Lloyd George and the American Naval Challenge: “The Naval Battle of Paris”

ABSTRACT

In the immediate aftermath of the First World War, naval competition loomed between Great Britain and the United States. This American naval challenge frustrated Britain’s leaders, who were determined to hold onto their country’s hard-won standing as the world’s leading sea Power. Britain’s Prime Minister David Lloyd George chose the setting of the negotiations at the Paris Peace Conference to force a showdown with American leaders in an attempt to curtail their naval shipbuilding. Much to Lloyd George’s chagrin, the Americans proved obdurate in negotiations. President Woodrow Wilson and his naval advisors refused to stop the American buildup of large and powerful capital ships that called into question Britain’s naval mastery. The deadlocked talks between American and British naval leaders threatened to wreck the peace negotiations and the establishment of the League of Nations. To prevent a breakdown in Anglo-American relations at Paris, Sir Robert Cecil and Colonel Edward House negotiated an agreement that pledged both countries to work towards a settlement of their naval competition. This analysis examines Lloyd George’s motivations and actions in provoking this confrontation to defeat America’s naval challenge in what would later become known as the naval battle of Paris.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Arthur J. Marder, From the Dreadnought to Scapa Flow, Volume V: Victory and Aftermath, January 1918–June 1919 (London, New York: 1970), 199–345.

2. The “Naval Battle of Paris” got its name from Josephus Daniels in an article appearing in the Hearst newspaper chain. See Josephus Daniels, “Britain Demanded that Woodrow Wilson Curtail U.S. Navy, Josephus Daniels Reveals,” San Francisco Examiner, 23 January 1927, 1–2, 6. Josephus Daniels, The Wilson Era: Years of War and After, 1917–1923 (Chapel Hill, NC: 1946), Chapter 35, later referred to these talks as the “Sea Battle of Paris.” There are several scholarly accounts of these negotiations. One of the earliest was Harold and Margaret Sprout, Toward a New Order of Sea Power: American Naval Power and the World Scene, 1918–1922 (Princeton, NJ: 1940), 62–72. On the American side, see William Reynolds Braisted, The United States Navy in the Pacific, 1909–1922 (Austin, TX: 1971), 427–40; Warner R. Schilling, “Admirals and Foreign Policy, 1913–1919” (PhD dissertation, Yale University, 1953), 260–303. The British side is best told by J. Kenneth McDonald, “British Naval Policy and the Pacific and Far East: From Paris to Washington, 1919–1922” (DPhil dissertation, Oxford University, 1975), 95–125; Marder, Dreadnought to Scapa Flow, V, 224–37; and Jerry W. Jones, “The Naval Battle of Paris,” Naval War College Review, 62/2 (2009): 77–89.

3. House diary, April 8, 1919 [Edward M. House Papers, Sterling Memorial Library, Yale University, New Haven, CT].

4. For a different assessment of Lloyd George’s performance, see Stephen Roskill, Naval Policy Between the Wars, vol. 1. (London: 1968), 91; Thomas J. Knock, To End All Wars: Woodrow Wilson and the Quest for a New World Order (New York: 1992), 247–48. Roskill maintains that Lloyd George came out ahead because “the U.S. Navy … made the greater sacrifice.” Knock concludes that Lloyd George was able “to extract a major concession from Wilson with respect to the challenge the United States posed to British naval supremacy.”

5. C. Vann Woodward, “The Age of Reinterpretation,” American Historical Review, 66/1 (1960): 1–19.

6. Wilson to Daniels, 21 July 1915, Josephus Papers [Josephus Daniels Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, DC].

7. Roger Dingman, Power in the Pacific: The Origins of Naval Arms Limitation, 1914–1922 (Chicago: 1976), 34.

8. George W. Baer, One Hundred Years of Sea Power: The U.S. Navy, 1890–1990 (Stanford, CA: 1994), 64–82; and William J. Williams, “Josephus Daniels and the U.S. Navy’s Shipbuilding Program During World War I,” Journal of Military History, 60/1 (1996): 7–38.

