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263-808: The Anglo-German Naval Agreement ( AGNA ) of 18 June 1935 was a naval agreement between the United Kingdom and Germany regulating the size of the Kriegsmarine in relation to the Royal Navy . The Anglo-German Naval Agreement fixed a ratio whereby the total tonnage of the Kriegsmarine was to be 35% of the total tonnage of the Royal Navy on a permanent basis. It was registered in League of Nations Treaty Series on 12 July 1935. The agreement

526-476: A Kreuzerkrieg fleet offered Germany the best chance for damaging Britain's power and that the British benefited strategically by ensuring that such a fleet was not built in the 1930s. In the field of Anglo-German relations, the agreement had considerable importance. The British expressed hope, as Craigie informed Ribbentrop, that it "was designed to facilitate further agreements within a wider framework and there

789-678: A guerre-de-course strategy of attacking the British Merchant Marine, but they were overruled by Hitler, who insisted on the prestige of Germany building a "balanced fleet". Such a fleet would attempt a Mahanian strategy of winning maritime supremacy by a decisive battle with the Royal Navy in the North Sea . Historians such as Joseph Maiolo, Geoffrey Till and the authors of the Kriegsmarine Official History have agreed with Chatfield's contention that

1052-476: A pervasive cult of personality around Adolf Hitler to influence public opinion. The government controlled artistic expression, promoting specific art forms and banning or discouraging others. Genocide , mass murder , and large-scale forced labour became hallmarks of the regime; the implementation of the regime's racial policies culminated in the Holocaust . After the initial success of German invasion of

1315-452: A British Foreign Office memo stated, "Part V of the Treaty of Versailles... is, for practical purposes, dead, and it would become a putrefying corpse which, if left unburied, would soon poison the political atmosphere of Europe. Moreover, if there is to be a funeral, it is clearly better to arrange it while Hitler is still in a mood to pay the undertakers for their services". In December 1934,

1578-674: A Companion on 31 May 1916 and to the Order of the Bath as a Companion in the 1916 Birthday Honours , Chatfield went on to command the battleship HMS Iron Duke , Beatty's flagship as Commander-in-Chief of the Grand Fleet , in November 1916 and then the battleship HMS  Queen Elizabeth , Beatty's new flagship in the same role, in February 1917. He was advanced to Knight Commander of

1841-581: A German guerre-de-course fleet the most dangerous, the agreement brought the British considerable strategic benefits. Above all, since the Royal Navy did not build " pocket battleships ", Chatfield valued the end of the Panzerschiff building. When the Kriegsmarine began planning for a war against Britain in May 1938, the Kriegsmarine's senior operations officer, Commander Hellmuth Heye , concluded

2104-623: A German fleet that would be 35% of the tonnage of the Royal Navy under the grounds that Germany was going to violate the Treaty of Versailles anyway and acceptance of this offer would push German naval-building in the direction that would be least dangerous to the Royal Navy. Chatfield did not want the Germans to embrace upon a guerre de course strategy of having dozens of the Deutschland -class "pocket battleships" operating in tandem with groups of U-boats that would attack British shipping around

2367-638: A Royal Navy "deterrent" squadron to be sent into the Baltic Sea. The purpose of the "deterrent" squadron was to both threaten to cut the Reich off from supplies of high-grade Swedish iron (Germany had no high-grade iron of its own) and to distract the Wehrmacht by posing the threat of amphibious landings in northern Germany. Expecting the Soviet Union to join the "peace front", Churchill suggested that

2630-426: A colossal Kriegsmarine of 10 battleships, 16 "pocket battleships", 8 aircraft carriers, 5 heavy cruisers, 36 light cruisers and 249 U-boats by 1944, which were purposed to crush the Royal Navy. Since the fleet envisioned in the Z Plan was considerably larger than allowed by the 35:100 ratio in the agreement, it was inevitable that Germany would renounce it. Over the winter of 1938–1939, it became clearer to London that

2893-468: A committee on the evacuation of London 's hospitals. He retired to his home at Farnham Common in Buckinghamshire and became Deputy Lieutenant of that county on 15 June 1951. He died at his home there on 15 November 1967. In July 1909 he married Lillian Emma Matthews (d.1977); they had two daughters and a son. Their son, Ernle, succeeded his father as Baron Chatfield. He followed him into

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3156-488: A communist uprising. The Reichstag Fire Decree , imposed on 28 February 1933, rescinded most civil liberties, including rights of assembly and freedom of the press. The decree also allowed the police to detain people indefinitely without charges. The legislation was accompanied by a propaganda campaign that led to public support for the measure. Violent suppression of communists by the SA was undertaken nationwide and 4,000 members of

3419-481: A declaration calling an alliance of the Soviet Union, France and Britain to defend Poland and Romania. However, Chamberlain expressed much doubt about the military effectiveness of the Red Army; noted that the Soviet Union had no frontier with Germany; and expressed "the most profound distrust of Russia" as he put on 26 March 1939. In addition, Chamberlain was always keen to keep British foreign policy coordinated with

3682-523: A desire for a Reichsmarine of 33.3% of the total tonnage of the Royal Navy. In November 1934, the Germans formally informed the British of their wish to reach a treaty under which the Reichsmarine would be allowed to grow until the size of 35% of the Royal Navy. The figure was raised because the phrase of a German goal of "one third of the Royal Navy except in cruisers, destroyers, and submarines" did not sound quite right in speeches. Raeder felt that

3945-576: A desperate "mad dog" attack on Britain. However Chatfield reported it might be worth going to war with Italy because it offered a chance to "reassert our dominance over an inferior race". During the Abyssinia crisis, Chatfield was regarded as the senior service chief whose advice Baldwin (who knew nothing of military affairs) generally followed The First Lord of the Admiralty, Sir Bolton Eyres-Monsell , tended to follow Chatfield's advice, being more of

4208-620: A diplomatic strategy that would allow abolition of Part V in exchange for German return to both the League of Nations and the World Disarmament Conference. At the same meeting, Simon stated, "Germany would prefer, it appears, to be 'made an honest woman'; but if she is left too long to indulge in illegitimate practices and to find by experience that she does not suffer for it, this laudable ambition may wear off". In January 1935, Simon wrote to George V , "The practical choice

4471-608: A discussion of war plans, and permission to use each other's waters in Asia-Pacific region (through Chatfield was unable to make any promises on behalf of Australia and New Zealand). The Chatfield-Ingersoll talks did not lead to any action against Japan in 1938 as Roosevelt chose to accept the Japanese claim that the sinking of the Panay was a "mistake", but it marked the beginning of secret Anglo-American naval talks that help draw

4734-407: A fleet that would be dangerous for British interests. Chatfield for a time favoured encouraging German expansionism into Eastern Europe as a way to encourage Hitler to spend more Reichsmarks on the Wehrmacht at the expense of the Kriegsmarine as he believed a German conquest of Eastern Europe would impose "liabilities" on the Reich . Chatfield did not understand the military weaknesses of most of

4997-538: A further appeasement of Hitler, whose appetite grew on concessions. Also, it resented that the British agreement had for private gain further weakened the peace treaty, which added to Germany's growing overall military power. France contended that the British had no legal right to absolve Germany from respecting the naval clauses of the Versailles Treaty. As an additional insult for France, the Naval Pact

5260-420: A great Power for other purposes, was only a Power of medium rank for military purposes...Her assistance would be of considerable, though not of great, military value". On 16 May 1939 Lord Halifax said that the political reasons for not allying with Russia were stronger than the strategic reasons for such an alliance. Chatfield responded: "...if for fear of making an alliance with Russia we drove that country into

5523-540: A joint Anglo-American blockade of Japan, saying that the Japanese were completely out of control and something would have to be done. In January 1938, Roosevelt dispatched Captain Royal E. Ingersoll of the United States Navy to London to hold secret talks with Chatfield about plans for a war with Japan. The talks were hampered by the fact that both Chamberlain who was now prime minister and Roosevelt had imposed

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5786-580: A massive secret rearmament program , forming the Wehrmacht (armed forces). The return to economic stability boosted the regime's popularity. Germany made increasingly aggressive territorial demands, threatening war if they were not met. Germany seized Austria in the Anschluss of 1938, and demanded and received the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia. Germany signed a non-aggression pact with

6049-515: A memo to Fisher on 25 August 1935, Chatfield wrote: "...that a hostile Italy is a real menace to our Imperial communications and defence system. We have relied on practically abandoning the Mediterranean if we send our fleet east. For that reason, I do not want to go to extreme measures and hope the Geneva pacifists will fail to get unanimity and the League will break up". Chatfield stated that

6312-588: A memo to the Foreign Secretary Sir Samuel Hoare, Chatfield wrote: "we must never forgot that we have no naval margin at all, and the loss of one or two ships would be a serious matter for us". Chatfield stressed at present the battleships of the Royal Navy were in a process of being modernised by rotation. A number of warships were in the docks being equipped with radar, asdic and other aspects of modern technology. As such he had only 7 battleships available for operations at present. In

6575-474: A mistake, but Germany was nevertheless not going to remain in a state of inferiority in this respect vis-à-vis a hostile Britain and would build up to a 100% basis. In response to Göring's statement, a joint Admiralty-Foreign Office note was sent to Henderson to inform him that he should inform the Germans: "Field Marshal Göring's threat that in certain circumstances Germany might, presumably after denouncing

6838-471: A more general sense, because of Britain's championing of German "theoretical equality" at the World Disarmament Conference, London was in a weak moral position to oppose the German violations. The German response to British complaints about violations of Part V were that they were merely unilaterally exercising rights that the British delegation at Geneva had been prepared to concede to the Reich . In March 1934,

7101-457: A naval agreement was felt to be a useful stepping stone to an air pact. On 26 March 1935, during one of his meetings with Simon and his deputy, Anthony Eden , Hitler stated his intention to reject the naval disarmament section of Versailles but was prepared to discuss a treaty regulating the scale of German naval rearmament. On 21 May 1935, Hitler, in a speech in Berlin , formally offered to discuss

7364-527: A new naval base in Hawaii at Pearl Harbor, which took as a sign that the United States was also concerned about Japan, and argued that joint Anglo-American fears of Japanese expansionism could serve as the basis of an Anglo-American alliance. Besides for bases, Chatfield wanted to modernise the battle fleet; buy more cruisers and aircraft; equip all warships with ASDIC; and stockpile fuel and ammunition at

7627-602: A non-aggression pact with Poland. In March 1939, Hitler demanded the return of the Free City of Danzig and the Polish Corridor , a strip of land that separated East Prussia from the rest of Germany. The British announced they would come to the aid of Poland if it was attacked. Hitler, believing the British would not take action, ordered an invasion plan should be readied for September 1939. On 23 May, Hitler described to his generals his overall plan of not only seizing

7890-474: A protectorate of France under the condition that its residents would later decide by referendum which country to join, and Poland became a separate nation and was given access to the sea by the creation of the Polish Corridor , which separated Prussia from the rest of Germany, while Danzig was made a free city . Germany regained control of the Saarland through a referendum held in 1935 and annexed Austria in

8153-830: A repeat of the First World War where the Grand Fleet based in Scapa Flow faced off against the High Seas Fleet based in Wilhelmshaven and Kiel. Until the Z plan was launched, Hitler had consistently placed the Kriegsmarine third in defence spending behind the Army and the Luftwaffe, which was known to British intelligence, and led Chatfield to predicate it would be some time before Germany could construct

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8416-611: A report of his impressions of the "New Germany" that October. His report concluded with the words: That uncertainty over Hitler's ultimate intentions in foreign policy was to colour much of the British policy towards Germany until 1939. Equally important as one of the origins of the agreement were the deep cuts made to the Royal Navy after the Washington Naval Conference of 1921–1922 and the London Naval Conference of 1930 . The cuts imposed by

8679-619: A representative of the Admiralty in the cabinet rather than its master. Chatfield was personally hostile towards the League of Nations, arguing that the principle of collective security could embroil Britain in wars where no British "vital interests" were at stake. Chatfield defined "vital interests" as the defence of the British Empire and the Commonwealth. Chatfield argued that for the Singapore strategy to work require use of

