José Pessoa Cavalcanti de Albuquerque

José Pessoa Cavalcanti de Albuquerque (Cabaceiras, 13 September 1885 &mdash; Rio de Janeiro, 16 August 1959) was an military, who became a Marshal in the Brazilian Army. Son of Cândido Albuquerque and Maria Albuquerque, he was the nephew of Epitácio Pessoa (Brazil's President from 1919 to 1922), and brother of João Pessoa, the Governor of Northern State of Paraiba. He was one of the officers sent on a preparatory mission to Europe by Brazilian Army during the World War I against the Central Powers. In his subsequent career he had strong influence on the reform and update of some Brazilian Army branches and institutions. To honor him, the 12th Cavalry Regiment of the Brazilian Army adopted his name.

Military life
He joined the Brazilian Army in 1903. For his performance in career, in 1918 was appointed to attend the preparatory military mission, which the Brazilian army sent to France. There, he spent a brief internship at Saint-Cyr for to learn about the adaptation of his military branch (the Cavalry), to then-recent invention, the Tank. After this, he joined the 4th Dragoons Regiment of 2nd Cavalry French Division. That year, this regiment (as other French cavalry units) using Schneider and St Chamond models, at the cost of heavy losses, participated actively in the containment of spring German offensives, and later, already with the then new and revolutionary Renault FTs, in the successful final Allied counter-offensives. As platoon leader, while serving in this unit (which ranks, at the time of his arrival, were consisted mostly by colonial troops), he was decorated by Belgians and French for courage in action, which he insisted should be credited to the bravery of his subordinates. By war's end, while hospitalized victim of typhoid fever, he had an affair with an English nurse, who later became his wife.

Upon his return to Brazil after the war, he drew on his experiences endeavouring for reform and update the Brazilian Army. Although he has achieved relative success regarding some institution's internal matters (as e.g. on the reform of the Brazilian Army Academy), his (post 1930) position against the involvement of the military in politics and civil life, gradually moved him away from the center of military power.

Such that his war experiences, which partly he made ​​public through the 1921 book "Os Tanks na Guerra Européia" ("Tanks in the European war"), that could have been seminal for the development and upkeep of a modern Army armoured corps; after a shy start in early 1920s, were not longer availed by the High Command, even during World War II, when became necessary the creation of an Expeditionary Force.

After retire from military life, in his last years during the 1950s, he cooperated on the planning of the then new Brazilian capital, Brasilia.