Peden G.S. Arms, Economics and British Strategy From Dreadnoughts to Hydrogen Bombs
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Grand strategy
Victory in the First World War left Britain, for a time, without any
obvious enemy against whom to prepare. The Air Staff cultivated
politicians’ fears about air warfare, but until after Hitler came to power
the only air force within striking distance of Britain was the French
Arme
´
e de l’Air. In CID dis cussions on ‘the continental air menace’ in
1922 Lloyd George did mention the possibility that French air super-
iority might weaken British diplomacy, but France was unlikely to allow
relations with Britain to deteriorate to a point that would allow Germany
to denounce the Treaty of Versailles. The primary reason given for
creating what became known as the Home Defence Force in the United
Kingdom was to allow a strategic bombing force to be organised.
126
A
force of fifty-two squadrons, including fighters, reconnaissance and
army co-operation machines as well as bombers , was approved in 1923,
but once Anglo-French relations improved in 1925 there was no
urgency in completing it until it became known in 1934 that Germany
was secretly creating an air force. As for the British army, its plans were
laid on the basis of slow mobilisation to provide reinforcements for India
against the Soviet Union, until the DRC identified Germany as Britain’s
likely long-term enemy in 1934.
Naval strategy was base d on protecting Britain’s world-wide interests.
The Admiralty’s aim in disarmament negotiations was to ensure that the
navy would have enough ships to prote ct British trade and the Empire’s
communications and territories, where these were exposed to seaborne
attack. Barnett and Paul Kennedy lament the loss of British naval
supremacy at Washington in 1921.
127
However, the upper limits agreed
at Washington on total to nnage of capital ships and aircraft carriers, as
well as on the maximum size and armament of capital ship s, aircraft
carriers and cruisers, enabled the Admiralty to achieve its aim at a cost
that Britain could afford. The Admiralty resisted American efforts to
extend the 5:5:3 ratio to cruisers, since it claimed that British cruiser
strength was determined by what was required to protect Britain’s
world-wide trade and communications. In 1921 the Admiralty said fifty
cruisers would be necessary; in 1927, at the Geneva conference, it
claimed seventy (contributing thereby to the failure of the conference);
in 1930, at the first London naval confere nce, it settled for fifty, on the
126
CID minutes, 5 July 1922, CAB 2/3; ‘Report of the Sub-Committee on Continental
Air Menace’, 26 Apr. 1922, CAB 3/3, TNA. See also John Ferris, ‘The theory of a
‘‘French air menace’’: Anglo-French relations and the British Home Defence Air
Force programmes of 1921–25’, Journal of Strategic Studies, 10 (1987), no. 1, 62–83.
127
Barnett, Collapse of British Power, pp. 270–2; Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of British
Naval Mastery (London: Allen Lane, 1976), pp. 276–7.
Retrenchment and rearmament 145
grounds that it was unlikely to have more, given the large block of
cruisers built during the war that would be due to be scrapped in the
mid-1930s. The difference between the British and the Americans was
essentially technical: the British wanted adequate cruisers of 7,500 tons,
armed with 6-inch guns and costing £1,400,000, for trade protection
and enforcing blockade; the Americans, with less trade to protect but
with vast oceans to operate in, preferred 10,000-ton cruisers, with
8-inch guns and costing £2,200,000. The difference was resolved in
1930 by giving the British a higher tonnage, but fewer 10,000-ton
cruisers, than the Americans. A ratio of 10:10:7 was agreed for Britain,
the United States and Japan in cruisers and destroyers, provided the
Japanese, like the British, limited their number of larger cruisers. The
American navy was seen by the Ad miralty as a yardstick, not as a
potential enemy.
128
The Admiralty’s plans for a war with Japan evolved from 1919 to
1939 but all assumed that each navy would attempt to interrupt the
other country’s trade, and that Japan would be vulnerable to a distant
blockade, given her need to import food and raw materials, including
oil. A British fleet based at Singapore could defend British interests, and
Admiralty planners doubted whether the Japanese would risk their fleet
in what would be a long-range operation to attack the base there.
Indeed, until 1937 naval strategy aim ed at using economic pressure or
operations against Japanese colonies to force the Japanese to accept
battle. Hong Kong was seen as a valuable forward base that should be
defended if possible, although not at the expense of the main base at
Singapore.
