League of Nations Navy

In late 1919 an intense salvage operation started at Scapa Flow. The goal were the 52 ships of the German High Seas Fleet. The initial plan that some ships would be restored for use by the Royal Navy, other ships donated to the League of Nations giving it, its own fleet and finally the rest for salvage to pay for the operation.
 
I'd hear of the plan to salvage as many of the ships as possible but never of simply handing them over to the League of Nations, it raises questions such as who'd man them, where they'd be maintained/home base, if they did fire in anger how would the member nations react, we know that nations did just up and leave when they never agreed or were on the receiving end of the L of N sanctions. I can't see it being a practical arrangement and in the long term they would have to pay for the upgrade and eventual replacement of these vessels.

(Bit of trivia about the Scapa Scuttled Fleet is its steel is a prime source of low background radiation free steel and there are suggestions that some even made it into the Voyager space programme).
 
I'd hear of the plan to salvage as many of the ships as possible but never of simply handing them over to the League of Nations, it raises questions such as who'd man them, where they'd be maintained/home base, if they did fire in anger how would the member nations react, we know that nations did just up and leave when they never agreed or were on the receiving end of the L of N sanctions. I can't see it being a practical arrangement and in the long term they would have to pay for the upgrade and eventual replacement of these vessels.
I remember reading about it being floated at the peace conference to deal with the problem of how to split up the fleet - obviously the ships couldn't go back to the Germans, but to give them out to any other power might upset the balance of naval power in the post-war environment. The British and American admirals had put it forward that they didn't want the ships, it would be expensive to integrate them and they were of designs ill-suited to world-spanning navies, but France and Italy (and maybe Japan?) thought it would be good for them to take some, as they were smaller naval powers. But splitting them up wasn't acceptable to the British or Americans because it would mean everyone taking an equal or proportional share, and they were already eyeing each other suspiciously in naval terms.

This isn't the source I'm thinking of, which I can't find, but there is an article from the New York Times of December 2, 1918 that summarizes the problems.
 
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