Military Order of Avis no relation World War I
Manuel de Oliveira Gomes da Costa , commonly known as Manuel Gomes da Costa (Portuguese pronunciation: [mɐnuˈɛl ˈɣomɨʒ ðɐ ˈkɔʃtɐ]) or just Gomes da Costa (14 January 1863 – 17 December 1929), was a Portuguese army officer and politician, the tenth president of Portugal and the second of the National Dictatorship.
Gomes da Costa had a distinguished military career in the country's colonies, from 1893 to 1915, in India, Mozambique, Angola, and São Tomé, having served under the command of Mouzinho de Albuquerque. After World War I, in which he rose to greater prominence in the command of the 1st Division of the Portuguese Expeditionary Corps, he became actively engaged in politics, in staunch opposition to the dominant Democratic Party.
In 1926, he was involved in the military and political movement that resulted in the 28 May 1926 coup d'état that inaugurated a new conservative, authoritarian regime. Following the military coup, Gomes da Costa deposed moderate José Mendes Cabeçadas, who had received executive and presidential power from the removed Prime Minister António Maria da Silva and President Bernardino Machado, briefly holding the headship of government and of state in the summer of that year, until he was himself removed by another coup, to be replaced by Óscar Carmona.Military career
As a soldier, he stood out in colonial campaigns in the African and Indian colonies. After Portugal had entered the First World War (See: Portugal in the Great War) on the Allied side in early 1917, he commanded the Second Division of the Portuguese Expeditionary Corps. During the Battle of the Lys on 9 April 1918, the CEP lost 400 dead and around 6,500 prisoners, a third of its forces in the front line. Gomes da Costa's division was hit particularly hard and was all but wiped out.For his command in the war, he was made a general and a Grand Officer of the Military Order of Avis. Two years later, on 5 October 1921, he received the Grand Cross of the Military Order of Avis.
no relation