A very interesting look at the politics and philosophies of inter-war battleship design

[Lert]

 

A very interesting look at just what influenced battleship design between world war I and world war II.

[alexf24]

Very nice. Thanks for posting.

[dseehafer]

Theres and excellent 3 hour documentary on the history of battleships also. A good documentary to watch on a Sunday  

[Eisennagel]

 

 

War of 1812 still seems fresh in their minds.

[Drakenred]

There were concerns on the British side.

 

1) Wilson was seen as negotiating behind Brittanss back with Germany then somewhat high handedly telling everyone else you don't stop fighting now then fine, You and Germany can duke it out, and we will just take our fleet and army and industrial production home.

 

2) there realy was no logical reason for the insain building schedule that the U. S. Set up that anyone could figure out that we were  enguaged  in, while at the same time there was a STRONGLY anti colonial settlement that was making itself heard at least overseas.

 

3) believe it or not there was a kind of odd " Here we go again, " feeling in England, due to the odd notion that every time England goes to war with a "real" country, it was last times Allie or at least friendly neutral, and what happened more or less just then? Russia had been in theory there side, and now Brittain was fighting the now Soviet Union, and many of its most recent Allies were kind of letting Brittain know they were not exactly thrilled with them for a variety of reasons, and that basicaly left France and America and one of those two was building a giant fleet of super++ Dreadnaughts......for no aparently reason, and from a naval standpoint, the only potential threat to the US  was.....

[Hurlbut]

Lert: you know what's interesting? Interwar USA manipulated the British into dropping out of an alliance with Japan. This was done so Japan wouldn't have anyone on their side at negotiating tables with USA over Pacific region.  USA could do this because it cracked both countries' diplomatic codes and were reading their "mails".

[Mordalen]

Very Nice. Thank-you!

[RedBear87]

No. Japan had not been much help in WW1 at all. That was one reason the British choose the USA over Japan. The other was the fact that the only power in Asia that could threaten the status quo was Japan. 

That's simplistic. The same concentration of the Royal Navy was only possible because of the Alliance and because Japan more or less responsibly stuck to it. And the potential threat that Japan posed to the status quo doesn't explain why the British and Australian PMs were very much in favour of the Alliance's renewal in modified form at the 1921 Imperial Conference.

[Joe_Dracos]

Its nice to see the Forums tradition of  continuing the over simplification of complex historical events.

[NGTM_1R]

The Japanese-British relationship is a lot less than most people make of it. Japan was the only Asian nation that wasn't colonialized, at least partially because they made it too hard for anyone to bother via arming themselves. But Japan could not do this on their own. They needed foreign trade, particularly big-ticket arms, and foreign help, to build and maintain their basic domestic security and prevent ending up like China.

 

The British weren't even the first people Japan turned to for this. That was the French, first by the Shogun and the Ezo Republic, and then later the IJN was built in French yards to the designs of the Young School's strategy. That turned out not to work so well at the Battle of the Yellow Sea, prompting the Japanese to pivot to a British-inspired sea control strategy, and to turn to the Royal Navy and British yards for their warships.

 

It wasn't that the Japanese ever liked the British. Their anti-colonial feelings were deep-seated. Pretty much every action Japan took on the world stage after the Meiji Restoration and before the decision to surrender in WW2 was taken with the goal of protecting themselves from western imperialism. The British were far and away the most successful western imperialists by most accounts, then and now. It was that the British were seen as the best. It afforded not only British protection of Japanese statehood in extremis, but it also allowed the Japanese to copy the tactics, techniques, and tools of the people they saw as the best in the world. Hopefully, given time, they would be able to internalize these things and hence protect themselves from anyone, even the British Empire.

 

The combination of Britain's relative weakness after WW1, Japan's successful participation on the Allied side demonstrating they could not only defend themselves but essentially lock down the Far East, and the fact that Japan was finally becoming self-sufficient in the construction of both capital ships and smaller combatants, meant that the Japanese believed they had finally come to the point where they no longer had to rely on the British as a part of maintaining their defense, in any sense. And they were, after all, just another group of Western Imperialists; not liked, and not to be trusted unless necessary. Once it was no longer thought necessary, the Japanese showed their real sentiment.

[Joe_Dracos]

Very nice.

[Submarine_Wahoo]

I would like to add Japan's sole proposal to the Paris Peace Conferences of 1919, a passage which called for equality for races/ethnic groups in the League of Nations, being rejected by the U.S., because Wilson was trying to get the support of southern Democrats for American entry into the League, and the British, because of the objections of the Dominions, contributed significantly to pushing the Japanese public away from the Western powers and more in favor of the concept of the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere.

[AdmiralPiett]

Japan minded-shop in the Far East, disposed of Qingdao, chased the German East Asia Squadron away, escorted various convoys throughout the Pacific and Indian Oceans, helped in the search for German raiders, disposed of mines German auxiliary cruisers dropped (Both the last issues persisted into 1918), helped suppress an Indian revolt in Singapore for the British, patrolled around Hawaii for the US after they entered the war, and contributed to patrols in the Mediterranean in a capacity that was not insignificant. All of this amounted to the IJN being deployed to the absolute limits of its capabilities at the time:

 

"Japanese destroyers' ratio of time at sea to time in port was the highest of any allied warships during the war: Japanese warships were under way 72 percent of the time. The British record was 60 percent, the Greek and French only 45 percent."

