Theodoros Kolokotronis

Theodoros Kolokotronis was a Greek general and the pre-eminent leader of the Greek War of Independence against the Ottoman Empire.

The son of a klepht leader who fought the Ottomans during the Orlov revolt, Kolokotronis also operated as a klepht and an armatolos early in his life. While serving in the British army during the Napoleonic Wars, he became influenced by the revolutionary ideas of the era. On the outbreak of the Greek War of Independence, he organized a band of Moreot klephts and captured Tripolitsa in late 1821. Kolokotronis achieved his greatest success at the 1822 Battle of Dervenakia, where he routed the Ottoman forces under the command of Mahmud Dramali Pasha. From 1823 to 1825, he took part in the Greek civil wars and, following the defeat of his faction, he was briefly imprisoned in Hydra. In 1825, Kolokotronis was released and appointed commander-in-chief of the Greek forces in Peloponnese. He defended Greece against an Egyptian intervention.