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London Naval Treaty

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London Naval Treaty
International Treaty for the Limitation and Reduction of Naval Armament
London Naval Conference 1930.jpg
Members of the United States delegation en route to the conference, January 1930
TypeArms control
ContextWorld War I
Signed22 April 1930 (1930-04-22)
LocationLondon
Effective27 October 1930 (1930-10-27)
Expiration31 December 1936 (1936-12-31) (Except for Part IV)
Negotiators
Signatories
Parties
DepositaryLeague of Nations
LanguageEnglish
For the 1936 treaty, see Second London Naval Treaty.

The London Naval Treaty, officially the Treaty for the Limitation and Reduction of Naval Armament, was an agreement between the United Kingdom, Japan, France, Italy, and the United States that was signed on 22 April 1930. Seeking to address issues not covered in the 1922 Washington Naval Treaty, which had created tonnage limits for each nation's surface warships, the new agreement regulated submarine warfare, further controlled cruisers and destroyers, and limited naval shipbuilding.

Ratifications were exchanged in London on 27 October 1930, and the treaty went into effect on the same day, but it was largely ineffective.[1]

The treaty was registered in League of Nations Treaty Series on 6 February 1931.[2]

Discover more about London Naval Treaty related topics

United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland, and many smaller islands within the British Isles. Northern Ireland shares a land border with the Republic of Ireland; otherwise, the United Kingdom is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, the North Sea, the English Channel, the Celtic Sea and the Irish Sea. The total area of the United Kingdom is 242,495 square kilometres (93,628 sq mi), with an estimated 2023 population of over 68 million people.

Empire of Japan

Empire of Japan

The Empire of Japan, also known as the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan, was a historical nation-state and great power that existed from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 until the enactment of the post-World War II 1947 constitution and subsequent formation of modern Japan. It encompassed the Japanese archipelago and several colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories.

French Third Republic

French Third Republic

The French Third Republic was the system of government adopted in France from 4 September 1870, when the Second French Empire collapsed during the Franco-Prussian War, until 10 July 1940, after the Fall of France during World War II led to the formation of the Vichy government.

Fascist Italy (1922–1943)

Fascist Italy (1922–1943)

The Kingdom of Italy was governed by the National Fascist Party from 1922 to 1943 with Benito Mussolini as prime minister. The Italian Fascists imposed authoritarian rule and crushed political and intellectual opposition, while promoting economic modernization, traditional social values and a rapprochement with the Roman Catholic Church.

United States

United States

The United States of America, commonly known as the United States or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territories, nine Minor Outlying Islands, and 326 Indian reservations. The United States is also in free association with three Pacific Island sovereign states: the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and the Republic of Palau. It is the world's third-largest country by both land and total area. It shares land borders with Canada to its north and with Mexico to its south and has maritime borders with the Bahamas, Cuba, Russia, and other nations. With a population of over 333 million, it is the most populous country in the Americas and the third most populous in the world. The national capital of the United States is Washington, D.C. and its most populous city and principal financial center is New York City.

Washington Naval Treaty

Washington Naval Treaty

The Washington Naval Treaty, also known as the Five-Power Treaty, was a treaty signed during 1922 among the major Allies of World War I, which agreed to prevent an arms race by limiting naval construction. It was negotiated at the Washington Naval Conference in Washington, D.C. from November 1921 to February 1922 and signed by the governments of the United Kingdom, United States, France, Italy, and Japan. It limited the construction of battleships, battlecruisers and aircraft carriers by the signatories. The numbers of other categories of warships, including cruisers, destroyers, and submarines, were not limited by the treaty, but those ships were limited to 10,000 tons displacement each.

Tonnage

Tonnage

Tonnage is a measure of the cargo-carrying capacity of a ship, and is commonly used to assess fees on commercial shipping. The term derives from the taxation paid on tuns or casks of wine. In modern maritime usage, "tonnage" specifically refers to a calculation of the volume or cargo volume of a ship. Although tonnage (volume) should not be confused with displacement, the long ton of 2,240 lb is derived from the fact that a "tun" of wine typically weighed that much.

Surface combatant

Surface combatant

Surface combatants are a subset of naval warships which are designed for warfare on the surface of the water, with their own weapons and armed forces. They are generally ships built to fight other ships, submarines, aircraft or land targets, and can carry out several other missions including counter-narcotics operations and maritime interdiction. Their primary purpose is to engage space, air, surface, and submerged targets with weapons deployed from the ship itself, rather than by manned carried craft.

Submarine warfare

Submarine warfare

Submarine warfare is one of the four divisions of underwater warfare, the others being anti-submarine warfare, mine warfare and mine countermeasures.

Conference

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

The signing of the treaty remains inextricably intertwined with the ongoing negotiations, which began before the official start of the London Naval Conference of 1930, evolved throughout the progress of the official conference schedule, and continued for years afterward.

Terms

The treaty was seen as an extension of the conditions agreed in the Washington Naval Treaty, an effort to prevent a naval arms race after World War I.

