It resulted in the defeat of a major expedition by Mahmud Dramali Pasha, intended to quell the ongoing Greek rebellion which had begun in 1821.

[7] Dramali was expected to crush the Greek rebellion by advancing to Corinth, relieve the besieged garrison of Nafplion and recapture the capital of the Morea, Tripoli.

While the Ottomans were now in a better position than a year earlier, the same could not be said for the Greeks who had been weakened by infighting and disagreement between their leaders, who failed to cooperate and make adequate preparations for Dramali's advance.

Emboldened by the rapid progress and disintegration of the Greeks at the beginning of his campaign, Dramali proposed to march his entire army to Nafplio.

[7][5] Dramali passed through the narrow defile known as the Dervenaki (Tretos) and on 24 July reached Argos, whence the Greek government had fled.

The Greeks, under Demetrios Ypsilantis, held out for twelve days, waging a resolute defense before lack of water forced them to sneak out past the Ottoman lines in the middle of the night.

[10] Gordon recounted when faced with the demand for surrender: “Prince Demetrius received the bearers of this proposal with apparent indifference, regaled them out of the small stock of luxuries reserved for his own table and declared his resolution to hold out for six months.” [10] On the night of 3 August 1822, faced with no water, Ypsilantis led his men out of the Argos citadel.

Towards Nafplion, large forces were assembled under Nikolaos Stamatelopoulos, the brother of Nikitaras, and these were joined by Arvanites from Kranidi, Poros and Kastri.

If Kolokotronis had in fact commanded the Greek armies, and thus been able draw up a general military plan, Dramali's forces might have been completely annihilated and Nafplion would have been captured with little difficulty.

[11] These troops, who were either mistaken by the Greeks for cobelligerents or deliberately allowed to pass, got through entirely unharmed, losing only three men.

[11] Very few of the Ottoman delhis (light cavalry) managed to escape; most of them had lost their horses and, as they tried to make their way on foot up the ravines of the mountains, were almost all intercepted by small Greek bands or shot down by individual marksmen from concealed positions.

[11] During the encounter the Greeks took an enormous amount of booty – hundreds of horses and baggage animals and a considerable quantity of treasure, arms and stores.

With the destruction of the main Ottoman force present in Greece at the time, the revolution survived its first great test, and was firmly now established.

Gordon wrote that the victory at Dervenakia made Kolokotronis's reputation as "his name became a sort of talisman, the people everywhere sung ballads in his honor, his political adversaries humbled themselves before him and for some months he was absolute in the Morea".