Prince Feisal pleaded his case before the peace conference with eloquence and dignity. But Feisal failed. The covenant of the League of Nations might contain the benevolent statement that "certain communities formerly belonging to the Turkish Empire have reached a stage of development where their existence as independent nations can be provisionally recognized subject to the rendering of administrative advice and assistance by a mandatory until such time as they are able to stand alone."[180] The Arabs knew what "mandatories" meant. Lloyd George might utter felicitous phrases such as "Arab forces have redeemed the pledges given to Great Britain, and we should redeem our pledges."[181] The Arabs had read the secret treaties. "In vain is the net spread in the sight of any bird." The game no longer worked. The Arabs knew that they must rely on their own efforts, either in diplomacy or war. Feisal still counselled peace. He was probably influenced to this not merely by the risks of armed resistance but also by the fact that the Allies were now quarrelling among themselves. These quarrels of course extended all over the Near East, but there was none more bitter than the quarrel which had broken out between England and France over the division of the Arab spoils. This dispute originated in French dissatisfaction with the secret treaties. No sooner had the Sykes-Picot Agreement been published than large and influential sections of French opinion began shouting that they had been duped. For generations French imperialists had had their eye on Syria,[182] and since the beginning of the war the imperialist press had been conducting an ardent propaganda for wholesale annexations in the Near East. "La Syrie integrale!" "All Syria!" was the cry. And this "all" included not merely the coast-strip assigned France by the Sykes-Picot Agreement, but also Palestine and the vast Aleppo-Damascus hinterland right across to the rich oil-fields of Mosul. To this entire region, often termed in French expansionist circles "La France du Levant," the imperialists asserted that France had "imprescriptible historic rights running back to the Crusades and even to Charlemagne." Syria was a "second Alsace," which held out its arms to France and would not be denied. It was also the indispensable fulcrum of French world-policy. These imperialist aspirations had powerful backing in French Government circles. For example, early in 1915, M. Leygues had said in the Chamber of Deputies: "The axis of French policy is in the Mediterranean. One of its poles is in the West, at Algiers, Tunis, and Morocco. The other must lie in the East, with Syria, Lebanon, Palestine."[183]