ABSTRACT
By the time the principal delegates had assembled at Washington in November 1921 to begin tackling the emotive issues of comparative naval strength and relative power in the Pacific, they were well aware that the political imperative for disarmament matched the popular mood of the time in the West. It was a situation that had emerged in the wake of the “Great War” and the eclipse of the German and Russian surface fleets when it became almost impossible for even the most sentimental, or insecure, of military enthusiasts on either side of the Atlantic to defend the maintenance of a huge naval establishment at vast cost to the state when there appeared to be no obvious European enemy in sight. From the time that the British War Cabinet recognized this fact and decided on 15 August 1919 to implement its so-called Ten-Year Rule, the days of the large Grand Fleet were numbered. Apart from its economic role in keeping scores of servicemen and those in the ancillary industries in gainful employment, the Royal Navy, in particular, had become so grossly inflated as a result of the war that a policy of rationalization was long overdue. Naturally, the question was one of degree. How deep would the cuts go? While some might talk mistily of the prestige that naval prowess and “showing the flag” in various comers of the globe was still supposed to create, it was patently obvious that Britain did not need seventy capital ships for this purpose. 1
