Washington Naval Conference
The Washington Naval Conference, held from November 12, 1921, to February 6, 1922, was a significant international meeting aimed at limiting naval armaments and reducing tensions in the Pacific following World War I. Delegates from nine nations, including major powers like the United States, Great Britain, and Japan, participated in discussions that addressed growing naval rivalries and territorial disputes. The conference led to several key treaties, including the Five-Power Treaty, which established specific limits on the size and number of capital ships among the major naval powers, and the Four-Power Treaty, which emphasized the importance of maintaining the territorial status quo in East Asia.
One of the outcomes was the Nine-Power Treaty, which reaffirmed the Open Door Policy regarding trade with China and promoted the principle of equal rights among the signatories. Additionally, the Yap Island Agreement and the Shandong Treaty were significant bilateral agreements that addressed specific territorial issues. Overall, the Washington Naval Conference represented an early effort at collective security and arms control in an era marked by geopolitical tension, with the goal of fostering peaceful relations among nations with vested interests in the Pacific region.
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Washington Naval Conference
The Event: International arms control conference
Date: November 12, 1921 to February 6, 1922
Place: Washington, D.C.
With delegations from nine nations, the Washington Naval Conference was convened for the purpose of limiting naval armaments and peacefully alleviating tensions in the Pacific. The conference was a success—at least in the short term—resulting in a number of accords, including the Nine-Power Treaty and the Five-Power Treaty.
The Washington Naval Conference was an international arms limitation conference convened with the aim of reducing naval armaments, specifically capital ships, or major warships. In the years following the conclusion of World War I, a naval rivalry over interests in the western Pacific began to develop among Great Britain, the United States, and Japan. Concerned that this competition could lead to another war, members of Congress, led by Republican Senator William E. Borah, proposed an international conference focused on disarmament. In addition to naval arms control, the conference’s organizers sought to alleviate tensions among the various nations with colonial and commercial interests in the western Pacific and East Asia. The U.S. government extended invitations to eight European and Asian powers in the summer of 1921, and the conference formally opened on Armistice Day, November 11, of the same year.
Proceedings
The conference occurred between November 12, 1921, and February 6, 1922. The major naval powers participating in disarmament talks were the United States, France, Great Britain, Italy, and Japan. The other attending nations with interests in the region were Belgium, the Netherlands, Portugal, and China.
Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes led a U.S. delegation that also included former secretary of state Elihu Root and Senators Oscar Underwood and Henry Cabot Lodge. Hughes opened the sessions by proposing a concrete agenda for the drastic reduction of naval armaments, calling upon the major participants to scrap a large number of their capital ships and to refrain from building new ships for a ten-year period. Extensive negotiations culminated in a series of agreements that established a basis for both peaceful interaction in the Pacific and drastic reductions in naval construction.
Accords
By the conclusion of the Washington Naval Conference, the participating nations had reached a number of significant agreements. These included the Four-Power Treaty, the Five-Power Treaty, the Nine-Power Treaty, the Yap Island Agreement, and the Shandong Treaty.
The major arms control agreement to come out of the conference was the Five-Power or Washington Naval Treaty, which set specific limits on the tonnage of capital ships in the navies of the five nations and instituted guidelines regarding the future construction of ships. The total tonnage of capital ships was capped at 525,000 tons standard displacement for both the United States and Great Britain; 315,000 tons for Japan; and 175,000 tons for both France and Italy. In addition, no individual ship could be larger than 35,000 tons. It also limited the caliber and number of guns allowed on individual ships. Separate provisions within the agreement froze the construction of additional naval facilities and fortifications in the western Pacific.
The Four-Power Treaty, signed by the United States, Great Britain, France, and Japan, stipulated that the member countries would respect the territorial status quo in East Asia and the Pacific and consult with one another before taking any military action in response to international disputes in the region. This agreement superseded an earlier accord between Great Britain and Japan.
The Nine-Power Treaty, signed by all the conference attendees, was aimed at formalizing the long-standing Open Door Policy, specifying that China would remain independent and that all treaty signatories would have equal rights to trade with and do business in China. The signatories agreed to consult with one another to mediate any disputes that might arise.
Additional, bilateral treaties regarded territories in the Pacific. Signed by the United States and Japan, the Yap Island Agreement gave the United States the right to access and use communications technology based on the Pacific island of Yap, a former German territory granted to Japan at the end of World War I. The Shandong Treaty, an agreement between China and Japan, restored Chinese control of Shandong Province, which had also been controlled by Germany and then transferred to Japan after the war.
Impact
Fanning, Richard. Peace and Disarmament. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1994. Focuses on the efforts of the international disarmament movement in the late 1920s.
Goldman, Emily O. Sunken Treaties: Naval Arms Control Between the Wars. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994. Discusses the various attempts at naval arms control made between World Wars I and II.
Goldstein, Erik, and John Maurer, eds. The Washington Conference, 1921–22: Naval Rivalry, East Asian Stability and the Road to Pearl Harbor. London: Frank Cass, 1994. Outlines the political positions of the participants in the Washington Naval Conference.
Kaufman, Robert G. Arms Control During the Pre-Nuclear Era: The United States and Naval Limitation Between the Two World Wars. New York: Columbia University Press, 1990. Details the movement toward naval arms control in the interwar period, including the Washington Naval Conference.
Willmott, H. P. The Last Century of Sea Power. Vol. 2. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2010. Explores the effects of the conference between the 1920s and the end of World War II.