8942-653: A return to the Anglo-Japanese alliance prompted a strong reaction from the diplomats with Charles Orde , Robert Craigie , and Laurence Collier all writing that Japan was dead-set on an anti-Western course, and there was no hope of lasting understanding with Japan. In debates with Sir Warren Fisher , the Permanent Undersecretary at the Treasury, who reached an understanding with Japan, Chatfield spoke in favour of reaching an understanding with

9205-459: A second national anthem. Germany was still in a dire economic situation, as six million people were unemployed and the balance of trade deficit was daunting. Using deficit spending , public works projects were undertaken beginning in 1934, creating 1.7 million new jobs by the end of that year alone. Average wages began to rise. The SA leadership continued to apply pressure for greater political and military power. In response, Hitler used

9468-417: A secret Cabinet committee met to discuss the situation caused by German rearmament. British Foreign Secretary Sir John Simon stated at one of the committee's meetings, "If the alternative to legalizing German rearmament was to prevent it, there would be everything to be said, for not legalizing it". However, since London had already rejected the idea of a war to end German rearmament, the British government chose

9731-585: A serious naval rival of this country, we may have cause to regret it if we fail to take this chance...". Also, on 5 June, during talks between Sir Robert Craigie , the British Foreign Office's naval expert and chief of the Foreign Office's American Department, and Ribbentrop's deputy, Admiral Karlgeorg Schuster , the Germans conceded that the 35:100 ratio would be expressed in ship tonnage, the Germans building their tonnage up to whatever

9994-571: A serious threat to the Western Approaches, writing in his 1947 memoirs: "With a French ally with an efficient navy, and a neutral, but friendly Norway, the Admiralty believed they could hold the position. Actually, their judgement in the envisioned circumstances proved right; the situation was held satisfactory until the fall of Norway and the collapse of France". He retired from the Royal Navy in August 1938. In late 1938 Chatfield chaired

10257-399: A strong RAF would be too much of a financial strain and that choices had to be made. Chamberlain argued that since Germany was by far the most powerful of Britain's potential enemies, the conclusion that Germany was "the ultimate potential enemy" should be strictly adhered to with regard to defence spending. As such, Chamberlain ruled that of the £76.8 million committed for defence spending in

10520-504: A strong negotiating position at Geneva from the previous government of General Kurt von Schleicher . The German strategy was to make idealistic offers of limited rearmament out of the expectation that all such offers would be rejected by the French, which would allow Germany to go on ultimately with the maximum rearmament. The ultranationalism of the Nazi regime had alarmed the French, who put

10783-713: A substantial minority of Germans, who lived mostly in the Sudetenland . Under pressure from separatist groups within the Sudeten German Party , the Czechoslovak government offered economic concessions to the region. Hitler decided not just to incorporate the Sudetenland into the Reich, but to destroy the country of Czechoslovakia entirely. The Nazis undertook a propaganda campaign to try to generate support for an invasion. Top German military leaders opposed

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11046-516: A test case for German sincerity. When the talks began in Berlin on 30 December 1938, the Germans took an obdurate approach, which led London to conclude that the Germans did not wish for the talks to succeed. In response to the British "guarantee" of Poland of 31 March 1939, Hitler, enraged by the British move, proclaimed, "I shall brew them a devil's drink". In a speech in Wilhelmshaven for

11309-626: A thousand people (out of a population of around 16,000) committed suicide in Demmin around 1 May 1945 as the 65th Army of 2nd Belorussian Front first broke into a distillery and then rampaged through the town, committing mass rapes, arbitrarily executing civilians, and setting fire to buildings. High numbers of suicides took place in many other locations, including Neubrandenburg (600 dead), Stolp in Pommern (1,000 dead), and Berlin, where at least 7,057 people committed suicide in 1945. Estimates of

11572-411: A treaty offering a German Navy that was to operate forever on a 35:100 naval ratio. During his "peace speech" of 21 May, Hitler disavowed any intention of engaging in a pre-1914 style naval race with Britain, and he stated: "The German Reich government recognises of itself the overwhelming importance for existence and thereby the justification of dominance at sea to protect the British Empire, just as, on

11835-896: A war fought on two fronts. The invasion conquered a huge area, including the Baltic states, Belarus , and west Ukraine . After the successful Battle of Smolensk in September 1941, Hitler ordered Army Group Centre to halt its advance to Moscow and temporarily divert its Panzer groups to aid in the encirclement of Leningrad and Kyiv . This pause provided the Red Army with an opportunity to mobilise fresh reserves. The Moscow offensive, which resumed in October 1941, ended disastrously in December . On 7 December 1941, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor , Hawaii. Four days later, Germany declared war on

12098-515: A war of conquest to obtain more territory. The Saarland , which had been placed under League of Nations supervision for 15 years at the end of World War I, voted in January 1935 to become part of Germany. In March 1935, Hitler announced the creation of an air force, and that the Reichswehr would be increased to 550,000 men. Britain agreed to Germany building a naval fleet with the signing of

12361-652: A war production basis immediately, not necessarily at the expense of our export trade but by curtailing internal consumption?" However the President of the Board of Trade , Oliver Stanley , objected: "Such a step would be almost revolutionary, and must be proved absolutely essential before introduction". In March 1939 during the Danzig crisis , Chatfield supported the Foreign Secretary, Lord Halifax, in his call for

12624-579: A war with Italy would likely lead to several British warships being sunk, which would take several years to replace, and would undermine the Singapore strategy. Through Chatfield expressed much confidence that the Royal Navy's Mediterranean fleet was capable of defeating the Regia Marina , in a memo to Vansittart, he wrote: "I was surprised to find how unready the other two services were and how long it would take before they could give effective resistance to Italian action by land or air. The naval situation

12887-413: Is bad enough....it would be a serious business if the great League of Nations, having at last agreed to act together, was able to be flouted by the nation it was trying to coerce". Chatfield advised against imposing oil sanctions on Italy, saying that a war with Italy was not worth the cost. Chatfield stressed that there was a danger that Japan might take advantage of an Anglo-Italian war, and predicated in

13150-675: Is between a Germany which continues to rearm without any regulation or agreement and a Germany which, through getting a recognition of its rights and some modifications of the Peace Treaties enters into the comity of nations and contributes in this or other ways to European stability. As between these two courses, there can be no doubt which is the wiser". In February 1935, a summit in London between French Premier Pierre Laval and British Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald led to an Anglo-French communiqué issued in London that proposed talks with

13413-404: Is doubtless capable of realizing the 35% figure by 1942 if she so desires , or even appreciably earlier, it seems unlikely (considering her difficulties in connection with raw material, foreign exchange and the necessity of giving priority to her vast rearmament on land and in the air, and considering our own big programme) that she would appreciably exceed that figure during the next few years. This

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13676-453: Is most likely to be attained by the establishment of an air force based in this country of a size and efficiency calculated to inspire respect in the mind of a possible enemy". As part of an effort to sabotage Chatfield's case, Chamberlain ruled that no new warships were to be ordered until the 1935 naval conference was held, and in the defence estimates submitted to the House of Commons in 1934,

13939-494: Is not to say we have not every interest in avoiding a denunciation of the Anglo-German Agreement of 1935, which would create a present state of uncertainty as to Germany's intentions and the ultimate threat of an attempt at parity with our Navy, which must be regarded as potentially dangerous given that Germany has been credited with a capacity for naval construction little inferior to our own. Indeed, so important

14202-401: Is so great that it is highly unlikely that Italy could make any serious effort with naval forces to interfere with our control of the two exits to the Mediterranean except by action of her submarines, which could not prove to be decisive. Further, Italy's objective is the prosecution of her Abyssinian war, and the mere closing of the [Suez] canal to her by the presence of our naval forces (whether

14465-418: Is the Naval Agreement to His Majesty's Government that it is difficult to conceive that any general understanding between Great Britain and Germany, such as General Göring is believed to desire, would any longer be possible were the German Government to denounce the Naval Agreement. In fact, a reaffirmation of the latter in all probability have to figure as part of such a general understanding. The German Navy

14728-405: The Schutzstaffel (SS) and Gestapo to purge the entire SA leadership. Hitler targeted SA Stabschef (Chief of Staff) Ernst Röhm and other SA leaders who—along with a number of Hitler's political adversaries (such as Gregor Strasser and former chancellor Kurt von Schleicher )—were arrested and shot. Up to 200 people were killed from 30 June to 2 July 1934 in an event that became known as

14991-471: The Völkisch movement . The party, especially its paramilitary organisation Sturmabteilung (SA; Storm Detachment), or Brownshirts, used physical violence to advance their political position, disrupting the meetings of rival organisations and attacking their members as well as Jewish people on the streets. Such far-right armed groups were common in Bavaria , and were tolerated by the sympathetic far-right state government of Gustav Ritter von Kahr . When

15254-482: The 6th Army could be supplied by air, but this turned out to be infeasible. Hitler's refusal to allow a retreat led to the deaths of 200,000 German and Romanian soldiers; of the 91,000 men who surrendered in the city on 31 January 1943, only 6,000 survivors returned to Germany after the war. Losses continued to mount after Stalingrad, leading to a sharp reduction in the popularity of the Nazi Party and deteriorating morale. Soviet forces continued to push westward after

15517-413: The Anglo-German Naval Agreement on 18 June 1935. When the Italian invasion of Ethiopia led to only mild protests by the British and French governments, on 7 March 1936 Hitler used the Franco-Soviet Treaty of Mutual Assistance as a pretext to order the army to march 3,000 troops into the demilitarised zone in the Rhineland in violation of the Versailles Treaty. As the territory was part of Germany,

15780-414: The Anschluss of 1938. The Munich Agreement of 1938 gave Germany control of the Sudetenland, and they seized the remainder of Czechoslovakia six months later. Under threat of invasion by sea, Lithuania surrendered the Memel district in March 1939. Between 1939 and 1941, German forces invaded Poland , Denmark , Norway , France , Luxembourg , the Netherlands , Belgium , Yugoslavia , Greece , and

16043-400: The Battle of Berlin (16 April – 2 May 1945), Hitler and his staff lived in the underground Führerbunker while the Red Army approached. On 30 April, when Soviet troops were within two blocks of the Reich Chancellery , Hitler and his wife Eva Braun committed suicide . On 2 May, General Helmuth Weidling unconditionally surrendered Berlin to Soviet General Vasily Chuikov . Hitler

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16306-417: The Berchtesgaden summit in September 1938. In a later paper to the Cabinet, Chatfield stated "that we might say that we now understood Herr Hitler had in 1935 thought that we had given him a free hand in Eastern and Central Europe in return for his acceptance of the 100:35 ratio, but that as we could not accept the correctness of this view it might be better that the 1935 arrangements should be abrogated". In

16569-435: The Communist Party of Germany were arrested. On 23 March 1933, the Enabling Act , an amendment to the Weimar Constitution , passed in the Reichstag by a vote of 444 to 94. This amendment allowed Hitler and his cabinet to pass laws—even laws that violated the constitution—without the consent of the president or the Reichstag. As the bill required a two-thirds majority to pass, the Nazis used intimidation tactics as well as

16832-518: The German Empire (1871–1918) as the second. Severe setbacks to the German economy began after World War I ended, partly because of reparations payments required under the 1919 Treaty of Versailles . The government printed money to make the payments and to repay the country's war debt, but the resulting hyperinflation led to inflated prices, economic chaos, and food riots. When the government defaulted on their reparations payments in January 1923, French troops occupied German industrial areas along

17095-446: The Hague Convention , industrial firms in the Netherlands, France, and Belgium were put to work producing war materiel for Germany. The Nazis seized from the French thousands of locomotives and rolling stock, stockpiles of weapons, and raw materials such as copper, tin, oil, and nickel. Payments for occupation costs were levied upon France, Belgium, and Norway. Barriers to trade led to hoarding, black markets , and uncertainty about

17358-403: The League of Nations in October, claiming its disarmament clauses were unfair if they applied only to Germany. In a referendum held in November , 95 per cent of voters supported Germany's withdrawal. In 1934, Hitler told his military leaders that rearmament needed to be complete by 1942, as by then the German people would require more living space and resources, so Germany would have to start

