which, as a matter of fact, she had already been secretly violating. France sent out a similar notice in order to emphasize once and for all that she would not accept naval parity with Italy. Though the diametrically opposed points of view of the various nations had been recognized for a long time, nevertheless a call was sent out for a new conference to be held in 1936 to work out some sort of substitute for the Washington Treaty.
While France was preparing for the new conference with the hope that the threatening German rearmaments might also be taken under consideration, the British Government took the initiative by negotiating directly with Hitler. In June, 1935, following a visit to Berlin by Anthony Eden, she conceded to Germany the right to a Navy thirty-five per cent the strength of the Royal Navy, and the possibility of increasing this ratio to forty-five per cent in the case of submarines.
France was thus confronted with a fait accompli. The German Navy, which had already laid down two capital ships of 26,000 tons each, plus 12 heavy cruisers, 16 destroyers, and 28 submarines, would now be in a position to build up a global tonnage of 420,000 tons instead of the mere 100,000 tons she was permitted under the Treaty of Versailles.
Looking back after the intervening years, one can understand the cold logic of Great Britain in officially recognizing German naval rearmament and agreeing to a limit, even a very large one, rather than having no agreed limit at all. It would have been commonsense if the French too had been just as realistic and had jettisoned the ineffectual legalisms of the Versailles Treaty to which she still clung. At that time, however, the French Navy could not avoid the feeling of being abandoned—left alone and misunderstood in a world of increasing menace. Accordingly the French Navy that year obtained authorization for the construction of two more battleships, to be named respectively the Richelieu and the Jean Bart. With such additions the Navy was confident that, even without the British Navy as an ally, it could cope successfully with the combined German and Italian Navies.
And international peace in Europe was becoming steadily more precarious. More exasperated than hurt by the sanctions imposed on her for the Abyssinian campaign, Italy intensified her rapprochement with the German Reich. Germany reoccupied the left bank of the Rhine without the slightest reaction to this flagrant violation of one of the most important clauses of the Treaty of Versailles. And an ideological civil war broke out in Spain, where the German-Italian fascists on one side faced the democrats, anarchists, and Soviet communists on the other.
Part of the French naval forces were called upon to cruise for many months off the Spanish coasts in order to protect or evacuate French nationals. In 1937, French ships escorted an average of 500 merchantmen each month around the Iberian Peninsula. In the harbors, the Navy saved the lives of many nationals, even Spanish. It had no part, however, in delivering the shipments of arms which the Socialist-dominated government of France was sending to Republican Spain at the expense of the French Army’s own stockpile. Convinced from their contacts with the officers of other navies that another European war was inevitable, the French Navy vigorously prepared for it.
For the London Conference of 1936 had been a complete fiasco. Japan had appeared merely to announce that she would no longer participate, and that she reserved complete freedom of action in the future. Neither Germany nor Russia was represented at all. Italy sent word that she would not know how to negotiate with nations which had just previously applied sanctions against her. All that Britain, the United States, and France could do was to establish qualitative limits (tonnage, size of guns) for each type of ship, to bind themselves not to exceed them, and to make known their building programs in advance to each other. This last was a needless clause since in every democratic country building programs only came into being after long hours of public debate. These agreements were pretty fairly observed, yet since no controls were provided, compliance depended entirely upon the good faith of the nations themselves.
In France, while the masses were engrossed in the social reforms with which they were being appeased, the Navy, ever vigilant, vigorously pressed its reorganization. The regulations were modernized; training was intensified; construction of a new naval base at Mers-el-Kebir was begun. To insure fuel oil for the Fleet, the Navy encouraged the establishment of refineries and of commercial petroleum stocks in the homeland. Moreover it stocked approximately 3,000,000 tons of petroleum products in tanks in the vicinity of its navy yards. By 1939, reservoirs with a total capacity of 1,200,000 tons—most of them underground—had been completed. In a country where the civilian work week had been reduced to five days, naval personnel worked six days a week, and an extra hour each day. This expansion all had to be done despite only a minor share of the defense budget, the Air Force being allotted twenty-seven per cent and the Army fifty-two per cent against the Navy’s twenty-one.
FRENCH 10,000-TON CRUISERS on maneuvers in 1937. Left to right: FOCH, COLBERT, SUFFREN, and DUQUESNE as seen from the DUPLEIX.
In 1938 the Navy obtained funds for the construction of two aircraft carriers, but unfortunately these ships were barely under construction when the war began. Following the Munich incident, it hastily increased its building program by two battleships, two cruisers, two super-destroyers, eighteen regular destroyers, and eighteen submarines, but only a few of these ships reached the stage of being given a name.
The result of the Navy’s dogged perseverance was that at the beginning of the war France possessed a strong, modern, homogenous fleet, the composition of which is shown in Appendix A. Not counting the old battleships—though these too saw action during the war—there was not one combat ship over 13 years old. The ships were well built and dependable; their gunnery was excellent. The new super-destroyers—actually small cruisers—proved themselves the fastest ships in the world. Modern communications, including ship-to-ship voice radio, had been installed. The listening devices were good, but the submarine detection gear, of the asdic type, was still in the research stage. All the ships had been trained in day and night squadron maneuvers.
One major defect existed—a weakness in aviation striking power and also a weakness in air cover, owing to the lack of aircraft carriers and to the inadequate antiaircraft batteries. Perhaps because of lack of imagination, perhaps because of conservatism, the French Navy had concentrated more on building battleships than it had on aircraft carriers. One reason for this was undoubtedly the controversy that had arisen since World War I between the Air Ministry and that of the Navy. The Navy had had its air arm transferred to the newborn Air Ministry and had only regained shipboard aviation in 1932. During those years the aviation personnel were tossed from one Ministry to the other, and the two services devoted more time to squabbling than they did to working together on the problems of the future. Politically the Air Ministry was backed by the progressive parties, while the Navy gained its support mostly from the ranks of the moderates. These rivalries between the services did not disappear until the very advent of war.
Notwithstanding all this, French naval aviation in 1939 consisted of approximately 350 combat planes, manned by picked personnel. At the same time large plane orders, some placed with American industry, were building up the air arm at a rapid rate. The squadrons underwent intensive training, especially in reconnaissance and search, illumination, sea patrol, and anti-submarine warfare.
Theoretically the provision of air cover to the fleet operating at sea and of air strikes on enemy forces was partially the responsibility of the Air Force. Actually the very opposite occurred in 1940. At the
