Anglo-German Naval Agreement
Notes between His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom and the German Government regarding the Limitation of Naval Armaments | |
---|---|
Type | Naval limitation agreement |
Signed | 18 June 1935 |
Location | London, United Kingdom |
Condition | Ratification by the Parliament of the United Kingdom and the German Reichstag. |
Parties |
The Anglo-German Naval Agreement (AGNA) of 18 June 1935 was a naval agreement between the United Kingdom and Germany regulating the size of the Kriegsmarine in relation to the Royal Navy.
The Anglo-German Naval Agreement fixed a ratio whereby the total tonnage of the Kriegsmarine was to be 35% of the total tonnage of the Royal Navy on a permanent basis.[1] It was registered in League of Nations Treaty Series on 12 July 1935.[2] The agreement was abrogated by Adolf Hitler on 28 April 1939.
The Anglo-German Naval Agreement was an ambitious attempt on the part of both the British and the Germans to reach better relations, but it ultimately foundered because of conflicting expectations between the two countries. For Germany, the Anglo-German Naval Agreement was intended to mark the beginning of an Anglo-German alliance against France and the
Background
Part V of the 1919
Through the
The change of regime in Germany in 1933 caused alarm in
- "Are we still dealing with the Hitler of Mein Kampf, lulling his opponents to sleep with fair words to gain time to arm his people, and looking always to the day when he can throw off the mask and attack Poland? Or is it a new Hitler, who discovered the burden of responsible office, and wants to extricate himself, like many an earlier tyrant from the commitments of his irresponsible days? That is the riddle that has to be solved".[7]
That uncertainty over Hitler's ultimate intentions in foreign policy was to colour much of the British policy towards Germany until 1939.
Equally important as one of the origins of the agreement were the deep cuts made to the Royal Navy after the
World Disarmament Conference
In February 1932, the
In September 1932, Germany walked out of the conference and claimed it was impossible to achieve Gleichberechtigung. By then, the electoral success of the
Adolf Hitler
During the 1920s, Hitler's thinking on foreign policy went through a dramatic change. At the beginning of his political career, Hitler was hostile to Britain and considered it an enemy of the Reich. However, after the British opposed the French occupation of the
In January 1933, Hitler became the
Though the Germans never had any serious interest in accepting any of the various compromise proposals of the British, in London, the German walk-out was widely, if erroneously, blamed on French "intransigence". The British government was left with the conviction that opportunities for arms limitation talks with the Germans should no longer be lost because of French "intransigence". Subsequent offers by the British to arrange for the German return to the World Disarmament Conference were sabotaged by the Germans, who put forward proposals that were meant to appeal to the British but to be unacceptable to the French. On 17 April 1934, the last such effort ended with French Foreign Minister Louis Barthou's rejection of the latest German offer as unacceptable in the so-called "Barthou Mote," which ended French participation in the Conference while declaring that France would look after its own security in whatever way was necessary. Meanwhile, Admiral Erich Raeder of the Reichsmarine persuaded Hitler of the advantages of ordering two more Panzerschiffe, and in 1933 advised the Chancellor that Germany would be best off by 1948 with a fleet of three aircraft carriers, 18 cruisers, eight Panzerschiffe, 48 destroyers and 74 U-boats.[20] Raeder argued to Hitler that Germany needed naval parity with France as a minimum goal, but Hitler from April 1933 onwards expressed a desire for a Reichsmarine of 33.3% of the total tonnage of the Royal Navy.[21]
In November 1934, the Germans formally informed the British of their wish to reach a treaty under which the Reichsmarine would be allowed to grow until the size of 35% of the Royal Navy. The figure was raised because the phrase of a German goal of "one third of the Royal Navy except in cruisers, destroyers, and submarines" did not sound quite right in speeches.
