Georgios Tsontos

Who was Georgios Tsontos?

Georgios Tsontos known with the nom de guerre Kapetan Vardas was a Greek general and politician.

Tsontos was born in Sfakia, Crete. After the death of Pavlos Melas he was in charge of the Greek guerrilla operations in the Greek Struggle for Macedonia, when the region was under Ottoman control. Tsontos organized resistance units in Western Macedonia and encouraged the enlistment of new volunteers. He also fought in the Balkan Wars in 1912-13, and later resigned his commission to join the armed forces of the Autonomous Republic of Northern Epirus.

During the National Schism he supported the Royalists. At 1916-1917, while the Macedonian Front of World War I was in full swift, he organized guerrilla groups in Northern Epirus in order to operate against Albanian bands that were raiding the Greek populated areas

He also served as MP for Florina Prefecture in 1932-33 and for Kastoria Prefecture in 1933-35. He died in Athens in 1942.