Executed by guillotine #OTD in 1794, General Arthur Dillon. A #WildGeese émigré to France (b. 1750 in England) who served in the Irish Brigade and rose to senior positions in the French army, as well as being a representative in the Assemblé Nationale.

Arthur's family had a long Jacobite pedigree: his grandfather (also Arthur) had fought at the Boyne while his greatgrandfather Theobald had been killed at Aughrim a year later. Arthur (senior) led Dillon's regiment into the French service where it stayed for almost 100 years.

Le régiment de Dillon built up an impressive service record in the Nine Years War, the War of the Spanish Succession, the War of the Polish Succession, the War of the Austrian Succession (including Fontenoy & Culloden), the Seven Years War & the American War of Independence.

Arthur was the 6th Dillon to command the regiment by this time. Other members of the Dillon family held positions in the regiment or in other Franco-Irish regiments. Arthur was supportive (or perhaps tolerant) of the Revolution, although some of his kinsmen joined the royalists.

During the French Revolution the Irish identity of the regiment was officially erased and it became the 87eme régiment d'infanterie (documents in the French military archives still often referred to it as 'formerly Dillon's Regiment').

Arthur (now also a representative for Martinique in the Assemblé Nationale) argued strongly opposed these reforms, publishing a pamphlet arguing that the Irish regiments were French rather than foreign & 'no nation ever did for another what the Irish Catholics did for France'.

Arthur's opposition to the radical developments of the Revolution grew, as he expressed his horror at the September Masacres. He rose to the rank of lieutenant general and his detachment of 12,000 troops held a key position at Valmy in 1792.

Arthur eventually fell victim to the plotting & political manoeuvring of the Terror. Gen. Dumouriez had already cast doubt on his loyalty (even though Dumouriez would be the one to defect!) and Arthur was implicated (rightly or more likely wrongly) in some royalist conspiracies.

Arthur Dillon was guillotined on 13 April 1794. His death was acknowledged in Ireland where the Freeman's Journal lamented his death as 'a martyr to his endeavours to restore monarchy and order'. His name was later added to the list of generals on the Arc de Triomphe.

Another Dillon, Comte Edouard, formed a regiment in Italy which entered the British service whilst Henri Dillon became colonel of the ill-fated 3rd Regiment of the Catholic Irish Brigade in the British Army. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0968344514559872?journalCode=wiha