Théobald Dillon (1745 – 29 April 1792) was a
French Royal Army
The French Royal Army () was the principal land force of the Kingdom of France. It served the Bourbon dynasty from the reign of Louis XIV in the mid-17th century to that of Charles X in the 19th, with an interlude from 1792 to 1814 and another du ...
officer. He was a distant cousin of general
Arthur Dillon (who also had a brother named Theobald).
He entered
Dillon's Regiment as a cadet in 1761, gradually rose to be a lieutenant-colonel (1780), took part in the
Capture of Grenada (1779) and the
siege of Savannah
The siege of Savannah or the second battle of Savannah was an encounter of the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783) in 1779. The year before, the city of Savannah, Georgia, had been captured by a British expeditionary corps under Lieutena ...
in 1779, was appointed a
knight of St. Louis in 1781, was authorised to wear the
Order of Cincinnatus in 1785, and was awarded a pension of 1,500 francs in 1786. He became a brigadier-general in 1791.
On 29 April 1792, following the loss of
a skirmish with Austrian forces, Dillon was
murdered by his own men outside the city of Lille. The troops apparently believed that their defeat by the Austrians was the result of a conspiracy on the part of Dillon, whom they called a "traitor and aristocrat".
[''Relation de l'assassinat de M. Théobald Dillon, Maréchal-de-Camp, Commis à Lille, le 29 avril 1792.'' Imprimerie de Mignaret (May 4, 1792).]
References
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Dillon, Theobald
1745 births
1792 deaths
French people of Irish descent
Military leaders of the French Revolutionary Wars
Military personnel from Dublin (city)
Knights of the Order of Saint Louis
French military personnel of the American Revolutionary War