After the May operations, the Governments of France, Great Britain and Italy were more than ever convinced, as Mr. Lloyd George had said, that an Allied offensive in Macedonia was impossible, at least for the moment--perhaps they did not yet understand how large a part of the failure was due to the strategic errors of General Sarrail. Although it was not their intention to withdraw the expeditionary force altogether, a shortening of the front was contemplated. The British, above all, were anxious to achieve this, and two Divisions (the 10th and 60th) were already in course of evacuation, being destined for Palestine, and the French, although they did not withdraw any of their units, allowed their strengths to drop progressively without filling the gaps. We alone had, until then, maintained our effectives up to strength--our 3 brigades comprised 18,000 rifles--but now, seeing that the Allies were reducing their strengths, we also ended by sending to Albania and thence to Italy, the so-called 7th Battalions.[35] The British Government wished that the whole front should be withdrawn within the entrenched camp at Salonica, and the French were not altogether opposed to this scheme. Its execution, it is true, presented serious practical difficulties. A withdrawal of this kind in the face of an enemy in full efficiency is always a very risky operation. It would probably have caused the loss of a great many men and of a large part of the artillery, which it would have been difficult to transport over the rough ground of Macedonia. Another problem was how to defend the entrenched camp, if a great deal of the artillery were lost. The strongest opposition to the scheme came from the Serbs. The Prince-Regent declared definitely that a withdrawal would have a disastrous moral effect on the whole Serbian Army, and that if it were effected he would have great difficulty in exercising authority over it. Depressed as the troops already were, the evacuation of the small tract of Serbian territory which they had reconquered with so much bloodshed, would have produced a regular _débâcle_, and as the Austrians at that time were offering them extremely advantageous peace terms, which an influential party in the army were prepared to accept, it was by no means impossible that the Russian collapse would have been followed by a Serbian separate peace. Finally, if the Allies had limited themselves to holding the entrenched camp at Salonica, the Central Empires would no longer have been prevented from communicating with their friends in Greece. For all these reasons the plan, which was really a mad one, was abandoned.