Dionysius Vourvachis was a Greek officer in the French army and fighter of the Greek Revolution of 1821.
He was killed on February 8, 1827 during the Battle of Kamatero. He was the cousin of the politician Andreas Metaxas.
Vourvachis was born in 1787 in Kefalonia and his father, Sotirios Vourvachis, was a loyal friend of Napoleon I.
His father offered Napoleon important services during the family settlement in Marseille .
When Sotirios died in 1806, Napoleon I, protecting the rest of the family, introduced the young Dionysius to the military school of Fontainebleau.
Being fully raised in France, he followed an important military career by participating with the French army from 1805 to 1815 in military operations in France, Italy and Spain in the context of the Napoleonic Wars.
He offered considerable help to Napoleon, as did his father, informing him during his exile on the island of Elbe that the Allies intended to relocate him to another, more remote island, and so the deposed emperor hurriedly regained his throne.
After the defeat at Waterloo , Vourvachis, like the rest of Napoleon loyalists of the French army, fled to Spain but later returned to France and retired to a small town in the south.
He was demobilized with the rank of cavalry colonel .
At the end of 1826, he arrived in insurgent Greece and with the permission of the government, formed, with his own money but also with an amount offered by philhellenic associations in Europe, a force of 800-1000 men.
Then, in the last days of 1826, he landed in Loutraki with the aim of strengthening Karaiskakis’ forces, but after orders from the government, he moved to Elefsina where Vassos Mavrovouniotis was.
Panagiotis Notaras arrived there a few days later.
Vourvachis and the other two chiefs, united their forces moved to Menidi where on January 22 they prevailed in a battle against the Ottomans.
On January 25 , the French-trained militaryman, together with the Montenegrins, Notaras and their approximately 3,500 men, moved towards Kamatero.
There, two days later, they were attacked by 2,600 Ottomans.
Vourvachis’ detachment, located in the plain, came under great pressure, as a result of which it succumbed, while the forces of Mavrovouniotis and Notaras, which were being attacked by the enemy artillery, fled.
From the Greek side, more than 300 men were killed, including Vourvachis, who was beheaded. In fact, his head was sent, along with other loot, as a trophy to Ottoman Sultan Mahmut II.