U-boat construction
Every government of the
In a more general sense, because of Britain's championing of German "theoretical equality" at the World Disarmament Conference, London was in a weak moral position to oppose the German violations. The German response to British complaints about violations of Part V were that they were merely unilaterally exercising rights that the British delegation at Geneva had been prepared to concede to the Reich. In March 1934, a British Foreign Office memo stated, "Part V of the Treaty of Versailles... is, for practical purposes, dead, and it would become a putrefying corpse which, if left unburied, would soon poison the political atmosphere of Europe. Moreover, if there is to be a funeral, it is clearly better to arrange it while Hitler is still in a mood to pay the undertakers for their services".[29]
In December 1934, a secret Cabinet committee met to discuss the situation caused by German rearmament. British Foreign Secretary Sir John Simon stated at one of the committee's meetings, "If the alternative to legalizing German rearmament was to prevent it, there would be everything to be said, for not legalizing it".[30] However, since London had already rejected the idea of a war to end German rearmament, the British government chose a diplomatic strategy that would allow abolition of Part V in exchange for German return to both the League of Nations and the World Disarmament Conference.[30] At the same meeting, Simon stated, "Germany would prefer, it appears, to be 'made an honest woman'; but if she is left too long to indulge in illegitimate practices and to find by experience that she does not suffer for it, this laudable ambition may wear off".[31] In January 1935, Simon wrote to George V, "The practical choice is between a Germany which continues to rearm without any regulation or agreement and a Germany which, through getting a recognition of its rights and some modifications of the Peace Treaties enters into the comity of nations and contributes in this or other ways to European stability. As between these two courses, there can be no doubt which is the wiser".[32] In February 1935, a summit in London between French Premier Pierre Laval and British Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald led to an Anglo-French communiqué issued in London that proposed talks with the Germans on arms limitation, an air pact and security pacts for Eastern Europe and the nations along the Danube.[33]
Talks
In early March 1935, talks intended to discuss the scale and extent of German rearmament in Berlin between Hitler and Simon were postponed when Hitler took offence at a British government
On 22 May 1935, the British Cabinet voted for formally taking up Hitler's offers of 21 May as soon as possible.[36] Sir Eric Phipps, the British ambassador in Berlin, advised London that no chance at a naval agreement with Germany should be lost "owing to French shortsightedness".[36] Chatfield informed the Cabinet that it was most unwise to "oppose [Hitler's] offer, but what the reactions of the French will be to it are more uncertain and its reaction on our own battleship replacement still more so".[36]
On 27 March 1935, Hitler had appointed Joachim von Ribbentrop to head the German delegation to negotiate any naval treaty.[37] Ribbentrop served as both Hitler's Extraordinary Ambassador–Plenipotentiary at Large (making part of the Auswärtiges Amt, the German Foreign Office) and as the chief of a Nazi Party organization, the Dienststelle Ribbentrop, which competed with the Auswärtiges Amt. German Foreign Minister Baron Konstantin von Neurath was at first opposed to the arrangement but changed his mind when he decided that the British would never accept the 35:100 ratio and so having Ribbentrop head the mission was the best way to discredit his rival.[38]
On 2 June 1935, Ribbentrop arrived in London. The talks began on Tuesday, 4 June 1935, at the Admiralty office, with Ribbentrop heading the German delegation and Simon the British delegation.[39] Ribbentrop, who was determined to succeed at his mission at any cost, began his talks by stating the British could accept the 35:100 ratio as "fixed and unalterable" by the weekend, or the German delegation would go home in which case the Germans would build their navy up to any size that they wished.[36][40] Simon was visibly angry with Ribbentrop's behaviour: "It is not usual to make such conditions at the beginning of negotiations". Simon walked out of the talks.[40]
