355 lines
15 KiB
Plaintext
Executable File
355 lines
15 KiB
Plaintext
Executable File
news
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obituaries
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military-obituaries
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7866571
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-----
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# Amedeo Guillet
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## Amedeo Guillet, who died on June 16 aged 101, was the Italian officer who
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led the last cavalry charge faced by the British Army.
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![Amedeo Guillet][1]
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Image 1 of 2
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Amedeo Guillet in Ethiopia, 1936
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![Amedeo Guillet][2]
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Image 1 of 2
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Amedeo Guillet leading his men to war
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5:59PM BST 01 Jul 2010
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[Comments][3]
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Early in 1941, following outstanding successes in the Western Desert, the
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British invasion of Mussolini's East African empire seemed to be going like
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clockwork.
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![Amedeo Guillet's mistress, Khadija][4]
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Amedeo Guillet's mistress, Khadija
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But at daybreak on January 21, 250 horsemen erupted through the morning mist
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at Keru, cut through the 4/11th Sikhs, flanked the armoured cars of Skinner's
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Horse and then galloped straight towards British brigade headquarters and the
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25-pound artillery of the Surrey and Sussex Yeomanry.
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Red Italian grenades - "like cricket balls" - exploded among the defenders,
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several of whom were cut down by swords. There were frantic cries of "Tank
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alert!", and guns that had been pointing towards Italian fortifications were
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swivelled to face the new enemy.
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At a distance of 25 yards they fired, cutting swathes through the galloping
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horses but also causing mayhem as the shells exploded amid the Sikhs and
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Skinner's Horse.
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After a few more seconds the horsemen disappeared into the network of wadis
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that criss-crossed the Sudan-Eritrean lowlands.
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It was not quite the last cavalry charge in history - the unmechanised Savoia
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Cavalry regiment charged the Soviets at Izbushensky on the Don in August 1942.
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But it was the last one faced by the British Army, with many soldiers
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declaring it the most frightening and extraordinary episode of the Second
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World War.
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Amedeo Guillet was born in Piacenza on February 7 1909 to a Savoyard-
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Piedmontese family of the minor aristocracy which for generations had served
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the dukes of Savoy, who later became the kings of Italy.
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He spent most of his childhood in the south - he remembered the Austrian
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biplane bombing of Bari during the First World War - then followed family
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tradition and joined the army.
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After the military academy at Modena, he chose to join the cavalry and began
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training at Pinerolo, where Italian horsemanship under Federico Caprilli had
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earlier in the century won world renown - the current "forward seat" and
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modern jumping saddles evolved there.
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Guillet excelled as a horseman and was selected for the Italian eventing team
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to go to the Berlin Olympics in 1936. But Mussolini's invasion of Ethiopia in
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1935 interrupted his career as a competition rider. Instead, using family
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connections, he had himself transferred to the Spahys di Libya cavalry with
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which he fought repeated actions.
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He also witnessed aerial gas attacks on Emperor Haile Selassie's lightly armed
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warriors, which appalled world opinion. In Guillet's view, gas was largely
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ineffectual against an unentrenched enemy which could flee, and he himself was
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fighting with horse, sword and pistol.
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At Selaclacla, after using the hilt of his sword to dislodge an Ethiopian
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warrior who had grabbed him around the waist, Guillet received a painful wound
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to the left hand when a bullet hit the pommel of his saddle.
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Decorated for his actions, he was flattered to be chosen a year later by
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General Luigi Frusci as an aide de camp in the "Black Flames" division, which
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was sent to support Franco in the Spanish Civil War. It was the first post
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Guillet had been offered without family influence.
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There he suffered shrapnel wounds and helped capture three Russian armoured
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cars and crews. But the atrocities he witnessed on both sides were a sobering
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experience for Guillet, who deplored what he saw of Italy's German allies
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during their intervention.
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No longer a uncritical, puppyish subaltern, Guillet returned to Italy and
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Libya. He echoed the views of many in disapproving of the pro-Nazi alliance of
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the regime and absurdities such as the anti-Semitic race laws.
