Arthur Dillon (General)

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Arthur Dillon

Arthur Dillon, Count Dillon (born September 3, 1750 , † April 13, 1794 in Paris ) was a French Général de division .

biography

Dillon was the second-born son of the Irish nobleman Henry Dillon , 11th Viscount Dillon , whose father had also acquired the French title Comte Dillon in 1711 . He joined the army of King Louis XVI. a. During the American War of Independence he sailed with his regiment to the Caribbean in 1778 and fought in particular against the British in 1779 near Grenada and Savannah (Georgia) . From 1786 to 1789 he was French governor of the island of Tobago , conquered in 1781 . He returned to Paris for the meeting of the Estates General in 1789 , where, as a representative of the nobility, he stood up for the interests of the colonies in particular.

In January 1792 he was promoted to lieutenant-général des armées . Despite the execution of his brother Theobald Dillon , commander of the Lille garrison , by Republican troops on April 29, 1792, he joined the revolution . In August 1792 he became the commander of the vanguard of the Central Army under the command of General Charles-François Dumouriez and with his unit defeated the Prussian troops northwest of Verdun across the Meuse . Afterwards his soldiers occupied the Argonne and he drafted the plans for the cannonade near Valmy on September 20, 1792, which marked a turning point in the first coalition war. Thereupon he succeeded in retaking Longwy .

Dillon was a staunch supporter of the revolution, but never won the support of the extreme supporters of the Mountain Party , i. H. the Enragés and the Hébertists . This ultimately led to his arrest in 1793 after he had been accused of taking sides in favor of the royalists without evidence . A few months later he was charged with Lucile Desmoulins , the wife of the previously executed Camille Desmoulins , by the guillotine executed .

Marriages and offspring

He was married twice. In 1769 he married his second cousin, Lucie de Rothe († 1782), daughter of Edouard, Comte de Rothe. He had two children with her:

In 1784 he married Mary Françoise Laure de Girardin de Montgérald, the rich Creole widow of the Comte de la Touche from Martinique , with whom he had a daughter:

Honors

His name is entered on the triumphal arch in Paris on the north pillar in the 4th column.

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personal data
SURNAME Dillon, Arthur
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Dillon, Count Arthur
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French general
DATE OF BIRTH September 3, 1750
DATE OF DEATH April 13, 1794
Place of death Paris