Georg Carl was born at the Stora Torpa manor in Segerstads parish in Västergötland (now Falköping Municipality) to district court judge (häradshövding) Johan Jakob von Döbeln and Anna Maria Lindgren.

His reputation was further enhanced when Johan Ludvig Runeberg wrote his epic Döbeln at Jutas in the Finnish National Poem Fänrik Ståls Sägner (in Swedish).

Having re-organized his troops, he engaged Russian forces which ultimately stopped a planned attack on the Swedish capital, Stockholm.

Döbeln's final orders to the parading army, issued verbally prior to dismissal, is considered to be the very essence of rhetoric in Swedish, and has been taught to generations of school-children.

Döbeln had received an urgent appeal from the citizens of Hamburg to protect them from the French, to which he gave his word that he would make an attempt to take the city.

Although popular, having had a great career and after his death considered a war hero, von Döbeln lived his last years impoverished.