His father Charalambos had distinguished himself as a rebel leader during the Cretan Revolt (1866–69) against the Ottoman Empire, was assassinated in Athens in 1874.
[1] In the Greco-Turkish War of 1897, he participated in the Greek expeditionary force to Crete under Colonel Timoleon Vassos.
In 1904 he went to Ottoman-ruled Macedonia as part of the Macedonian Struggle, and spent two and a half years leading guerrilla detachments in the Monastir area to fight the Ottomans and Bulgarian Komitadjis.
[1] In 1914 he temporarily resigned his commission to join the armed forces of the Autonomous Republic of Northern Epirus.
[1] During World War I, he organized guerrilla groups in Northern Epirus in order to operate against Albanian bands that were raiding the Greek populated areas[2] In the National Schism, he supported the monarchists, and as a result found himself dismissed from the army in 1917–20.