He was born on 14 March 1894 in Magaradzhik village in Kars Oblast, then in the Russian Empire (today in Mağaracık, Turkey) of Pontic Greek parents.

Graduating from the Moscow Praporshchik School in 1915, he served in the Russian Army in World War I, earning the rank of captain.

The objective of a "deep operation" was to attack the enemy simultaneously throughout the depth of his ground force to induce a catastrophic failure in his defensive system.

[2] Highly mobile formations would then exploit this failure by breaking into the deep rear of the enemy and destroying his ability to rebuild his defenses.

The quality of his work was realised late during World War II, when Georgy Zhukov said that his success was due to closely following Triandafillov's deep operations doctrine.