17621-402: The Low Countries . They quickly conquered Luxembourg and the Netherlands and outmanoeuvred the Allies in Belgium , forcing the evacuation of many British and French troops at Dunkirk . France fell as well, surrendering to Germany on 22 June . The victory in France resulted in an upswing in Hitler's popularity and an upsurge in war fever in Germany. In violation of the provisions of

17884-413: The Marine would be able to commerce operations against the Regia Marina . Decoux sheepishly admitted to Chatfield that the level of competence in the French Navy was so low that it would take at least three or four weeks after war was declared before the French Mediterranean fleet would be ready for operations. Chatfield was less interested in having the Marine join the proposed war than the offer that

18147-420: The Nazi euthanasia program . Political courts called Sondergerichte sentenced some 12,000 members of the German resistance to death, and civil courts sentenced an additional 40,000 Germans. Mass rapes of German women also took place. As a result of their defeat in World War I and the resulting Treaty of Versailles, Germany lost Alsace-Lorraine , Northern Schleswig , and Memel . The Saarland became

18410-499: The Night of the Long Knives . On 2 August 1934, Hindenburg died. The previous day, the cabinet had enacted the " Law Concerning the Head of State of the German Reich ", which stated that upon Hindenburg's death the office of Reich President would be abolished and its powers merged with those of Reich Chancellor. Hitler thus became head of state as well as head of government and was formally named as Führer und Reichskanzler ("Leader and Chancellor"), although eventually Reichskanzler

18673-403: The Order of Merit in the 1939 New Year Honours , in February Chatfield succeeded Sir Thomas Inskip as Minister for Coordination of Defence in the government of Neville Chamberlain , despite having a non-political background. He was sworn of the Privy Council at the same time. In the "European Appreciation for the years 1939 and 1940" issued by the chiefs of staff in February 1939, it

18936-536: The Pacific Station , in 1890. Promoted to sub-lieutenant on 27 September 1892 and to lieutenant on 27 March 1894, he joined the battleship HMS Royal Sovereign , flagship of the Channel Fleet in May 1894. He attended the gunnery school HMS Excellent in 1895 and then joined the staff at the gunnery school HMS Cambridge at Devonport in August 1897. Chatfield became gunnery officer in

19199-755: The Panzerschiffe , the British Admiralty stated in March 1932 and again in the spring of 1933 that Germany was entitled to "a moral right to some relaxation of the treaty [of Versailles]". In February 1932, the World Disarmament Conference opened in Geneva . Among the most hotly-debated issues at the conference was the German demand for Gleichberechtigung ("equality of armaments", abolishing Part V of Versailles) as opposed to

19462-525: The Reich , but argued that neutrality could be of advantage to the Allies because if Yugoslavia was defeated, Germany would have access to all of Yugoslavia's vast natural resources, but if Yugoslavia entered the war with Allied support, the said natural resources could be denied to Germany. During the Tientsin incident , Chatfield called very strongly for the Singapore strategy to be activated by sending 7 of

19725-521: The Reichsmarine that Germany had laid down twelve 250 ton U-boats at Kiel . On 29 April 1935, British Foreign Secretary Sir John Simon informed the British House of Commons that Germany was now building U-boats. On 2 May 1935, Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald told the House of Commons of his government's intention to reach a naval pact to regulate the future growth of the German Navy. In

19988-581: The Ruhr and widespread civil unrest followed. The National Socialist German Workers' Party ( Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei ), commonly known as the Nazi Party, was founded in 1920. It was the renamed successor of the German Workers' Party (DAP) formed one year earlier, and one of several far-right political parties then active. The Nazi Party platform included destruction of

20251-564: The Soviet Union and invaded Poland on 1 September 1939, launching World War II in Europe . In alliance with Italy and other Axis powers , Germany conquered most of Europe by 1940 and threatened Great Britain. Racism , Nazi eugenics , anti-Slavism , and especially antisemitism were central ideological features of the regime. The Germanic peoples were considered by the Nazis to be

20514-545: The Soviet Union , whereas for Britain, the Anglo-German Naval Agreement was to be the beginning of a series of arms limitation agreements that were made to limit German expansionism . The Anglo-German Naval Agreement had been controversial ever since because the 35:100 tonnage ratio allowed Germany the right to build a navy beyond the limits set by the Treaty of Versailles and because London had made

20777-527: The Versailles Treaty , and Hitler claimed to have contracted a "cold". In the interval between his "recovering" and Simon's visit, the German government took the chance of formally rejecting all the clauses of Versailles relating to land and air disarmament. In the 1930s, the British government was obsessed with the idea of a German bombing attack destroying London and so placed a great deal of value on reaching an air pact outlawing bombing. The idea of

21040-672: The Weimar Republic had violated Part V of Versailles, but from 1933, the Nazi government became more flagrant and open in violating it. That year, the Germans started to build their first U-boats since World War I, and in April 1935, they launched their first U-boats. On 25 April 1935, the British naval attaché to Germany, Captain Gerard Muirhead-Gould , was officially informed by Captain Leopold Bürkner of

21303-456: The Weimar Republic was implacably opposed to the terms of Versailles, and given that Germany was potentially Europe's strongest power, from the British perspective it made sense to revise Versailles in Germany's favour as the best way of preserving the peace. The British attitude was well summarised in a Foreign Office memo from 1935 that stated "... from the earliest years following the war it

21566-470: The federal election of 1932 , the party was the largest in the Reichstag , holding 230 seats with 37.4 per cent of the popular vote. Although the Nazis won the greatest share of the popular vote in the two Reichstag general elections of 1932, they did not have a majority. Hitler refused to participate in a coalition government unless he was its leader. Under pressure from politicians, industrialists, and

21829-484: The interwar years German opinion had protested these restrictions as harsh and unjust, and demanded that either all the other states of Europe disarm to German levels, or Germany be allowed to rearm to the level of all the other European states. In Britain, where after 1919 guilt was felt over what was seen as the excessively harsh terms of Versailles, the German claim to "equality" in armaments often met with considerable sympathy. More importantly, every German government of

22092-723: The " master race ", the purest branch of the Aryan race. Jews , Romani people , Slavs , homosexuals , liberals , socialists , communists , other political opponents, Jehovah's Witnesses , Freemasons , those who refused to work , and other "undesirables" were imprisoned, deported , or murdered. Christian churches and citizens that opposed Hitler's rule were oppressed and leaders imprisoned. Education focused on racial biology , population policy, and fitness for military service. Career and educational opportunities for women were curtailed . Nazi Propaganda Ministry disseminated films, antisemitic canards , and organized mass rallies; fostering

22355-717: The "peace front" to include the Soviet Union as all had doubts about the ability of Poland to stand alone against Germany. Against them were ranged were Chamberlain and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir John Simon , who kept citing evaluations by the British Army calling the Red Army "of little use". During the Danzig crisis, Winston Churchill -a former First Lord of the Admiralty-wrote to Chatfield calling for

22618-407: The 35% limit when Hitler denounced the agreement in 1939. The requirement for the Kriegsmarine to divide its 35% tonnage ratio by warship categories had the effect of forcing the Germans to build a symmetrical "balanced fleet" shipbuilding program that reflected the British priorities. Since the Royal Navy's leadership thought that the "balanced fleet" would be the easiest German fleet to defeat and

22881-504: The 35:100 ratio was unacceptable towards Germany but was overruled by Hitler, who insisted on the 35:100 ratio. Aware of the German desire to expand their Navy beyond Versailles, Admiral Ernle Chatfield repeatedly advised it would be best to reach a naval treaty with Germany so as to regulate the future size and scale of the German navy. The Admiralty described the idea of a 35:100 tonnage ratio between London and Berlin as "the highest that we could accept for any European power", but it advised

23144-619: The Allied bombing campaign became even more devastating. By targeting oil refineries and factories, they crippled the German war effort by late 1944. On 6 June 1944, American, British, and Canadian forces established a front in France with the D-Day landings in Normandy . On 20 July 1944 , Hitler survived an assassination attempt. He ordered brutal reprisals, resulting in 7,000 arrests and

23407-418: The Allies, but Yugoslavia would declare neutrality in the event of war, which he argued would be of advantage to the Allies. Pešić assured Chatfield and the other British ministers that when the Allies had command of the sea in both the Mediterranean and Adriatic seas, Yugoslavia would enter the war on the Allied side. Pešić admitted that Yugoslavia was too backward and poor to have any hope of victory against

23670-490: The Anglo-German Declaration of 30 September 1938. By the late 1930s, Hitler's disillusionment with Britain led to German foreign policy taking an increasing-anti-British course. An important sign of Hitler's changed perceptions about Britain was his decision in January 1939 to give first priority to the Kriegsmarine in allocations of money, skilled workers and raw materials and to launch Plan Z to build

23933-412: The Anglo-German Naval Agreement of 1935, proceed to build up to 100% of the British fleet is clearly bluff [emphasis in the original]. In view of the great existing disparities in the size of the two navies this threat could only be executed if British construction were to remain stationary over a considerable period of years whilst German tonnage was built up to it. This would not occur. Although Germany

24196-494: The Anglo-German Naval Agreement of 1935, which he argued secured British security by limiting the Kriegsmarine to 35% of the Royal Navy. Chatfield noted in the Anglo-German Naval Agreement the 35% principle applied to tonnage categories of warships instead of the complete fleet, meaning that Germany would build battleships up to 35% of the tonnage of British battleships, 35% of the tonnage of British cruisers and so on. In 1935, Italy made open preparations to invade Ethiopia, which

24459-616: The Anglo-German naval arms race had ended and the Washington treaty imposed limits on shipbuilding. Equally worrisome to him was the increasing cost of warships owing to technological innovation, which led him to express concerns that the necessary political will to spend millions of pounds upon the Navy was being eroded. Promoted to vice-admiral on 1 March 1926, he went on to be Commander-in-Chief, Atlantic Fleet , with his flag in

24722-449: The Army's budget was cut in half, the RAF's budget was raised and the Royal Navy's budget stayed about the same. The defence policy adopted in 1934 came to be known as "limited liability" with the thesis that Britain was an island that ruled a global empire and as such spending on air power and sea power was emphasised. Through Chatfield would preferred greater naval spending, he did not oppose

24985-410: The Asia-Pacific region would be of immense strategical benefit. Chatfield's arguments tended to win out over those of Fisher, who usually had nothing more than visceral anti-Americanism to base his arguments on. For his first two years as First Sea Lord, Chatfield was hamstrung by awaiting the result of the 1935 Naval Disarmament conference as he could not place any orders for warships until he knew what

25248-660: The Baltic squadron use Kronstadt , the main base for the Soviet Baltic fleet, as its base. Chatfield wrote back on 29 March 1939, saying that Churchill's plan was "quite possible" provided that neither Italy and/or Japan entered the war. On 11 April 1939 the Foreign Policy Committee decided that the question of Russia's potential as an ally should be referred to the Chiefs of Staff. Chatfield said that it

25511-558: The British Mediterranean fleet could use the bases at Toulon and Bizerta for docking and repairs. The Chatfield-Decoux talks ended with the agreement that in the event of war, the French Mediterranean fleet would patrol the western Mediterranean while the British Mediterranean fleet would patrol the eastern Mediterranean. Ultimately, Baldwin and his cabinet chose not to go to war for the sake of Ethiopia as

25774-498: The British ambassador in Berlin, advised London that no chance at a naval agreement with Germany should be lost "owing to French shortsightedness". Chatfield informed the Cabinet that it was most unwise to "oppose [Hitler's] offer, but what the reactions of the French will be to it are more uncertain and its reaction on our own battleship replacement still more so". On 27 March 1935, Hitler had appointed Joachim von Ribbentrop to head

26037-456: The British and French governments did not feel that attempting to enforce the treaty was worth the risk of war. In the one-party election held on 29 March, the Nazis received 98.9 per cent support. In 1936, Hitler signed an Anti-Comintern Pact with Japan and a non-aggression agreement with Mussolini, who was soon referring to a "Rome-Berlin Axis". Hitler sent military supplies and assistance to

26300-413: The British could accept the 35:100 ratio as "fixed and unalterable" by the weekend, or the German delegation would go home in which case the Germans would build their navy up to any size that they wished. Simon was visibly angry with Ribbentrop's behaviour: "It is not usual to make such conditions at the beginning of negotiations". Simon walked out of the talks. On 5 June 1935, a change of opinion came over