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With growing disgust for Europe, Guillet asked for a posting to Italian East
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Africa, where another family acquaintance, the royal prince Amedeo, Duke of
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Aosta, had been appointed viceroy to replace the brutal and inept Marshal
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Graziani. By this time Guillet had also become engaged to his beautiful
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Neapolitan cousin Beatrice Gandolfo, and their intention was to make a life
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for themselves in Italy's new empire.
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Mussolini's decision to enter the war on the side of Germany in May 1940 ended
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these dreams, cutting off Italian East Africa, which was surrounded by the
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territories of its enemies, and separating Amedeo from his fiancee, who
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remained in Italy.
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Aosta gave Guillet command of the locally recruited Amhara Cavalry Bande, as
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well as 500 Yemeni infantry - approximately 2,500 men. With almost no armour,
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the Italians used Guillet's horsemen to delay the advance of the British 4th
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and 5th Indian Divisions when they crossed the Eritrean frontier in January
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1941.
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Guillet's actions at Keru, and subsequent hand-to-hand fighting at Agordat,
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helped allow the Italian army to regroup at the mountain fortress of Keren,
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where it mounted its best actions in the entire war. After nearly two months,
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however, the British broke through, and the road to Eritrea's capital, Asmara,
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lay clear.
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Most of the Italian army surrendered, but Guillet refused to do so. Aosta had
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ordered his officers to fight on to keep as many British soldiers as possible
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in East Africa, while the new German commander in the Western Desert, Rommel,
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sought to reverse the earlier Italian disasters.
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For nine months Guillet launched a series of guerrilla actions against British
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troops, plundering convoys and shooting up guard posts. At his side was his
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mistress, Khadija, an Ethiopian Muslim, for he never believed he would ever
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see Italy or Beatrice again. Two curious British intelligence officers pursued
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him: Major Max Harrari, later an urbane art dealer who would become Guillet's
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close friend, and the driven intellectual Captain Sigismund Reich, of the
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Jewish Brigade, who was eager to get on with the task of killing Germans.
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Despite their attentions, Guillet managed to escape across the Red Sea to
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neutral Yemen, where he became an intimate friend of the ruler, Imam Ahmed. He
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sneaked back to Eritrea in 1943 in disguise, and returned to Italy on the Red
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Cross ship _Giulio Cesare_, where he was reunited with Beatrice.
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The couple married in April 1944 and he spent the rest of the war as an
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intelligence officer, befriending many of his former British enemies from East
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Africa.
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In the postwar world, Guillet joined the diplomatic service and, as his Arabic
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was fluent, served in the Middle East. In 1950s Yemen, he and Beatrice were
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the only non-Muslims permitted to live within the walls of Sana'a and Taiz.
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British visitors were struck by his easy friendship with his neighbours in the
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souk, as well as the incongruity of foxhunting prints decorating his walls.
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Guillet later served as ambassador in Jordan and Morocco, and finally India.
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In 1975 he retired to Ireland, where he had bought a house 15 years earlier
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for the peace and quiet and to enjoy the foxhunting.
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A generous, giving man, with a disarming innocence to his character, Guillet
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would frequently liken himself to Don Quixote, but say that those who found
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him ridiculous were the true fools.
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He always said he was the luckiest man he knew - surviving British and
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Ethiopian bullet wounds, Spanish grenade fragments and a sword cut to the
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face, as well as numerous bone fractures from riding accidents.
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He celebrated his 100th birthday in Rome in February last year at the army
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officers' club in the Palazzo Barberini, where the royal march was played and
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friends gathered from Ireland, the Middle East and India - as well as those
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members of the Italian royal family still on speaking terms with each other.
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Amedeo Guillet is survived by two sons, Paolo and Alfredo. Beatrice
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predeceased him in 1990.
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Guillet.html
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Telegraph
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## [Military Obituaries][10]
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* ### [News »][11]
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* ### [Obituaries »][12]
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* ### [Army Obituaries »][13]
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In news
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[![Lt-Col Eric Wilson][14] ][15]
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### [Lieutenant-Colonel Eric Wilson, VC][15]
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[![][16] ][17]
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### [Norman Jackson, VC][17]
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[![][18] ][19]
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### [Rear-Admiral Godfrey Place, VC][19]
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[![Lise Villameur][20] ][21]
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### [Lise Villameur][21]
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[![Gaje Ghale][22] ][23]
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### [Captain Gaje Ghale, VC][23]
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