British Disarmament Policy and the Rome Naval Conference, 1924

Abstract

This article provides the first detailed examination of an important but largely unnoticed aspect of British defence and foreign policy in the period after the Great War. It is based upon a sophisticated definition of disarmament which takes account of both aims and process in international relations. Following the Washington conference, 1921-22, the British put forward a plan which sought to extend the principles of the naval limitation treaty to nonsignatory powers. Although the initiative was ultimately unsuccessful, its history reveals that the Admiralty was prepared to use the League of Nations in pursuit of a disarmament agreement which, it believed, could benefit the country’s naval interests.