Diebitsch, JOHN CHARLES, COUNT

Diebitsch, JOHN CHARLES, COUNT, a Russian field-marshal, was born in Silesia in 1785, and made the campaigns of 1805 and 1812–14. In the Turkish war of 1829 his forcing a passage of the Balkans (Kulevtscha, &c.) by dint of hard fighting was commemorated in the surname conferred on him of Sabalkanski ('crosser of the Balkans'). He died of cholera in February 1831, while endeavouring to suppress the insurrection in Poland.