WI in 1915 London had called for a Washington Treaty on Naval Fleets

What If the UK called for a naval Treaty in 1915 .

How would this of changed the Face of the worlds Navies in the Next 30 years .

Let us butterfly two events leading up to 1914 one that Teddy Roosevelt Had run for President in 1908 and won and the Arch Duke of A-H had not been Killed in 1914 .

How would a naval treaty looked like in 1915 if there was no WWI going on .
What would the number of ships looked like . Would it be 5-5-5-3-3-3 for the Navies or what .
How would the worlds Fleets looked like by 1922 .
Remember in 1913-1915 The German Navy laid down 4 Battle ships and 6 Battle Cruisers and the UK laid down 9 Battle Ships , and 5 BC .
The US 5 Battle ships
France had 5 battle ships laid down And A-H had 5 Laid down .
And Japan had 2 laid down .
 
The pervading sense of the time is that everyone knew war was mere months away at any given moment, so I don't think anyone would agree to cut down their fleets.
 
Also-why would they? The UK's main naval rival, the Germans, had been defeated decisively in the naval race, France and Russia were close to Britain after years of detente, Japan was still an ally (and hasn't been all aggressive by snatching up German colonies yet) and the USA wasn't a major threat after it had been fed its concessions in the 1900s. Whilst naval building was expensive, the British economy wasn't in anything like as bad a situation as it was in the early 1920s. There may be a naval treaty, or a series of naval agreements to limit expenditure-but these, when tried, had failed with Germany (see the Haldane Mission.) Even if there is a naval treaty, it will give the UK a position of far greater strength than the Washington Treaty.
 
Naval strength for many countries in this period is governed by laws they have passed - the German naval laws are the most famous, but France had similar, and one assumes most other nations did. They would want to use the numbers outlined in these laws as the basis for negotiation, not least because to agree to anything less would be invalid in the face of these laws

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
I doubt that the UK would want to cede its overwhelming superiority and settle for being an equal. Rather, I imagine if the UK participated in a treaty it would demand at least 8 if the next strongest signatory had 5.

The Royal Navy had long acted under the "Two Power Rule"--the RN would be as strong as it two strongest potential enemies. During the run up to WW I, this had proved to be too expensive. Consequently, the UK tried to maintain a 60% advantage over the Imperial German Navy in capital ships.

Without the immense expense of the War and with its huge fleet, I would think that the UK would try to maintain the 60% rule. They might try to achieve this by asking for a codified Two Power Rule but settling for a 60% (8/5) advantage over the next power.
 
In 1915 without no WW1 the RN would still be the most powerful navy in the world. The 6th QE would have still been in the building programme and the Rs would be at the first stage. It is also possible that we might have been able to convince the Canadians to go through with the idea of them funding additional QEs.

It would be interesting to speculate whether the RN would have built additional BCs after Tiger as Renown and Repulse used materials gathered for the 6th QE. There is some evidence that with fast BBs around the RN was begining to regard BCs as obsolete.
 
Ward's talking ratios of 5:3 etc, so if they have 30 dreadnoughts in permanent commission then those with a ratio of 3 would have 3/5 of this, ie 18

If we look at Russia, they had 12 building or completing, with another 4 on the drawing board. Given this rate of expansion, I would think Russia would push for a 3 ratio.

Such a ratio would also suit France and Italy. Austria would probably accept a 2 ratio, ie 12 to their 18, simply because of the enormous drain of getting 3 classes of 4 even built, let alone keeping that number in commission

Germany and Japan are the problems, at least if we have said no Great White Fleet so for the USA a ratio of 3 (=18) would be fine, even somewhat aspirational. Japan could well go for that too, as long as it could scrap all its older ships as it builds the newer more powerful ones.

The main problem of course is getting the Germans to accept the ratio. I could see them pushing for a ratio of 4 (24)

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
In 1915 without no WW1 the RN would still be the most powerful navy in the world. The 6th QE would have still been in the building programme and the Rs would be at the first stage. It is also possible that we might have been able to convince the Canadians to go through with the idea of them funding additional QEs.

It would be interesting to speculate whether the RN would have built additional BCs after Tiger as Renown and Repulse used materials gathered for the 6th QE. There is some evidence that with fast BBs around the RN was begining to regard BCs as obsolete.

Renown and Repulse were originally supposed to be Revenge class battleships. The return of Jackie Fisher to the Admiralty after Louis of Battenberg resigned resulted in the design being changed to BC's.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
I doubt that the UK would want to cede its overwhelming superiority and settle for being an equal. Rather, I imagine if the UK participated in a treaty it would demand at least 8 if the next strongest signatory had 5.


Without the immense expense of the War and with its huge fleet, I would think that the UK would try to maintain the 60% rule. They might try to achieve this by asking for a codified Two Power Rule but settling for a 60% (8/5) advantage over the next power.

