The Hellenic Government, while deeply and sincerely regretting that it was materially impossible for it to do at present more for Servia, wished to assure her that, faithful to their friendship, it would continue to accord her every assistance and facility consistent with its international position.[2] The Entente Powers took no exception to this attitude; which is not to be wondered at, seeing that they had hitherto uniformly ignored the Graeco-Servian Treaty, and, by their project of territorial concessions to Bulgaria, had laboured, as much as in them lay, to annul a pact made for the defence of the territorial _status quo_ against Bulgaria: not until Bulgaria had been at open war with Servia for some days (14 Oct.), could they bring themselves to declare that the promises of Servian and Greek territory which they had made to her no longer held. Unable, therefore, to tell Greece that she was under any obligation to enter the War on Servia's behalf, Sir Edward Grey attempted to induce her to do so for her own benefit by offering her the island of Cyprus. This offer, made on 17 October, Greece felt compelled to decline: what would it have profited her to gain Cyprus and lose Athens? And what could an acceptance have profited Servia either? As {67} M. Zaimis said, by intervening at that moment Greece would perish without saving Servia. Servia could have been saved had an Anglo-French expedition on an adequate scale taken place at any of the times which the Greek General Staff proposed for Graeco-Servian co-operation--indeed, at any time except only the particular time chosen by the Entente. When their troops arrived at Salonica, the Servian army--what had been left of it after fourteen months' fighting and typhus--was already falling back before the Austro-Germans, who swarmed across the Drina, the Save, and the Danube, occupied Belgrade and pushed south (6-10 Oct.), while the Bulgars pressed towards Nish (11-12 Oct.). On the day on which the English offer was made (17 Oct.), the Austro-Germans were fifteen miles south of Belgrade, and by the 2nd of November there was no longer any Servia to save, the Bulgars having on that day entered Monastir. The co-operation of Greece might still have been obtained if the Allies could even then have sent to Salonica forces large enough to assure her that the struggle would be waged on more equal terms.[3] There had always been an influential group among the principal military leaders at Athens who held that it was to the vital interest of their country that Bulgaria should be attacked, and who, to secure the help of the Entente Powers against Bulgarian pretensions in the future, were prepared to run great immediate risks. As it was, the dilatoriness of the Allies imposed upon M. Zaimis a policy of inaction. This policy, besides being imposed by circumstances, also accorded with the new Premier's character.