Download Additional Material: The Washington Navy Treaty of 1922 and the

10 Additional Material:
The Washington Navy
Treaty of 1922 and the
U.S. Navy in the Interwar
Years
President Warren G. Harding convened the Washington Naval Conference in 1921 because
of worries that a future naval arms race might cause another war. These fears motivated
participants to attend from the United States, Great Britain, France, Japan, and Italy. The delegation met to discuss reduction in the size, number, and armament of capital ships. Of the
eight participant nations, the Americans, British, and Japanese exerted the most influence.
Their negotiations eventually led to the signing of the Washington Naval Arms Limitation
Treaty in 1922. Each nation came to the table with goals in mind and strategic realities to
consider. The key debates occurred over ratios of each nation’s capital ship tonnage.
Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes led the American delegation. Dealing with the Japanese proved to be the biggest sticking point. Japan’s Navy stood as a potential obstacle to
American interests in East Asia and the western Pacific. Beginning in the 1890s, Japan’s rise to
power in Asia had worried American naval strategists. Alone among the non-Caucasian peoples, they proved themselves capable of fighting and defeating the great powers. American
feelings wavered between racial contempt and fearful suspicion. These came together in the
contemporary epithet “Yellow Peril,” which denoted how the Japanese combined the presumed
Asian traits of deviousness and cruelty with the skills in using western military technologies.
Against these strategic and cultural backdrops, the high-ranking admirals on the U.S.
Navy’s General Board offered advice to Secretary Hughes. The Board argued that the number
of American capital ships should be maintained at parity with the British Royal Navy and at
twice the strength of the Japanese Navy. This would mean a ratio of 10:10:5 for U.S., British,
and Japanese capital ships. The General Board reasoned that the Japanese Navy would operate primarily in the western Pacific Ocean, while the U.S. Navy needed to operate in both
the Atlantic and Pacific. For its part, the British Royal Navy was stretched even more thinly
because of interests in the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans.
Giving the Japanese more than half the sea power of the Americans and the British would
thus bequeath decisive superiority in the Pacific to Tokyo.
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Secretary Hughes rejected the General Board’s argument because he knew that the United
States fleet would have to build more capital ships to reach the point of doubling the number
of Japan. Hughes recognized that Congress would never accede to spending more money to
reach this goal. Instead of a 10:10:5 ratio, he proposed the ratio of 5:5:3 for tonnage of the
American, British, and Japanese capital ships. Such vessels were defined as those displacing
more than 10,000 tons and carrying 8-inch guns or greater. In these strokes, he ended President Wilson’s plans to build a U.S. Navy second to none. Many admirals and naval strategists
saw Hughes’ proposals as invitations to Japan to assert naval supremacy in the Pacific.
For their part, the Japanese achieved a significant concession when the Americans and
British agreed that they would not build any new fortifications or add naval bases in the
western Pacific. This meant that the Americans and British would have no additional refueling stations and repair facilities. As with the 5:5:3 ratio, American naval strategists saw this
concession to Japan as another step toward impeding American interests in that region. The
conference concluded in 1922, and delegations signed the Washington Naval Arms Limitation Treaty, setting the tone for American naval policy and strategy for the next 15 years.
In years since, the U.S. Navy of the 1920s and 1930s garnered the derogatory nickname the
“Treaty Navy.” Apart from issues of warship construction, the Washington Naval Arms Limitation Treaty also prohibited American fortifications of new bases in the western Pacific during
those decades. This added yet another aspect to Japan’s localized superiority in that region.
Short Bibliography
Evans, David, and Mark Peattie. Kaigun: Strategy, Tactics and Technology in the Imperial Japanese Navy,
1887–1941. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1997.
Felker, C. C. Testing American Sea Power: U.S. Navy Strategic Exercises, 1923–1940. College Station: Texas
A&M University Press, 2006.
Goldstein, Erik. The Washington Conference, 1921–22: Naval Rivalry, East Asian Stability and the Road to
Pearl Harbor. Portland, OR: Frank Cass, 1994.
Hammond, James W., Jr. The Treaty Navy: The Story of the US Naval Service between the World Wars. Victoria, BC: Wesley Press, 2001.
Kaufman, Robert Gordon. Arms Control during the Prenuclear Era: The United States and Naval Limitation
between the Two World Wars. New York: Columbia University Press, 1990.
Kuehn, John T. Agents of Innovation: The General Board and the Design of the Fleet that Defeated the Japanese
Navy. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2008.
Lenza, Lawrence. Power and Policy: America’s First Steps to Superpower, 1889–1922. New York: Algora, 2008.
Miller, Edward S. War Plan Orange: The Strategy to Defeat the Japanese, 1897–1945. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1991.
The Marine Corps Schools’ Small War Manual and
Lessons Learned in the Interwar Years
During the early twentieth century, thousands of Marines spent time in Nicaragua and
elsewhere in Latin America. They performed a variety of roles, such as training indigenous
forces, conducting counterinsurgency operations, supervising elections, providing disaster
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relief, and creating infrastructure. The U.S. Marine Corps was an agent of empire, a tool of
capitalists, or a mentor to underdeveloped peoples, depending upon political slant.