9. Sims [Force Commander] to Secretary of the Navy, “Types of Capital Ships,” 14 November 1918, Benson [William Benson Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, DC] Box 42.

10. The South Dakota and Lexington classes, and the British battle cruiser Hood, are often referred to as post-Jutland capital ships. This term is somewhat misleading because none of these ships fully incorporated in their design the lessons of the Battle of Jutland, even though their construction took place after the battle.

11. Braisted, Navy in the Pacific, 417–21.

12. Cover letter of Clark to Balfour, 9 January 1919, for copy of Theodore Roosevelt to Clark, 15 December 1918, Balfour [Earl of Balfour Papers, British Library, London] Add. Mss. 49749.

13. Daniels to Wilson, 25 January 1919; President Wilson to Daniels, 27 January 1919, Daniels Box 111.

14. Diary, 17 October 1918, in E. David Cronon, ed., The Cabinet Diaries of Josephus Daniels, 1913–1921 (Lincoln, NE: 1963), 342. Also see entry for 6 November 1919, ibid., 347.

15. Grayson Diary, 4 December 1918, in Arthur S. Link, ed., The Papers of Woodrow Wilson, [PWW] Volume 53 (Princeton, NJ: 1987), 314–15.

16. U.S. Naval Advisory Staff, memorandum No. XXV, “United States Naval Policy,” 7 April 1919, PWW, Volume 57, 180–88.

17. Diary, 9 December 1917, Riddell [Baron Riddell Papers, British Library, London] Ad Mss. 62980.

18. Geddes memorandum, “US Naval Policy,” 7 November 1918, LG [Earl Lloyd George Papers, Parliamentary Archives, London] F/163/4/7.

19. Hankey diary, 24 November 1918, in Stephen Roskill, Hankey: Man of Secrets Vol. 2 (London: 1972), 25.

20. Lowther Grant memorandum for War Cabinet, 25 February 1919, ADM [Admiralty Records, The National Archives, Kew] 116/1773.

21. Murray memorandum [855], 5 December 1918, Balfour 49741.

22. Archibald Hurd, “The United States and Sea Power: A Challenge,” Fortnightly Review, 626 (1 February 1919): 175.

23. “Mr. Wilson at Sea,” Times, 9 December 1918, 9.

24. Wiseman to Foreign Office, 15 December 1918, Wiseman [Sir William Wiseman Papers, Sterling Memorial Library, Yale University, New Haven, CT].

25. Sims to Daniels, 5 February 1919, Sims [William Sims Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, DC] Box 54.

26. Davis to Polk, 4 January 1919, in Julia Davis and Dolores A. Fleming, eds., The Ambassadorial Diary of John W. Davis: The Court of St. James’s, 1918–1921 (Morgantown, WV: 1993), 27.

27. Long to Lloyd George, 8 April 1919, LG F/33/2/31; Admiralty memorandum, 21 November 1918, ADM 116/1605.

28. Admiralty memorandum for War Cabinet, 13 March 1919, ADM 116/1773; Long to Lloyd George, 16 February 1919, LG F/33/2/13.

29. Wemyss memorandum, “Battle Cruiser Programme,” 14 January 1919, ADM 116/1772; Jellicoe to First Lord, “Post-War Naval Requirements,” 3 March 1919, in A. Temple Patterson, ed., The Jellicoe Papers, vol. 2 (London: 1968), 290–95.

30. Diary, 21 March 1919, in A. J. P. Taylor, ed., Lloyd George: A Diary by Frances Stevenson (New York: 1971), 175.

31. Long to Admiralty Board, 25 March 1919, ADM 167/58.

32. Long to Lloyd George, 16 February 1919, LG F/33/2/13.

33. Churchill to Lloyd George, 1 May 1919, LG F/8/3/46.

34. The quotation is from Kerr memorandum, “Some Considerations for the Peace Conference before they finally draft their terms,” 25 March 1919, and often referred to as “The Fontainebleau Memorandum.” It was given to Wilson and the French premier, Georges Clemenceau. See PWW, Volume 56, 264.

