Under the nickname "Bazorka", he became an iconic figure who played an influential role in the Free French Forces fight against the Nazis in World War II.

The house of Zedginidze-Amilakhvari had formerly served as hereditary Master of the Horse to the Georgian Crown (Amilakhvari) and retained their princely dignity during the Imperial Russian rule of Georgia.

His father, Colonel Giorgi Zedginidze-Amilakhvari, also served in the Russian military and transferred his loyalty to the short-lived Democratic Republic of Georgia in 1918–1921.

After the Russian SFSR occupied Georgia early in 1921, the family fled to Istanbul, Ottoman Empire, where Dimitri attended a local British School, and later, in 1922, emigrated to France.

Following his naturalisation as a French citizen, he married another member of the exiled Georgian nobility, Princess Irina, née Dadiani (1904–1944) in August 1927.

[2] During the "Phoney War" before the German occupation of France, Amilakhvari was serving in Algiers in North Africa, but in the spring of 1940 he joined the French expeditionary force earmarked for the Norwegian Campaign.