Abstract
At the end of the First World War the power of the United States in the world was greatly enhanced, both absolutely and relative to the major European countries. Woodrow Wilson intended to use this power to promote the causes of liberal democracy and an open world trading system, to the good of the the United States and of humanity. His political opponents, and the American people, were less ambitious. To many of them, participation in the war soon seemed to have been a mistake, its results profoundly disappointing. The Republican administration in the early 1920s avoided participation in international political bodies, conducting relations largely on an ad hoc and bilateral footing, and finding it hard to adapt to the country’s new position as a great creditor. The United States now had enormous weight in the world economy; but financial and commercial policy were governed by domestic considerations and were not well suited to the new position. A consistently favourable balance of trade and payments was compensated for not by increased imports (instead the tariff was raised) but by loans. In both political and economic terms American power was exercised in a hesitant and sometimes contradictory manner.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
For imperial relations see Royal Institute of International Affairs, Survey of British Commonwealth Affairs, I, Problems of Nationality 1918–1936 (London, 1937); Max Beloff, Imperial Sunset. II, Dream of Commonwealth 1921–42 (London, 1989); R.F. Holland, Britain and the Commonwealth Alliance 1918–1939 (London, 1981).
For Canada, the least disposed to accept joint responsibility, see P.C. Wigley, Canada and the Transition to Commonwealth. British-Canadian Relations 1917–1926 (Cambridge, 1977);
essays by Max Beloff and Norman Hillmer in Britain and Canada. Survey of a Changing Relationship, ed. Peter Lyon (London, 1976).
See the essays in Anglo-American Relations in the 1920s. The Struggle for Supremacy, ed. B.K.C. McKercher (London, 1991), especially those by John R. Ferris and the editor.
D.C. Watt, Personalities and Politics (London, 1965), p. 211.
For a contemporary statement of the connection between Britain’s interests and peace see Documents on British Foreign Policy 1919–1939, ed. E.L. Woodward and R.D’O. Butler, and others (London, 1947–84), henceforth cited as DBFP, ser. lA, I, appendix.
For Atlanticism in the early postwar years see M.G. Fry, Illusions of Security. North Atlantic Diplomacy 1918–22 (Toronto, 1972).
Accounts of the rejection of the League include T.A. Bailey, Woodrow Wilson and the Great Betrayal (New York, 1945);
Ralph Allen Stone, The Irreconcilables. The Fight Against the League of Nations (Lexington, 1970);
Lloyd C. Ambrosius, Woodrow Wilson and the American Diplomatic Tradition (Cambridge, 1987).
General accounts of American foreign policy in the 1920s include L.E. Ellis, Republican Foreign Policy 1921–1933 (New Brunswick, 1968);
Selig Adler, The Uncertain Giant 1921–1941. American Foreign Policy between the Wars (New York, 1965).
For example James M. Burk, Fortnightly Review, Jan. 1920; Holford Knight, Fortnightly Review, Mar.; Walford D. Green, Nineteenth Century, Apr.; Spectator, 27 Nov., 4 Dec. The Spectator went on discussing amending the Covenant in order to satisfy the United States well into 1921.
For example Professor George McLean Harper, Yale Review, Apr. 1920; Walford D. Green, Nineteenth Century, Apr.; A.G. Gardiner, Contemporary Review, Nov.; Review of Reviews, Nov.;
Lord Charnwood, Contemporary Review, Feb. 1921;
H.H. Powers, The American Era (New York, 1920), pp. 1–11.
Memorandum by Hankey, 17 Jul. 1919, PRO, CAB 29/159. See J. Kenneth McDonald, ‘Lloyd George and the Search for a Postwar Naval Policy’, in Lloyd George. Twelve Essays, ed. A.J.P. Taylor (London, 1971) .
