One redoubtable obstacle to be dislodged before any headway could be made was Bulgaria's opposition. In order to displace it, it would be necessary to acquiesce in her demands for territory possessed by her neighbours. And in view of the intimate relations, political and economical, which the military empires had established with Bulgaria and their firm hold over Ferdinand, even this retrocession might prove inadequate for the purpose. According to a binding arrangement between Serbia and Greece, no territorial concession running counter to the settlement of the Bucharest Treaty might be accorded to Bulgaria by either of the two contracting States, without the consent of the other. And now Venizelos was asked to signify his assent to the abandonment by Serbia of a part of the Macedonian province recently annexed. This point gained, he was further solicited to cede Kavalla and some 2000 square kilometres of territory incorporated with Greece, to Bulgaria, in return for the future possession of 140,000 square kilometres in western Asia Minor. It was stipulated by him and hastily taken for granted by the Governments of the Allied States that these concessions, together with those which Serbia and Roumania were expected to make, would move Bulgaria to follow Russia's lead and enter the arena by the side of the Allies. But before Venizelos's readiness to compromise could be utilized as a practical element of the negotiations, the Bulgarian Cabinet had applied for and received an advance of 150 million francs from the two Central empires on conditions which, in the judgment of the Greek Premier, rendered further dealings with that State nugatory. At the same time King Constantine, yielding to German importunity and to personal emotions, adopted a series of measures of which the effect would have been to discredit in the eyes of the nation Venizelos's patriotism as a minister and his veracity as an individual. The upshot of these machinations was the voluntary retirement of the Premier from public life, the dissolution of the Greek Parliament, the accession to power of a Germanophile Cabinet, and the frustration of that part of the Allies' plan which had for its object the immediate co-operation of Greece and the subsequent enlistment of the neighbouring Balkan States. As yet, however, Greece was not wholly lost to the Entente. Another opportunity presented itself which, had it been seized by the Governments of Great Britain and France, might yet have altered the course of Balkan history. But the acceptable offer in which it was embodied by the Hellenic Government elicited no response whatever in London or Paris. This was the last hope. Thenceforward the Allies were constrained to rely upon their own unaided exertions.