The Italians, too, had attempted to take part in the Balkan operations, but with their own national interests obviously placed above the general interests of the whole Entente. They had landed on the Albanian coast, at Durazzo and Avlona, hoping to hold territory which they desire ultimately to annex. Then followed the invasion of Montenegro and Albania by the Austrians and the Bulgarians, and the Italians were driven out of Durazzo, retaining only a foothold in Avlona. By March, 1916, all major military operations had ceased. Except for the British and French at Saloniki and the Italians at Avlona, the Teutons and the Bulgarians had cleared the whole Balkan peninsula south of the Danube of their enemies and were in complete possession. The railroad running down through Serbia and Bulgaria to Constantinople was repaired where the Serbians had had time to injure it, and communications were established between Berlin and the capital of the Ottoman Empire, which had been one of the main objects of the campaign. In the beginning, however, the Bulgarians did not venture to push their lines across the Greek frontier, though this is a part of Macedonia which is essentially Bulgarian in population. There are several reasons why the Bulgarians should have restrained themselves. The traditional hatred which the Greeks feel for the Bulgarians, so bitter that an American cannot comprehend its depths, would undoubtedly have been so roused by the presence of Bulgarian soldiers on Greek soil that the king would not have been able to have opposed successfully Venizelos and his party, who were strong adherents of the Allies. This would not have suited German policy, though to the victorious Bulgarians it would probably not have made much difference. Another reason was, as has developed since, that the Bulgarian communications were but feebly organized, and a further advance would have been extremely precarious. The roads through Macedonia are few, and the best are not suited to automobile traffic. The few prisoners that the French and English were able to take evinced the fact that the Bulgarians were being badly supplied and that the soldiers were starved to the point of exhaustion. And finally, from a military point of view, the Allied troops were now in the most favorable position. Their lines were drawn in close to their base, Saloniki, with short, interior communications. The Bulgarians, on the contrary, were obliged to spread themselves around the wide semicircle formed by the Anglo-French lines. To have taken Saloniki would have been for them an extremely costly undertaking, if, indeed, it would have at all been possible. On the other hand, it was equally obvious that the Allies were not, and would not be, for a long time to come, in a position to direct an effective offensive against the Bulgarians in Macedonia. That they and their German allies realized this was apparent from the fact that the German forces now began withdrawing in large numbers.