A scion of the Georgian royal family, he served under the Imperial, Provisional, and Soviet governments.

He was a great-grandson of General Prince Kiril Bagration, himself a grandson of the Georgian monarch Jesse of Kartli of the Mukhrani branch of the Bagrationi.

[1] Dmitry Bagration was educated as a cavalry officer and also wrote for the military press.

After the fall of the Russian monarchy in the February Revolution, Bagration played a role in the Kornilov affair in August 1917, in which he stepped back from supporting General Aleksandr Krymov's planned march against the Russian Provisional Government in Petrograd.

His brother, Alexander (1862–1920), who had retired from army service as major-general in 1916, was executed by the Soviet government while being on a vacation.