The conference was a revival of the efforts that had gone into the 1927 Geneva Naval Conference at which the various negotiators had been unable to reach agreement because of bad feelings between the British and the American governments. The problem may have initially arisen from discussions held between US President President Herbert Hoover and UK Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald at Rapidan Camp in 1929, but a range of factors affected tensions, which were exacerbated by the other nations at the conference.[3]

Under the treaty, the standard displacement of submarines was restricted to 2,000 tons, with each major power being allowed to keep three submarines of up to 2,800 tons except that France was allowed to keep one. The submarine gun caliber was also restricted for the first time to 6.1 in (155 mm) with one exception, an already-constructed French submarine being allowed to retain 8 in (203 mm) guns. That put 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 up to 6.1 in (155 mm) ("light cruisers" in unofficial parlance) from those with guns up to 8 in (203 mm) ("heavy cruisers"). The number of heavy cruisers was limited: Britain was permitted 15 with a total tonnage of 147,000, the Americans 18 totalling 180,000, and the Japanese 12 totalling 108,000 tons. For light cruisers, no numbers were specified but tonnage limits were 143,500 tons for the Americans, 192,200 tons for the British, and 100,450 tons for the Japanese.[4]

Destroyer tonnage was also limited, with destroyers being defined as ships of less than 1,850 tons and guns up to 5.1 in (130 mm). The Americans and the British were permitted up to 150,000 tons and Japan 105,500 tons.

Article 22 relating to submarine warfare declared international law applied to them as to surface vessels. Also, merchant vessels that demonstrated "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."[5]

Article 8 outlined smaller surface combatants. Ships between 600 and 2,000 tons, with guns not exceeding 6 in (152 mm) with a maximum of four gun mounts above 3 in (76 mm) without torpedo armament and up to 20 kn (37 km/h), were exempt from tonnage limitations. The maximum specifications were designed around the French Bougainville-class avisos, which were in construction at the time.

Warships under 600 tons were also completely exempt. That led to creative attempts to use the unlimited nature of the exemption with the Italian Spica-class torpedo boats, Japanese Chidori-class torpedo boats, French La Melpomène-class torpedo boats and British Kingfisher-class sloops.[6]

Discover more about Terms related topics

Arms race

Arms race

An arms race occurs when two or more groups compete in military superiority. It consists of a competition between two or more states to have superior armed forces; a competition concerning production of weapons, the growth of a military, and the aim of superior military technology, the term is also used to describe any long-term escalating competitive situation where each competitor or competitive group focuses on out-doing others.

Geneva Naval Conference

Geneva Naval Conference

The Geneva Naval Conference was a conference held to discuss naval arms limitation, held in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1927. The aim of the conference was to extend the existing limits on naval construction which had been agreed in the Washington Naval Treaty. The Washington Treaty had limited the construction of battleships and aircraft carriers, but had not limited the construction of cruisers, destroyers or submarines.

Herbert Hoover

Herbert Hoover

Herbert Clark Hoover was an American politician who served as the 31st president of the United States from 1929 to 1933. He was a member of the Republican Party, holding office during the onset of the Great Depression in the United States. A self-made man who became rich as a mining engineer, Hoover led the Commission for Relief in Belgium, served as the director of the U.S. Food Administration, and served as the U.S. Secretary of Commerce.

Ramsay MacDonald

Ramsay MacDonald

James Ramsay MacDonald was a British statesman and politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, the first who belonged to the Labour Party, leading minority Labour governments for nine months in 1924 and again between 1929 and 1931. From 1931 to 1935, he headed a National Government dominated by the Conservative Party and supported by only a few Labour members. MacDonald was expelled from the Labour Party as a result.

Rapidan Camp

Rapidan Camp

Rapidan Camp in Shenandoah National Park in Madison County, Virginia, was built by U.S. President Herbert Hoover and his wife Lou Henry Hoover, and served as their rustic retreat throughout Hoover's administration from 1929 to 1933. The first family's residential cabin was known as the "Brown House" in contrast to their more famous residence, the White House.

Light cruiser

Light cruiser

A light cruiser is a type of small or medium-sized warship. The term is a shortening of the phrase "light armored cruiser", describing a small ship that carried armor in the same way as an armored cruiser: a protective belt and deck. Prior to this smaller cruisers had been of the protected cruiser model, possessing armored decks only. While lighter and smaller than other contemporary ships they were still true cruisers, retaining the extended radius of action and self-sufficiency to act independently around the world. Through their history they served in a variety of roles, primarily as convoy escorts and destroyer command ships, but also as scouts and fleet support vessels for battle fleets.

Heavy cruiser

Heavy cruiser

The heavy cruiser was a type of cruiser, a naval warship designed for long range and high speed, armed generally with naval guns of roughly 203 mm (8 inches) in calibre, whose design parameters were dictated by the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 and the London Naval Treaty of 1930. The heavy cruiser is part of a lineage of ship design from 1915 through the early 1950s, although the term "heavy cruiser" only came into formal use in 1930. The heavy cruiser's immediate precursors were the light cruiser designs of the 1900s and 1910s, rather than the armoured cruisers of the years before 1905. When the armoured cruiser was supplanted by the battlecruiser, an intermediate ship type between this and the light cruiser was found to be needed—one larger and more powerful than the light cruisers of a potential enemy but not as large and expensive as the battlecruiser so as to be built in sufficient numbers to protect merchant ships and serve in a number of combat theatres.

