He never got a chance to finish it. In 1912 a Greek expeditionary army entered Macedonia. Among them were volunteers who were Greek archaeologists. With the approval of the army, they took over all archaeology in Macedonia, collecting and storing ancient items, surveying sites, and doing preliminary excavation, with the assistance of other Greek soldiers. The new Governor-General of Macedonia created the first official Archaeological Service. The General Staff of the Army began to automatically assign soldier-archaeologists to it. On November 9, 1912, the office of Ephor of Antiquities of Thessaloniki was created, with George Oikonomou as ephor. He was also head of the Archaeological Service. Gradually additional ephorates were created, which were numbered, 2nd, 3rd, etc., using capital Greek letters for numbers. Each of the ephorates required a museum to house its artifacts.