129
The building of capital ships by Germany and Italy in the
late 1930s drastically changed the number of capital ships that could be
spared for the Far East. Down to 1939 it had been assumed that from
Britain’s fifteen capital ships a force could be sent to the Far East
roughly equal to Japan’s nine (ten once the Hiei, which had been
reduced after Washington to a training ship, had been reconverted to a
combat ship). In May 1939, however, Admiralty policy was altered to
sending only seven capital ships, and then only if Italy were neutral or
had been el iminated. Otherwise only four would go if the United States
128
O’Brien, British and American Naval Power, pp. 164–8, 173, 183, 193, 198, 210–13.
129
The key documents are the ‘Eastern war memorandum’ prepared by the Admiralty’s
Plans division in 1920 (ADM 116/3124) with subsequent revisions in 1923 (ADM
116/3124), 1924 (ADM 116/3125), 1931 (ADM 116/3118), 1933 (ADM 116/3475)
and 1937, with amendments to June 1939 (ADM 116/4393), TNA. For evolution of
Far Eastern strategy, see Christopher Bell, The Royal Navy, Seapower and Strategy
between the Wars (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 2000), pp. 49–98, and Andrew Field, Royal
Navy Strategy in the Far East 1919–1939: Planning for War against Japan (London:
Frank Cass, 2004).
Arms, economics and British strategy146
were neutral, and only two if the United States were an ally.
130
The
following month, Chatfield, now minister for co-ordination of defence,
challenged this policy, and a new assessment by the Chiefs of Staff
stated that seven capital ships could be sent to the Far East, once two
ships refitting in dock became available in August and September, if
the Mediterranean were to be abandoned. Allowing for the fact that
two other capital ships would still be refitting, only six would be
available in home waters against the Germans’ two battle-cruisers and
three pocket battleships.
131
The dilemma with which strategists would
be presented in the Second World War had thus been set out
beforehand.
The army and air force were involved in planning for a Far Eastern
war only insofar as they were required to assist in the protection of the
Singapore naval base, especially while the main fleet was sailing from
European waters, a period assumed in 1921 to be 42 days. However,
in 1937 the period before relief was estimated to be 70 days, and in
July 1939 it was extended by the CID to 90 days. Moreover, whereas
the Air Staff had been keen between 1921 and 1934 to press the
merits of air power for the defence of Singapore, the air defence of the
United Kingdom took priority thereafter, and the number of RAF
aircraft stationed in Malaya was always smaller than the number that
could be carried aboard the Japanese navy’s aircraft carriers. The
nature of the problems of protecting Singapore was thus altering
dramatically in the 1930s owing to external factors. The same was true
of local factors . The seaward defences of Singapore depended upon
15-inch coastal guns, capable of sinking a capital ship, but the vul-
nerability of the landward approach changed over the inter-war period
owing to the development of the Malaya n economy. In 1921–4 the
first military studies of the possibility of Japanese troops landing in
Johore to attack Singapore from the landward side had suggested that
the combi nation of dense jungle and poor roads would make their
movements difficult. However, the replacement of jungle by rubber
plantations, through which troops could m ove easily, had altered the
situation by the 1930s. Moreover, as a result of exercises in 1936–7, it
became apparent that the Japanese might land in the north of Malaya,
to establish air bases, before the main British fleet could arrive. The
scales of the army and air forces required to defend Malaya were thus
130
‘Naval policy in the event of Far Eastern war’, minute by Director of Plans, Captain
V. H. Danckwerts, 5 May 1939, enclosing revised memorandum, ADM 116/3863,
TNA.
131
‘The situation in the Far East’, COS 931, 24 June 1939, CAB 53/50, TNA.
Retrenchment and rearmament 147
increasing even as developments in Europe made adequate reinforc e-
ment from Britain less likely.
