Hardly had these dispatches been exchanged, when Colonel Vlachopoulos, the emissary of the Greek General Staff to Servia, arrived in Athens, bringing a report of the gravest nature. After twelve months' evasions, the Servian Minister of War had at last mentioned to him the need for an understanding between the two Staffs, and the Servian Director of Military Operations stated that Servia, far from being able to contribute to a common struggle against Bulgaria the 150,000 combatants stipulated by the Graeco-Servian Convention, could not at the moment transport to the northern parts of the Bulgarian frontier more than one or two divisions, while as to the southern parts, which most immediately concerned Greece, they would have to be left with the eight regiments of 1915 conscripts--that is, raw recruits. Simultaneously, the fear which the Greek military authorities had expressed to their Servian colleagues in the previous spring--that delay might prove fatal--was being realized: from all sides came intelligence of the concentration of large Austro-German forces towards the Danube. In the circumstances, after studying Colonel Vlachopoulos's report, the Greek General Staff submitted to the Government (14 September) the opinion that for Greece to embark on a war against Bulgaria, so long as she was not assured of the co-operation of adequate Servian forces, was tantamount to courting annihilation; and of such co-operation there was no prospect: the moment the Serbs found themselves faced by a superior Austro-German army, the Greeks would have to fight the Bulgars as well as, in all probability, the Turks alone. As if in confirmation of this forecast, a week later (21 September), the Hellenic Government received from Sofia the official announcement of the conclusion of a Turco-Bulgarian agreement and of Bulgarian mobilization; the latter measure being, according to the Bulgarian Premier, purely precautionary: as the Austro-German {53} armies had just begun an attack on Servia, and the theatre of war approached the Bulgarian frontiers, his country was obliged to take up an attitude of armed neutrality.[5]