Dimitrios Matthaiopoulos
Encyclopedia
Dimitrios Matthaiopoulos was a senior Greek
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

 Army
Hellenic Army
The Hellenic Army , formed in 1828, is the land force of Greece.The motto of the Hellenic Army is , "Freedom Stems from Valor", from Thucydides's History of the Peloponnesian War...

 officer who participated in the Balkan Wars
Balkan Wars
The Balkan Wars were two conflicts that took place in the Balkans in south-eastern Europe in 1912 and 1913.By the early 20th century, Montenegro, Bulgaria, Greece and Serbia, the countries of the Balkan League, had achieved their independence from the Ottoman Empire, but large parts of their ethnic...

 of 1912–1913.

He was born in Piraeus
Piraeus
Piraeus is a city in the region of Attica, Greece. Piraeus is located within the Athens Urban Area, 12 km southwest from its city center , and lies along the east coast of the Saronic Gulf....

 in 1861, entered the Greek Army Academy and was commissioned as an Engineer officer on 24 March 1881. He participated in the Greco-Turkish War of 1897, taught at the Army Academy and published numerous books and studies on military engineering. In 1911–1912, as Colonel, he supervised the construction of fortifications around Larissa
Larissa
Larissa is the capital and biggest city of the Thessaly region of Greece and capital of the Larissa regional unit. It is a principal agricultural centre and a national transportation hub, linked by road and rail with the port of Volos, the city of Thessaloniki and Athens...

.

During the mobilization before the outbreak of the First Balkan War
First Balkan War
The First Balkan War, which lasted from October 1912 to May 1913, pitted the Balkan League against the Ottoman Empire. The combined armies of the Balkan states overcame the numerically inferior and strategically disadvantaged Ottoman armies and achieved rapid success...

, Matthaiopoulos was placed as CO of the 5th Infantry Division, newly formed from reservists. During the war, he was tasked with covering the left flank of the Army of Thessaly through his division's advance into Western Macedonia. His division however was attacked by superior Ottoman troops and driven back at the Battle of Sorovich, on 22–24 October 1912 (O.S.). Dismissed from his command, he was placed in charge of the 8th Infantry Division in the Army of Epirus, with which he participated in the Battle of Bizani
Battle of Bizani
The Battle of Bizani took place in Epirus on March 4–6, 1913. The battle was fought between the Greek and the Ottoman forces during the last stages of the First Balkan War, and revolved around the forts of Bizani, which covered the approaches to Ioannina, the largest city in the region.At the...

.

After the Balkan Wars, he was promoted to the rank of Major General, and continued in service until November 1922, when he went into retirement with the rank of Lieutenant General. He died in December 1923.

Sources

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