Memorandum by Beatty, 7 Jan. 1920, PRO, ADM 167/61. For the whole question see John Robert Ferris, The Evolution of British Strategic Policy 1919–26 (London, 1989); and Ferris’s article in McKercher, Anglo-American Relations.
See Christopher Hall, Britain, America and Arms Control 1921–37 (London, 1987); Roskill, Naval Policy, I;
Roger Dingman, Power in the Pacific. The Origins of Naval Arms Limitation 1914–1922 (Chicago, 1976).
Examples of American naval opinion: Rear-Adm. Caspar F. Goodrich, North American Review, Jan. 1921; speech by Adm. H. McL. P. Huse. reported in The Times, 24 Feb.
Other speeches quoted by Hector C. Bywater, Navies and Nations. A Review of Naval Developments since the Great War (London, 1927), pp. 109–11. On Harding, memorandum by Willert, May 1921, Yale, Willert papers, ser. 1, box 4.
For the problem see Nish, Alliance in Decline; Wm Roger Louis, British Strategy in the Far East 1919–1939 (Oxford, 1971).
See for example Archibald Hurd, Fortnightly Review, Nov. 1921; Spectator, 10 Dec.; Nation and Athenaeum, 17 Dec.;
Wemyss, Nineteenth Century, Mar. 1922.
Accounts of American policy in Werner Link, Die Amerikanische Stabilisierungspolitik in Deutschland 1921–1932 (Düsseldorf, 1970);
Melvyn P. Leffler, The Elusive Quest. America’s Pursuit of European Stability and French Security, 1919–1933 (Chapel Hill, 1979).
A full modern study is Stephen A. Schuker, The End of French Predominance in Europe (Chapel Hill, 1976).
For a full discussion see William C. McNeil, American Money and the Weimar Republic. Economics and Politics on the Eve of the Great Depression (New York, 1986).
Details in Harold G. Moulton and Leo Pasvolsky, War Debts and World Prosperity (Washington, 1932).
For press comment see for example Walter Layton, Nineteenth Century, Mar. 1923. The National Review, Feb., thought that the settlement should help to ‘eliminate that spurious sentimentalism in which the Pilgrims’ Society and the English-Speaking Union with the weekly encouragement of the Spectator seek to envelop Anglo-American affairs.’
See for example A. Wyatt Tilley, Nineteenth Century, Sep. 1926; Philip Snowden, Atlantic Monthly, Sep.; A.G. Gardiner, Foreign Affairs, Oct.; statement by professors of Columbia University, The Times, 20 Dec.;
Frank H. Simonds, American Review of Reviews, Feb. 1927.
See for example George Harvey, North American Review, Dec. 1925;
J.M. Kenworthy and newspaper comments, North American Review, Mar. 1926; articles by Tilley and Gardiner cited in note 32 above;
W.R. Inge, England (London, 1926), pp. 275–90; Nation, 30 Mar. 1927; DBFP, ser. lA, I, no. 1.
Frederick Bausman, Facing Europe (New York, 1926), pp. 6–7, 13–14, 25–8, 30, 306–7, 320–2.
Accounts of the conference in Roskill, Naval Policy, I; B.J.C. McKercher, The Second Baldwin Government and the United States 1924–1929 (Cambridge, 1984); Hall, Britain, America and Arms Control;
David Carlton, ‘Great Britain and the Coolidge Naval Conference of 1927’, Political Science Quarterly, LXXXIII (1968) pp. 573–98.
Memorandum hy Churchill, 20 Jul. 1927, Martin Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill, V (London, 1976), Companion vol. 1, pp. 1030–5. For the argument about the cruiser programme see Roskill, Naval Policy, I.
General Board report No. 438, 3 Jun. 1925; memorandum by Rear-Adm. Phelps, 15 Jul., quoted by Raymond G. O’Connor, Perilous Equilibrium. The United States and the London Naval Conference of 1930 (Lawrence, KS, 1962), pp. 13–14.
