Starting in January 1937, the British government made a major push for the Czechoslovak president Edvard Beneš to negotiate with Henlein about his demands for autonomy for the Sudetenland, but Beneš refused, saying he believed that Czechoslovakia's future was a bright one. The French minister in Prague, Victor de Lacroix, supported Beneš, saying that any concession to Henlein would weaken France's ally Czechoslovakia, and thus the entire "cordon sanitaire" as the French alliance system in Eastern Europe was known. As France was Czechoslovakia's most powerful ally, Beneš felt no need to give in to the British pressure in 1937 for talks with Henlein about the devolving power from the Castle. Weinberg argued that this was a great missed opportunity for Beneš as "...the way to show up Henlein as disloyal was for the Czechoslovak government to make him a real offer which he would either have to accept, thereby recognizing the willingness of the Prague government to make meaningful concessions, or reject and thereby show himself uninterested in agreement. Such a development would not take until the very last stages of the 1938 negotiations".