On October 11, 1916, the patience of the Allies seems to have been again exhausted with the wavering policy of the Greek monarch. On that date Admiral du Fournier came to Athens and demanded the surrender of the entire Greek fleet, except the cruiser _Averoff_ and the battleships _Lemnos_ and _Kilkis_ (the latter two formerly the American ships _Idaho_ and _Mississippi_). He further demanded the transfer of control to the Allies of the Piraeus-Larissa railroad and that the shore batteries should all be dismantled. These demands were complied with at once, and all but the three vessels named were surrendered and their crews landed. The ships so handed over consisted of three battleships, one protected cruiser, four gunboats, three mine layers, one torpedo depot ship, sixteen destroyers, twelve torpedo boats, four submarines, and the royal yacht. The rest of the Greek navy had already gone over to the Allies, as was mentioned, and was now in Saloniki. The Piraeus-Larissa railroad, which the Allies also demanded, runs for a distance of 200 miles in a winding course from Piraeus, the seaport of Athens, to Larissa. The cause of this sudden action, as explained by the British press, was that for some time Greek troops had been concentrating in the interior near Larissa, while other troops were gathering in Corinth, from whence they could easily reach the force in Larissa. An Athens division had been quietly moving along the railroad line, leaving a regiment to intrench themselves before the king's palace at Tatoi. Apparently the fear was that King Constantine was preparing, at a favorable moment, to retire with his army and intrench himself in the plains of Thessaly until he could there join hands with the Bulgarians and the Germans and perhaps attack the Allies on their left flank. The surrender of the railroad now made this impossible.