General Board report, 25 Apr. 1927, quoted by O’Connor, Perilous Equilibrium, p. 16; General Board study 3(h), 22 Apr., quoted by Gerald E. Wheeler, Prelude to Pearl Harbor: the United States and the Far East 1921–1931 (Columbia, 1963), p. 62. The dropping by the Labour government in 1924 of the construction of the Singapore base was not generally welcomed by American writers. The Vice-President of the American Navy League regarded the construction of the base as in American interests: Fortnightly Review, Nov. 1924; see also Howard to FO, 5 Mar. 1925, F958/9/61, PRO, FO 371/10958; Chilston to FO, 16 Aug. 1928, A 6034/1/45, FO 371/12799.
Discussions of the problem in, for example, DBFP, ser. lA, IV, no. 227; Wickham Steed, Review of Reviews, Dec. 1927;
Frank H. Simonds, American Review of Reviews, Mar. 1928; George Young, Contemporary Review, Mar.; Round Table, Mar.; ‘Augur’, Fortnightly Review, Apr.; Leonard Stein, Nation and Athenaeum, 26 May.
See R.H. Ferrell, Peace in Their Time. The Origins of the Kellogg- Briand Pact (New Haven, 1952); McKercher, Second Baldwin Government, The implications of the pact for American neutrality policy were much discussed in the early 1930s: see chapter 4.
DBFP, ser. lA, V, no. 490. Some American writers were suggesting that the Pacific Dominions would soon look to the United States rather than Britain, or urging them to do so: for example Washington Post, 27 Nov. 1924; Nicholas Roosevelt, The Restless Pacific (New York, 1928), p. 280; memorandum by Wellesley, 1 Jan. 1925; Howard to FO, 12 Nov., F 29, 5652/9/61, PRO, FO 371/10958. Sir Francis Fox argued, in The Mastery of the Pacific. Can the British Empire and the United States Agree? (London, 1928), that agreement on policy was possible if both peoples freed their minds of false ideas and hypocrisy.
See for example George Young, Contemporary Review, Mar. 1928; Spectator, 21 Apr., 1 Sep., 1 Dec., 23 Feb, 1929; ‘Augur’, Fortnightly Review, Apr. 1928;
J.M. Kenworthy, Review of Reviews, Jan. 1929; Philip Kerr, Saturday Review of Literature, 26 Jan., 2 Feb.; F.G. Stone, Nineteenth Century, Feb.; Round Table, Mar.;
J.M. Kenworthy and George Young, Freedom of the Seas (London, 1928).
See for example New York World, 12 Nov. 1927; Frank H. Simonds, American Review of Reviews, Feb. 1928; Charles P. Howland, Yale Review, Jul.; Nation, 26 Dec., 2 Jan. 1929; Allen Dulles, Foreign Affairs, Jan.; Literary Digest, 9 Feb.; Simonds, National Review, Mar.; Simonds, American Review of Reviews, Apr.; John W. Davis, Foreign Affairs, Apr.
Lippmann to Kerr, 4 Dec. 1928; Kerr to Lippmann, 20 Dec., Yale University, Lippmann Papers, ser. 1, box 16; DBFP, ser. IA, V, no. 517; Lippmann, Saturday Review of Literature, 9 Feb. 1929; Allen Dulles, Foreign Affairs, Jan.
See Robert Boyce, British Capitalism at the Crossroads 1919–1932 (Cambridge, 1987);
D.E. Moggridge, British Monetary Policy 1924–1931. The Norman Conquest of $4.86 (Cambridge, 1972).
See Stephen V.O. Clarke, Central Bank Cooperation 1924–31 (New York, 1967);
Idem, The Reconstruction of the International Monetary System. The Attempts of 1922 and 1933 (Princeton, 1973);
Frank Costigliola, ‘Anglo-American Financial Rivalry in the 1920s’, Journal of Economic History, XXXVII (1972) pp. 911–34.
