The Last Century of Sea Power, Volume 2: From Washington to Tokyo, 1922-1945
704
The Last Century of Sea Power, Volume 2: From Washington to Tokyo, 1922-1945
704Hardcover
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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780253353597 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Indiana University Press |
| Publication date: | 03/22/2010 |
| Pages: | 704 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.50(w) x 9.30(h) x 2.00(d) |
| Age Range: | 18 Years |
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The Last Century of Sea Power
Volume Two: From Washington to Tokyo, 1922â"1945
By H. P. Willmott
Indiana University Press
Copyright © 2010 H. P. WillmottAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-253-35359-7
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION: WASHINGTON, LONDON, AND TWO VERY SEPARATE WARS, 1921–1941
Arms races are not the cause of rivalries and wars but rather the reflection of conflicting ambition and intent, though inevitably they compound and add to these differences. The First World War was not the product of Anglo-German naval rivalry, though this was one of the major factors that determined Britain's taking position in the ranks of Germany's enemies, and most certainly it was a major factor in producing the growing sense of instability within Europe in the decade prior to 1914. But if the naval race was indeed one of the factors that made for war in 1914 — although it should be noted that the most dangerous phase of this rivalry would seem to have passed by 1914 — then there is the obvious problem of explaining the war in 1939-1941, in that the greater part of the inter-war period, between 1921 and 1936, was marked by a very deliberate policy of naval limitation on the part of the great powers. Admittedly the arrangements that were set in place in various treaties had lapsed by 1937, and a naval race had begun that most certainly was crucially important in terms of Japanese calculations in 1940 and 1941 and indeed was critical in the decision to initiate war in the Pacific. In summer 1941, as the Japanese naval command was obliged to consider the consequences of its own actions and the full implications of the U.S. Congress having passed the Two-Ocean Naval Expansion Act in July 1940, the Imperial Navy, the Kaigun, was caught in a go-now-or-never dilemma, and it, like its sister service, simply could not admit the futility and pointlessness of past endeavors and sacrifices. But, of course, not a few of these endeavors and sacrifices had been military and Asian and most definitely were not naval and Pacific.
* * *
The obvious problem that attends any attempt to set out the course of naval history in the twentieth century is the place that the Second World War has come to occupy in popular perception. We as societies look to the two world wars, and specifically the Second World War, as the yardsticks against which other conflicts are measured, but that is exactly the wrong way to consider these conflicts. Perhaps the more relevant way of considering the twentieth century, warfare, and the two world wars is to start from the premise that these wars were so very different in so many ways from wars that came before and since that they should be regarded as exceptions and discounted from consideration as a basis of comparison other than with and against each other. But such matters really are of small account when set alongside what should be the proper consideration of the Second World War, and on two very different counts.
The first is that really there was no such thing as the Second World War. What is regarded as the Second World War was two partially overlapping conflicts that were largely separate from one another, though their common outcome and the fact that after 1941 certain powers were involved in both wars represent points where the two conflicts joined as one. The first of these two conflicts originated in eastern Asia, between China and Japan, and dates if not from September 1931 — which is the date when the Japanese official histories begin their nation's story — then certainly from July 1937 with the Lukouchiao, or Marco Polo Bridge, Incident and the start of Japan's "special undeclared war" against her continental neighbor. The second conflict is the European conflict that began in September 1939. Neither of these two conflicts, however, represented a war: both were a series of campaigns that only came together in the course of 1941, for very different reasons and under very different circumstances. Of course such a perspective can be challenged, and rightly so on the obvious grounds: these were wars in terms of national commitments and in terms of both the nature and conduct of these conflicts. But what was in place until 1941 was a series of campaigns, some successive and others concurrent, that were joined in fearful array in the course of 1941.
For example, in eastern Asia after July 1937 a series of campaigns saw the Japanese conquest of much of northern and central China. Then, with the nationalist regime at Chungking refusing to enter negotiations that would confirm Japan in her position of primacy, two strategic bombing campaigns in 1939 and 1940 likewise failed to force the Chinese leadership to the conference table and to acceptance of defeat and acknowledgement of Japanese primacy and leadership in east Asia. But thereafter, what had been a single conflict came to embrace five very different parts that were separated from one another to a surprising degree: the continuing conflict within China; a conflict throughout southeast Asia; a conflict in the western Pacific that was primarily concerned with fleet action and landing operations and that in its final stages embraced the bombardment of the home islands by carrier aircraft and warships and involved a strategic bombing offensive; a conflict in the western Pacific that was directed against Japanese shipping; and in the final stages, the campaign in Manchuria and northern China that followed from the Soviet Union's entry into the war against Japan. To these military aspects of what was the Japanese war may be added two other conflicts: first, the political conflict throughout east and southeast Asia that was the product of the Japanese aim of creating a new order throughout these areas and that necessarily involved the attempt to mobilize the will and moral force of the peoples of east and southeast Asia to support the Japanese cause, and second, an economic dimension to the national efforts that obviously extended beyond the campaign against Japanese shipping.