On 5 June 1935, a change of opinion came over the British delegation. In a report to the British Cabinet, it was "definitely of the opinion that, in our own interest, we should accept this offer of Herr Hitler's while it is still open.... If we now refuse to accept the offer for the purposes of these discussions, Herr Hitler will withdraw the offer and Germany will seek to build to a higher level than 35 per cent.... Having regard to past history and to Germany's known capacity to become a serious naval rival of this country, we may have cause to regret it if we fail to take this chance...".[41] Also, on 5 June, during talks between Sir Robert Craigie, the British Foreign Office's naval expert and chief of the Foreign Office's American Department, and Ribbentrop's deputy, Admiral Karlgeorg Schuster, the Germans conceded that the 35:100 ratio would be expressed in ship tonnage, the Germans building their tonnage up to whatever the British tonnage was in various warship categories.[39] In the afternoon of that same day, the British Cabinet voted to accept the 35:100 ratio, and Ribbentrop was informed of the Cabinet's acceptance in the evening.[41]
During the next two weeks, talks continued in London on various technical issues, mostly relating to how the tonnage ratios would be calculated in the various warship categories.[42] Ribbentrop was desperate for success and so agreed to almost all of the British demands.[42] On 18 June 1935, the agreement was signed in London by Ribbentrop, and the new British Foreign Secretary, Sir Samuel Hoare. Hitler called 18 June 1935, the day of the signing, "the happiest day of his life", as he believed that it marked the beginning of an Anglo-German alliance.[43][44]
French reaction
The Naval Pact was signed in London on 18 June 1935 without the British government consulting with France and Italy or later informing them of the secret agreements, which stipulated that the Germans could build in certain categories more powerful warships than any of the three other major
As an additional insult for France, the Naval Pact was signed on the 120th anniversary of the
Impact
Because of the lengthy period needed to construct warships and the short duration of the agreement, its impact was limited. It was estimated by both German and British naval experts that the earliest year that Germany could reach the 35% limit was 1942.
The requirement for the Kriegsmarine to divide its 35% tonnage ratio by warship categories had the effect of forcing the Germans to build a symmetrical "balanced fleet" shipbuilding program that reflected the British priorities.
When the Kriegsmarine began planning for a war against Britain in May 1938, the Kriegsmarine's senior operations officer, Commander Hellmuth Heye, concluded the best strategy for the Kriegsmarine was a Kreuzerkrieg fleet of U-boats, light cruisers and Panzerschiff operating in tandem.[49] He was critical of the existing building priorities dictated by the agreement since there was no realistic possibility of a German "balanced fleet" defeating the Royal Navy.[49] In response, senior German naval officers started to advocate a switch to a Kreuzerkrieg type fleet, which would pursue a guerre-de-course strategy of attacking the British Merchant Marine, but they were overruled by Hitler, who insisted on the prestige of Germany building a "balanced fleet". Such a fleet would attempt a Mahanian strategy of winning maritime supremacy by a decisive battle with the Royal Navy in the North Sea.[50] Historians such as Joseph Maiolo, Geoffrey Till and the authors of the Kriegsmarine Official History have agreed with Chatfield's contention that a Kreuzerkrieg fleet offered Germany the best chance for damaging Britain's power and that the British benefited strategically by ensuring that such a fleet was not built in the 1930s.[51]
In the field of Anglo-German relations, the agreement had considerable importance. The British expressed hope, as Craigie informed Ribbentrop, that it "was designed to facilitate further agreements within a wider framework and there was no further thought behind it".[3] In addition, the British viewed it as a "yardstick" for measuring German intentions towards them.[52] Hitler regarded it as marking the beginning of an Anglo-German alliance and was much annoyed when that did not result.[53]
By 1937, Hitler started to increase both the sums of Reichsmark and raw materials to the Kriegsmarine and reflected the increasing conviction that if war came, the British would be an enemy, not an ally, of Germany.[54] In December 1937, Hitler ordered the Kriegsmarine to start laying down six 16-inch gun battleships.[54] At his meeting with British Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax in November 1937, Hitler stated that the agreement was the only item in the field of Anglo-German relations that had not been "wrecked".[55]