For this question see Orde, British Policy and European Reconstruction; Richard Meyer, Bankers’ Diplomacy. Monetary Stabilization in the Twenties (New York, 1970);
Lester V. Chandler, Benjamin Strong, Central Banker (Washington, 1958);
Neal Pease, Poland, the United States and the Stabilization of Europe, 1919–1933 (New York, 1986);
Joan Hoff Wilson, American Business and Foreign Policy 1920–1933 (Lexington, 1971).
The aggressive aspect is emphasized particularly by Parrini, Heir to Empire, Frank Costigliola, Awkward Dominion. American Political, Economic and Cultural Relations with Europe, 1919–1933 (Ithaca, 1984).
The cooperative aspect is emphasized by Michael J. Hogan, Informal Entente. The Private Structure of Cooperation in Anglo-American Economic Diplomacy (Columbia, 1977).
See Marion Kent, Oil and Empire. British Policy and Mesopotamian Oil 1900–1920 (London, 1976) .
See for example Edward G. Acheson, Forum, Nov. 1920;
Daniels, Cabinet Diaries, pp. 370, 575 (21 Jan. 1919, 18 Dec. 1920);
Benjamin H. Williams, Economic Foreign Policy of the United States (New York, 1929), p. 58.
E.M. Edgar quoted (from Sperling’s Journal, Sep. 1919) by Edward G. Acheson, Forum, Nov.; Nation, 15 May 1920; E.H. Davenport and S.R. Cooke, The Oil Trusts and Anglo-American Relations (London, 1923), p. ix; Sunday Times, 18 Apr. 1920.
See John A. De Novo, ‘The Movement for an Aggressive American Oil Policy Abroad 1918–1920’, American Historical Review, LXVI (1965–6) pp. 854–76.
See Geoffrey Jones, The State and the Emergence of the British Oil Industry (London, 1981);
Hogan, Informal Entente, Ludwell Denny, We Fight for Oil (New York and London, 1928), pp. 273–4.
For the Stevenson scheme see Sir Andrew McFadyean, The History of Rubber Regulation 1934–1943 (London, 1944).
Examples of American opinion are in George O. May, Atlantic Monthly, Jun. 1926; Jacob Viner, Foreign Affairs, Jul.
See Joseph B. Brandes in Herbert Hoover as Secretary of Commerce, ed. Ellis W. Hawley (Iowa City, 1981).
Denny, We Fight for Oil, pp. 13–14; John Carter, Conquest. America’s Painless Imperialism (New York, 1928), pp. 4–5, 281–2.
Two years later, Denny had even abandoned the idea of compromise and was confident of American victory: ‘If Britain is foolish enough to fight us, she will go down more quickly, that is all’: Denny, America Conquers Britain. A Record of Economic War (New York, 1930), p. 407.
David Marquand, Ramsay MacDonald (London, 1977); Hall, Britain, America and Arms Control; O’Connor, Perilous Equilibrium. Actual British cruiser strength was little affected, the controversial 70 of 1927 not having been reached. Favourable American press comment on MacDonald’s visit, with occasional warnings against excessive optimism, in for example Literary Digest, 28 Sep., 14 Oct. 1929; New York Times, 13 Oct.; Nation, 9 Oct., 23 Oct.; Walter Lippmann, Nation and Athenaeum, 2 Nov. The press comment in Britain was generally one of relief, with some criticism of the lack of a quid pro quo for the acceptance of parity: for example Archibald Hurd, Nineteenth Century, Nov.; Sir Charles Mallet, Contemporary Review, Dec.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 1996 Anne Orde
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Orde, A. (1996). Finding a New Balance: Naval and Other Problems in the 1920s. In: The Eclipse of Great Britain. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-24924-4_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-24924-4_4
Publisher Name: Palgrave, London
Print ISBN: 978-0-333-66284-7
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-24924-4
eBook Packages: Palgrave History CollectionHistory (R0)