26563-511: The British delegation. In a report to the British Cabinet, it was "definitely of the opinion that, in our own interest, we should accept this offer of Herr Hitler's while it is still open.... If we now refuse to accept the offer for the purposes of these discussions, Herr Hitler will withdraw the offer and Germany will seek to build to a higher level than 35 per cent.... Having regard to past history and to Germany's known capacity to become

26826-437: The British tonnage was in various warship categories. In the afternoon of that same day, the British Cabinet voted to accept the 35:100 ratio, and Ribbentrop was informed of the Cabinet's acceptance in the evening. During the next two weeks, talks continued in London on various technical issues, mostly relating to how the tonnage ratios would be calculated in the various warship categories. For example, when it came to submarines,

27089-399: The British would be an enemy, not an ally, of Germany. In December 1937, Hitler ordered the Kriegsmarine to start laying down six 16-inch gun battleships. At his meeting with British Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax in November 1937, Hitler stated that the agreement was the only item in the field of Anglo-German relations that had not been "wrecked". By 1938, the only use the Germans had for

27352-399: The British, in London, the German walk-out was widely, if erroneously, blamed on French "intransigence". The British government was left with the conviction that opportunities for arms limitation talks with the Germans should no longer be lost because of French "intransigence". Subsequent offers by the British to arrange for the German return to the World Disarmament Conference were sabotaged by

27615-490: The Commonwealth, and the governments of Australia, Canada and South Africa all expressed strong opposition to an Anglo-Soviet alliance. As such, Chamberlain declared that eastern pivot of the "peace front" to deter Germany from war would be Poland rather than the Soviet Union. In cabinet debates Chatfield along with Halifax, Hore-Belisha, and the Home Secretary Samuel Hoare tended to favour broadening

27878-593: The Eastern European states, and that allowing Germany to conquer Eastern Europe would undercut a British blockade as all of the natural resources needed to sustain a modern industrial economy were to be found in Eastern Europe. He was promoted to Admiral of the Fleet on 3 May 1935. Having taken part in the funeral of King George V in January 1936 and the coronation of George VI in May 1937, he

28141-647: The Expert Committee on the Defence of India which, using the work of the 1938 Auchinleck Committee , recommended that the arena of India's defence should be re-focussed more on her sea communications and less on her North-Western Land Frontier as well as the modernisation of the British Indian Army , the re-equipment of the RAF squadrons and the re-stocking of war stores. Having been appointed to

28404-514: The Foreign Office and Sir Warren Fisher of the Treasury. For Chatfield, a war with Japan offered up the prospect of fleet battles in Asian waters, which in turn would require more funding for the Royal Navy to build the necessary warships to confront the Japanese Navy along with building and maintaining the bases to properly supply the fleet if the Singapore strategy were activated. During

28667-812: The French ambassador to the court of St. James, discuss the matter with him. The idea of sending Darlan to London had originated with a Labour MP Philip Noel-Baker who was a close friend of the French socialist leader Léon Blum who just become the premier of France. Noel-Baker had suggested to Blum that it would be best to send an admiral to London to win Chatfield over to opposing Axis intervention in Spain, which in turn might win Baldwin over as Chatfield had much influence with Baldwin on defence and foreign policies. Noel-Baker's suggestion inspired Blum to dispatch Darlan on his mission. Darlan reported to Blum that Chatfield

28930-533: The French and the German delegations as unacceptable. In September 1932, Germany walked out of the conference and claimed it was impossible to achieve Gleichberechtigung . By then, the electoral success of the Nazis had alarmed London, and it was felt unless the Weimar Republic could achieve some dramatic foreign policy success, Hitler might come to power. To lure the Germans back to Geneva, after several months of strong diplomatic pressure by London on Paris , all of

29193-455: The French demand for sécurité ("security"), maintaining Part V. The British attempted to play the "honest broker" and sought to seek a compromise between the French claim to sécurité and the German claim to Gleichberechtigung , which in practice meant backing the German claim to rearm beyond Part V, but not allowing the Germans to rearm enough to threaten France. Several of the British compromise proposals along those lines were rejected by both

29456-764: The German National People's Party – their former coalition partners – which then disbanded on 29 June. The remaining major political parties followed suit. On 14 July 1933 Germany became a one-party state with the passage of the Law Against the Formation of Parties , decreeing the Nazi Party to be the sole legal party in Germany. The founding of new parties was also made illegal, and all remaining political parties which had not already been dissolved were banned. Further elections in November 1933 , 1936 , and 1938 were Nazi-controlled, with only members of

29719-502: The German camp we should have made a mistake of vital and far-reaching importance". In May 1939, Sir Roger Backhouse , the First Sea Lord, changed the Singapore strategy from sending all of the capital ships to Singapore to only sending 4 capital ships to Singapore in the event of trouble from Japan. Chatfield greatly disapproved of Backhouse's alternations to the Singapore strategy and attempted unsuccessfully to have to change

29982-615: The German delegation to negotiate any naval treaty. Ribbentrop served as both Hitler's Extraordinary Ambassador–Plenipotentiary at Large (making part of the Auswärtiges Amt , the German Foreign Office) and as the chief of a Nazi Party organization, the Dienststelle Ribbentrop , which competed with the Auswärtiges Amt . German Foreign Minister Baron Konstantin von Neurath was at first opposed to

30245-543: The German state in the Nazi era are "Nazi Germany" and the "Third Reich", which Hitler and the Nazis also referred to as the "Thousand-Year Reich" ( Tausendjähriges Reich ). The latter, a translation of the Nazi propaganda term Drittes Reich , was first used in Das Dritte Reich , a 1923 book by Arthur Moeller van den Bruck . The book counted the Holy Roman Empire (962–1806) as the first Reich and

30508-650: The Germans direct access to the North Atlantic, most notably the Western Approaches, and it was only in the summer of 1940 that the U-boats started to sink significant number of ships. The limited range of the Type VII U-boats along with the need to travel from and to Germany via the North Sea imposed limitations on the ability of the U-boats to sink shipping in the North Atlantic, and prior to gaining

30771-403: The Germans no longer intended to abide by the agreement, which played a role in straining Anglo-German relations. Reports received in October 1938 that the Germans were considering denouncing the agreement were used by Halifax in Cabinet discussions for the need for a tougher policy with the Reich . The German statement of 9 December 1938 of intending to build to 100% ratio allowed in submarines by

31034-459: The Germans on arms limitation, an air pact and security pacts for Eastern Europe and the nations along the Danube . In early March 1935, talks intended to discuss the scale and extent of German rearmament in Berlin between Hitler and Simon were postponed when Hitler took offence at a British government White Paper that justified a higher defence budget under the grounds that Germany was violating

31297-483: The Germans, who put forward proposals that were meant to appeal to the British but to be unacceptable to the French. On 17 April 1934, the last such effort ended with French Foreign Minister Louis Barthou 's rejection of the latest German offer as unacceptable in the so-called "Barthou Mote," which ended French participation in the Conference while declaring that France would look after its own security in whatever way

31560-595: The Italian admirals, whom he noted were promoted on the basis of loyalty to the House of Savoy rather than merit, which was the case with the Royal Navy. Despite his bluster, Chatfield advised caution as the Royal Navy had only 15 capital ships in 1935 (a fraction of the number available in the First World War), and even the loss of a few capital ships could be devastating as a single battleship cost millions of pounds to build and took several years to complete. In

31823-443: The Japanese was unthinkable vs. the First Sea Lord, Roger Backhouse , who argued for a Mediterranean strategy. Backhouse along his principle adviser, Admiral Reginald Drax , won the debate against Chatfield with the decision by the cabinet that in the event of war that Royal Navy would focus on winning command of the sea in the Mediterranean first; only after the defeat of Italy would the Singapore strategy be activated and until Italy

32086-402: The Kriegsmarine was allowed to have 45% as many submarines as the Royal Navy. However, under certain circumstances this could be increased to 100%. Ribbentrop was desperate for success and so agreed to almost all of the British demands. On 18 June 1935, the agreement was signed in London by Ribbentrop, and the new British Foreign Secretary, Sir Samuel Hoare . Hitler called 18 June 1935, the day of

32349-521: The Mediterranean rather than sending the fleet the long way around Africa, and he preferred a friendly Italy to an unfriendly Italy, saying he no reason to antagonise Mussolini for a "moral motive". Chatfield reported to the cabinet that 76% of all imports to Italy came via the sea with 62% of all Italian imports coming from the Atlantic Ocean via the Strait of Gibraltar, 3% of Italian imports via

32612-516: The Minister for Co-ordination of Defence, commented that Hitler had "persuaded himself" that the British had provided the Reich with a "free hand" in Eastern Europe in exchange for the agreement. Chamberlain stated that the British had never given such an understanding to Germany, and he commented that he first learned of Hitler's belief in such an implied bargain during his meeting with the Führer at

32875-668: The Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, and the threat that the Germany would seize Denmark and with it the Danish Straits that link the Baltic Sea to the North Sea all solved to abort Operation Catherine. Churchill who served alongside Chatfield in the Chamberlain cabinet between September 1939-April 1940 was not impressed with him, and chose not to include him in his war cabinet. Chatfield resigned as Minister for Coordination of Defence in April 1940 and subsequently chaired

33138-676: The Nationalist forces of General Francisco Franco in the Spanish Civil War , which began in July 1936. The German Condor Legion included a range of aircraft and their crews, as well as a tank contingent. The aircraft of the Legion destroyed the city of Guernica in 1937. The Nationalists were victorious in 1939 and became an informal ally of Nazi Germany. In February 1938, Hitler emphasised to Austrian Chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg

33401-530: The Nazi claim that Nazi Germany was the successor to the earlier Holy Roman Empire (800/962–1806) and German Empire (1871–1918). The Third Reich, which the Nazis referred to as the Thousand-Year Reich , ended in May 1945, after only 12 years, when the Allies defeated Germany and entered the capital, Berlin , ending World War II in Europe . After Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany by

33664-562: The Order of St Michael and St George on 5 April 1919. After the war Chatfield served as Fourth Sea Lord from July 1919 and, having been appointed Naval Aide-de-Camp to the King on 26 January 1920 and promoted to rear-admiral on 31 July 1920, he became Assistant Chief of the Naval Staff in February 1920. Chatfield attended the Washington naval conference in 1921-1922 that ended for

33927-473: The Party and a small number of independents elected. All civilian organisations had their leadership replaced with Nazi sympathisers or party members, and either merged with the Nazi Party or faced dissolution. The Nazi government declared a "Day of National Labor" for May Day 1933, and invited many trade union delegates to Berlin for celebrations. The day after, SA stormtroopers demolished union offices around

34190-607: The Poles and the Germans in the Free City. At the key meeting of the Foreign Policy Committee of the Cabinet on 26 June 1939, Chatfield pressed for the Singapore strategy to resolve the Tientsin crisis if necessary by force, but Lord Halifax stated that Britain could only run the risk of war with Japan in the event of French and American support, neither of which was likely. The French Premier, Édouard Daladier , had stated that given

34453-403: The Polish Corridor but greatly expanding German territory eastward at the expense of Poland. He expected this time they would be met by force. The Germans reaffirmed their alliance with Italy and signed non-aggression pacts with Denmark, Estonia, and Latvia whilst trade links were formalised with Romania, Norway, and Sweden. Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop arranged in negotiations with

34716-581: The Polish ambassador to the Court of St. James, telephoned Halifax to tell him that Poland had been invaded earlier that morning, and as such he expected Britain to honor the "guarantee" of Poland by declaring war on the Reich . At an emergency cabinet meeting called at 11: 30, Chatfield stated he wanted the time limit on any British ultimatum to Germany to be as short as possible, and that an ultimatum should be sent "without any more delay". At another cabinet meeting on 2 September 1939, Chatfield again spoke for sending an ultimatum to Berlin "without delay", arguing