35. David Hunter Miller, Drafting the Covenant, vol. 1 (New York: 1928), 338.

36. Diary, 26 March 1919, Cecil [Lord Cecil of Chelwood Papers, British Library, London] Add. Ms. 51131. See also Cecil to Lloyd George, 4 April 1919, LG F/6/6/15. In Cecil’s memoir, he recalled that he and Lloyd George generally agreed during negotiations in Paris to establish the League of Nations. On only one occasion did they disagree “about League matters, and that was over … American naval policy rather than over the League itself.” Viscount Cecil, A Great Experiment (New York: 1941), 68.

37. House diary, 27 March 1919. On 27 March, Wilson “had it out with Lloyd George” about putting the League’s Covenant into the peace treaty. When confronted by the president, Lloyd George prevaricated, denying that he intended to back out of an earlier commitment to support Wilson’s view. House recorded: “I think the President is beginning to realize how unreliable [Lloyd] George is.”

38. Wemyss was summoned by telephone on 27 March to come to Paris: Lady Wester Wemyss, The Life and Letters of Lord Wester Wemyss (London: 1935), 423–24.

39. Daniels, Wilson Era, 374.

40. There is confusion about the discussion on 29 March. First, Benson and Daniels say in their reminiscences the meeting with Wemyss occurred on 26 March. Schilling, “Admirals and Foreign Policy,” 279, n. 55 demonstrates that the meeting with Wemyss actually took place on 29 March. Second, did only one or two meetings of the three men occur on 29 March? Daniels’s diary and Wemyss’s report to the prime minister indicate that only one meeting took place: Cronon, Daniels Cabinet Diaries, 380; Wemyss to Lloyd George, 29 March 1919, LG F/192/1/4. In an account written two years after the event, Benson recorded that two meetings occurred: an unscheduled morning meeting at Daniels’s hotel suite and later a scheduled meeting at Benson’s quarters at the Crillon Hotel. See “Copy of statement of Admiral W. S. Benson, U.S. Navy,” 16 May 1921, Benson Box 43. Benson’s account seems best as it helps explain his angry explosion at Wemyss at the morning meeting. It also is in keeping with British attempts to exclude Benson and isolate Daniels in negotiations.

41. “Statement of Benson,” 16 May 1921, Benson Box 43.

42. Daniels to Knox, 29 January 1937, RG 45 [Subject Files, National Archives and Record Administration, College Park MD] UB-Admiral Benson’s Personal File.

43. Wemyss to Lloyd George, 29 March 1919, LG F/192/1/4; Daniels to Wilson, 30 March 1919, PWW, Volume 56, 430–31.

44. Daniels, “Britain Demanded,” 1–2, 6; Daniels diary, 31 March 1919, in Cronon, Daniels Cabinet Diaries, 381; Mary Klachko and David F. Trask, Admiral William Shepherd Benson: First Chief of Naval Operations (Annapolis, MD: 1987), 145–47. Despite Benson’s blunt statement that naval rivalry between the two Powers might end in war, Long recorded in his memoirs that these conversations stayed “on the most friendly terms.” See Viscount Long of Wraxall, Memories (London: 1923), 287.

45. Wemyss to Lloyd George, 29 March 1919, LG F/192/1/4. Wemyss recommended postponing negotiations until Daniels left Paris and arrived in Britain as part of his European tour. Wemyss thought, “Daniels, being what he is, might have been worked around to a proper state of mind during his stay in England.” Wemyss to Long, 3 April 1919, Wemyss [Baron Wester Wemyss Papers, Churchill Archives Centre, Cambridge].

46. Daniels, Wilson Era, 375.

47. Ibid., 376–80. See also Daniels’s shorter diary entry for 1 April, Cronon, Daniels Cabinet Diaries, 381–82.

48. House diary, 3 April 1919. When Daniels returned to Paris, Benson advised him not to undertake negotiations alone. Benson recommended that he be included in future discussions with the British: diary, 7 April 1919, Cronon, Daniels Cabinet Diaries, 384–85.

