Subsequent events did nothing to restore Anglo-French unity in the Near East. At the Washington Conference in December, 1921, Lord Lee and M. Briand engaged in a verbal war over submarines which created no little hard feeling and suspicion in both Great Britain and France. Differences of opinion regarding Russia and other questions discussed at the Genoa Conference, together with a clash over reparations in midsummer, 1922, strained relations still further. Charges by Greeks and Englishmen that France and Italy were supplying munitions to the Turkish Nationalists were received with counter-charges that British officers were aboard Greek warships and that British “observers” were directing Greek military operations in Asia Minor.[27] Feeling ran high in September, 1922, when—seeking to avoid a Near Eastern war—the French and Italian Governments withdrew their troops from the Neutral Zone of the Straits, leaving the British forces to face, alone, the victorious Nationalist army of Mustapha Kemal Pasha. British patriots were further irritated by the mysterious activities of M. Henri Franklin-Bouillon in the negotiations preceding the Mudania armistice and by the claims of the Paris press to a great victory thereby for French prestige at Angora and Constantinople. Fundamental differences of opinion regarding reparations—culminating in the French invasion of the Ruhr in January, 1923—made still more difficult coöperation by the former Allies in the Near East. In fact, it might be questioned whether the Entente Cordiale any longer existed. This situation was brought into sharp relief at the first Lausanne Conference for Peace in the East.[28] Great Britain’s interests were chiefly territorial. She had abandoned all hope of destroying Turkish power by creating a Greek empire in Asia Minor; Greece was gone from Smyrna for good. But England was determined to maintain her hold in Mesopotamia—particularly in the oilfields of Mosul—and to hold out for neutralization of the Straits. These territorial questions occupied the major part of the first six weeks of the Conference. France had no interest in the decisions regarding the Straits and Mosul; therefore she supported the Turks and placed Lord Curzon in the position of appearing to be the real opponent of Turkish Nationalist ambitions and the principal obstacle in the way of an equitable settlement. Lord Curzon himself strengthened this impression, for many of his utterances were provocative and bombastic in the extreme—apparently he would not give up the idea that the Turks could be bluffed and bullied into submission.