International law

International law

International law is the set of rules, norms, and standards generally recognized as binding between states. It establishes normative guidelines and a common conceptual framework for states across a broad range of domains, including war, diplomacy, economic relations, and human rights. Scholars distinguish between international legal institutions on the basis of their obligations, precision, and delegation.

Bougainville-class aviso

Bougainville-class aviso

The Bougainville class was a group of colonial avisos, or sloops, built for the French Navy during the 1930s. They were designed to operate in the remote locations of the French Empire.

Chidori-class torpedo boat

Chidori-class torpedo boat

The Chidori-class torpedo boat was an Imperial Japanese Navy class of torpedo boats that were built before and served during the Second World War. The design initially proved to have too much armament for its small displacement, and the capsizing of Tomozuru (友鶴) shortly after completion in heavy weather resulted in a scandal which called into question the basic design of many Japanese warships of the time. After extensive modification, the class became satisfactory sea-boats and saw service in the Battle of the Philippines and the Dutch East Indies campaign as escorts and continued in that role for the rest of the war. Three were sunk during the war and the fourth was seized by the British at Hong Kong after the end of the war, where it was scrapped later.

La Melpomène-class torpedo boat

La Melpomène-class torpedo boat

The La Melpomène class was a group of 12 French torpedo boats built from 1933 to 1935.

Kingfisher-class sloop

Kingfisher-class sloop

The Kingfisher class was a class of nine patrol sloops of the British Royal Navy built in three groups of three each during the 1930s, that saw service during World War II, mainly on East Coast convoys in the North Sea.

Aftermath

The next phase of attempted naval arms control was the Second Geneva Naval Conference in 1932. That year, Italy "retired" two battleships, twelve cruisers, 25 destroyers and 12 submarines; in all, 130,000 tons of naval vessels were scrapped or put into reserve.[7] Active negotiations among the other treaty signatories continued during the following years.[8]

That was followed by the Second London Naval Treaty of 1936.

Source: "London Naval Treaty", Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, (2023, March 15th), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Naval_Treaty.

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Further Reading

Cruiser

Destroyer

Washington Naval Treaty

Heavy cruiser

Second London Naval Treaty

Washington Naval Conference

Trento-class cruiser

List of destroyer classes of the United States Navy

Mogami-class cruiser

Fubuki-class destroyer

Porter-class destroyer

Somers-class destroyer

Geneva Naval Conference

La Galissonnière-class cruiser

Shimushu-class escort ship

Treaty battleship

Chidori-class torpedo boat

List of heavy cruisers of Italy
See also
Notes
  1. ^ John Maurer, and Christopher Bell, eds. At the crossroads between peace and war: the London Naval Conference in 1930 (Naval Institute Press, 2014).
  2. ^ League of Nations Treaty Series, vol. 112, pp. 66–96.
  3. ^ Steiner, Zara S. (2005). The Lights that Failed: European International History 1919–1933, pp. 587-591.
  4. ^ U.S. Department of State. "The London Naval Conference, 1930". Retrieved 20 March 2014.
  5. ^ Treaty for the Limitation and Reduction of Naval Armaments, (Part IV, Art. 22, relating to submarine warfare). London, 22 April 1930
  6. ^ John, Jordan (13 September 2016). Warship 2016. Conway. pp. 8–10. ISBN 9781844863266.
  7. ^ "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. 18 August 1932.
  8. ^ "Naval Men See Hull on the London Talks; Admiral Leigh and Commander Wilkinson Will Sail Today to Act as Advisers". New York Times. 9 June 1934.
Further reading
  • Baker, A. D., III (1989). "Battlefleets and Diplomacy: Naval Disarmament Between the Two World Wars". Warship International. XXVI (3): 217–255. ISSN 0043-0374.
  • Dingman, Roger. Power in the Pacific: The Origins of Naval Arms Limitation, 1914–1922 (1976)
  • Goldstein, Erik, and John H. Maurer, eds. The Washington Conference, 1921–22: Naval Rivalry, East Asian Stability and the Road to Pearl Harbor (Taylor & Francis, 1994).
  • Maurer, John, and Christopher Bell, eds. At the Crossroads between Peace and War: The London Naval Conference in 1930 (Naval Institute Press, 2014).
  • Redford, Duncan. "Collective Security and Internal Dissent: The Navy League's Attempts to Develop a New Policy towards British Naval Power between 1919 and the 1922 Washington Naval Treaty." History 96.321 (2011): 48-67.
  • Roskill, Stephen. Naval Policy Between Wars. Volume I: The Period of Anglo-American Antagonism 1919–1929 (Seaforth Publishing, 2016).
  • Steiner, Zara S. (2005). The Lights that Failed: European International History 1919–1933. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-822114-2; OCLC 58853793
External links
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