The oil magnates will never forgive the State for interfering with their affairs. According to M. Henry Bérenger, "although the State left to the cartel a large share in the management and the profits--more than 100 million francs--the latter never consented with a good grace to the intervention of their country's Government in matters concerning oil. They never freely accepted the principle of collaboration with the public authorities." In August, 1918, at the height of Marshal Foch's offensive, a grave crisis arose from the extraordinary particularism of the oil magnates. For fear of losing an additional profit of 15 centimes a litre, they refused to pool their cans, as the French High Command required of them. The reports sent in at this time by General Head-quarters are categorical in tone. The resistance from private interests became so strong that the Government decided, in the critical days of the great advance, to create a Commissioner-General for Petrol with full executive powers to subordinate rigorously all private commerce in oil to the requirements of the public safety. M. André Tardieu, the High Commissioner at Washington, was sometimes also greatly impeded in his negotiations by the Ten. From the end of 1917, he made direct purchases of oil from the _Standard Oil_, the _Atlantic Refining_, and the _Texas Oil_, because of the difficulties that had been made for him by the rivalry and manoeuvring which he denounced in his telegrams. While the French Government was trying to buy at £5, the oil dealers were offering £7 10s. Their clumsy and inopportune intervention furnished the _Standard Oil_ in many cases with an instrument of pressure.[44] FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 42: Report placed before the Chamber on March 20, 1919, by the Duc de la Trémoïlle.] [Footnote 43: Statement by M. Henry Bérenger in the Senate, June 2, 1920.] [Footnote 44: Affairs of the _Archbold_, the _Goldshell_, and the _Muskogee_. André Tardieu's reply to the oil magnates when challenged by them to state exactly when and how his mission was impeded by their proceedings. The oil-men revenged themselves for the State collaboration which was imposed upon them by a bitter criticism of the system of the consortium in the _Revue Politique et Parlementaire_: accounts badly kept; profits arising from the State's arbitrary allowances for working expenses; ships arriving in ports where they were not expected, and without bills of lading (hence no means of control), etc....] CHAPTER XIX HOW GREAT BRITAIN WON OVER FRANCE TO HER SIDE IN THE STRUGGLE WITH THE UNITED STATES I. Activities of the Royal Dutch and the Anglo-Persian.