Mazniashvili was born on 6 April 1871 in the village Sasireti, Tiflis Governorate, Russian Empire (present day Kaspi Municipality, Shida Kartli, Georgia).

[2][3] Wounded in the Russo-Japanese War, he was visited at a hospital by the Tsar Nicholas II, who awarded him Saint George's Cross and invited to the palace.

He formed two national divisions and secured the capital Tbilisi from the chaotically retreating and increasingly Bolshevik Russian soldiers.

In April 1918, on the basis of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, the Turks occupied Batumi, from where, in violation of the agreements, they continued their offensive into the Georgian province of Guria, reaching Ozurgeti.

During the December Georgian-Armenian war 1918, he was appointed a commander-in-chief and successfully defended the Georgian borders from the troops of General Dro and Stepan Shahumyan.

[9] The newly established Soviet government of Georgia declared him outlaw, but later General Mazniashvili served in the Georgian Red Army and commanded a division.

[5][page needed] In the 1950s, Mazniashvili's son, a World War II veteran of the Soviet army, submitted a request for a political rehabilitation of his father, but this was turned down by the authorities.