Germany wanted a 1.4 to 1 (7 to 5) or more favorable ratio. These numbers are close enough either Germany or the UK could move to the other ratio for a concession, or even meet in the middle. The devil would be in the details, for example Britain was closer to 11 to 5 in total tonnage. So Germany might be persuaded to that the 7.5 to 5 ratio in all classes of ships was a good deal, the question for the UK then becomes, which 3.5/11.0 of the fleet is scrapped.

Germany and Japan are the problems, at least if we have said no Great White Fleet so for the USA a ratio of 3 (=18) would be fine, even somewhat aspirational. Japan could well go for that too, as long as it could scrap all its older ships as it builds the newer more powerful ones.

Agreed that Germany and Japan are the hardest to get to agree to the ratio. If the UK insists on 1.6 or better they likely have to give up something of real value. I can think of lots of things Germany would want, but nothing jumps to mind that Britain would give. Japan's desires of obvious (China), and I have trouble seeing some China related concession give to Japan. Likely, the negotiations would simply break down over the details.
 
Ward's talking ratios of 5:3 etc, so if they have 30 dreadnoughts in permanent commission then those with a ratio of 3 would have 3/5 of this, ie 18

If we look at Russia, they had 12 building or completing, with another 4 on the drawing board. Given this rate of expansion, I would think Russia would push for a 3 ratio.

Such a ratio would also suit France and Italy. Austria would probably accept a 2 ratio, ie 12 to their 18, simply because of the enormous drain of getting 3 classes of 4 even built, let alone keeping that number in commission

Germany and Japan are the problems, at least if we have said no Great White Fleet so for the USA a ratio of 3 (=18) would be fine, even somewhat aspirational. Japan could well go for that too, as long as it could scrap all its older ships as it builds the newer more powerful ones.

The main problem of course is getting the Germans to accept the ratio. I could see them pushing for a ratio of 4 (24)

Best Regards
Grey Wolf

Grey Wolf
The US would have a Great white fleet because T. Roosevelt won in election in 1904 also . And he carried on his Fleet construction till 1908 .


Also what would the Top weight of Armoured cruisers be , for they were Running from 7,000 tons to 14,000 tons each .
 
Would the be any interest in a political game covering a 1915 London naval treaty were people get to defend there navy in a political setting .
And then we could write up a time line were our Treaty ran it's course for 30 years .
 
I can't see the British being interested in giving the Germans what they couldn't achieve by themselves, or surrendering parity to not one but two nations, one of which is a serious strategic rival and potential enemy.

That level of parity essentially gives the Germans superiority in the North Sea, given the necessity of maintaining a decent fleet in the Mediterranean.
 
One thing to Remember is most of the Battle ships Build before the Iron Duke class were wet boats and did not have the best sailing characteristics .
 
I can't see the British being interested in giving the Germans what they couldn't achieve by themselves, or surrendering parity to not one but two nations, one of which is a serious strategic rival and potential enemy.

That level of parity essentially gives the Germans superiority in the North Sea, given the necessity of maintaining a decent fleet in the Mediterranean.
This seems right to me, though because of Empire and the nature of her trade the UK also need a substantial cruiser force, too, with capital ships to back the cruisers. That would be why the UK went with the 60% rule.
 
tonnage

Tonnage restrictions would be necessay to prevent treaty powers from subverting the system by building outsized battleships. For 1915, 27,000* or 30,000 long tons and 15"/38,1 cm guns would seem reasonable.
*displacement sans stores, ammunition, crew, fuel and feedwater; OTL 'standard displacement' was devised at the Washington conference

I think the scenario most likely to lead to lead to a naval treaty would begin with a construction holiday: perhaps in 1915 the principal powers agree to a three year moratorium to be followed by a full conference to negotiate a treaty.
 

NothingNow

Banned
Grey Wolf
The US would have a Great white fleet because T. Roosevelt won in election in 1904 also . And he carried on his Fleet construction till 1908 .


Also what would the Top weight of Armoured cruisers be , for they were Running from 7,000 tons to 14,000 tons each .
Probably something like 15,000 tons, given the size of the Tennessee-class, Blücher, and the Minotaur-class.

I'd say the US would have been interested, and the Navy would possibly try leveraging such a treaty to go entirely over to the Standard types, even if they accepted a 5:3 ratio to the RN, as 18 Battleships would be closer to how much building the Senate traditionally wanted than anything else, while the standard type would still give them a rather large advantage in a fight.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
Some 1914 Tonnage numbers.

RN 2.2 Million tons.
Germany 1.0 Million tons.
USA 0.9 Million tons.
France near 0.7 million tons.
Japan near tons 0.6
Russia well under 0.5 million tons.

So assuming Britain was willing to eliminate a lot of older ships, these are the numbers to begin negotiation for the British:

RN 1.6 million tons (8)
German 1.0 million tons (5)
USA 1.0 million tons (5)
France 0.8 million tons (4)
Japan 0.6 million tons (3)
Russia 0.4 million tons (2)
Italy (2)
A-H (2)

The numbers are actually quite workable, if national egos can be set to the side. Everyone would likely want to be able to replace the pre-dreadnoughts, but if say the UK can only build 3 per year, German and USA 2, and the rest 1.5, then it would be a treaty that benefited all parties.
 
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