34979-411: The President of the Weimar Republic Paul von Hindenburg on 30 January 1933, the Nazi Party began to eliminate political opposition and consolidate power. Hindenburg died on 2 August 1934, and Hitler became dictator by merging the powers of the chancellery and presidency. A 1934 German referendum confirmed Hitler as sole Führer (leader). Power was centralised in Hitler's person, and his word became

35242-402: The RAF in what became known as the Battle of Britain , and by the end of October, Hitler realised that air superiority would not be achieved. He permanently postponed the invasion, a plan which the commanders of the German army had never taken entirely seriously. Several historians, including Andrew Gordon , believe the primary reason for the failure of the invasion plan was the superiority of

35505-400: The Royal Navy could not always hope to match. Chatfield especially wished for the Germans to do away with their Deutschland -class Panzerschiffe (known in the London press as "pocket battleships"), as such ships, embracing the characteristics of both battleships and cruisers, were dangerous to his vision of a world of regulated warship types and designs. As part of the effort to do away with

35768-434: The Royal Navy should have 70 cruisers rather than the 50 cruisers that had been agreed at the London Naval Conference 1930 , that the battleship still had an important role to play despite the development of the bomber and that the Fleet Air Arm should be part of the Royal Navy rather than the Royal Air Force . Chatfield played a key role in fashioning tactics that favoured night fighting and less centralised manoeuvres as

36031-496: The Royal Navy's 11 capital ships available (the other 4 were being refitted) to Singapore. The Imperial Japanese Navy had 9 capital ships, but Chatfield stated that because of the "Oriental inferiority" in seamanship that 7 British capital ships would be sufficient to win a war against Japan. At the same time, tensions were escalating in the Free City of Danzig (modern Gdańsk ), and it was felt that Germany could attack Poland at any moment as almost everyday there were incidents between

36294-433: The Royal Navy, and that a German "balanced fleet" that would be a mirror image of the Royal Navy would be the least dangerous form the German Navy could take. A German "balanced fleet" would have proportionally the same number of battleships, cruisers, destroyers, etc. that the British fleet possessed, and from the British point of view, that would be in the event of war, the easiest German fleet to defeat. Every government of

36557-456: The Royal Navy, not the actions of the RAF. In February 1941, the German Afrika Korps arrived in Libya to aid the Italians in the North African Campaign . On 6 April, Germany launched an invasion of Yugoslavia and Greece . All of Yugoslavia and parts of Greece were subsequently divided between Germany, Hungary, Italy, and Bulgaria. On 22 June 1941, contravening the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, about 3.8 million Axis troops attacked

36820-472: The Singapore strategy activated first before any steps were taken that might risk a war with Japan. Chatfield further told Ingersoll that there should be unity of command with Anglo-American forces in the Asia-Pacific region, but "that as a principle he believed that since the two fleets would probably be separated at first and probably for some time, there could not be unity in command in a tactical or strategical and that strategical co-operation would be all that

37083-408: The Soviet Union . Germany annexed parts of northern Yugoslavia in April 1941, while Mussolini ceded Trieste , South Tyrol , and Istria to Germany in 1943. Ernle Chatfield Admiral of the Fleet Alfred Ernle Montacute Chatfield, 1st Baron Chatfield , GCB , OM , KCMG , CVO , PC , DL (27 September 1873 – 15 November 1967)

37346-493: The Soviet Union a non-aggression pact, the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact , signed in August 1939. The treaty also contained secret protocols dividing Poland and the Baltic states into German and Soviet spheres of influence. Germany's wartime foreign policy involved the creation of allied governments controlled directly or indirectly from Berlin. They intended to obtain soldiers from allies such as Italy and Hungary and workers and food supplies from allies such as Vichy France . Hungary

37609-404: The Soviet Union and British support for the German efforts to acquire Lebensraum in Eastern Europe. As the first step towards the Anglo-German alliance, Hitler had written in Mein Kampf of his intention to seek a "sea pact", by which Germany would "renounce" any naval challenge against Britain. In January 1933, Hitler became the German chancellor . The new government in Germany had inherited

37872-506: The Soviet Union attacked from the east on 17 September. Reinhard Heydrich , chief of the Sicherheitspolizei (SiPo; Security Police) and Sicherheitsdienst (SD; Security Service), ordered on 21 September that Polish Jews should be rounded up and concentrated into cities with good rail links. Initially the intention was to deport them further east, or possibly to Madagascar . Using lists prepared in advance , some 65,000 Polish intelligentsia, noblemen, clergy, and teachers were murdered by

38135-437: The Soviet Union if Germany invaded Poland defeated the whole purpose of the "peace front". In the cabinet, Chatfield made similar arguments that Churchill made in the House of Commons. In June 1939, General Petar Pešić of the Yugoslav General Staff visited London to meet Chamberlain, Halifax, and Chatfield to discuss what Yugoslavia would do if the Danzig crisis turned to war. Pešić argued that Yugoslavia's sympathies were with

38398-441: The Soviet Union in 1941, Nazi Germany attempted to implement the Generalplan Ost and Hunger Plan , as part of its war of extermination in Eastern Europe. The Soviet resurgence and entry of the US into the war meant Germany lost the initiative in 1943 and by late 1944 had been pushed back to the 1939 border. Large-scale aerial bombing of Germany escalated and the Axis powers were driven back in Eastern and Southern Europe. Germany

38661-443: The Soviet Union. In addition to Hitler's stated purpose of acquiring Lebensraum , this large-scale offensive—codenamed Operation Barbarossa —was intended to destroy the Soviet Union and seize its natural resources for subsequent aggression against the Western powers. The reaction among Germans was one of surprise and trepidation as many were concerned about how much longer the war would continue or suspected that Germany could not win

38924-507: The Suez canal, and the other 11% coming from other Mediterranean nations or the from nations bordering the Black Sea. Chatfield in a memo to the cabinet on 3 September 1935 wrote: "With our forces based in Gibraltar and in Egypt, her main communications can be cut with comparatively little effort to ourselves, whereas to take any steps (excepting by submarine) to counter our action she would have to send her forces far from their bases where they would be brought to action. This strategical advantage

39187-415: The U-boats were a menace in the first years of the Second World War primarily because of change in tactics with Dönitz championing the "wolf pack" tactic of having groups of U-boats attack convoys together rather than because of any technological advantage. Along with the change in tactics was the advantage that the Kriegsmarine gained upon taking control of the French Atlantic ports in June 1940, which gave

39450-411: The United States out of isolationism. In April 1938, Chatfield did not oppose the Anglo-Irish treaty that turned over the Royal Navy's bases in Ireland to the Eire government, which in turn affected the Royal Navy's ability to defend the Western Approaches. He defended the decision to hand over the Irish treaty ports under the grounds that Germany would to have control of the French Atlantic ports to pose

39713-419: The United States. Food was in short supply in the conquered areas of the Soviet Union and Poland, as the retreating armies had burned the crops in some areas, and much of the remainder was sent back to the Reich. In Germany, rations were cut in 1942. In his role as Plenipotentiary of the Four Year Plan , Hermann Göring demanded increased shipments of grain from France and fish from Norway. The 1942 harvest

39976-403: The United States. Chatfield argued that the Imperial Japanese Navy was the powerful naval force in Asia; that Japan was becoming increasingly unfriendly towards Great Britain; that Hong Kong was dangerously exposed and the Singapore naval base was far from being completed despite having work having been started in 1919; and that for all these reasons that having the United States Navy as an ally in

40239-444: The Weimar Republic, rejection of the Treaty of Versailles, radical antisemitism , and anti- Bolshevism . They promised a strong central government, increased Lebensraum ("living space") for Germanic peoples, formation of a national community based on race, and racial cleansing via the active suppression of Jews , who would be stripped of their citizenship and civil rights. The Nazis proposed national and cultural renewal based upon

40502-424: The Yangtze river despite the Panay clearly flying an American flag and Japanese artillery damaged a British gunboat, HMS Ladybird when the Ladybird tried to pick up survivors from the Panay . In response to the unprovoked Japanese attacks on Anglo-American gunboats in the Yangtze, President Franklin D. Roosevelt had spoken vaguely to Sir Ronald Lindsay, the British Ambassador in Washington, about his wish for

40765-424: The agreement and to the limits in heavy cruisers led to a speech by Chamberlain before the correspondents of the German News Agency in London that warned of the "futility of ambition, if ambition leads to the desire for domination". At the same time, Halifax informed Herbert von Dirksen , the German ambassador to Britain, that his government viewed the talks to discuss the details of the German building escalation as

41028-467: The agreement was to threaten to renounce it as a way of pressuring London to accept Continental Europe as Germany's rightful sphere of influence . At a meeting on 16 April 1938 between Sir Nevile Henderson , the British ambassador to Germany, and Hermann Göring , the latter stated it had never been valued in England and that he bitterly regretted that Herr Hitler had ever consented to it at the time without getting anything in exchange. The agreement had been

41291-581: The agreement without consulting the French or Italian governments. Part V of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles had imposed severe restrictions on the size and capacities of Germany's armed forces. Germany was allowed no submarines, no naval aviation, and only six obsolete pre-dreadnought battleships; the total naval forces allowed to the Germans were six armoured vessels of no more than 10,000 tons displacement , six light cruisers of no more than 6,000 tons displacement, twelve destroyers of no more than 800 tonnes displacement, and twelve torpedo boats . Through

41554-479: The arrangement but changed his mind when he decided that the British would never accept the 35:100 ratio and so having Ribbentrop head the mission was the best way to discredit his rival. On 2 June 1935, Ribbentrop arrived in London. The talks began on Tuesday, 4 June 1935, at the Admiralty office, with Ribbentrop heading the German delegation and Simon the British delegation. Ribbentrop, who was determined to succeed at his mission at any cost, began his talks by stating

41817-519: The basic assumptions of the limited liability doctrine, and he tended to favour the defence of the British empire and the Commonwealth over the defence of other states that might be threatened with aggression. The Treaty of Versailles had ended any potential German naval threat by banning the Reich from having submarines and warships over 10,000 tons. In 1929, the German fleet consisted of six old battleships, none of each were over 10, 000 tons; six light cruisers; 12 destroyers and 12 torpedo boats, which

42080-492: The basis of tactics for future fleet battles. The American historians Williamson Murray and Alan Millet wrote that the Royal Navy in the interwar period did a superb job in training admirals and captains in the style of the 18th and early 19th centuries, so that "...in the future there would be few of the egregious errors that marked the Battle of Jutland". Rear-Admiral Sir Rowland Jerram who served under Chatfield for 20 years as his private secretary described him: "an officer of

42343-435: The battleship HMS Albemarle , flagship of Rear-Admiral Sir Colin Keppel , second-in-command of the Atlantic Fleet, in September 1909 and then Flag Captain of the battleship HMS London , Keppel's new flagship in the same role, in February 1910. After attending the War course at the Royal Naval War College at Portsmouth , he served as Captain of the converted liner RMS Medina for the Royal Tour of India in 1911 and

42606-569: The battleship HMS Caesar in the Mediterranean Fleet in January 1899 and then joined the staff of the gunnery school HMS Wildfire at Sheerness in January 1900 before becoming 1st lieutenant and gunnery officer in the cruiser HMS Good Hope in the Atlantic Fleet in November 1902. Promoted to commander on 1 January 1904, he transferred to the battleship HMS Venerable in the Mediterranean Fleet in January 1904. He returned to HMS Excellent in March 1906 and, having been promoted to captain on 30 June 1909, he became Flag Captain of

42869-418: The battleship HMS Nelson , in March 1929 and, having been promoted to full admiral on 1 April 1930, he became Commander-in-Chief, Mediterranean Fleet , with his flag in the battleship HMS Queen Elizabeth , in May 1930. Chatfield became First Sea Lord in January 1933 and was advanced to Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath in the 1934 New Year Honours . As First Sea Lord he won arguments that

43132-428: The best peacetime First Sea Lord the Admiralty ever had". Chatfield's principle concern upon becoming First Sea Lord was ensuring that the British shipbuilding industry, which had been hard hit by the Great Depression, received enough orders for warships to keep the industry going. When Chatfield became the First Sea Lord, the Admiralty was in a weak position vis-vis the Treasury. The Prime Minister, Ramsay MacDonald ,

