October 13th is the day that marks the death of one of the most important defenders of Macedonia’s struggle for freedom, the Hellenic Army Officer Pavlos Melas. Melas, born in 1870 in the French city of Marseille, was the son of Michael Melas, an elected MP for Attica and mayor of Athens. At an early age, Melas decided to go to Athens to study and later joined the Hellenic Army, graduating from the Hellenic Army Academy as an artillery lieutenant at age 21. In 1892, he married Natalia Dragoumi, the daughter of a famous politician from Macedonia’s city of Kastoria,...