Nevertheless the Allied Governments again insisted in demanding his recall. On the eve of the May offensive in 1917, Mr. Lloyd George had been given the assurance that General Sarrail would be relieved as soon as the operations were ended. This would also have given time to reconsider the whole question of the Command in the near East. At one time it had been proposed to send strong Italian reinforcements to that front with the Duke of Aosta as Commander-in-Chief of the Allied armies, but the proposal was dropped. When the offensive came to an absolutely unsuccessful end, chiefly owing to the failure of Sarrail, the latter continued to hold his Command in spite of the ever-increasing irritation at his conduct on the part of all the Allies, including now even the Crown Prince of Serbia. The French Government, however, now asked that he should be left in Salonica until the Greek question had been finally settled. After the abdication of Constantine and the return of Venizelos, the British Government reopened the Sarrail question; but M. Painlevé, who had become Minister of War in the Ribot Cabinet, continued to support him. On July 25th Mr. Lloyd George said to him: “You assume the whole responsibility, but as a matter of fact, the Armée d’Orient is now condemned to immobility because the failure of the Russian offensive (that ordered by Kerensky) removes all hopes of co-operation between the Russian and Roumanian Armies and that of the Orient.” But M. Painlevé had such a fanatical admiration for Sarrail that this responsibility caused him no anxiety whatever. A few days later, on the fall of the Ribot Cabinet, Painlevé became Prime Minister. Although the Allied Governments continued to desire the recall of Sarrail, they considered that it was advisable to suspend their demand for the moment. In France there was great depression and pessimism about the progress of the war, owing to the unsuccessful offensive at the Chemin des Dames and the enormous losses suffered, as well as to the serious military mutinies organized by the Socialists, which had to be repressed with ruthless but just severity. The Allies, therefore, deemed it inadvisable to add to the embarrassments of the French Government.