Guido Keller

Guido Keller was a decorated war hero and ace pilot whose unconventional public persona accompanied his role in Gabriele D’Annunzio’s attempt to seize Fiume. He was more than a colorful companion: he took part in the secret expedition and, once the city had been occupied, initiated a proposal that would place its civil and military administration in D’Annunzio’s hands.

Aviator and Eccentric

Keller was a rising star of the Italian air force and a highly decorated ace of the Baracca squadron. The account presents his military distinction alongside a deliberate rejection of bourgeois convention: he was a nudist, bisexual, and vegetarian, and liked to appall the class that had produced him by walking with an eagle on his shoulder. His unconventionality was not separate from his political associations; it marked him as a conspicuous figure in the circle around D’Annunzio.

The Secret Expedition to Fiume

Keller joined D’Annunzio on the mainland before the expedition began, alongside a lieutenant of the Sardinian Grenadiers. The grenadiers had secretly pledged to take Fiume from its international military garrison and return it to Italy, even at the risk of sedition. Their operation defied the Italian high command and opposed the inter-Allied command in the city, whose contingents included French, British, American, and Croatian forces. It also ran against Woodrow Wilson’s intention to hand Fiume to Yugoslavia and the Italian rulers’ willingness to accept that outcome.

The column reached Ronchi, near the border, but the promised trucks had not arrived by midnight. The delay suggested betrayal. While D’Annunzio slept on a makeshift bed of nailed wooden planks, Keller went out into the night with Tommaso Beltrami. Several hours later, about thirty surplus 15 Ter trucks were waiting in the square, and the column set out before dawn. The account gives Keller no credit for securing the vehicles; it places him within the expedition’s uncertain interval between apparent failure and renewed movement.

Initiative in the Occupied City

After the expedition reached Fiume, Keller acted again on his own initiative. While D’Annunzio was asleep late in the afternoon, Keller proposed to the city council that the poet be entrusted with full civil and military powers. Antonio Grossich, the council president, received Keller cautiously, but the council members unexpectedly agreed to the proposal. The decision gave D’Annunzio authority over a city at the center of an international dispute, though D’Annunzio recoiled when awakened and confronted with the prospect of administering it.

Narrative Role

Keller’s brief appearances connect audacious improvisation with the creation of political authority. In the expedition, he is an eccentric war hero embedded in a clandestine act of defiance; in the city council episode, he is the instigator of a consequential proposal made while the leader it would empower is asleep. The account establishes his initiative and his proximity to D’Annunzio, but does not describe Keller’s later career or specify what part he played in governing Fiume.