43395-430: The best strategy for the Kriegsmarine was a Kreuzerkrieg fleet of U-boats, light cruisers and Panzerschiff operating in tandem. He was critical of the existing building priorities dictated by the agreement since there was no realistic possibility of a German "balanced fleet" defeating the Royal Navy. In response, senior German naval officers started to advocate a switch to a Kreuzerkrieg type fleet, which would pursue

43658-451: The blockade, imports into Germany declined by 80 per cent. To safeguard Swedish iron ore shipments to Germany, Hitler ordered the invasion of Denmark and Norway , which began on 9 April. Denmark fell after less than a day , while most of Norway followed by the end of the month. By early June, Germany occupied all of Norway . Against the advice of many of his senior military officers, in May 1940 Hitler ordered an attack on France and

43921-400: The business community, President Paul von Hindenburg appointed Hitler as Chancellor of Germany on 30 January 1933. This event is known as the Machtergreifung ("seizure of power"). On the night of 27 February 1933, the Reichstag building was set afire . Marinus van der Lubbe , a Dutch communist, was found guilty of starting the blaze. Hitler proclaimed that the arson marked the start of

44184-442: The cabinet wished to prevent a break-up of the Stresa Front and because no-one in the cabinet really cared about Ethiopia. One of the lasting effects of the Abyssinia crisis that Chatfield was able to have the cabinet approve of upgrading the facilities at Alexandria and Gibraltar. Chatfield did not see U-boats as a serious threat, partly because of ASDIC and partly because the Germans built very few 700-ton ocean-going U-boats with

44447-445: The cabinet would go with rearmament. In response to Chamberlain vetoing a request from the Admiralty requesting more stockpiling of fuel, more reservists for the Royal Navy, and more aeroplanes for the Fleet Air Arm, Chatfield together with the other three sea lords wrote to the cabinet on 16 January 1933 that they could only accept the Treasury viewpoint on naval spending "if the cabinet is aware of and prepared to take responsibility for

44710-400: The choice of either accepting the unilateral German move or rejecting it and providing the Germans with the excuse to denounce it. At a Cabinet meeting on 3 May 1939, the First Lord of the Admiralty, Lord Stanhope , stated that "at the present time Germany was building ships as fast as she could but that she would not be able to exceed the 35 per cent ratio before 1942 or 1943". Chatfield, now

44973-445: The churches. The Nazi regime abolished the symbols of the Weimar Republic—including the black, red, and gold tricolour flag —and adopted reworked symbolism. The previous imperial black, white, and red tricolour was restored as one of Germany's two official flags; the second was the swastika flag of the Nazi Party, which became the sole national flag in September 1935. The Party anthem " Horst-Wessel-Lied " ("Horst Wessel Song") became

45236-495: The claim that the Luftwaffe possessed such a bomber force. The hysterical claims about the Luftwaffe, which vastly exaggerated the war-winning capacity of strategical bombing, which were shared by the Lord Privy Seal, Stanley Baldwin , ensured that the Royal Air Force received the lion's share of the rearmament budget. The report of the Defence Requirements Commitment submitted to the cabinet in February 1934 called Germany "the ultimate potential enemy" against which British rearmament

45499-406: The closing is done in the canal itself or by action outside of it) might be decisive within a measurable period". Chatfield admitted that if Britain did go to war with Italy, it might led to the Regina Marina temporarily taking control of the central Mediterranean, which in effect would be the same time as severing the Suez canal, but he did not expect this advantage to last as he had low opinion of

45762-428: The coalition National government, the influence of the Treasury, which considered naval spending wasteful, was in the ascendency. The so-called "ten year rule" introduced in 1919 under which the service chiefs were to base their defence estimates on the assumption that there would be no major war in the next years had abandoned in early 1932 in response to Japan's aggression in China, but it was still unclear just how far

46025-496: The coming fiscal year, £50.3 million was to go to the Royal Air Force. Chamberlain downplayed Chatfield's thesis of a Japanese threat under the grounds that Japan could threaten Australia, New Zealand and the British colonies in Asia while Germany could threaten the United Kingdom itself. Chamberlain concluded in a paper to the cabinet: "Our best defence would be the existence of a deterrent force so powerful as to render success in attack too doubtful to be worthwhile. I submit that this

46288-440: The commander of the U-boat arm and the foremost advocate of a guerre de course strategy of using submarines to attack shipping, was an outsider in the Kriegsmarine with most German admirals favouring a revival of the High Seas Fleet. All intelligence at the time indicated that the Kriegsmarine was focused on building the cheaper and simpler 500 ton Type VII sea-going U-boats (which were the main U-boat type in World War Two) at

46551-430: The condition that the purpose of the talks was merely to gather information about the other side's war plans, but Chatfield insisted that the United States and the United Kingdom should co-ordinate their policies in Asia as much as possible as he stated that the two English-speaking nations had common concerns. Chatfield stated he resisted Chamberlain's attempts to move in piecemeal Royal Navy ships to Singapore and wanted

46814-403: The conference in Munich that led to the Munich Agreement in September 1938, Hitler informed Neville Chamberlain that if the British policy was "to make it clear in certain circumstances" that Britain might be intervening in a mainland European war, the political preconditions for the agreement no longer existed, and Germany should denounce it. That led to Chamberlain including mention of it in

47077-418: The continuance of these serious deficiencies". It was in part to resolve the dispute about what form British rearmament should go and in part how much to spend on rearmament that the Defence Requirements Committee was formed in November 1933. Chatfield found himself at odds with Chamberlain and the Treasury who favoured a return to the Anglo-Japanese alliance that had ended in 1922. The call from Chamberlain to

47340-411: The country; all trade unions were forced to dissolve and their leaders were arrested. The Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service , passed in April, removed from their jobs all teachers, professors, judges, magistrates, and government officials who were Jewish or whose commitment to the party was suspect. This meant the only non-political institutions not under control of the Nazis were

47603-528: The crisis in Danzig, there was no possibility of France risking a war with Japan while the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt made it clear that the United States would not risk a war with Japan for the sake of a British concession in China. As such, the committee chose not to activate the Singapore strategy in order to focus on the Danzig crisis, and chose to settle the Tientsin crisis via diplomacy, much to Chatfield's disappointment. At about 10: 30 am on 1 September 1939, Count Edward Bernard Raczyński ,

47866-422: The delay in declaring war on Germany was damaging British national honor. At an emergency session of the House of Lords on the same day, Chatfield in a speech called for an ultimatum to be sent no later than midnight. At a meeting on the evening of 2 September 1939 with Chamberlain at 10 Downing Street, Chatfield argued for an ultimatum to be delivered at 2: 00 am Berlin time with an expiry of 6: 00 am, saying there

48129-441: The early years of the Second World War . Born the only son of Admiral Alfred John Chatfield and Louisa Chatfield (née Faulconer), Chatfield was educated at St Andrew's School in Tenby before he entered the Royal Navy as a cadet in the training ship HMS Britannia in 1886. He went to sea as a midshipman in the corvette HMS Cleopatra in November 1888 before transferring to the cruiser HMS Warspite , flagship of

48392-510: The electorate in a plebiscite . Most Germans were relieved that the conflicts and street fighting of the Weimar era had ended. They were deluged with propaganda orchestrated by Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda Joseph Goebbels , who promised peace and plenty for all in a united, Marxist-free country without the constraints of the Versailles Treaty. The Nazi Party obtained and legitimised power through its initial revolutionary activities, then through manipulation of legal mechanisms,

48655-471: The end of 1939 in an attempt to destroy Poland's identity as a nation. Soviet forces advanced into Finland in the Winter War , and German forces saw action at sea. But little other activity occurred until May, so the period became known as the " Phoney War ". From the start of the war, a British blockade on shipments to Germany affected its economy. Germany was particularly dependent on foreign supplies of oil, coal, and grain. Thanks to trade embargoes and

48918-469: The end, the British reply to the German move was a diplomatic note strongly disputing the German claim that the British were attempting to "encircle" Germany with hostile alliances. The German denunciation and reports of increased German shipbuilding in June 1939 caused by the Z Plan played a significant part in persuading the Chamberlain government of the need to "contain" Germany by building a "Peace Front" of states in both Western and Eastern Europe and raised

49181-488: The establishment of the Nuremberg Laws of 1935, which stripped them of their basic rights. The Nazis would take from the Jews their wealth, their right to intermarry with non-Jews, and their right to occupy many fields of labour (such as law, medicine, or education). Eventually the Nazis declared the Jews as undesirable to remain among German citizens and society. As early as February 1933, Hitler announced that rearmament must begin, albeit clandestinely at first, as to do so

49444-470: The event of a war with Japan that Hong Kong would probably be lost as Hong Kong could not withstand a "determined attack" and that Singapore was "dangerously weak". In particular, Chatfield stated it was unclear if France would also join in a war against Italy, saying the support of France would be essential. Chatfield stated that the main British base in the Mediterranean in Malta was too exposed to Italian air and naval attacks, and could not be used. As for

49707-475: The event of a war, arguing that if France were defeated, the limited liability doctrine would be useless as Germany would be able to spend more reichmarks on the Luftwaffe and the Kriegsmarine. The decision to expand the British Army to make the "continental commitment" led to a fierce debate about how many pounds to devote to the new, expanded Army. In March 1939 Chatfield urged an increase in munition production: "Would it not be possible to put industry on

49970-473: The execution of more than 4,900 people. The failed Ardennes Offensive (16 December 1944 – 25 January 1945) was the last major German offensive on the western front, and Soviet forces entered Germany on 27 January. Hitler's refusal to admit defeat and his insistence that the war be fought to the last man led to unnecessary death and destruction in the war's closing months. Through his Justice Minister Otto Georg Thierack , Hitler ordered that anyone who

50233-404: The expense of the superior ocean-going Type IX U-boats. The decision to focus on building the inferior Type VII submarines instead of the Type IX was understood as a sign that Raeder was planning to use the U-boats as an ancillary to the main German battle fleet, instead of a war-winning weapon in and of itself. Raeder had in fact planned to defeat Great Britain via the gigantic fleet envisioned in

50496-859: The failed German offensive at the Battle of Kursk in the summer of 1943. By the end of 1943, the Germans had lost most of their eastern territorial gains. In Egypt, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel 's Afrika Korps were defeated by British forces under Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery in October 1942. The Allies landed in Sicily in July 1943 and were on the Italian peninsula by September. Meanwhile, American and British bomber fleets based in Britain began operations against Germany . Many sorties were intentionally given civilian targets in an effort to destroy German morale. The bombing of aircraft factories as well as Peenemünde Army Research Center , where V-1 and V-2 rockets were being developed and produced, were also deemed particularly important. German aircraft production could not keep pace with losses, and without air cover

50759-422: The famous Z plan of January 1939, and had embraced a guerre de course strategy via the U-boats in September 1939 by default as the construction on the Z plan fleet had barely started. Raeder wrote glumly in the Kriegsmarine war diary on 3 September 1939 that the war had come five years too early and that all of the Kriegsmarine could do now was "die gallantly". The American historian Joseph Maiolo wrote that

51022-617: The future. Food supplies were precarious; production dropped in most of Europe. Famine was experienced in many occupied countries. Hitler's peace overtures to the new British Prime Minister Winston Churchill were rejected in July 1940. Grand Admiral Erich Raeder had advised Hitler in June that air superiority was a pre-condition for a successful invasion of Britain , so Hitler ordered a series of aerial attacks on Royal Air Force (RAF) airbases and radar stations, as well as nightly air raids on British cities, including London , Plymouth , and Coventry . The German Luftwaffe failed to defeat

51285-428: The globe, and much preferred that the Germans build a battlefleet that mirrored British priorities as that would be the easier fleet for the Royal Navy to defeat. Owing to the lengthy period of time it took to construct warships, Royal Navy planners predicated that the Kriegsmarine would not be a threat in the 1930s and the earliest the German fleet could pose a danger would be sometime in the 1940s. Chatfield supported

51548-579: The government that the earliest that Germany could build a navy to that size was 1942 and the Admiralty would prefer a smaller tonnage ratio than 35:100, but it was still acceptable. In December 1934, a study done by Captain Edward King, Director of the Royal Navy's Plans Division, suggested that the most dangerous form a future German Navy might take, from the British perspective, would be a Kreuzerkrieg (Cruiser war) fleet. Captain King argued that guerre-de-course German fleet of Panzerschiffe , cruisers, and U-boats operating in task forces would be dangerous for