Just as the Marines were leaving Latin America in the 1930s, a major transition occurred in
the Marine Corps. No more would Marines be involved in so-called “small wars” or “banana
wars” as they had undertaken since the Spanish-American War. Instead, amphibious warfare
represented the new Marine mission, for which some Marines touted their Corps as ideal
and uniquely qualified. Nevertheless, the Corps’ leadership wanted to retain lessons about
Marine operations, roles, and activities in small wars. To this end, Colonel E. B. Miller, thenAssistant Commandant of the Marine Corps Schools, requested that Marine officers fill out
a 40-part questionnaire in 1933.
One of these officers was a First Lieutenant named Vernon E. Megee. In 1933, he was
stationed in San Diego, but he served in Nicaragua from 1929 to 1932 as an aviation supply
officer. He also spent two tours in China and one in Haiti since he had enlisted in 1919 and
received his commission in 1922. Later in his long career, Megee went on to serve in numerous aviation-related billets before becoming Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps
from 1956 through 1957.
The Marine Corps Schools Questionnaire concentrated on tactical, operational, and logistical aspects of small wars. For the most part, the survey did not deal with matters of politics,
strategy, or diplomacy. Because Megee was an aviation supply officer, he lacked sufficient experience to answer most of the questions. Nevertheless, he did provide several intriguing answers.
Three of his answers follow, and show that he had a flare for descriptive and candid writing.
Megee did not directly answer Question 8-a, which asked, “What do you think of the
suitability of the Browning Machine Gun, 30 calibre, for use on combat patrols? Of the 3
[inch] Trench Mortar? The Rifle Grenade? The Hand Grenade?” However, Megee made these
observations about automatic weapons that square with common sense and practicality:
Serious study might be given to the question of replacing the [Browning Automatic Rifle]
with the [Thompson Submachine Gun] for bush warfare. At the close ranges prevailing the
Thompson is the more deadly weapon, its blunt nose .45 caliber bullet has a deadly knockdown effect—sometimes lacking in the spitzer type .30 caliber bullet. The advantages of
portability, both of gun and ammunition, are obvious, and the general handiness and speed
of fire of the [Thompson] make it a murderous weapon in a surprise attack.1
The Nicaraguan insurgents often ambushed Marine units on patrol, and much of the fighting occurred in jungle areas.
Megee also offered some criticisms regarding the Marines’ training in Question 38-a,
which asked, “Do you think that a training center, and an Infantry-weapons School should
have been established in Managua?” Megee responded:
It is my opinion that a Brigade training center at Managua, or possibly Ocotal, where newly
arrived [Marine] officers and men could have received two months of intensive training in
scouting and patrolling work, would have been of inestimable value. The training center at
Pont Beudet, Haiti, through which I once passed with my company, taught me more about
minor tactics, musketry, and kindred subjects in two months than I had previously assimilated in several years.
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Several other questions also dealt with the issues of if and how the Marines were adequately
trained.
Lastly, Megee commented on the Marines’ use of animals in operations. One of his
answers merits mention because of its somewhat whimsical nature. Question 21 asked, “Do
you prefer horses or mules, and why?” Megee makes an intriguing reply:
Personally, I would choose mules in mountain country, both for saddle and pack. They are
more sure footed than horses, and more philosophical about the inevitable abuse they receive
on the trail. They are also possessed of an easier gait than the average tropical horse. On the
other hand they mire easily in deep mud, and are stubborn about being pushed when tired,
and do not have the responsive intelligence of the horse. For real tough going on long trails
where forage is scarce and of poor quality the mule is generally conceded to be superior.
Answers to the 40 questions provided raw data to help faculty and students at MCS
develop small wars doctrine. This process of systematic self-examination and self-criticism
regarding practical lessons and experiences of Marines contributed to the great value of the
Small Wars Manual of 1935 and the more well-known version in 1940. This process also demonstrates the institutional adaptability that has been the hallmark of the U.S. Marine Corps.
Retired General Vernon Megee remembered decades later in his memoirs that, at the Marine
Corps Schools, “committees were set to work compiling new doctrines to cover ‘small war’
and amphibious operations. Officers of experience in the field were invited to submit comments. I recall sending in my view on small war operations, extracts of which I later found
incorporated in the new texts.”
The Small Wars Manual’s 15 chapters explored such operational topics as organization,
training, logistics, infantry patrols, convoy escorts, and aviation, all of which the 1933 questionnaire covered to one degree or another in its sections. Megee’s own answers to questions
did factor into the Small Wars Manual, if not verbatim, then in spirit and tone. The justifications for why he favored the Thompson Submachine Gun over the Browning Automatic
Rifle resembled the descriptions in sections on “Weapons” and “Infantry Weapons.” Interestingly, his opinions about the BAR’s shortcomings were consistent with the Small Wars
Manual, but not the Thompson, which the Small Wars Manual found to have many shortcomings of its own.
