They received the intelligence as might have been expected. The Servian Premier, after consulting with the King, the Crown Prince, the Cabinet, and all prominent statesmen, informed the representatives of the Entente that Servia, in spite of her desire to meet the wishes of her friends and allies, could not agree to put herself in their hands: the Constitution forbade the cession of territory without the sanction of the National Assembly. He asked them to understand that this decision was final, and that no future Servian Government could be counted upon to {41} give a different answer, seeing that the present Government embraced every political party.[18] Not less uncompromising was the attitude of Greece. When the news reached Athens from Paris, the Hellenic Government could hardly believe it: "It is so contrary to the principles of justice and liberty proclaimed by the Entente Powers--it seems to us absolutely impossible to despoil a neutral State, and one, too, whose friendly neutrality has been so consistently useful to the Allies, in order to buy with its territories the help of a people which has hitherto done all it could to help the enemies of the Entente. By what right, and on what ground could they mutilate our country? The opinions once expressed by M. Venizelos, and since abandoned even by their author, do not constitute a sufficient ground for spoliation. The whole thing is an unthinkable outrage: it shows that our fears were justified and our demand for a guarantee was absolutely indispensable." [19] France, through M. Delcasse, and England, through Lord Crewe, sought to dispel these fears by formally disclaiming any intention to press upon Greece a mutilation to which she objected, and explaining that the eventual cession of Cavalla was only envisaged on condition that she should consent of her own accord. M. Zographos, however, who had done his best to bring Greece in on reasonable terms, convinced of his failure, resigned; and after his departure the Gounaris Government would permit itself no further discussion upon the subject of intervention. During the lull that ensued, the Greek General Staff once more, in June, approached the Servian Government with detailed suggestions for a common plan against Bulgaria, dwelling on the necessity of a preliminary concentration of sufficient Servian troops along the Graeco-Serbo-Bulgarian frontier to counterbalance the Bulgarian advantage in rapidity of mobilization. These steps proved as barren as all the preceding: while Servia would not try to conjure the Bulgarian peril by the sacrifices which the Entente recommended, she could not provide against it by entering into arrangements with Greece which the Entente disapproved. {42}