[1][2][3] Tarlis (Τърлис), Loftsa (Ловча) and Karakioi (Каракьой) were three ethnically Bulgarian villages that had remained inside Greek territory after the Greco-Bulgarian border had been drawn in accordance with the Treaty of Bucharest in 1913.
Major Kalabalikis, the Greek officer in charge of the region, ordered the arrest of 70 ethnic-Bulgarian peasants from the three villages, suspected as being responsible.
Doxakis, in charge of 10 Greek soldiers, led the bound captives via a mountain path, bypassing the usually-used road between Tarlis and Gorno Brodi.
As a result, upon the League of Nations' demand, a bilateral Bulgarian-Greek agreement was signed in Geneva on September 29, 1924, known as the Politis–Kalfov Protocol, recognizing the "Greek slavophones" as ethnic Bulgarians and guaranteeing their protection.
On February 2, 1925, the Greek parliament, claiming pressure from the Serbs (which had threatened to renounce the 1913 Greco-Serbian alliance treaty), refused to ratify the agreement, which lasted 9 months until June 10, 1925, when the League of Nations annulled it.