Abstract
This volume is an ambitious account of how the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 and its successors came to be, as well as the fates of most of the capitol ships that were ultimately designed, built, scrapped or cancelled as the result of its terms. The author has written a number of popular texts on warships and naval history during the first half of the twentieth century, and is clearly well versed on the naval technology of this era. Unlike the majority of studies of this ilk, he has decided to present the material from a very strict ‘international’ and ‘chronological’ order instead of the more conventional ‘nation by nation’ view. This work stresses several key themes; the diplomacy behind the naval treaties of the period, the evolution of capitol ship designs, and provides an evaluation of the effectiveness of this last generation of capitol ships while respecting his chronological theme. Overall, this is perhaps his most enterprising work to date.
The Washington Naval Treaty came to be because the victorious First World War Allies recognised the need to avoid repeating the ever-escalating capital ship construction race that had marked the pre-war period. To its credit, the resulting treaty and its successors still serve as a rare example of mankind’s ‘more’ successful attempts to limit the size and destructiveness of its weapons. When the leading naval powers agreed to the American invitation of 11 July 1921 to hold talks aimed at limiting naval construction, few contemporaries could have foreseen the ultimate wide-ranging and revolutionary concepts that its delegation, under US Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes, ultimately proposed. They included setting a per-nation cap on capitol ship tonnage between the five major remaining powers. Both the US and Great Britain were asked to accept naval parity with each other, while Japan was allocated fewer capitol ships than either of these two powers. France and Italy were to possess even fewer capitol ships. The American proposal called for a respective ratio of 5: 5: 3: 1.75: 1.75 between these various powers all based within a 500,000 maximum displacement allocated to the USN and the Royal Navy. Accepting these ratios meant that a large number of existing capitol ships would have to be scrapped, cancelled, tested to destruction, or reduced to training ships. Furthermore, they were asked to agree to a ten year moratorium on the construction of new capitol ships while limiting any new construction to 35,000 tons with an armament of 16’ guns. Finally, strict limits were imposed on what improvements could be made to any existing capitol ship that was to be retained. Both Germany and the Soviet Union were deliberately not invited to this conference. Despite difficult negotiations over which ships could be saved or scrapped the naval powers finally came to an agreement in February of 1922. Although initially it was impossible to agree to a similar treaty covering smaller vessels, they ultimately did so in 1930.
The author’s narrative traces the evolution of capitol ships from the HMS Dreadnought on, as well as the evolution of their design and developments in armour, underwater protection, main armament and fire control technology. He then discusses the ships that were either refitted or designed from the keel up as a result of attempts to adhere to these naval treaties. Strangely, the first impetus for renewed capitol ship construction arose when Germany finally announced plans to build the first of her ‘armoured ships’ named Deutschland. Although the Versailles Treaty had made no attempt to define the characteristics of these vessels outside of a standard displacement of 10,000 tons, no one expected these ships to be anything other than slow, coastal defence ships. Instead, Germany announced that these new ships would carry six 11” guns with a top speed of 28 knots and a range of over 10,000 nautical miles. Stern correctly points out that the immediate impact of the Deutschlands on subsequent warship design was that it set a nominal maximum speed requirement of 28 knots for all new naval construction. However, he does not discuss the efforts the Washington Naval powers made to deter the construction of these German warships. Apparently, Germany did offer to forgo building these ships in exchange for a 1.25 ratio in capital ships. Since this would have been tantamount to releasing Germany from the naval clauses of the Versailles Treaty, this offer was refused. In 1935, Great Britain finally signed a unilateral and generous naval agreement with the far more militant successor to the German Republic, which indirectly bound Germany to the accepted international standards.
The last sections of Stern’s book cover the actual design and battle history of the new generation of super dreadnoughts from the mid-1930s to the end of the Second World War. By 1936, most nations had realised that they simply could not build an effective capitol ship within the 35,000 ton displacement level. When Japan refused to extend the moratorium, the nations availed themselves of the ‘displacement escalator’ clause of subsequent naval treaties and began to build capitol ships that displaced more than 40,000 tons. In the end, only the US built battleships that displaced 45,000 tons while Japan completed ships with a displacement of 65,000 tons. While Stern does cover most of the classes of ships designed or built during this period, he has deliberately omitted the USN’s Alaska class ‘large cruisers’ or battlecruisers. While his reasons are perhaps defensible, however, given the amount of coverage on the Deutschlands, this decision does seem unfortunate. His arguments at the close of this work as to which class of battleship was the best are certainly valid but most readers will probably not be dissuaded from their personal perceptions.
Overall, this book is well written, relatively balanced and bears the marks of good, solid research. We may disagree with some of Stern’s observations, decisions and omissions, but he has provided us with a thoughtful study of one of the first moderately successful arms limitations agreement that was freely signed by the most powerful nations of their time.