Charles Edward Jennings de Kilmaine - Military Career

Military Career

When only in his 14th year, he joined the French cadets and entered the service of Austria, a country which held strong alliances with France during this time, in the regiment of Imperial Emperor No.1. In 1775 he returned to his hometown in France following the sudden death of his father, Dr. Theobald Jennings. Subsequently, he rejoined service, and entered the French army, but he broke tradition and joined the prominent 5th Dragoon Regiment, not the Irish Brigade of France, in which other members of the Jennings family had been previously officers. Three years later he was made adjutant to the general of the master legion of foreign volunteers in the navy and that same year he left for Senegal on a campaign with the Duc de Lauzun, Armand Louis de Gontaut, returning safely in 1779.