132
The most likely alternative sources of reinforcements for the Far East in
war-time were India and Australia. Down to the mid-1930s the Indian
army had been mainly concerned with internal security and with possible
Soviet threats to the North-West Frontier. However, from 1934 the War
Office and the Indian army began to think in terms of earmarking some
Indian units for service outside the sub-continent. The Indian army’s ‘Plan
M’ of 1935 envisaged sending one brigade to Singapore in sixteen to
eighteen days, provided the situation in India itself was favourable. In the
same year the crisis with Italy over its invasion of Abyssinia led to an Indian
brigade being earmarked for use in Egypt if necessary. By 1938 India had
accepted liabilities to provide a total of four infantry brigades and two
infantry battalions for emergencies in other parts of the Empire. Yet, as a
CID sub-committ ee reviewing I ndian defence that year pointed out, the
British Government cou ld have no certainty that India would be able to
fulfil any of these commitments. India had achieved a degree of home rule
that enabled Indian politicians to oppose tax increases to pay for its armed
forces, and the moderni sation of the Indian army that followed the CID
report and a further report by Chatfield in 1939 was made possible only by
British subsidies and a reorganisation of the Indian army that reduced its
size. India’s role as a source of reinforcement for both the Far East and the
Middle East was signalled by decisions in July 1939 to send one brigade
each to Singapore and Egypt prior to the outbreak of war.
133
The independence of the dominions in regard to imperial defence had
been demonstrated in the Chanak crisis in 1922, when all except
New Zealand wi thheld unconditional support to Britain against Turkish
nationalist troops threatening British occupation forces at the Darda-
nelles. From that time the co-operation of the dominions could not be
taken for granted. As the Chiefs of Staff pointed out in 1930, the
dominions agreed that each part of the Empire was responsible for its
own local defence, but assumed that the United Kingdom would
shoulder most of the responsibility for defence of the Empire as a whole.
The Chiefs of Staff and the Treasury were at one in regarding as
absurd the need to make plans to send reinforcements from Britain to
Singapore, as these could be sent far more quickly from Australia.
134
In
132
For the building of the Singapore naval base and for plans for its defence, see
Neidpath, Singapore Naval Base, esp. pp. 91–101, 125, 133, 153–62, 166–7.
133
John Rawson, ‘The role of India in Imperial defence beyond Indian frontiers and home
waters, 1919–39’, D. Phil. (Oxford, 1976), esp. pp. 199, 216, 250, 281, 316–17, 324–5, 352.
134
Chiefs of Staff to Prime Minister, 29 Oct. 1930 (copy in Chancellor of the Exchequer’s
Office), T 172/1700, TNA.
Arms, economics and British strategy148
1934 Hankey undertook an Empire tour with a view to educating
dominion governments in the light of the DRC report, but found that
economic depression and tight budgets made it almost impossible for
them to find more mon ey for defence.
135
It was calculated that in 1937/
8 Britain spent five to six times as much per head of population on the
armed forces as the white pop ulations of the dominions did. Even
Australia, the country most concerned with the Japanese danger, spent
only 1 per cent of its national income on defence in that year.
136
Although the Empire depended upon seaborne communication the
dominions’ naval contributions were modest at best (table 3.7).
Between 1931 and 1939 the Australian navy took delivery of three
cruisers, transferring its sole, obsolescent, seaplane carrier to the Royal
Navy in part exchange, and the New Zealand navy replaced two old
cruisers with two new ones. The Canadian navy had no ships bigger
than destroyers. The largest ship in the South African navy was an
800-ton surveying vessel. At the Imperial Conference in 1937 the First
Lord of the Admiralty, Sir Samuel Hoare, recommended that the
dominions should consider carefully whether they were in a position to
build and maintain capital ships. The Admiralty calculated that, taking
maintenance into account, the overall cost of a capital ship only slightly
exceeded the cost of two large cru isers. However, although the
Dominions Secretary, Malcolm MacDonald, suggested in 1938 that
Australia might be asked to pay for a capital ship, in the same way as it
had done for the battle-cruiser HMS Australia before 1914, no
dominion did so.
137
From an Australian or New Zealand point of view,
the question was: could the Royal Navy guara ntee their coasts from
Table 3.7. Commonwealth navies in 1931 and 1939 (1931 figures in brackets)
Capital ships Aircraft carriers Cruisers Destroyers
United Kingdom 15 (15) 7 (6) 56 (46) 174 (156)
Australia – – 6 (4) 5 (6)
New Zealand – – 2 (2) –
Canada – – – 7 (4)
Sources: Jane’s Fighting Ships (1931 and 1939).
135
Roskill, Hankey, vol. III, pp. 121–40.
