Ioannis Kotoulas
Ioannis Kotoulas (16 May 1883 – 7 December 1967) was a Greek lieutenant general.
He was born in Gralista, Karditsa Prefecture, to Kostas Ioannou Kotoulas and Eleni Papargyri. He was the second of five brothers, and his sister Vasiliki died at 17. Kotoulas left home at 18 and joined the Hellenic Army NCO School in 1903, graduating as a second lieutenant in 1909.
In the Balkan Wars (1912–13) he served with the 7th Infantry Regiment, fighting at Sarantaporo, Bizani, and the capture of Florina. During World War I he fought on the Macedonian front (1917–18) and in 1919 took part in the Allied intervention in Ukraine as a battalion commander in the 7th Regiment.
In the Asia Minor Campaign he rose to lieutenant colonel and served as chief of staff of the Smyrna Division until October 1920. He also commanded the 4th, 7th and 14th Infantry Regiments, and distinguished himself during the Greek retreat in August 1922 by leading his column from Ali Veran to Takmak.
Promoted to colonel in 1923, Kotoulas worked at the General Staff (1923–24) and in 1925 became commander of the 2nd Infantry Division. He studied in France, attended the Artillery Tactical Application School in Athens in 1928, and from 1929–1934 commanded the 12th and 13th Infantry Divisions. In 1936 he was named commandant of the Superior War School and retired as a major general in 1939.
During the Greco-Italian War, recalled in 1940, he was the only general officer brought back to active service despite opposition to the Metaxas Regime. He commanded the Thrace Army Section and the Central Macedonia Army Section (TSKM), which included the 12th and 20th divisions, from 6 March to 8 April 1941, when he was replaced by Major General Christos Karassos.
Kotoulas published several military histories, including works on Xenophon and the Ten Thousand (1929), infantry combat, the Catalan Company, and Thessaly in the Trojan War.
He died in 1967. He married Haïdo Boubousi in 1923 and had a daughter named Eleni.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 17:40 (CET).