Two hundred years ago, Greek-Albanian relations began in a monumental way, and they were ambiguous. On one hand, there was the common struggle of the Greeks and the Orthodox Christian Albanian-speaking people for the freedom of Greece, with the Albanian-speaking and other Orthodox Christian fighters in the Greek Revolution considering themselves Greeks and not Albanians. On the other hand, they were adversaries, with the Albanian-speaking Muslims in the service of the Ottomans... During the Greek War of Independence, the Albanians/Albanian-speaking Tosks were literally divided in two: the Orthodox Christian Tosks, to whom the Orthodox Chams (mainly the Souliotes) belong, fought with the Greeks/Romans for freedom ("freedom or death"); while the Muslim Tosks (and Ghegs) fought with the Ottomans, as officers or soldiers to defend the territorial integrity of the Ottoman Empire. However, the attitude of hostility, especially of the Muslim Tosks in the ranks of the Ottoman Army (mainly as mercenaries), was not always absolute; although adversaries of the Greeks on the battlefield, they were not always hostile towards the rebellious Greeks and Christian Tosks, to such an extent that it would not be an exaggeration to speak of a unique relationship between them. As for the Orthodox Albanians (Arvanites), the competitors of the Greeks/Romans were the entire group of Souliote fighters (Orthodox Chams from Souli), the fighters from Hydra and Spetses, the many Albanian fighters from the Peloponnese and eastern Central Greece, who fought and shed their blood as "Greeks," even though their mother tongue was Albanian (specifically an Albanian Tosk dialect)... they fought on equal terms with the Greeks, without any distinction whatsoever.