49. Wemyss to Long, 3 April 1919, Wemyss Papers.

50. When Wemyss tried to meet Daniels at the train station, “Benson thought it cheeky”: diary, 7 April 1919, Cronon, Daniels Cabinet Diaries, 384–85.

51. “Memorandum for the President from the Secretary of the Navy,” 7 April 1919, PWW, Volume 57, 91–92.

52. Diary, 7 April 1919, Cronon, Daniels Cabinet Diaries, 384–85.qq.

53. Long to Lloyd George, 7 April 1919, LG F/33/2/31.

54. Cecil to Lloyd George, 4 April 1919, LG F/6/6/15; Cecil to Balfour, 5 April 1919, in G. W. Egerton, Great Britain and the Creation of the League of Nations: Strategy, Politics, and International Organization, 1914–1919 (Chapel Hill, NC: 1978), 161. See also correspondence involving Cecil, House, Lloyd George, and Balfour in FO 800/215 and FO 800/216.

55. Diary, 8[−10] April 1919, Cecil Add. Ms. 51131.

56. House diary, 3 April 1919.

57. House diary, 2 April 1919.

58. Inga Floto, Colonel House in Paris: A Study of American Policy at the Paris Peace Conference 1919 (Princeton, NJ: 1980), 210. Wilson apparently authorised House to talk with Lloyd George about the naval issue on 26 March: see House Diary, 27 March 1919. House, however, did not try to raise the matter with Lloyd George until almost two weeks later, when he gave Wiseman a letter to pass along to the British prime minister.

59. House diary, 8 April 1919.

60. Cecil to House, 8 April 1919, Cecil Add. Ms. 51094.

61. David Hunter Miller, who was helping draft the League Covenant, suggested this ploy, apparently unaware that Daniels had already conceded that the Administration would no longer push for the 1918 naval programme. David Hunter Miller, My Diary at the Conference of Paris, vol. 8. (n.p., n.d. [1924]), 138–47.

62. House diary, 9 April 1919.

63. Diary, 8[−10] April 1919, Cecil Add. Ms. 51131.

64. Miller, Diary, I, 425; House diary, 8 April 1919.

65. House to Lloyd George, 8 April 1919, House Series I, box 70A, folder 2342.

66. Cecil to Lloyd George, 10 April 1919, LG F/6/6/33.

67. Michael L. Dockrill and J. Douglas Goold, Peace without Promise: Britain and the Peace Conferences, 1919–23 (Hamden, CT: 1981), 63.

68. Diary, 23 February 1919, Riddell Ad Mss. 62983. House noted that members of the British Delegation “are in revolt against Lloyd George”: House diary, 6 April 1919. Cecil would later resign from Stanley Baldwin’s second government over the matter of naval arms control at the 1927 Geneva Conference.

69. Wiseman to Reading, 11 April 1919, Wiseman Box 3, Folder 80.

70. Daniels, “Britain Demanded that Woodrow Wilson Curtail U.S. Navy,” 1.

71. Diary, 26 March 1919, Auchincloss [Gordon Auchincloss Papers, Sterling Memorial Library, Yale University, New Haven, CT].

72. House diary, 27 March 1919.

73. House diary, 27, 30 March 27 1919.

74. Admiralty memorandum, 24 October 1919, quoted in Long memorandum [CP 2176], 22 November 1920, CAB [Cabinet Records, The National Archives, Kew] 24/115.

75. Erik Goldstein and John Maurer, eds., The Washington Conference, 1921–22: Naval Rivalry, East Asian Stability and the Road to Pearl Harbor (London: 1994).

76. Benson thought that the president might take part in the naval discussions. Instead, Wilson let Daniels and House lead the negotiations: House diary, 28 March 1919.

77. House diary, 27 March 1919.

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John H. Maurer

John H. Maurer serves as the Alfred Thayer Mahan Professor of Sea Power and Grand Strategy and holds the title of Distinguished University Professor at the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. He is the author or editor of books examining the outbreak of the First World War, military interventions in the developing world, naval rivalries and arms control between the two world wars, and a study on Winston Churchill and British grand strategy.