John Francis Charles, 7th Count de Salis-Soglio

Sir John Francis Charles de Salis, 7th Count de Salis (19 July 1864 – 14 January 1939) was an Anglo-Irish British diplomat and landowner
Family background.
He was the elder son of Count John Francis William de Salis (1825–1871), a diplomat and numismatist of Hillingdon, and Amelia Frances Harriet (1837 – 8 January 1885), eldest daughter of Christopher Tower, JP DL MP, (1800–84), of Huntsmoor Park, Iver, Buckinghamshire, and of Weald Hall, Essex.
Diplomatic career.
After being educated at Eton (1877–1882, Edward Compton Austen Leigh's house) he was nominated an attaché in the diplomatic service on 20 November 1886. He passed a competitive examination on 14 January 1887. On 12 June 1888 he was appointed to Brussels as an attaché and promoted to Third Secretary on 14 January 1889. From 24 April 1892 he served in Madrid, and was promoted to Second Secretary on 22 August 1893. From August 1894 he served in Cairo under Lord Cromer in charge of the agency there when the Dervishes were active (he was granted an allowance for knowledge of Arabic on 2 April 1895). In autumn 1897 he was in Berlin, in 1899 in Brussels and from 1901 in Athens, as head of chancery (dealing with the Macedonian problem). He was promoted to First Secretary on 1 April 1904. He was employed between 1901–06 at the Foreign Office in London, and appointed a British Delegate for negotiation of a new Commercial Convention with Romania on 7 September 1905. He served as Berlin chargé d'affaires and counsellor of embassy from 1 July 1906 to 1911, and was a British delegate at the International Copyright Conference at Berlin, October–November 1908. From November 1911 to 1916 he served as Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the King of Montenegro at Cettinjé, and was Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary on a special mission to the Holy See in 1916–1923, (Pope Benedict XV 1916-1922, and same to Pope Pius XI 1922-1923). He was a member of the 1931 Malta Royal Commission (report issued in a blue book, 11 February 1932).
De Salis Report.
In 1919 the British Government sent de Salis to investigate the Serbian occupation of Montenegro, but his resulting report was suppressed. Alexander Devine in "The Martyred Nation", 1924 wrote: "The fact is the Report contains such a damning indictment of Serbian rule that its publication would immediately provoke interference; and that interference did not suit our policy towards the French Government".
In the House of Commons, Ronald McNeill repeatedly asked about production of the Report and De Salis's possible arrest. But as Devine put it: "When the day came that Mr. McNeill found himself Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs in the late Conservative Ministry, the Report was on his desk in the Foreign Office and Mr. McNeill could no more disclose its contents than his predecessors could". Meanwhile, Lord Sydenham in the House of Lords, "Hansard", 29 November 1920 said:
In a letter, dated New York, 1 May 1922, published in "The New York Times", 7 May 1922, Ronald Tree described the Count as:
'..perhaps the greatest English authority on the Balkans'.
In April 1920, months after the possible event, an alleged arrest and imprisonment by the Serbians, the "New York Times" reported:
The sensitivity of the issue is shown by the fact that only one of his four obituaries in "The Times" (1939) (19 January 1939, page 17, column D) mentions his Montenegran Report, although not the arrest.
Marriage.
He married in 1890 Hélène Marie de Riquet, Comtesse de Caraman-Chimay (18 August 1864 – 31 May 1902), daughter of Marie Eugène Auguste de Riquet, Prince de Caraman-Chimay, son of Joseph de Riquet de Caraman (1808-1886), 17th Prince de Chimay and 1st Prince de Caraman.
External links.
[[Category:1864 births|Salis]]
[[Category:1939 deaths|Salis]]
[[Category:Counts of Salis|John Francis Charles]]
[[Category:Counts de Salis-Soglio and Comtes de Salis-Seewis]]
[[Category:19th-century Irish landowners]]
[[Category:People educated at Eton College|Salis]]
[[Category:Ambassadors of the United Kingdom to the Holy See]]
[[Category:Ambassadors of the United Kingdom to Montenegro]]
[[Category:Swiss nobility]]
[[Category:People from Hillingdon]]
[[Category:British Roman Catholics]]
[[Category:19th-century Anglo-Irish people]]
[[Category:20th-century Anglo-Irish people]]
[[Category:Catholic Unionists]]
[[Category:English archivists]]
[[Category:Converts to Roman Catholicism from Anglicanism]]
[[Category:British male sport shooters]]
[[Category:Knights Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George]]
[[Category:Commanders of the Royal Victorian Order]]
[[Category:De Salis family|John Francis]]
[[Category:20th-century Irish landowners]]