136
Peden, ‘Burden of imperial defence’, Historical Journal, 27 (1984), p. 416.
137
Extract from minutes of meeting of principal delegates at the Imperial Conference,
26 May 1937, reprinted in S. R. Ashton and S. E. Stockwell (eds.), British Documents
on the End of Empire: series A, vol. I: Imperial Policy and Colonial Practice, part 1:
Metropolitan Reorganisation, Defence and International Relations, Political Change and
Constitutional Reform (London: HMSO, 1996), pp. 116–19; Cabinet conclusions,
23 Feb. 1938, CAB 23/92, TNA.
Retrenchment and rearmament 149
attack? If not, these countries might do better to build up the ir ability to
meet such attacks with air and ground forces. In fact, persuaded by the
Admiralty, both Australia and New Zealand spent more on their navies
than on their armies and air forces.
138
None of the dominion armies was trained or equipped to fight the
troops of a first-class power at the outbreak of war. As late as April
1939 the incoming Labour government in Australia refused to imple-
ment its predecessor’s decision to create a small regular force of two
independent brigades, and in New Zealand the army estimates were
cut in 1937/8 to find room in the budget for more money for the navy
and air force. Australia could mobilise enough men from its militia for
two cavalry and four infantry divisions, three independent brigades and
two recently formed armoured car regiments, and New Zealand could
mobilise one division, but all of these units required further training
before they could be committed to a campaign. Canadian defence
policy gave first priority to the direct defence of Canada. Plans existed
for the mobilisation of two infantry divisions at the outbreak of war but
it was not until June 1940 that one of these was ready to be sent to
France. Prior to the war, South Africa’ s small army was equipped
only for colonial warfare in Africa.
139
British strategists, therefore, had
to regard dominion forces as potential extra assets which were not to
be taken into account in plans for what would happen at the outbrea k
of war.
As table 3.8 shows, the pattern of defence expenditure down to 1935
reflected the predominance of the navy as the protector of British trade
and the Empire’s communications, with the army coming second as
the provider of imperial garrisons, and the air force a poor third. The
recommendations of the official Defence Requirements Sub-Committee
(DRC) on 28 February 1934, as drafted by Hankey, reflected and
reinforced this pattern. Although the report identified Germany as the
ultimate potential enemy, most of the deficiencies listed were in existing
programmes, and the most urgent recommendations were defensive
measures against Japan. As table 3.9 shows, the actual pattern of
expenditure from 1935 was quite different from that recommended by
the official DRC. The air force moved from having the smallest share of
expenditure to the largest share, overtaking the army in 1937/8 and the
138
John McCarthy, Australia and Imperial Defence 1918–39: A Study in Air and Sea Power
(St Lucia, Queensland: University of Queensland Press, 1976); W. David McIntyre,
New Zealand Prepares for War (University of Canterbury Press, 1988).
139
F. W. Perry, The Commonwealth Armies: Manpower and Organisation in the Two World
Wars (Manchester University Press, 1988), pp. 137–9, 160–4, 191–2.
Arms, economics and British strategy150
navy in 1938/9. These changes reflected a shift in priorities brought
about by fear of air attack, the theoretical danger mooted by Baldwin in
1932 having become a matter of urgency.
During the DRC’s discussions in January and February 1934, Fisher
and Vansittart had unsuccessfull y urged the CAS, Ellington, to ask for
more than he did. The DRC report recommended ten additional
squadrons to complete the Home Defence scheme of fifty-two
squadrons of 1923; ten additional squadrons of aeroplanes and four of
flying boats for service in the Far East; and twenty additional squadrons
for the Fleet Air Arm (FAA). The report stated that a further twenty-five
squadrons would be necessary to meet ‘all eventual requirements’, but it
did not consider these to be part of the ‘worst deficiencies’ to be
remedied by 1939, although they should be reconsidered if Germany
expanded her air force rapidly.
