Military Career
Guinness volunteered for service in the Second Boer War. He was wounded, was Mentioned in Despatches and was awarded the Queen's South Africa Medal with four clasps, serving as a Captain in the 44th company of the Imperial Yeomanry. According to Wilson, "they had a devil-may-care ethos and distaste for military discipline...they made lightning raids on Afrikaner positions; they skirmished ahead of advancing columns.". At the end of May 1900, led by Major-General Hamilton, they assaulted the ridge at Doornkop, though Guinness was wounded immediately after the battle in mopping-up at Witpoortjie.
During World War I, he served with distinction in the Suffolk Yeomanry in Egypt, and at Gallipoli. He was appointed a Brigade Major in the 25th division in 1916. In the fighting around Passchendaele, he was awarded the DSO in 1917, and a bar to it in 1918 during the German Spring Offensive, for personal bravery, which was rare for an elected politician. He ended the war as a Lieutenant-Colonel attached to the 66th division. His laconic war diaries were published in 1987, edited by Professor Brian Bond.
Read more about this topic: Walter Guinness, 1st Baron Moyne
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