Obviously, the British were the more reluctant to abandon the project, which had been entered upon with so much confidence and enthusiasm. It was distinctly a British operation, although the French Government had given its unqualified approval at the start and had loyally contributed all the troops it could spare. But the plans had been drawn up in London and had been worked out by British commanders; and the acknowledgment of failure was a confession of British, not French, incompetency. It was a blow at British prestige such as had not been dealt since the early disasters of the Boer War. While the whole question of the Gallipoli campaign was being reconsidered there occurred something that had a profound effect upon subsequent events in that part of the war area and elsewhere. The defeat of the Russians while the French and British troops were unable, through lack of preparation and foresight, to carry on an energetic offensive that might have drawn the Germans from their Slav prey, convinced all the allied Governments that the time had arrived for a thorough revision of their system of cooperation. In short, if the war was to be won and each of the Entente Powers was to escape a separate defeat while the others were doomed to a forced inactivity, it was necessary that their military, economic, and financial affairs should be so coordinated and administered that they should be directed with one object only in view--the winning of the war. For this purpose representatives of the allied powers met in Paris and discussed plans. One of the first results of these discussions was to be seen in the military field. The armies of France and England in the field became, for all practical purposes, one. The supreme command of the allied forces in France was placed in the hands of the commander in chief of the French army. General French, who had been only nominally under the orders of the French commander in chief, retired from command of the British army in France and one of his subordinates, Sir Douglas Haig, took his place. Similarly, in the southwestern theatre of the war, where Sir Ian Hamilton was in supreme command, the leadership passed to France, Hamilton resigning and his place being taken by Sir Charles Monro. When the British and French troops from Gallipoli were ultimately landed at Saloniki the supreme command of the allied forces in that theatre of war was given to General Sarrail of the French army. Undoubtedly, too, the influence of France, and of Joffre individually, was thrown into the scales at these Paris meetings against a continuance of the Dardanelles operations. French public opinion was strongly in favor of sending immediate succor to the Serbians. So strong, in fact, was this public opinion that, when the expected help failed to arrive, it forced the immediate downfall of Delcasse and the ultimate resignation of the French Cabinet.