"President Clemenceau personally requests President Wilson to give the necessary Government authority _for the immediate dispatch to French ports of these steamers_. "The safety of the Allied nations is in the balance. If the Allies do not wish to lose the War, then, at the moment of the great German offensive, they must not let France lack the petrol which is as necessary as blood in the battles of to-morrow." To "harness the _Standard Oil_ to the victorious chariot of the Entente," to use the expression of Mr. Page, nothing less was necessary than the official intervention of the United States Government. The _Standard_ preferred to compete with the _Royal Dutch_ in the Pacific. Wilson put an end to this state of affairs and the Petroleum War Board immediately placed all the necessary boats at the disposal of France. Thanks to the reserves thus built up, Foch, at the time of the great German push in Picardy, was able to bring up heavy reinforcements by motor-lorries and fill the gaps where the British front had been broken. Marshal Foch was able to execute his strategic surprises only by relying on the 92,000 motor-lorries and the 50,000 tons of petrol a month, which the Government placed at his disposal from March to November, 1918. The Allied Governments had already decided to pool their resources, and had set up the Inter-Allied Petroleum Conference, a central body whose task was to supply them all. It was constituted as follows: 1. Sir John Cadman, Kembal Cook, Ashdown and Graham, representing the British Petroleum Executive. 2. Captain Foley and L.J. Thomas, representing the American Petroleum War Board. 3. Professor Bordas, Controller-General of the French Technical Services, and head of the laboratories of the Ministry of Finance; Henry Bérenger, Lieutenant Georges Bénard, and the Marquis de Chasseloup-Laubat, representing the French General Petroleum Commission. 4. Captain Pozzo and Lieutenant Farina, representing the Italian Commission on Mineral Oils. The Chairman was Sir John Cadman, a former professor in the University of Birmingham, who has played so important a part in British policy during the last few years.