Lt. Colonel John Eugène, 8th Count de Salis, FRGS, Graf v. Salis-Soglio, (*Brüssel 4.10.1891-†London 12.6.1949), eldest son of Sir John Francis Charles de Salis, KCMG, CVO, 7th Count de Salis, of the Holy Roman Empire, of Lough Gur House, Monasteranenagh, Kilmallock, Co. Limerick, and the Grisons, Switzerland. Succeeded his father 1939. Baliff Grand Cross, Order of Malta; Order of the Crown of Roumania; Chevalier Legion of Honour; Montenegrin Military Medal/Silver medal for bravery (1918).

Educated at Jesuit Beaumont College and Balliol College, Oxford 1910–1914, (4th modern history 1914, BA., MA 1917). At Oxford he won the Officers' Training Corps' Company and Long Range Cups, and the Officers' Challenge Cup; was in the Snap-shooting team; won 2nd prize, Half-section Jumping, O.T.C. v Cambridge; was in the Oxford University Fencing Club (Sabres) v. Cambridge in 1913 and 1914.

Loughgur House: the family residence in the heart of County Limerick.

Soldier & Diplomat

Served in WWI, the European War 1914-19, in 1st Life Guards and Irish Guards (Lt. September 1914), twice wounded, 15 September 1916 and July 1917; Captain on special service in the Balkans. Attached British Embassy, Paris, as an assistant to military attaché, 1918–19; entered Diplomatic Service, 1920; appointed 3rd Secretary, Washington; transferred Tokyo, 1921-22. Aide-de-Camp to the Earl of Lytton when Governor of Bengal, 1925–27; Adjutant Indian Army Rifle Team, 1927–29; Commandant Indian Army Rifle Team, 1930–34. Delegate of the Order of St John of Jerusalem for revision of Geneva Convention 1929. Served War of 1939–45; Captain on Military Mission under War Cabinet Office: France 1939-40, here Captain Count John de Salis was drafted last minute, replacing a Captain Purvis, nominally as the HRH the Duke of Windsor's translator for his controversial trip to France in October 1939 and in co-writing his Report on Visit to the First French Army and Detachments D'Army des Ardennes. Writing in 2012 in his book The Duke of Windsor's War, Michael Bloch describing this expedition speaks of: 'the brilliant and subtle de Salis', as 'a delightful secret service diplomatist with cosmopolitan connections who, by an extraordinary coincidence, had known the Duchess (then Mrs Earl Winfield Spencer) while attached to the Washington Embassy in the early 1920s.'They set off on 6 October 1939, the party comprised: five staff, Fruity Metcalfe, de Salis and the Duke.

Later in WW2 he was Senior Civil Affairs Officer (SCAO) for Asmara and Hamasien, Eritrea, 1943–44; Lt. Col.; Aide-de-Camp to Field Marshal Lord Alexander, who was commander-in-chief of the British forces in the campaign for the liberation of Italy from 1943 to 1945.

Wife

He married in Rome 8.3.1947 Maria Camilla Presti di Camarda, (born 23.1.1926, died Richmond 1.5.1953), daughter of General Umberto de Presti by Teresa Vignola. They had one son and heir: John de Salis. (She married secondly, London, 10.7.1950, Lt. Colonel Rudolf Albert Freiherr v. Salis-Jenins-Aspermont, DSO., (born Mexico 3.7.1898, died London 27.5.1958), 4th Cavalry, Indian Army, Lt. 1917. A Mexican born cousin of her husband, who had been naturalized as a British Citizen on 6 December 1915.

References

• Burke's Peerage, Foreign Noblemen / Foreign Titles sections: 1851, 1936, 1956, etc.
• Debrett's Peerage, Foreign Titles section, 1920, 1925, etc.
• Burke's Irish Family Records, ed. Hugh Montgomery-Massingberd, Burke's Peerage Ltd, London, 1976.

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