Konstantinos Miliotis-Komninos


Konstantinos Miliotis-Komninos was a Greek Army officer who rose to the rank of Lieutenant General. He was also an amateur swordsman, competing in the 1896 Athens Olympics. He also served in the Organizing Committee for the 1906 Intercalated Games.

Biography

Konstantinos Miliotis-Komninos was born in Ermoupolis in the island of Syros in 1854, and enlisted in the Greek Army on 11 April 1877 as a volunteer, serving in the cavalry. He fought in the Greco-Turkish War of 1897 and the Balkan Wars, where he held the rank of Colonel and commanded the 6th Infantry Division. During the First World War, he supported the Venizelist Movement of National Defence, and became Minister of War in the provisional government on 6 December 1916. In 1919, as a Lieutenant General, he became the first head of the Army of Asia Minor in the Smyrna Zone allocated to Greece by the Treaty of Sèvres, until the arrival of Lt. Gen. Leonidas Paraskevopoulos. He was dismissed from the Army on 29 November 1920, following the Venizelist defeat in the elections of the same month.
He was killed on 12 June 1941, shortly after the German occupation of Greece. He was mortally wounded in the head in a scuffle with a German sentry, who tried to prohibit his entrance in the Athens Club, which had been shut down by the German authorities due to its members' demonstrations of solidarity with British prisoners of war.

Athletic career

He competed at the 1896 Summer Olympics in Athens. Komninos-Miliotis competed in the amateur foil event. He placed third of four in his preliminary group after winning one bout, against Georgios Balakakis, and losing the other two, to Eugène-Henri Gravelotte and Athanasios Vouros. This put him in a tie for fifth overall, with Henri Delaborde who was third in the other preliminary group.
He was also a member of the Olympic Games Commission in 1901–1916 and of the Organizing Committee for the 1906 Summer Olympics.