In a sense, the situation within Europe was much simpler, or at least can be defined in simpler terms: between September 1939 and May 1941 Germany fought and won a series of campaigns against individual enemies, each of which was, in terms of demographic and economic resources, geographical position, and military power, much inferior to Germany. As long as Hitler was able to dictate the terms of reference of these conflicts, German success was so great that by the end of May 1941 the German domination of the continental mainland made the German national position all but unchallengeable, at least by the only state that remained at war with Germany. There was in military terms one element of continuity, and that was the war at sea, but with respect to the terms of reference supplied by Hitler, the events of September 1939 — April 1941 did not represent the real war, which was the Volksgemainschaft. The struggle to achieve racial purity was more important than campaigns per se, though obviously they were related, because Aryan supremacy could not be achieved except by conquest of inferior peoples. In that sense struggle and campaigns were the two sides of a single coin, but in the European conflicts first phases, when Germany was able to fight as it would, what it fought was a series of campaigns largely separated from one another, rather than a war.
This second matter is perhaps a more delicate one, involving national perspective, and specifically American and British national mythology in terms of these countries' part in the fight, and hence contribution to victory. In terms of the British, the problem can be defined very simply: if, as Prime Minister Winston Churchill (1874-1965) stated, 1940 really represented Britain's finest hour, then what came next has to be anti-climatic, and one would suggest that there has been a deliberate sheltering behind the events of the Second World War to ensure continuing national importance and proper status. But in looking at the British military contribution to victory one confronts a troublesome point: between February 1941 and May 1943, in the course of the North African campaign, first the British and then (after November 1942) the British and Americans accounted for fourteen German dead a day: at such a rate, to have inflicted the total number of military dead that Germany incurred between 1 September 1939 and 12 May 1945 would have taken the British military 588 years. Perhaps that is an overstatement-it may be that it would have only taken 587 years — but the basic point is that while Britain was important in certain aspects of this anti-German struggle, most notably in providing continuity between 1939 and 1941, in the role of democratic beacon at a time when representative government was all but extinguished throughout Europe, and in terms of a military commitment that was primarily naval, air, and positional, the British military contribution to Allied victory in terms of conquest and the inflicting of telling commitment and losses on Germany was minimal. Lest the point be doubted, the British naval dimension in Germany's defeat was basically irrelevant: Germany was not defeated because it lost the war at sea.
The same basic point may be made about the American dimension. There is no disputing the simple fact that the most important single national contribution to victory over Japan was that of the United States. In terms of the German war, however, the American contribution helped complete the Allied victory, but it was only a contribution and not cause: it was not until the summer of 1944 that the United States was able to deploy armies in the field in northwest Europe, and by that time the issue of victory and defeat had been resolved, and on the Eastern Front. American air power and support for allies possessed more than en passant importance, but in Germany's final defeat a whole number of matters came together, and perhaps the most important single factor was one very seldom afforded much in the way of serious consideration. The nature of the German regime and system precluded the consolidation of victories and the winning of endorsement and support across a continent; the result was that despite access to economic resources and industrial infrastructure not markedly inferior to that of the United States, Germany was out-produced by Britain until 1942 and thereafter was condemned to economic, industrial, and financial defeat as American production was added to the scales. But if there were important political and economic aspects of Germany's defeat, in the final analysis that defeat had to be registered on the battlefield, and the most important single national contribution to victory over Germany was that of the Soviet Union, and at a horrendous price. Many statistics can be quoted, but perhaps two possess suitable poignancy: the total American dead in the Second World War was less than the number of Soviet second lieutenants who were killed, and of every hundred Soviet males aged eighteen in 1941 just three remained alive at war's end.
The problem that the Second World War presents in terms of this second volume of The Last Century of Sea Power can be defined very simply: how to separate the story of two conflicts without following well-worn paths. The answer should be to tell the story not of the successful application of victorious sea power but of the lessening effectiveness of defeated sea power, the separation between the German and Japanese wars then becoming self-evident; but more interesting would be, in the case of the European war, to look at the naval matters neglected over the years. But first the inter-war period.
CHAPTER 2WASHINGTON AND LONDON
Allies are not necessarily friends, and victory, or defeat, inevitably weakens the links that made for alliances and coalitions: the conflicting interests held in check by common need invariably reassert themselves, often with greater force than previously was the case. the First World War saw the passing of four empires, three of them multi-national empires, and the triumph of what in July 1919 were the five leading naval powers in the world, but those five powers' wartime cooperation and common cause did not survive such episodes as the "Naval Battle of Paris" and the negotiations that produced the treaties that closed the First World War.
