[1] In the Second World War, he was captured in Tunisia but made chief of staff of the Italian Co-belligerent Army after the armistice of September 1943.

Emerging considerably decorated from these conflicts, he became aide-de-camp to King Victor Emmanuel III, holding this post from 1923 to 1927.

Following a successful period of service with this unit in the Second Italo-Abyssinian War, Messe was promoted to rank of major general and he became commander of the 3rd Cavalry Division.

In other circumstances, the armoured warfare experience Messe possessed might have caused him to be given a command alongside Erwin Rommel in North Africa.

The CSIR was a mobile infantry and cavalry unit of the Italian army that took part in Operation Barbarossa, the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union.

Messe fought a defensive campaign against the advancing British and allied forces, and was defeated at the Mareth Line.

Messe along with Kurt Freiherr von Liebenstein formally surrendered to British and New Zealand forces under General Bernard Freyberg.

After the war, Messe was one of the founders of "Armata Italiana della Libertà" (Italian Army of Liberty), an anti-Communist paramilitary was joined by some fifty generals and admirals.

His life was profiled in a biography written by Luigi Argentieri titled Messe—soggetto di un'altra storia (Messe—subject of another history) published in 1997.