 

Were these glamorous tasks that all the world should be envious of? No. Was the IJN contribution greater than that of the RN or USN? No. Was the IJN contribution irrelevant? Heck no. These tasks, as unexciting as they were, needed to be done by somebody. That somebody ended up being Japan, and it freed up RN and USN ships for the European theatre.

[Daigensui]

Once it was no longer thought necessary, the Japanese showed their real sentiment.

 

You mean the "betrayal" on part of UK when Japan really wanted to keep the treaty?

 

 

Sorry, but every day that passes I have to question your knowledge, never mind you're slowly turning quite.... problematic.

[AdmiralPiett]

There were talks about actually intervening with troops in Europe, but Japan made the real politik decision not to since they stood to gain little from doing so. Japan could gain more by staying out of serious combat and using their energy to bully Warlord-era China some more. As for the naval side, the IJN was growing, but they really didn't have much in the way of vessels that could actually go very far. I suppose they could have sent the Kongos or something to join the Grand Fleet, but I guess they really didn't see the need. Japan was already stretching its handful of truly blue-water light fleet units to their limit. I don't have numbers off the top of my head, but the number of fleet destroyers and long range cruisers in the IJN was tiny at this time.

[NGTM_1R]

 

You mean the "betrayal" on part of UK when Japan really wanted to keep the treaty?

 

You mean the fact that the British quite reasonably wanted to change the Treaty because Japan was more than capable of its own defense, having in fact become the preeminent power in the Far East with more firepower to throw around than any of the Western nations could realistically station there in peacetime? I understand that you'd present a Japanese-slated view of what happened, but the fact you haven't bothered at all to see what the Brits were thinking is...actually kind of sad.

 

Nevermind that every day you're incapable of not escalating with ad hominem.

[Daigensui]

but the fact you haven't bothered at all to see what the Brits were thinking is...actually kind of sad.

 

You mean every member of the Commonwealth except Canada supporting immediate renewal, and it was the Canadian opposition that slowly dragged the alliance to its demise?

 

Since you brought up British thoughts, it was simple: Better to have Japan as an ally to concentrate on Europe, but not at the cost of antagonizing the US. What you brought up is the complete opposite of British thoughts at the time.

 

 

Nevermind that every day you're incapable of not escalating with ad hominem.

 

Apologies if I point out such blatantly wrong statements tainted with problematic assumptions.

 

 

PS: If that sounded hostile, didn't mean to. Perhaps I am too blunt at the moment.

[Drakenred]

 

You mean every member of the Commonwealth except Canada supporting immediate renewal, and it was the Canadian opposition that slowly dragged the alliance to its demise?

 

Since you brought up British thoughts, it was simple: Better to have Japan as an ally to concentrate on Europe, but not at the cost of antagonizing the US. What you brought up is the complete opposite of British thoughts at the time.

 

the Impression I have gotten from digging into that was that things were not exactly as Pro Alliance as some would think, Stanley Bruce and Billy Hughes among others made it fairly plain they thought that Japan was not to be trusted and would capitalize on the problems the English were having in the wake of WWII and were some of the people pushing for the Proposed expansion of the Australian Fleet. After all its fairly interesting that they went from being Pro Aliance Treaty to being Pro Washington with the only apparent complaint being the requirement to scuttle there own battlecruiser

[Drakenred]

Doh I keep forgetting American is the land of the idiot time change. 

 

[RedBear87]

Consider me surprised the victors of Tushima and Port Arthur could not do more. And I'm not kidding, I did expect them to be able to deploy a pair of BC and an infantry division or two. 

It's quite simple, Japan couldn't expect to gain anything from doing more, the British were already dragging their feet on recognising the Japanese occupation of the German islands in the Pacific. I think you're forgetting others were fighting because of secret pacts like the Sykes-Picot Agreement and the Treaty of London, instead of noble idealism, that fig leaf came later with Wilson; the Anglo-Japanese Alliance was aimed at the Far East, it explicitly talked about the "desire to maintain the status quo and general peace in the Extreme East", Japan did its fair share as far as the Far Eastern theatre was concerned.

 

P.S. It goes without saying that all those in Britain who during the war and later accused Japan of being self-concerned and egotist needed a mirror.

[RedBear87]

the Impression I have gotten from digging into that was that things were not exactly as Pro Alliance as some would think, Stanley Bruce and Billy Hughes among others made it fairly plain they thought that Japan was not to be trusted and would capitalize on the problems the English were having in the wake of WWII and were some of the people pushing for the Proposed expansion of the Australian Fleet. After all its fairly interesting that they went from being Pro Aliance Treaty to being Pro Washington with the only apparent complaint being the requirement to scuttle there own battlecruiser

Both the Anglo-Japanese Alliance and the Washington Treaty were means to an end, being pro-Alliance didn't mean intending the Alliance in terms of "Special Relationship" between "Friends", if such a thing ever existed in geopolitics, it simply appeared to be an option to keep Japan under control, one that avoided to encourage her further alienation and eventual drift to an alliance with a rival of the British in a moment where there was little appetite for the military expenditures needed to effectively defend both the interests in the Far East and Europe at the same time; it was a leash on Japan in other words. The Washington Treaty appeared to almost everyone as a better alternative, insofar it allowed to get rid of America's apprehensions over the Alliance's objectives without insulting Japan, while at the same time the naval construction holiday bought naval superiority vis a vis the same, not very trusted, Japan and either of the two remaining European naval powers without causing a world-wide naval arms race, which would have further poisoned international relations and potentially bankrupted the Treasury or alternatively caused a rise of the revolutionary leftists.