 As a Major General, he commanded the 3rd Infantry Division in the Greco-Italian War of 1940–41.After the German invasion of Greece and the Greek Army's capitulation, he served as Minister of National Defence in the collaborationist government set up by Lt. General Georgios Tsolakoglou on 30 April 1941, and retained the post under Tsolakoglou's successor Konstantinos Logothetopoulos, until the Logothetopoulos cabinet's resignation on 7 April 1943.An ardent Germanophile, Bakos tried, without success, to raise a Greek volunteer unit to fight along the German "Wehrmacht" in the Eastern Front.