51811-403: The highest law. The government was not a coordinated, cooperating body, but rather a collection of factions struggling to amass power. In the midst of the Great Depression , the Nazis restored economic stability and ended mass unemployment using heavy military spending. Financed by deficit spending , the regime undertook extensive public works projects, including the Autobahnen (motorways) and

52074-452: The lack of shipbuilding space, design problems, shortages of skilled workers and the scarcity of foreign exchange to purchase necessary raw materials slowed the rebuilding of the German Navy. A lack of steel and non-ferrous metals caused by the Kriegsmarine being third in terms of German rearmament priorities, behind the Heer and the Luftwaffe , led to the Kriegsmarine (as the German Navy had been renamed in 1935) being still far from

52337-445: The launch of the battleship Tirpitz , Hitler threatened to denounce the agreement if Britain persisted with its "encirclement" policy, as was represented by the "guarantee" of Polish independence. On 28 April 1939, Hitler denounced the agreement. To provide an excuse for its denunciation of and to prevent the emergence of a new naval treaty, the Germans began refusing to share information about their shipbuilding, which left Britain with

52600-421: The loss of the Middle East to Italy while the possibility of reneging on the Singapore Strategy and leaving Australia and New Zealand to face Japan by themselves was considered equally unappealing. The "European Appreciation" set off a bitter bureaucratic row between Chatfield who argued for sticking to the Singapore strategy as for him the loss of the British colonies in Asia along with Australia and New Zealand to

52863-436: The majority of the U-boats constructed being 500 ton sea-going or 200 ton coastal U-boats. Moreover, it was known that Admiral Erich Raeder , the commander-in-chief of the Kriegsmarine favoured the traditional battleship-centric fleet designed to win a decisive battle of annihilation and did not care much for the guerre de course strategy. Reports from the British naval attaché in Berlin indicated that Admiral Karl Dönitz ,

53126-411: The meetings of the Defence sub-committee, Chatfield stated the first concern should be Japan and he favoured having the Singapore base finished along with building defences to defend Singapore. Chatfield argued that the Singapore strategy was not only the best way to deter Japan, but also offered up the prospect of an alliance with the United States. He pointed out that the United States Navy was building

53389-433: The mid-1930s in which role he won arguments that the Royal Navy should have 70 cruisers rather than the 50 cruisers that had been agreed at the Naval Conference of 1930 , that the battleship still had an important role to play despite the development of the bomber and that the Fleet Air Arm should be part of the Royal Navy rather than the Royal Air Force . He subsequently served as Minister for Coordination of Defence in

53652-424: The moment the mounting Anglo-American-Japanese naval arms race. Advanced to Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath in the 1922 Birthday Honours , he was appointed Commander of the 3rd Light Cruiser Squadron in September 1922 and Third Sea Lord and Controller of the Navy in April 1925. As Third Sea Lord, Chatfield became keenly concerned about the British shipbuilding industry, which went into contraction as

53915-424: The most minimal possible interpretation of German "theoretical equality" in armaments and thereby played into the German strategy. In October 1933, the Germans again walked out of the conference and stated that everyone else should either disarm to the Versailles level or allow Germany to rearm beyond Versailles. Though the Germans never had any serious interest in accepting any of the various compromise proposals of

54178-407: The need for Germany to secure its frontiers. Schuschnigg scheduled a plebiscite regarding Austrian independence for 13 March, but Hitler sent an ultimatum to Schuschnigg on 11 March demanding that he hand over all power to the Austrian Nazi Party or face an invasion. German troops entered Austria the next day, to be greeted with enthusiasm by the populace. The Republic of Czechoslovakia was home to

54441-437: The old school in upbringing, but certainly not lacking in imagination and breath of view; of the highest ability as a seaman, a leader and in the higher ranks, a debater, sure of himself and 100% trusted by the Navy". The British historian Andrew Gordon described Chatfield as a man of the "upmost integrity, humourless, very just, very aloof, very charming, very tactful, supremely efficient and an intellectual" and "quite possibly

54704-402: The options in foreign policy and then find himself unable to chose which option to pursue. The dominant personality in the cabinet was the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Neville Chamberlain, who was considered to be the most able minister in the National Government and already widely considered to be a future prime minister. With a weak foreign secretary and a prime minister leading a rump party in

54967-419: The other British bases in the Mediterranean, there were no docks for capital ships at Gibraltar and at the base in Alexandria the docks were only big enough for light cruisers and destroyers. For this reason, Chatfield stated it was imperative that the Royal Navy's Mediterranean fleet have permission to use the docks for capital ships at the French Mediterranean fleet's bases at Toulon and Bizerta, and as such it

55230-409: The other delegations voted for a British-sponsored resolution in December 1932 that would allow for the "theoretical equality of rights in a system which would provide security for all nations". Germany agreed to return to the conference. Thus, before Hitler had become chancellor, it had been accepted that Germany could rearm beyond the limits set by Versailles, but the precise extent of German rearmament

55493-472: The other hand, we are determined to do everything necessary in protection of our own continental existence and freedom". For Hitler, his speech illustrated the quid pro quo of an Anglo-German alliance, the British acceptance of German mastery of Continental Europe in exchange for German acceptance of Britain's mastery over the seas. On 22 May 1935, the British Cabinet voted for formally taking up Hitler's offers of 21 May as soon as possible. Sir Eric Phipps ,

55756-456: The perception in the Chamberlain government in 1939 that German policies were a threat to Britain. Nazi Germany Nazi Germany , officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich , was the German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a totalitarian dictatorship . The Third Reich , meaning "Third Realm" or "Third Empire", referred to

56019-431: The plan, as Germany was not yet ready for war. The crisis led to war preparations by Britain, Czechoslovakia, and France (Czechoslovakia's ally). Attempting to avoid war, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain arranged a series of meetings, the result of which was the Munich Agreement , signed on 29 September 1938. The Czechoslovak government was forced to accept the Sudetenland's annexation into Germany. Chamberlain

56282-420: The pre-1914 German government for embarking on a naval and colonial challenge to the British Empire and in Hitler's view, needlessly antagonising Britain. In Hitler's view, Britain was a fellow " Aryan " power, whose friendship could be won by a German "renunciation" of naval and colonial ambitions against Britain. In return for such a "renunciation", Hitler expected an Anglo-German alliance directed at France and

56545-406: The president did not feel that Congress would grant him the necessary authority to go to war. Ingersoll noted that a blockade was an act of war under international law, and Roosevelt would need permission from Congress about imposing a blockade of Japan. Despite these caveats, Chatfield and Ingersoll agreed to a record of conversation that committed both sides to intelligence sharing, a joint cipher,

56808-442: The prospect of German air and naval bases in the Canary Islands . Darlan suggested that Britain and France take action to stop Italy and Germany from obtaining any bases in either archipelago which might change the naval balance of power in the western Mediterranean and/or the eastern Atlantic. Chatfield was surprised that Darlan had come all the way from Paris to see him about the Spanish Civil War instead of having Charles Corbin ,

57071-407: The provisions of the Reichstag Fire Decree to keep several Social Democratic deputies from attending, and the Communists had already been banned. The Enabling Act would subsequently serve as the legal foundation for the dictatorship the Nazis established. On 10 May, the government seized the assets of the Social Democrats, and they were banned on 22 June. On 21 June, the SA raided the offices of

57334-534: The results of the conference would be. As First Sea Lord, Chatfield had a marked tendency to play up the threat from Japan when addressing the Defence Requirements Committee in 1933–1934, which had the task of planning British rearmament for the next five years. The Defence Requirements Sub-Committee was chaired by Maurice Hankey and consisted of Chatfield plus the other two service chiefs, namely Air Chief Marshal Edward Ellington and Field Marshal Archibald Montgomery-Massingberd along with Sir Robert Vansittart of

57597-516: The signing, "the happiest day of his life", as he believed that it marked the beginning of an Anglo-German alliance. The Naval Pact was signed in London on 18 June 1935 without the British government consulting with France and Italy or later informing them of the secret agreements, which stipulated that the Germans could build in certain categories more powerful warships than any of the three other major Western European nations then possessed. The French government regarded that as treachery and saw it as

57860-460: The stock market in the United States crashed in 1929 , the effect in Germany was dire. Millions were thrown out of work and several major banks collapsed. Hitler and the Nazis prepared to take advantage of the emergency to gain support for their party. They promised to strengthen the economy and provide jobs. Many voters decided the Nazi Party was capable of restoring order, quelling civil unrest, and improving Germany's international reputation. After

58123-511: The strategy back to how he had drafted it. On the debates in the House of Commons on 18-19 May 1939, Chamberlain was hammered by Churchill on the issue of an alliance with the Soviet Union. Well briefed by Ivan Maisky , the Soviet ambassador in London, Churchill argued that there was no realistic way of British troops reaching Poland in the event of war; that the purpose of the "peace front" was to deter Germany from invading Poland; and that Chamberlain's offer that Britain would sign an alliance with

58386-529: The total German war dead range from 5.5 to 6.9 million persons. A study by German historian Rüdiger Overmans puts the number of German military dead and missing at 5.3 million, including 900,000 men conscripted from outside of Germany's 1937 borders. Richard Overy estimated in 2014 that about 353,000 civilians were killed in Allied air raids. Other civilian deaths include 300,000 Germans (including Jews) who were victims of Nazi political, racial, and religious persecution and 200,000 who were murdered in

58649-438: The two conferences, combined with the effects of the Great Depression , caused the collapse of much of the British shipbuilding industry in the early 1930s. That seriously hindered efforts at British naval rearmament later in the decade, leading the British Admiralty to value treaties with quantitative and qualitative limitations on potential enemies as the best way of ensuring the Royal Navy's sea supremacy. Maiolo argues that it

58912-421: The use of police powers, and by taking control of the state and federal institutions. The first major Nazi concentration camp , initially for political prisoners, was opened at Dachau in 1933. Hundreds of camps of varying size and function were created by the end of the war. Beginning in April 1933, scores of measures defining the status of Jews and their rights were instituted. These measures culminated in

59175-401: The use of the French Atlantic ports, the U-boats were a "nuisance" rather than a threat. Chatfield predicated that the earliest that the Kriegsmarine could build up to the 35% tonnage ratio allowed by the Anglo-German Naval Agreement would be 1942, and for that if Hitler decided to go beyond the limits allowed by the AGNA, it would be sometime after 1942. Much like Raeder, Chatfield envisioned

59438-526: The various Royal Navy bases. The estimates for the naval budget came in by a third of the original defence budget, which weakened his case. During the discussions of the DRC, Chatfield tended to an emphasis on the defence of the British Empire and the threat from Japan while Ellington called for a RAF equal to any European air force while Montgomery-Massinberd called for the British Army to have at least five divisions available to serve as an expeditionary force to France. Vansittart agreed with Chatfield that Japan

59701-431: The war drew to a close. Suicide rates in Germany increased, particularly in areas where the Red Army was advancing. Among soldiers and party personnel, suicide was often deemed an honourable and heroic alternative to surrender. First-hand accounts and propaganda about the uncivilised behaviour of the advancing Soviet troops caused panic among civilians on the Eastern Front, especially women, who feared being raped. More than

59964-412: Was "a much nobler cause than the Reds". On 5 August 1936, Admiral François Darlan arrived in London to see Chatfield to discuss the Spanish Civil War. Darlan expressed much concern about the Italian and German intervention in Spain on the Nationalist side and was especially worried about the prospect of Italy obtaining naval and air bases in the Balearic Islands . Likewise, Darlan was concerned about

60227-401: Was a Royal Navy officer. During the First World War he was present as Sir David Beatty's Flag-Captain at the Battle of Heligoland Bight in August 1914, at the Battle of Dogger Bank in January 1915 and at the Battle of Jutland in May 1916. After the war he became Commander-in-Chief, Atlantic Fleet and then Commander-in-Chief, Mediterranean Fleet before serving as First Sea Lord in