* * *
The period between the end of the war and the Washington conference and treaties, between November 1918 and February 1922, was a strange one in regard to naval power, and primarily for one reason. The war resulted in the elimination of three major navies, those of Germany, Russia, and Austria-Hungary, yet it ended with no fewer than three naval races, if not already ongoing then most certainly in the making: between Britain and the United States, between Japan and the United States, and, somewhat muted, between France and Italy. Leaving aside the latter, which never assumed importance or gained momentum in the twenties, the key development was the emergence of the United States as the greatest power in the world and its declared intention to secure for itself "a navy second to none." To realize such an ambition the U.S. Congress authorized, in the act of 29 August 1916, the construction of no fewer than 162 warships, including 10 battleships, 6 battlecruisers, 10 cruisers, 50 destroyers, and 67 submarines. All of these warships were to be built between 1916 and 1919, and were in addition to a 1915 program that had made provision for 6 battleships, the general intention being that the United States would provide for itself no fewer than 60 battleships and battlecruisers by 1925. In framing its program the U.S. Navy, quite deliberately, had set aside the situation created by general war in Europe in favor of what it considered the "worst-case" possibility that might emerge after this war. What it planned for was the need to guard against either a German-Japanese or an Anglo-Japanese alliance that would be capable of threatening the United States in two oceans and preventing any expansion of American overseas trade. The total of 60 capital ships that were to be acquired by 1925 matched the total that Britain and Japan together might be able to deploy in a war against the United States. The least that could be said about such logic was that it grasped at the exceedingly unlikely in order to justify the manifestly unnecessary.
The program did not survive American involvement in the First World War, when more immediate needs took precedence, but with the end of the war the "second to none" logic reasserted itself, and on two separate counts: internationalism, or at least a Wilsonian version of internationalism tailored to American requirements, and status pointed to a resurrection of the July 1915 program and August 1916 provisions. The crucial point here is that status was not related to any direct or immediate security need. What the United States sought was confirmation of greatness, and in this respect Britain found itself in an unenviable position with war's end. For well over a hundred years Britain's status as a great power, and indeed status as the world's greatest industrial, trading, financial, and naval power, was synonymous with its assured naval superiority over potential enemies. Quite clearly Britain was unwilling to cede pride of place to any nation, not least in the aftermath of the defeat of the second-ranked navy in the world. But British intent to maintain its superiority faced three facts of life. First, Britain — like France and Italy — was morally and physically exhausted as a result of war, and most certainly psychologically spent by its efforts in a way that the United States was not. The total number of American battlefield dead in the First World War was fewer than the number of British missing at Ypres, and in the immediate aftermath of the November 1918 armistice, there could be no question of British pursuit of a course of action that might involve any major war or military undertaking. Second, Britain could not consider any course of action that might involve collision with the one power that had represented its greatest market and source of earnings, that dominated the Caribbean, and that was its greatest creditor. Third, with the end of the war Britain, in effect, had to pick up the bill for having been the first naval power to build dreadnoughts. The British margin of superiority in numbers of capital ships over the German Navy in the First World War and then the United States after the war was primarily vested, depending on perspective, in either aging, first-generation dreadnoughts or battlecruisers, and certainly both were obsolescent. Britain at war's end had ten battleships and four battlecruisers that were armed with 12-in. main armament, were some ten years old, and were hopelessly outclassed in terms of size, armament, protection, and speed by the capital ships that were now in service: for example, the 18.4-knot Dreadnought, when it entered service in 1907, was accorded a standard displacement of 17,900 tons and a deep-load displacement of 21,845 tons, whereas the 31.9-knotHood, when it entered service in 1920, recorded comparable figures of 41,200 and 45,200 tons respectively. Simply to maintain existing numbers thus presented Britain with massive problems in terms of both building and cost.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Last Century of Sea Power by H. P. Willmott. Copyright © 2010 H. P. Willmott. Excerpted by permission of Indiana University Press.
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Table of Contents
List of Chapter AppendixesList of Maps and a DiagramList of TablesI. Naval Races and Wars1. Introduction: Washington, London, and Two Very Separate Wars, 1921 - 19412. Washington and London3. Ethiopia and Spain4. Japan and Its "Special Undeclared War"II. Introduction to the Second World War5. Navies, Sea Power, and Two or More WarsIII. The Second World War: The European Theater6. Britain and the Defeat of the U-boat Guerre de Course7. With Friends like These8. Italy and the War in the Mediterranean Theater of Operations9. The Lesser Allied Navies and Merchant Marines in the Second World WarIV. The Second World War: The Pacific Theatre10. The War Across the Pacific: Introduction and Conclusion11. The Japanese Situation — and a Japanese Dimension12. The Japanese Situation — and an American Dimension13. The Japanese Situation — and a Second Japanese Dimension14. The Japanese Situation — and Another, and Final, DimensionV. Dealing with Real Enemies15. Finis: The British Home Fleet, 15 August 1945NotesSelected BibliographyIndexWhat People are Saying About This
H. P. Willmott is the finest naval historian and among the finest historians of any discipline writing today. His latest work further strengthens that richly deserved accolade.
"H. P. Willmott is the finest naval historian and among the finest historians of any discipline writing today. His latest work further strengthens that richly deserved accolade."