By 1938, the only use the Germans had for the agreement was to threaten to renounce it as a way of pressuring London to accept Continental Europe as Germany's rightful sphere of influence.[56] At a meeting on 16 April 1938 between Sir Nevile Henderson, the British ambassador to Germany, and Hermann Göring, the latter stated it had never been valued in England and that he bitterly regretted that Herr Hitler had ever consented to it at the time without getting anything in exchange. The agreement had been a mistake, but Germany was nevertheless not going to remain in a state of inferiority in this respect vis-à-vis a hostile Britain and would build up to a 100% basis.[57]
In response to Göring's statement, a joint Admiralty-Foreign Office note was sent to Henderson to inform him that he should inform the Germans:
"Field Marshal Göring's threat that in certain circumstances Germany might, presumably after denouncing the Anglo-German Naval Agreement of 1935, proceed to build up to 100% of the British fleet is clearly bluff [emphasis in the original]. In view of the great existing disparities in the size of the two navies this threat could only be executed if British construction were to remain stationary over a considerable period of years whilst German tonnage was built up to it. This would not occur. Although Germany is doubtless capable of realizing the 35% figure by 1942 if she so desires, or even appreciably earlier, it seems unlikely (considering her difficulties in connection with raw material, foreign exchange and the necessity of giving priority to her vast rearmament on land and in the air, and considering our own big programme) that she would appreciably exceed that figure during the next few years. This is not to say we have not every interest in avoiding a denunciation of the Anglo-German Agreement of 1935, which would create a present state of uncertainty as to Germany's intentions and the ultimate threat of an attempt at parity with our Navy, which must be regarded as potentially dangerous given that Germany has been credited with a capacity for naval construction little inferior to our own. Indeed, so important is the Naval Agreement to His Majesty's Government that it is difficult to conceive that any general understanding between Great Britain and Germany, such as General Göring is believed to desire, would any longer be possible were the German Government to denounce the Naval Agreement. In fact, a reaffirmation of the latter in all probability have to figure as part of such a general understanding.
The German Navy was for Germany mainly an instrument for putting political pressure on Britain. Before the war, Germany would have been willing to cease or moderate its naval competition with Britain but only in return for a promise of its neutrality in any European conflict. Hitler attempted the same thing by different methods, but like other German politicians, he saw only one side of the picture. It is clear from his writings that he was enormously impressed with the part played by the prewar naval rivalry in creating bad relations between the two countries. Thus, he argued that the removal of that rivalry was all that was necessary to obtain good relations. By making a free gift of an absence of naval competition, he hoped that relations between the two countries would be so improved that Britain should not, in fact, find it necessary to interfere with Germany's continental policy.
He overlooked, like other German politicians, that Britain was bound to react not only against danger from any purely-naval rival but also against dominance of Europe by any aggressive military power, particularly if that power is in a position to threaten the Low Countries and the Channel Ports. British complaisance could never be purchased by trading one of the factors against the other, and any country that attempted so would be bound to create disappointment and disillusion, as Germany did.[58]
Munich Agreement and denunciation
At the conference in Munich that led to the Munich Agreement in September 1938, Hitler informed Neville Chamberlain that if the British policy was "to make it clear in certain circumstances" that Britain might be intervening in a mainland European war, the political preconditions for the agreement no longer existed, and Germany should denounce it. That led to Chamberlain including mention of it in the Anglo-German Declaration of 30 September 1938.[59]
