The cruiser question

In early 1927 President Coolidge called on the principal naval Powers to meet to complete the work of the Washington conference. At Washington these Powers – Britain, the United States, Japan, France, and Italy – restricted, respectively, the size and numbers of capital ships within a tonnage ratio of 5:5:3:1.75:1.75. Although there had been heated exchanges about cruisers, it proved impossible to include them in the capital ship ratio. All that the delegations could do at Washington was to limit cruiser size to 10,000 tons and armament to eight-inch guns.

Only Britain, the United States, and Japan attended the Coolidge conference, which was held at Geneva between June and August 1927. It was anticipated that an agreement would be arranged to limit cruisers, destroyers, submarines, and auxiliary craft, such as mine-sweepers. The three Powers actually accomplished a great deal. They determined that there was no need to restrict auxiliary craft, and they succeeded in removing problems surrounding the limitation of submarines and destroyers – it was decided that there would be two classes of each type of vessel, squadron leaders and ordinary craft, and the appropriate maxima for each were established.