140
When the report was considered by
ministers, Neville Chamberlain produced an alternative proposal for
thirty-eight additional squadrons instead of ten for the Home Defence
Table 3.8. Expenditure by the defence departments, 1924/5–1939/40
(£’000)
Air Force Army Navy
1924/5 14,310 44,765 55,625
1925/6 15,470 44,250 59,657
1926/7 15,530 43,600 57,600
1927/8 15,150 44,150 58,140
1928/9 16,050 40,500 56,920
1929/30 16,750 40,500 55,750
1930/1 17,800 40,150 52,574
1931/2 17,700 38,520 51,060
1932/3 17,100 35,880 50,010
1933/4 16,780 37,592 53,500
1934/5 17,630 39,660 56,580
1935/6 27,496 44,647 64,806
1936/7 50,134 54,846 81,092
1937/8 82,290 77,877 101,950
1938/9 133,800 121,361 127,295
1939/40 294,834 242,438 181,771
Sources: Statistical Abstract for the United Kingdom for Each of the Fifteen Years
1924 to 1938 (Cmd 6232), PP 1939–40, x, 367; (for 1939/40 only) Shay, British
Rearmament, p. 297.
140
DRC minutes, 30 Jan., 16 Feb. and 26 Feb. 1934, and DRC report, paras. 28–9,
28 Feb. 1934, CAB 16/109, TNA.
Retrenchment and rearmament 151
Force, but only three additional squadrons instead of ten for the Far East,
and with FAA requirements to be met by making Home and FAA
squadrons interchangeable. The source of these ideas was almost cer-
tainly Trenchard, who was advising the Permanent Secretary of the
Treasury, Fisher, at the time. A Cabinet sub-committee on the allocation
of air forces in July 1934 agreed with the Admiralty that FAA squadrons
had to be kept separate, but otherwise accepted Chamberlain’s view that
the RAF should be concentrated in the United Kingdom, recommending
thirty-three additional squadrons for the Home Defence Force, four for
the Far East, and four-and-a-half for the FAA.
141
Chamberlain had intended to find the extra money for air force
expansion by cuts or delays in the army and navy programmes. In
particular, he thought that, while the naval base at Singapore must be
completed, it should be used for the time being only for submarines and
other light craft, and that plans for sending a fleet of capital ships there must
be postponed. Again he almost certainly got these ideas from Trenchard via
Fisher. As noted above, the Admiralty did not accept this reduction in
priority for the Far East until 1939. When the rearmament programme was
Table 3.9. Distribution of expenditure by the defence services, 1933/4–1938/9
(per cent)
Financial year Air Force Army Navy
Defence Requirements Sub-committee Report, 1934
1934/5 14.9 37.7 47.5
1935/6 15.0 36.0 48.9
1936/7 15.8 35.1 49.1
1937/8 16.3 34.8 48.9
1938/9 16.1 34.6 49.3
Actual expenditure
1933/4 15.6 34.8 49.6
1934/5 15.5 34.9 49.7
1935/6 20.0 32.6 47.3
1936/7 26.9 29.5 43.6
1937/8 31.4 29.7 38.9
1938/9 35.0 31.7 33.3
Note: Because of rounding up or down, the figures do not always sum to 100 per cent.
Sources: First DRC Report, 28 Feb. 1934, CAB 16/109, TNA; Statistical Abstract for the
United Kingdom (Cmd 6232), PP 1939–40, x, 367.
141
DCM (32) 120, 20 June 1934, CAB 27/511; CP 193 (34), 16 July 1934, CAB 27/514,
TNA. Andrew Boyle, Trenchard, Man of Vision (London: Collins, 1962), pp. 681–2.
Arms, economics and British strategy152
drafted in the winter of 1935–6 the Admiralty recommended a two-power
standard, to match both Germany and Japan, without saying how many
capital ships this would require. In the event, although the two-power
standard was never formally sanctioned by the Cabinet, the Admiralty
proceeded to place orders for major warships as if it had. Industrial
capacity, not finance, was the limiting factor.
142
The War Office did not fare so well at Chamberlain’s hands in 1934.
The Chancellor secured a cut in the army’s DRC programme from
£40 million to £20 million, with the result that the army’s deficiencies
would take more than five years to repair.
143
Again Trenc hard’s influ-
ence can be seen in Treasury thinking. He advised Fisher that anti-
aircraft guns and searchlights south of the Wash and an expeditionary
force for securing continental air bases should rank alongside the Home
Defence air force and Singapore’s defences as first priorities among the
deficiencies to be made up. Chamberlain asked in a Cabinet committee
in May whether an expeditionary force could reach the Low Countries
in time to prevent them being overrun, and he seems to have been
impressed by the argument that possession of Belgian bases would place
the RAF as close to the Ruhr as Germa n bombers would otherwise have
been to London. At any rate in June he said that, while priority should
be given to the RAF to deter Germany from going to war at all, the
United Kingdom could best be made secure by expanding the Home
Defence Force and anti-aircraft defences first, and then by equipping
the army to co-operate with allies in holding the Low Countries. He
justified the cut in the army’s DRC programme by saying that he did not
believe that Germany would be ready for war in 1939.