By the late 1930s, Hitler's disillusionment with Britain led to German foreign policy taking an increasing-anti-British course.[60] An important sign of Hitler's changed perceptions about Britain was his decision in January 1939 to give first priority to the Kriegsmarine in allocations of money, skilled workers and raw materials and to launch Plan Z to build a colossal Kriegsmarine of 10 battleships, 16 "pocket battleships", 8 aircraft carriers, 5 heavy cruisers, 36 light cruisers and 249 U-boats by 1944, which were purposed to crush the Royal Navy.[61] Since the fleet envisioned in the Z Plan was considerably larger than allowed by the 35:100 ratio in the agreement, it was inevitable that Germany would renounce it. Over the winter of 1938–1939, it became clearer to London that the Germans no longer intended to abide by the agreement, which played a role in straining Anglo-German relations.[62] Reports received in October 1938 that the Germans were considering denouncing the agreement were used by Halifax in Cabinet discussions for the need for a tougher policy with the Reich.[63] The German statement of 9 December 1938 of intending to build to 100% ratio allowed in submarines by the agreement and to the limits in heavy cruisers led to a speech by Chamberlain before the correspondents of the German News Agency in London that warned of the "futility of ambition, if ambition leads to the desire for domination".[64]
At the same time, Halifax informed Herbert von Dirksen, the German ambassador to Britain, that his government viewed the talks to discuss the details of the German building escalation as a test case for German sincerity.[65] When the talks began in Berlin on 30 December 1938, the Germans took an obdurate approach, which led London to conclude that the Germans did not wish for the talks to succeed.[66]
In response to the British "guarantee" of Poland of 31 March 1939, Hitler, enraged by the British move, proclaimed, "I shall brew them a devil's drink".[67] In a speech in Wilhelmshaven for the launch of the battleship Tirpitz, Hitler threatened to denounce the agreement if Britain persisted with its "encirclement" policy, as was represented by the "guarantee" of Polish independence.[67] On 28 April 1939, Hitler denounced the agreement.[67] To provide an excuse for its denunciation of and to prevent the emergence of a new naval treaty, the Germans began refusing to share information about their shipbuilding, which left Britain with the choice of either accepting the unilateral German move or rejecting it and providing the Germans with the excuse to denounce it.[68]
At a Cabinet meeting on 3 May 1939, the First Lord of the Admiralty, Lord Stanhope, stated that "at the present time Germany was building ships as fast as she could but that she would not be able to exceed the 35 per cent ratio before 1942 or 1943".[68] Chatfield, now the Minister for Co-ordination of Defence, commented that Hitler had "persuaded himself" that the British had provided the Reich with a "free hand" in Eastern Europe in exchange for the agreement.[68] Chamberlain stated that the British had never given such an understanding to Germany, and he commented that he first learned of Hitler's belief in such an implied bargain during his meeting with the Führer at the Berchtesgaden summit in September 1938.[68] In a later paper to the Cabinet, Chatfield stated "that we might say that we now understood Herr Hitler had in 1935 thought that we had given him a free hand in Eastern and Central Europe in return for his acceptance of the 100:35 ratio, but that as we could not accept the correctness of this view it might be better that the 1935 arrangements should be abrogated".[69]
In the end, the British reply to the German move was a diplomatic note strongly disputing the German claim that the British were attempting to "encircle" Germany with hostile alliances.[69] The German denunciation and reports of increased German shipbuilding in June 1939 caused by the Z Plan played a significant part in persuading the Chamberlain government of the need to "contain" Germany by building a "Peace Front" of states in both Western and Eastern Europe and raised the perception in the Chamberlain government in 1939 that German policies were a threat to Britain.[70]
See also
- Appeasement
- Stresa front
- Events preceding World War II in Europe
- Plan Z
Notes
- ^ Maiolo 1998, pp. 35–36.
- ^ League of Nations Treaty Series, vol. 161, pp. 10–20.
- ^ a b Maiolo 1998, p. 37.
- ^ Maiolo 1998, p. 20.
- ^ Gilbert 1966, p. 57.
- ^ Medlicott 1969, p. 3.
- ^ Document 181 C10156/2293/118 "Notes by Sir Maurice Hankey on Hitler's External Policy in Theory and Practice October 24, 1933" from British Documents on Foreign Affairs Germany 1933 page 339.
- ^ Maiolo 1998, pp. 11–12.
- ^ Maiolo 1998, pp. 12–13.
- ^ Maiolo 1998, pp. 13–15.
- ^ Maiolo 1998, pp. 11–12, 14–15.
- ^ Maiolo 1998, pp. 15–16.
- ^ Maiolo 1998, pp. 15–16, 21.
- ^ a b Maiolo 1998, p. 21.
- ^ Weinberg 1970, p. 40.
- ^ Doerr 1998, p. 128.
- ^ Jäckel 1981, p. 31.
- ^ a b Jäckel 1981, p. 20.
- ^ Maiolo 1998, p. 22.
