John Eugène, 8th Count de Salis-Soglio

[citation needed] De Salis succeeded his father as Count de Salis-Soglio 37 years later in 1939, in the meantime he had been made and given a Bailiff Grand Cross, Order of Malta; the Order of the Crown of Roumania; a Chevalier Legion of Honour; and a Montenegrin Military Medal/Silver medal for bravery (1918).

[8][full citation needed] Delegate of the Order of St John of Jerusalem for revision of Geneva Convention 1929.

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.

[9][page needed] They set off on 6 October 1939, the party comprised: five staff, Fruity Metcalfe, de Salis and the Duke.

[10] Later in World War II 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.