144
When the army’s rearmament programme came to be considered by
ministers in January 1936, Weir advised that the army was the most
expensive way of helping allies. Professional soldiers cost more than
conscripts; the Territorial Army hardly existed, except on paper; the
Germans, starting from scratch, had got ahead on field artillery. The
army also took longer than the air force or navy to reach the scene of
action. Like Chambe rlain, he wondered whether Germany could be
deterred by a powerful air force, in which case the army’s Field Force (as
the expeditionary force was then known) would not be needed.
Chamberlain noted that, of the three armed forces, the army would
make the largest demands on industry, and that an ‘offensive’, rather
than ‘defensive’, air force might be a more effective means of assisting
142
Peden, British Rearmament, pp. 114–16, 162–5.
143
Bond, British Military Policy, pp. 199–208.
144
Peden, British Rearmament, pp. 121–3.
Retrenchment and rearmament 153
the French if the Germans attempted to encircle their fortifications
in the first week of the war, before the Field Force could be dis-
embarked.
145
Given what Weir had said about the impossibility of
carrying out the whole rearmament programme on time without semi-
war controls over industry, Chamberlain argued, some part of the
rearmament programme must be left out. He persuaded his Cabinet
colleagues that equ ipment for the Territorial Army’s twelve divisions
should be omitted, apart from what was required for training. Never-
theless, the Regular Army’s programme for equipment for four infantry
divisions, a mobile division and a tank brigade, with war reserves, was to
be completed, if possible, within five years.
146
By October 1937 Chamberlain had read L iddell Hart’s Europe in Arms
and had reco mmended the book to Les lie Hore-Belisha, the secretary of
state for war, who was in any case in frequent communication with the
author. Liddell Hart’s thesis that British strategy in 1914–18 had been a
mistaken departure from a traditional British way of warfare based on
‘limited liability’ to European allies thus entered Whitehall at the highest
level.
147
However, the Inskip review, which led to a change in the role of
the army in December 1937, was based on a report by the Chiefs of Staff
Sub-Committee on Planning for a War with Germany in February
1937. The report stated that economic pressure by naval blockade
would be a powerful, if slow, means of weakening Germany, and Inskip
drew the conclusion that she should be confronted with the risk of a long
war in which sea power would be decisive. Britain’s economic stability
would deter Germany, as would ability to repel an attempted knock-out
blow from the air.
148
The key figures who advised him when he
recommended that the Field Force should be prepared to meet the
military needs of the Empire, but not equipped on a scale necessary to
support allies in Europe, were Chatfield and Hankey. Chatfield was
chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee, as well as first sea lord, but
he did not operate through that committee when he advised Inskip on
this occasion. On 10 November Chatfield accepted the Treasury’s
argument that ever-growing defence programmes would lead to national
145
Memorandum by Lord Weir, 9 Jan. 1936, and DPR(DR)C minutes, 14 Jan. 1936,
CAB 16/123, TNA.
146
DPR(DR)C minutes, 13 Jan., 14 Jan., 16 Jan. and 27 Jan. 1936, CAB 16/123, TNA;
Chamberlain’s diary, NC 2/23A, 19 Jan. 1936, Birmingham University Library.
147
Basil Liddell Hart, Europe in Arms (London: Faber and Faber, 1937); Alex Danchev,
Alchemist of War: The Life of Basil Liddell Hart (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson,
1998), pp. 187–94; Gat, History of Military Thought, pp. 725–7; R. J. Minney, The
Private Papers of Hore-Belisha (London: Collins, 1960), p. 54.
148
‘Planning for war with Germany’, DP (P) 2, 15 Feb. 1937, CAB 16/182, para. 115;
‘Defence expenditure in future years’, CP 316 (37), CAB 24/273, paras. 9–13, TNA.
Arms, economics and British strategy154