- ^ Maiolo 1998, p. 23.
- ^ a b Maiolo 1998, p. 24.
- ^ a b c Kershaw 1998, p. 556.
- ^ Maiolo 1998, p. 26.
- ^ Maiolo 1998, pp. 26–18.
- ^ a b Maiolo 1998, pp. 68–69.
- ^ a b Maiolo 1998, pp. 69–70.
- ^ Maiolo 1998, pp. 29–30.
- ^ a b c Maiolo 1998, p. 33.
- ^ Medlicott 1969, p. 9.
- ^ a b Dutton 1992, p. 187.
- ^ Dutton 1992, p. 188.
- ^ Haraszti 1974, p. 22.
- ^ Messerschmidt 1990, p. 613.
- ^ a b Maiolo 1998, pp. 31–32.
- ^ Weinberg 1970, p. 212.
- ^ a b c d e Maiolo 1998, p. 34.
- ^ Bloch 1992, pp. 68–69.
- ^ Bloch 1992, p. 69.
- ^ a b Maiolo 1998, p. 35.
- ^ a b Bloch 1992, p. 72.
- ^ a b Bloch 1992, p. 73.
- ^ a b Bloch 1992, pp. 73–74.
- ^ Kershaw 1998, p. 558.
- ^ Hildebrand 1973, p. 39.
- ^ Shirer 1969, pp. 249–250.
- ^ Maiolo 1998, pp. 57–59.
- ^ Maiolo 1998, p. 60.
- ^ a b Maiolo 1998, pp. 68–70.
- ^ a b Maiolo 1998, p. 71.
- ^ Maiolo 1998, pp. 71–72.
- ^ Maiolo 1998, p. 73.
- ^ Maiolo 1998, p. 184.
- ^ Maiolo 1998, pp. 48, 190.
- ^ a b Maiolo 1998, pp. 48, 138.
- ^ Maiolo 1998, p. 155.
- ^ Maiolo 1998, pp. 155–156.
- ^ Haraszti 1974, p. 245.
- ^ Haraszti 1974, pp. 248–249.
- ^ Maiolo 1998, p. 156.
- ^ Maiolo 1998, pp. 70–71, 154–155.
- ^ Maiolo 1998, pp. 74, 164–165.
- ^ Maiolo 1998, p. 165.
- ^ Maiolo 1998, pp. 167–168.
- ^ Maiolo 1998, p. 169.
- ^ Maiolo 1998, p. 170.
- ^ Maiolo 1998, pp. 170–171.
- ^ a b c Maiolo 1998, p. 178.
- ^ a b c d Maiolo 1998, p. 179.
- ^ a b Maiolo 1998, p. 181.
- ^ Maiolo 1998, pp. 180–181, 184.
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- Dutton, David (1992). Simon A Political Biography of Sir John Simon. London: Aurum Press.
- Gilbert, Martin (1966). The Roots of Appeasement. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson.
- Hall III, Hines H. "The Foreign Policy-Making Process in Britain, 1934-1935, and the Origins of the Anglo-German Naval Agreement" Historical Journal (1976) 19#2 pp. 477–499 online
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- Kershaw, Sir Ian (1998). Hitler 1889–1936: Hubris. New York: W.W. Norton.
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- Messerschmidt, Manfred (1990). "Foreign Policy and Preparation for War". Germany and the Second World War the Build-up of German Aggression. I. Oxford: Clarendon Press: 541–718.
- Shirer, William (1969). The Collapse of the Third Republic: An Inquiry into the Fall of France in 1940. New York: Simon and Schuster. ISBN 9780671203375.
- Watt, D.C. (1956). "The Anglo-German Naval Agreement of 1935: An Interim Judgement". Journal of Modern History. 28 (28#2): 155–175. S2CID 154892871.
- Weinberg, Gerhard (1970). The Foreign Policy of Hitler's Germany Diplomatic Revolution in Europe 1933-36. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
- Full Text of The Anglo-German Naval Agreement of 1935 Naval Weapons of the World