London Naval Treaty

Two conferences in London sought to continue and extend naval armaments pacts initially agreed upon at the Washington Naval Conference of 1921–1922. At this conference, the United States, Great Britain, Japan, France, and Italy agreed on ratios for battleship and aircraft carrier tonnage in a successful effort to halt what might have been an expensive arms race; the resulting treaty also allowed the British to let the Anglo-Japanese Treaty of 1902 terminate. Britain thus avoided being caught in a possible future Japanese-American conflict as an ally of each power.

As the industrialized world slid into the Great Depression, the five nations met in London from late January to late April 1930. The United States, Great Britain, and Japan agreed to extend the Washington naval accord for battleships (and aircraft carriers) and established a new 10:10:7 ratio for small cruisers and destroyers while permitting Japan parity in submarines. France and Italy, both of which considered themselves to be ill-used, did not officially accept these new ratios but, given the depression, all five powers agreed to defer construction of new capital ships until 1937. These new agreements were to continue to 1936, with the signatories pledged to meet again in five years to re-open the discussions.

In December 1935, the naval powers met again in London to continue and extend naval disarmament from earlier Washington (1922) and London (1930) naval treaties. A threat loomed on the horizon—in 1934, Japan had announced its intention not to extend the treaties past 1936, their expiration date, and began planning on the super battleships of the "Yamato" class. The United States and Great Britain would not grant Japan parity in warship tonnage (and hence in the number of capital ships), and Japan withdrew from the conference. The United States, Great Britain, and France signed a naval treaty on 25 March 1936 to limit cruisers and destroyers to 8,000 tons and battleships to 35,000 tons (and 14-inch guns) but, without Japanese, German, and Italian concurrence, this London naval treaty was powerless.

By 1938, as word of super battleships under construction in Japan and Germany spread, the signatories revised treaty limits on the size of major warships, and in 1939 with the German invasion of Poland and the subsequent British and French declarations of war against Germany, the treaty was scrapped.

However well intentioned, the treaties failed in their larger goal of preventing war. While Japan signed the 1930 London Naval Treaty, eighteen months later it used the Mukden Incident to take over China's rich province of Manchuria and generally begin to expand on the Asian mainland. Meanwhile, the naval treaties had no impact on Germany's plan for a war of conquest and aggression on the European mainland.

Bibliography

Borg, Dorothy. The United States and the Far Eastern Crisis of 1933–1938. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1964.

Crowley, James B. Japan's Quest for Autonomy: National Security and Foreign Policy, 1930–1938. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1966.

Doenecke, Justus D., and Edward Wilz. From Isolation to War, 1931–1941 2d ed. Arlington Heights, Ill.: Harlan Davidson, 1991.

Pelz, Stephen.E. Race to Pearl Harbor: The Failure of the Second London Naval Conference and the Onset of World War II. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1974.

The London Naval Treaty was an agreement between the United Kingdom, the Empire of Japan, France, Italy and the United States, signed on April 22, 1930, which regulated submarine warfare and limited naval shipbuilding.

Contents 1 Conference 2 Terms of the Treaty 3 Circumventing the Treaty 4 See also 5 Notes 6 References 7 External links

Conference

Menu and List of Official Toasts at formal dinner which opened the London Naval Conference of 1930.

The treaty was a document composed of words and punctuation marks; but the text and the signing of that treaty remains inextricably intertwined with the on-going negotiations which began before the official start of the London Naval Conference, evolved throughout the progress of the official conference schedule, and continued for years thereafter.

Terms of the Treaty

The terms of the treaty were seen as an extension of the conditions agreed in the Washington Naval Treaty. The agreement is officially termed the Treaty for the Limitation and Reduction of Naval Armament.

The Conference was a revival of the efforts which had gone into the Geneva Naval Conference of 1927. At Geneva, the various negotiators had been unable to reach agreement because of bad feeling between the British Government and that of the United States. This problem may have initially arisen from discussions held between President Herbert Hoover and Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald at Rapidan Camp in 1929; but a range of factors affected tensions which were exacerbated between the other nations represented at the conference.^[1]

Under the Treaty, the standard displacements and gun calibres of submarines were restricted for the first time, thereby putting an end to the 'big-gun' submarine concept pioneered by the British M Class and the French Surcouf. The Treaty also established a distinction between cruisers armed with guns no greater than 6.1 inches (155mm) calibre ("light cruisers" in unofficial parlance), from those with guns up to 8 inches (203 mm) calibre ("heavy cruisers"). Limits on total tonnage were placed on most categories of naval vessels for each signatory nation.

Article 22 relating to submarine warfare declared that international law applied to them as to surface vessels. Also merchant vessels which did demonstrate "persistent refusal to stop" or "active resistance" could be sunk without the ship's crew and passengers being first delivered to a "place of safety".^[2]

The next phase of attempted naval arms control was the Second Geneva Naval Conference in 1932; and in that year, Italy retired two battleships, twelve cruisers, 25 destroyers, and 12 submarines -- in all, 130,000 tons of naval vessels.^[3] Active negotiations amongst the other treaty signatories continued during the following years.^[4] This was followed by the Second London Naval Treaty of 1936.

Circumventing the Treaty

Osaka Asahi Shimbun describing the May 15 Incident and assassination of Prime Minister Tsuyoshi Inukai following the ratification of the Treaty by the Empire of Japan

The British, American and Japanese navies all sought to circumvent the treaty.^[5] For example, the "light cruisers" built by all three navies in the 1930s were such in name only. As the London Treaty defined a "light cruiser" as one having a main armament no greater than 6.1 inches (155 mm) calibre, the three major naval powers embarked on building "light cruisers" that were equal in size and effective power to heavy cruisers. These ships made up for their smaller calibre guns by carrying a larger number of them. As these cruisers fell just under the 10,000 ton standard displacement limit set by the treaty, they were theoretically compliant with the restrictions, but only barely. See British Town-class cruiser, Japanese Mogami-class cruiser, and American Brooklyn-class cruiser for specific examples.

See also

• Treaty of London - List of treaties signed in London.

Notes

1. ^ Steiner, Zara S. (2005). The Lights that Failed: European International History 1919-1933, pp. 587-591.
2. ^ Treaty for the Limitation and Reduction of Naval Armaments, (Part IV, Art. 22, relating to submarine warfare). London, 22 April 1930
3. ^ "Italy Will Retire 130,000 tons of Navy; Two Battleships, All That She Owns, Are Included in the Sweeping Economy Move. Four New Cruisers to go [plus] Eight Old Ones, 25 Destroyers and 12 Submarines Also to Be Taken Out of Service," New York Times. August 18, 1932.
4. ^ "Naval Men See Hull on the London Talks; Admiral Leigh and Commander Wilkinson Will Sail Today to Act as Advisers," New York Times. June 9, 1934.
5. ^ Seldon, Charles A. "Japan's Attitude Halts Naval Talks; Delays in Entering Parleys in London Result in Calling Them Off Until Fall. Davis Will Return Home; Washington Is Disappointed by Failure of Tokyo to Offer Preliminary Program," New York Times. July 17, 1934.

References

• Steiner, Zara S. (2005). The Lights that Failed: European International History 1919-1933. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 10-ISBN 0-198-22114-2; 13-ISBN 978-0-198-22114-2; OCLC 58853793

External links

• Text of the treaty

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