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WORLD WAR 431 WORLD WAR important point in Albania uncaptured. Allied assistance to Serbia, and inci- dentally to Montenegro, came too late. An Anglo-French army under General Serrail had been assembled on the Greek front about Saloniki, and from there they attempted to advance through Ser- bia, but were balked by the Bulgarians S. of Uskub. The Bulgarians, having driven the Serbians out of Macedonia, then attacked the Serrail forces, which fell back to their original line. By March, 1916, the Austrians and Bulgarians were in complete possession of the central Balkan area. The latter hesitated to push their lines across the Greek fron- tier by further attacking the Allied forces, though they did not hesitate to do so elsewhere against Greek defenders. The Saloniki region was a part of Mace- donia that was essentially Bulgarian in population. The Allies, however, had the better military position, being drawn in close to their base, with short interior tentions of Greece at their rear, daily augmented and strengthened their posi- tion by re-enforcements of men and equipment, so that in August, 1916, it numbered, with Serbian and pro-Ally Greek accessions, nearly 500,000. The Balkan situation was complicated by the wavering attitude of the govern- ment of Greece, due to the monarch's leaning toward Germany. In the fall of 1916 the relations between the Allies and that country became very strained and occasioned a crisis on account of the danger to the Allies' Saloniki front and their naval communications by pos- sible Greek activities on behalf of the Central Powers. The Allies were forced to regard Greece as a menace to their rear. As a precautionary measure they compelled the Greek Government to sur- render its entire fleet and the Piraeus railroad and to dismantle all its shore batteries. Greece complied under force majeure. Hostile demonstrations in AMERICAN DRIVE AT ST. MIHIEL communications, while the Bulgarians had to spread round the wide semi- circle formed by the Anglo-French forces. On the other hand, the latter were not prepared to start an offensive » against the Bulgarians. Consequently there was a stalemate on this front which lasted for two years except for a sporadic offensive the Serbians, assisted by the French, made against the Bulgarians in September, 1916, when they regained a piece of their lost territory, including Monastir, and cap- tured 6,000 prisoners. However, the in- active Allies army, to guard against eventualities, especially the uncertain in- Athens followed, the Greeks themselves being divided between royalists and pro- Allies, and a force of French marines had to be landed, who occupied a num- ber of public buildings and covered the streets with a number of machine guns. The Allies also demanded the withdrawal of Greek troops which had been con- centrating near Larissa and in Corinth. The internal situation in Greece between the royalists and pro-Ally insurgents under Venizelos became such that a pro- visional government of the latter was in- stalled to checkmate King Constantine'a pro-German tendencies and declared war on the Central Powers. Pro-Ally Greek