As I recall, what gave them the advantage was not actually following the treaty because they'd decided that they'd gotten the short end of the stick.
Yes. Globalist treaties aren't worth the paper they're on when someone doesn't play ball, and that's exactly what happened with the Washington Naval Treaty.
Also, you're conflating the Washington Naval Treaty with the follow-on London Naval Treaty and Second London Naval Treaty.
My understanding(from an analysis one did in the warships1 boards in the late 90's) is that the UK could afford the naval build-up, but there was no political will for it.Everyone signed onto the Washington Naval Treaty because no-one could afford not to. As in dollars. A naval arms race in the 20's would have bankrupted everyone, eventually.
No...no, no, no, they weren't still actually trying to disarm in the 1930s? You know, when Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy are around and outright ignoring treaties left right and centre, whilst the Japanese Empire expands.
As I recall, what gave them the advantage was not actually following the treaty because they'd decided that they'd gotten the short end of the stick.
Nope, the reality of the situation was that, by the time the various naval treaties came into being, Britain was effectively broke as fuck. WW1 and the naval arms race beforehand seriously drained the coffers to the point that if another naval arms race of global magnitude happened, Britain would have been literally bankrupted just by trying to keep up. You forget that Britain's 'more ships than the next several navies combined' policy was stupidly expensive...My understanding(from an analysis one did in the warships1 boards in the late 90's) is that the UK could afford the naval build-up, but there was no political will for it.
EDIT: As for what breed of imbecile was running the show in 1918 and afterwards, the same breed that is doing it right now, adjusted for the attitudes of that time.
From what I understand, their economy was literally teetering on the razor edge of collapse after WW1, the war had been that draining of financial resources. Remember, by 1917 it was literally US loans that kept France and Britain afloat, not their own financial capabilities (that was well beyond tapped out by 1916). The social programs were, from what I've heard, investments to keep the collapse from happening...As I recall the UK wasn't so much broke as wanting to spend the money on social programs and paying down the national debt as fast as possible. They could have managed to build 4 battleships a year and not broken the bank for at least a few years. Anything above that and yeah you'd be right @Aaron Fox
So this is the crunch, naturally nations already hit hard took even more damage, poor old Germany was having a great time and Russia was also facing some political hiccups. With even the big countries, including the US seeing a massive economic hit, it is easy to see why saving money on vastly expensive weapons would be appealing to everyone.
I mean...in the grand scheme of things, warships aren't actually that expensive. We just spent about six billion on two aircraft carriers and, let's face it, if we built two more it would still be like pissing in the ocean even in times of economic hardship. Whatever was spent on battleships would likely have been dwarfed by what we put on social programs, but no one talks about cutting those. Military expenditure is rarely, if ever, one of the main drains on the budget.
That aside, it just didn't work out well at all for us in the end. The Japanese shoved donkey cocks down our throats because we made cut backs.
Disagreement aside, what would you regard as the most beautiful warship to ever fly the White Ensign? I'd personally say Hood or Vanguard, but they've already been posted.
From what I can understand, it wasn't. Britain didn't actually see the profits of what they got from WW1 until the mid-1920s from what I remember. Remember, this is the same nation that literally was out of emergency funds in 1916 and required a lot of collateral so the American bankers will give the loans. I wasn't kidding that the British economy was on the knife's edge of collapse (alongside France) by 1918.The British economy was doing great in 1918, remember Britain made a profit in WWI despite foreign debts (Britain owed the US, but Europe also owed Britain vast sums of money too which did help the balance) The British economy grew during WWI and experienced a boom post war as civilian industry made up for lost time. It absolutely was not in a bad way and performed far better than its neighbours.
The hit is the 1920 depression. This isn't as bad as 1929 but it still hit the world hard. You're talking circa 30% of the US economy vanishing with similar numbers in other countries. Factors incuded the post war bubble popping and the effects of the peak of the Spanish flu hitting. Much like now people tended to stay indoors and not spend money, plus no online retail back then
So this is the crunch, naturally nations already hit hard took even more damage, poor old Germany was having a great time and Russia was also facing some political hiccups. With even the big countries, including the US seeing a massive economic hit, it is easy to see why saving money on vastly expensive weapons would be appealing to everyone.
From what I can understand, it wasn't. Britain didn't actually see the profits of what they got from WW1 until the mid-1920s from what I remember. Remember, this is the same nation that literally was out of emergency funds in 1916 and required a lot of collateral so the American bankers will give the loans. I wasn't kidding that the British economy was on the knife's edge of collapse (alongside France) by 1918.
No.Washington treaty - could british gave independence to Canada,Australia,South Africa
Pity.Then,instead of scrapping all their battlewagons,why they do not sell them ? before WW1 Chile,Argentina,Greece and Turkey wonted buy some.Maybe Holland and China would buy one,too.