Thanos Veremis sheds light by selecting and commenting on the words of the fighters themselves, focusing on two key events of the Greek Revolution: the fall of the administrative capital of the Ottomans, Tripolitsa, into the hands of the Greeks, and the fall of Messolonghi to the Ottomans, which marked the end of the Revolution in western Central Greece.

The uprising of 1821 was primarily the work of Greeks in the service of the Ottoman overlord: the local notables of the Peloponnese as part of the state's tax collection apparatus, the armatoles of Roumeli as guardians of the narrow passages of the inland, and the high clergy as political and spiritual representatives of the Nation accountable to the Sublime Porte.

The long-standing Turkish rule did not alter the Greek language and the Orthodox faith. Thus, it became possible for the events of Tripolitsa and Messolonghi to be recounted by a multitude of great and lesser scholars. Among the educated are Tertsetis and Spiliadis, while more or less self-taught are Ainianos, Kasomoulis, and Fotakos.

The collections of testimonies about Tripolitsa and Messolonghi introduce us to the fighters who wielded both the pen and the sword. Notable mentions include Dimitrios Ainianos, Nikolaos K. Kasomoulis, Nikolaos Spiliadis, Spyromilios, Georgios Tertsetis, and Fotakos.