A hundred years after the landing of the Greek army on the quay of Smyrna, author Vasilis Tzanakaris returns to where on May 2, 1919, the bloody beginning of the end of the Great Idea was written. The one that led us from the years of glory to those of disgrace. A book that records in every detail the fierce conflict between the High Commissioner of Smyrna, Aristeidis Stergiadis, and the pinnacle of Orthodoxy in Smyrna, Metropolitan Chrysostomos. A conflict that cost rivers of blood and tears. With the only reward for its protagonists being two crowns of thorns: for Chrysostomos, the national martyr, and for Aristeidis Stergiadis, the national destroyer. With the former faithful "unto death" to the tenets of Orthodoxy and Great Greece, and the envoy of the Greek State, Aristeidis Stergiadis, a supporter of the doctrine of Greek-Turkish coexistence and friendship. With Chrysostomos adored by hundreds of thousands of Asia Minor Greeks, and Stergiadis burdened, like another Ephialtes, with the hatred and curses of an entire people. And with them, Smyrna and Asia Minor. The bloody events on the quay, which infuriated Venizelos, the daily lives of people, the diplomatic intrigues and conspiracies, the passions and epic military operations, and finally the extermination and destruction. A vivid book that brings to life an entire era with the passions, pettiness, hopes, dreams, and grandeur of people and tries to answer the question: Was Aristeidis Stergiadis a national traitor and the number one culprit of the Asia Minor Catastrophe, or was he a cold skeptic who knew firsthand the nightmarish dangers threatening the epic venture of the Asia Minor Campaign? The edition includes rich photographic material.