Dimitrios Karatasos

Dimitrios Karatasos (Greek Δημήτριος Καρατάσος, or Tsamis Karatasos Greek Τσάμης Καρατάσος, * 1798 or 1796 in Dichalevri, Imathia; † in Belgrade, 1861) was a Greek freedom fighter. He distinguished himself as a fighter during the Greek Revolution and after gaining national independence.

Karatasos was a son of Anastasios " Tasos " Karatasos, called " Gero Karatasos " ( "Age Karatasos " ), a Armatoles - leader in Macedonia.

Karatasos took part in 1822 with his father at the siege of Naoussa and fled with him when the revolution in Macedonia was defeated by the Turks, to Southern Greece.

In August 1828, he fought as a commander of a regular force for the restoration of Greek rule in East Central Greece. In 1831 he organized the uprising in Albania.

As a fierce opponent of Ioannis Kapodistrias he led in May 1831 a failed uprising against the governor in Thebes and was imprisoned in Nafplio Theodoros Kolokotronis with.

In 1835 he was dismissed. In 1839 he took part in the fighting in Thessaly.

In 1854, he gathered a force of 500 irregular fighters around and returned on Euboea back to Macedonia to take up the struggle against Ottoman rule, in Chalkidiki. After initial successes, however, his troops of the Ottoman supremacy was not grown; he fled over the mountain Athos in Greece liberated and returned disappointed back to Athens, where he served as adjutant King Otto.

Karatasos was convinced that only a Greek- Serbian pact could accelerate the retreat of the Ottoman Empire in the Balkans. In 1859 he began his proposals in newspaper articles to publish, and courted the support of the representatives of the Serbian community in Greece for his idea of ​​a joint uprising of Greeks and Serbs. King Otto encouraged these contacts. So Karatsos traveled in 1861 from Italy to Belgrade to sign a formal agreement between the two countries. During his stay there he died under mysterious circumstances, probably due to an illness. A few months later, Otto was overthrown by a popular uprising, it took 25 years until in 1887 the Greek Prime Minister Charilaos Trikoupis and his Serbian counterpart signed the first agreement.