Several sections dealing with “Training in the Theater of Operations” echoed the need,
just as Megee’s so strongly suggested, for a training center in Managua. Language similar to
his comparisons of horses and mules can be found in the sections titled “Pack Horses” and
“Pack Mules.” Beyond these, the Small Wars Manual also laid out more politically-oriented
principles by which cultural differences may be understood, military governments established, democratic elections administered, and withdrawals of military forces proffered.
In conclusion, the Small Wars Manual fell out of circulation by the 1950s. It was not
consulted in any meaningful way during the Vietnam War, even though its ideas could
have been usefully applied in that conflict. Moreover, the topics and issues addressed in
Colonel E. B. Miller’s 1933 questionnaire and Lieutenant Vernon Megee’s answers could also
have yielded invaluable observations for the Vietnam War, and they are certainly relevant
to the counterinsurgency operations and nation-building activities in Afghanistan and Iraq
between 2001 and 2013.
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Short Bibliography
Bickel, Keith B. Mars Learning: The Marine Corps’ Development of Small Wars Doctrine, 1915–1940. Boulder,
CO: Westview, 2000.
Langley, Lester D. The Banana Wars: United States Intervention in the Caribbean, 1898–1934. Lexington:
University of Kentucky Press, 1985.
LaFeber, Walter. Inevitable Revolutions: The United States in Central America. 2nd ed. New York: W. W.
Norton, 1993.
Schmidt, Hans. Maverick Marine: General Smedley Butler and the Contradictions of American Military History.
Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1987.
U.S. Marine Corps Schools, The Small Wars Manual: Fleet Marine Force Reference Publication 12–25. ­Reprint.
Manhattan, KS: Sunflower University Press, July 1940.
Isolationist Feelings in the United States in the 1930s
On the heels of the stock market crash in 1929, the Great Depression caused even greater
military downsizing of the U.S. military than had occurred during the 1920s. The fiscal
assault came at the hands of the “isolationists,” who believed that the United States erred by
entering in the First World War, and henceforth should remain insulated from military and
political entanglements around the globe. Isolationist politicians included Senator Gerald
P. Nye, Republican from North Dakota; Senator Henrik Shipstead, Democrat from Minnesota; Representative Hamilton Fish, Republican from New York; and Representative Frank
Church, Republican from Illinois. Their message resonated with most Americans, who cared
nothing about the rise of Nazi Germany in Europe or Militarist Japan in East Asia in the
1930s, when they had so much trouble feeding, clothing, and housing themselves. Congress
responded to isolationism’s political power by slashing appropriations to the U.S. military.
Even in the face of the Great Depression, the military’s fortunes slowly changed when
Franklin D. Roosevelt ascended to the presidency after the election of 1932. He looked sympathetically on the plight of the military in part because he served as Assistant Secretary of
the Navy in Woodrow Wilson’s administration from 1913 to 1921.
The U.S. Navy and Marine Corps, in particular, gained two additional powerful allies
in Congress in 1932. Representative Carl Vinson assumed the chairmanship of the House
Naval Affairs Committee. In this capacity over the next four decades, “Uncle Carl” acted as
patron saint for both seaborne services. On the other side of the aisle, Representative Melvin
J. Maas, a Republican from Minnesota, was instrumental in supporting the seaborne services.
As the ranking minority member on the House Naval Affairs Committee in the 1930s, he
worked closely with Vinson to sponsor legislation to fortify island bases in the Pacific and
to continue reforms in the military’s promotion system. Maas personified civil-military relations as both a congressmen and an officer in the Marine Corps Reserve. This second role
gave him a unique understanding of the military. Maas took every opportunity to alert the
American people to the growing global dangers and the need for a strong military to protect
American interests.
Roosevelt, Vinson, and Maas recognized that the march of events in East Asia and Europe
increased the possibility of war. Nevertheless, domestic problems still demanded the lion’s
share of Americans’ attention. Unemployment, for example, remained at 16 percent in 1936.
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Isolationists galvanized public resistance against increased military expenditures and reactionary foreign policies. The understandable desire to avoid war led to the passage of the
Neutrality Acts of 1935, 1936, and 1937. In the event of war, supplying American munitions
or floating American loans to belligerent nations would be prohibited, and travel by Americans on belligerent ships would be forbidden. The isolationists also sought to obstruct the
efforts of Vinson, Maas, and Roosevelt to increase military preparedness.
Note
1. All the quotes come from Vernon Megee, letter to E. B. Miller, April 24, 1933, Box 1, Vernon Megee
Papers, Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, Abilene, Kansas.
Short Bibliography
Cole, Wayne. American First: The Battle against Interventionism, 1940–1941. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1953.
———. Roosevelt and the Isolationists, 1932–1945. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1983.
Cook, James F. Carl Vinson: Patriarch of the Armed Forces. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2004.
Dallek, Robert. Franklin D. Roosevelt and American Foreign Policy, 1932–1945. Rev. ed. New York: Oxford
University Press, 1995.
Divine, Robert A. The Reluctant Belligerent: American Entry into World War II. 2nd ed. New York: Wiley
and Sons, 1979.
Kennedy, David M. Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929–1945. New York:
Oxford University Press, 1999.
Zehnpfennig, Gladys. Melvin J. Maas: Gallant Man of Action. Minneapolis: T. S. Denison, 1967.
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