60490-417: Was a danger, but argued that Japan would attack if Britain were involved in a war with another European power, which Vansittart stated could only be Germany. Chatfield's efforts for a larger naval budget was undercut by a series of highly alarmist stories in the British newspapers about the power of strategical bombing to inflict a "knock-out blow" within a matter of days by razing entire cities, and along with

60753-417: Was a force that was far too small to pose any danger to British command of the sea. In December 1932, at the World Disarmament Conference in Geneva, the negotiators conceded Germany's right "in principle" to have "equality in status" in regards to arms, meaning that Germany would have the weapons forbidden by the Treaty of Versailles. Chatfield was in favour of accepting Adolf Hitler 's offer on 21 May 1935 of

61016-497: Was a member of the League of Nations. As Baldwin had made a point of running on a platform on emphasising support for the League of Nations and collective security in the general election of that year, it was expected that Britain would have to take some sort of action if Italy invaded. Chatfield reported that if the League of Nations imposed oil sanctions on Italy, it would cause an Italian economic collapse as Italy had no oil of its own, and would probably provoke Benito Mussolini into

61279-437: Was a powerful ally, the relationship was distant, with little co-ordination or co-operation. For example, Germany refused to share their formula for synthetic oil from coal until late in the war. Germany invaded Poland and captured the Free City of Danzig on 1 September 1939, beginning World War II in Europe. Honouring their treaty obligations, Britain and France declared war on Germany two days later. Poland fell quickly, as

61542-401: Was abrogated by Adolf Hitler on 28 April 1939. The Anglo-German Naval Agreement was an ambitious attempt on the part of both the British and the Germans to reach better relations, but it ultimately foundered because of conflicting expectations between the two countries. For Germany, the Anglo-German Naval Agreement was intended to mark the beginning of an Anglo-German alliance against France and

61805-400: Was actually of little importance whether potential enemies placed voluntary limitations on the size and the scale of their navies. In particular, Admiral Sir Ernle Chatfield , the First Sea Lord between 1933 and 1938, came to argue in favour of such treaties. They promised a standardised classification of different warships and discouraged technical innovations, which under existing conditions

62068-407: Was appointed to the Royal Victorian Order as a Commander in February 1912. He was then given command first of HMS Aboukir in the Reserve Fleet in Summer 1912, then of the cruiser HMS Southampton in September 1912 and subsequently of the battlecruiser HMS Lion , flagship of Rear-Admiral David Beatty's First Battlecruiser Squadron, in March 1913. During the First World War Chatfield

62331-401: Was blasé about the prospect of a Nationalist victory, saying that he disliked the Republican government and viewed General Francisco Franco as a "Spanish patriot" who would never grant bases to either Germany or Italy. On 12 December 1937, Chatfield's vision of Anglo-American co-operation was brought much closer to fruition after the Japanese aircraft sank an American gunboat, USS Panay in

62594-448: Was bound to react not only against danger from any purely-naval rival but also against dominance of Europe by any aggressive military power, particularly if that power is in a position to threaten the Low Countries and the Channel Ports . British complaisance could never be purchased by trading one of the factors against the other, and any country that attempted so would be bound to create disappointment and disillusion, as Germany did. At

62857-403: Was clear the political arguments against a Russian alliance outweighed any possible military benefits and that the Chiefs of Staff should only report on Russia's military capability. On 24 April 1939 the Chiefs of Staff submitted their report and rated Russia's military effectiveness low. The next day Chatfield gave the Cabinet Committee on Foreign Policy a summary of this report: "Russia, although

63120-445: Was conquered by the Soviet Union from the east and the other Allies from the west, and capitulated on 8 May 1945. Hitler's refusal to admit defeat led to massive destruction of German infrastructure and additional war-related deaths in the closing months of the war. The Allies initiated a policy of denazification and put many of the surviving Nazi leadership on trial for war crimes at the Nuremberg trials . Common English terms for

63383-548: Was crucial that Britain have the support of France in confronting Italy. The French Premier, Pierre Laval , was committed to achieving a Franco-Italian alliance, and through he pleaded support to the League of Nations, he did so in a manner that suggested grudging, half-hearted support. On 30 October 1935 in a meeting in London, Rear Admiral Jean Decoux of the French Naval General Staff promised Chatfield that France would also go to war if Britain went to war against Italy, though Decoux admitted that it would take several weeks before

63646-418: Was defeated, Australia and New Zealand would to face Japan on their own. Adding to the bitterness of the debate was the sudden decision on the part of the Chamberlain cabinet to abandon its long-standing "limited liability" defence doctrine and make the "continental commitment". Leslie Hore-Belisha , the War Secretary, argued very strongly that Britain would have to send a large expeditionary force to France in

63909-417: Was dropped. Germany was now a totalitarian state with Hitler at its head. As head of state, Hitler became Supreme Commander of the armed forces. The new law provided an altered loyalty oath for servicemen so that they affirmed loyalty to Hitler personally rather than the office of supreme commander or the state. On 19 August, the merger of the presidency with the chancellorship was approved by 90 per cent of

64172-519: Was enormously impressed with the part played by the prewar naval rivalry in creating bad relations between the two countries. Thus, he argued that the removal of that rivalry was all that was necessary to obtain good relations. By making a free gift of an absence of naval competition, he hoped that relations between the two countries would be so improved that Britain should not, in fact, find it necessary to interfere with Germany's continental policy. He overlooked, like other German politicians, that Britain

64435-424: Was for Germany mainly an instrument for putting political pressure on Britain. Before the war, Germany would have been willing to cease or moderate its naval competition with Britain but only in return for a promise of its neutrality in any European conflict. Hitler attempted the same thing by different methods, but like other German politicians, he saw only one side of the picture. It is clear from his writings that he

64698-417: Was generally supportive of the Admiralty, but had been weakened by the split in the Labour Party in 1931 with McDonald leading a rump National Labour Party (which was the smallest of the parties that made up the governing coalition) in opposition to the Labour Party. The Foreign Secretary, Sir John Simon, was considered to be highly intelligent, but seemingly incapable of making a decision as Simon would lay out

64961-462: Was good, and food supplies remained adequate in Western Europe. Germany and Europe as a whole were almost totally dependent on foreign oil imports. In an attempt to resolve the shortage, in June 1942 Germany launched Fall Blau ("Case Blue"), an offensive against the Caucasian oilfields. The Red Army launched a counter-offensive on 19 November and encircled the Axis forces, who were trapped in Stalingrad on 23 November. Göring assured Hitler that

65224-473: Was greeted with cheers when he landed in London, saying the agreement brought "peace for our time". Austrian and Czech foreign exchange reserves were seized by the Nazis, as were stockpiles of raw materials such as metals and completed goods such as weaponry and aircraft, which were shipped to Germany. The Reichswerke Hermann Göring industrial conglomerate took control of steel and coal production facilities in both countries. In January 1934, Germany signed

65487-415: Was in violation of the Versailles Treaty. On 17 May 1933, Hitler gave a speech before the Reichstag outlining his desire for world peace and accepted an offer from American President Franklin D. Roosevelt for military disarmament, provided the other nations of Europe did the same. When the other European powers failed to accept this offer, Hitler pulled Germany out of the World Disarmament Conference and

65750-459: Was necessary. Meanwhile, Admiral Erich Raeder of the Reichsmarine persuaded Hitler of the advantages of ordering two more Panzerschiffe , and in 1933 advised the Chancellor that Germany would be best off by 1948 with a fleet of three aircraft carriers , 18 cruisers, eight Panzerschiffe , 48 destroyers and 74 U-boats. Raeder argued to Hitler that Germany needed naval parity with France as a minimum goal, but Hitler from April 1933 onwards expressed

66013-417: Was no further thought behind it". In addition, the British viewed it as a "yardstick" for measuring German intentions towards them. Hitler regarded it as marking the beginning of an Anglo-German alliance and was much annoyed when that did not result. By 1937, Hitler started to increase both the sums of Reichsmark and raw materials to the Kriegsmarine and reflected the increasing conviction that if war came,

66276-422: Was no time to waste. The plans for a British naval expedition into the Baltic were a fixture with Churchill who upon appointed First Lord of the Admiralty again on 3 September 1939 pressed for the operation to be launched under the codename Catherine. However, objections that the threat of Luftwaffe attacks on any British warships operating in the Baltic, the lack of any port as Kronstadt was unavailable following

66539-432: Was not prepared to fight should be court-martialed, and thousands of people were executed. In many areas, people surrendered to the approaching Allies in spite of exhortations of local leaders to continue to fight. Hitler ordered the destruction of transport, bridges, industries, and other infrastructure—a scorched earth decree—but Armaments Minister Albert Speer prevented this order from being fully carried out. During

66802-405: Was our policy to eliminate those parts of the Peace Settlement which, as practical people, we knew to be unstable and indefensible". The change of regime in Germany in 1933 caused alarm in London , but there was considerable uncertainty regarding Hitler's long-term intentions. The Secretary to the Committee of Imperial Defence (CID), Sir Maurice Hankey , visited Germany in August 1933, and wrote

67065-424: Was possible". Chatfield suggested that there be close intelligence-sharing between the British and American navies along with a common means of communication such a joint cipher. Chatfield soon discovered during the talks that Ingersoll had no real power to negotiate anything, the purpose of his visit was more for information-gathering, and that Roosevelt had wanted the British to take the lead in confronting Japan as

67328-419: Was present as Beatty's Flag-Captain in the Lion at the Battle of Heligoland Bight in August 1914, at the Battle of Dogger Bank in January 1915 and at the Battle of Jutland in May 1916. It was at Jutland, after two British battlecruisers had blown up, that Beatty made his famous remark, "There seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today". Appointed to the Order of St Michael and St George as

67591-444: Was raised to the peerage as Baron Chatfield of Ditchling in the County of Sussex on 11 June 1937. Baldwin had little interest in foreign policy, and during his last government left foreign policy to be managed by the Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden along with Chatfield, who largely determined British policy with regard to the Spanish Civil War . Chatfield had a marked pro-Nationalist bias, once writing that Spanish Nationalist cause

67854-414: Was signed on the 120th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo , in which Prussian and British-led troops defeated the French under Napoleon . Because of the lengthy period needed to construct warships and the short duration of the agreement, its impact was limited. It was estimated by both German and British naval experts that the earliest year that Germany could reach the 35% limit was 1942. In practice,

68117-426: Was starkly warned that Britain could not win a war against an alliance of Germany, Italy and Japan, stating if war broke out against the Axis states, the Royal Navy would to sacrifice either the Mediterranean Sea or the South China Sea as there was no way to break up the fleet to deal with all three potential enemies at once. The possibility of the loss of naval dominance in the Mediterranean was understood as leading to

68380-451: Was still open to negotiation. During the 1920s, Hitler's thinking on foreign policy went through a dramatic change. At the beginning of his political career, Hitler was hostile to Britain and considered it an enemy of the Reich . However, after the British opposed the French occupation of the Ruhr in 1923, he came to rank Britain as a potential ally. In Mein Kampf and even more in its sequel, Zweites Buch , Hitler strongly criticised

68643-489: Was succeeded by Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz as Reich President and Goebbels as Reich Chancellor. Goebbels and his wife Magda committed suicide the next day after murdering their six children . Between 4 and 8 May 1945, most of the remaining German armed forces unconditionally surrendered. The German Instrument of Surrender was signed 8 May, marking the end of the Nazi regime and the end of World War II in Europe . Popular support for Hitler almost completely disappeared as

68906-502: Was the fourth nation to join the Axis, signing the Tripartite Pact on 27 September 1940. Bulgaria signed the pact on 17 November. German efforts to secure oil included negotiating a supply from their new ally, Romania , who signed the Pact on 23 November, alongside the Slovak Republic. By late 1942, there were 24 divisions from Romania on the Eastern Front, 10 from Italy, and 10 from Hungary. Germany assumed full control in France in 1942, Italy in 1943, and Hungary in 1944. Although Japan

69169-407: Was to be directed against. However, in terms of recommendations the report in many ways favoured Chatfield such as in its call to finally finish the Singapore base and to strengthen British bases in Asia in general. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Neville Chamberlain , protested that the costs of a naval arms race with Japan; sending another large expeditionary force to aid France; and building up

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