I
Sufficient time has now elapsed since the Washington Conference to enable us to gauge the effect of its leading decisions on the naval position of Japan; and a study of this subject is rendered the more opportune in consequence of recent developments in the Far East which seem likely to react upon the naval policies of other powers.
The initial fact that emerges from a survey of the situation today is the patent failure of the Conference to achieve its main purpose, namely, to check the further expansion of sea armaments in any and every shape or form. It has undoubtedly been successful in arresting the multiplication of capital ships, which are at once the most costly and—to the lay mind, at all events—the most aggressive instruments of sea power; but, through causes too notorious to need repetition, it imposed no veto on the building of other combatant types, save airplane carriers, and at least one signatory party has deemed it expedient to take full advantage of this omission. The result is that today, barely twelve months after the acceptance of the Limitation Treaty, a revival of shipbuilding competition seems inevitable if the balance of power as regulated by that treaty is to be maintained.
To state the case in a sentence: Japan, by diverting to the construction of cruisers and submarines no small part of the energy she formerly expended on capital ships, will soon be in possession of a fleet of "auxiliary combatant" vessels superior in some respects to that of any other power. The ratios of international strength formulated by the authors of the treaty have thus been upset, unless we assume the capital ship alone to possess any fighting value—an assumption manifestly absurd. Indeed, the relative importance of auxiliary craft has increased very considerably as the result of limiting the number of heavy ships. Therefore, when we find that Japan during the last five years has built or ordered no less than twenty-three light cruisers, as against a collective total of sixteen for Great Britain and the United States, it would be futile to pretend that the Washington agreement has either stabilized naval strength on anything like a comprehensive basis, or relieved the naval authorities of Britain and America of all anxiety as to the future.
So far is this from being the case that at the moment of writing the United States Navy Department is understood to have in preparation a large program of auxiliary construction; and it seems only a question of time before the British Government will be compelled to take similar measures.
Japan, to do her justice, has been perfectly frank with regard to her post-Conference naval policy. Her intentions have been advertised to the world, even if their full significance has not been unduly stressed. She justifies her formidable program of auxiliary tonnage on two grounds: first, that it is necessary in order to save the national shipbuilding and kindred industries from the ruin that would have overtaken them had all naval construction come to a standstill; secondly, that the additional cruisers and submarines are really needed to compensate for the reduced strength of the battle fleet.
As regards the first argument, it is no doubt true that the sudden stoppage of all shipbuilding for the navy would have been a most serious blow, not merely to the trades directly concerned, but to the whole economic system of the country.
A few facts and figures bearing on this point will not be out of place. Under the impetus of conditions set up by the World War, the industries of Japan flourished amazingly for a few years, and shipbuilding, in particular, was developed to a remarkable extent. In 1914 the number of yards producing sea-going ships did not exceed six; by 1918 there were fifty-seven such establishments in operation. The slump of 1920 drove more than half these newer yards out of business, and in August of last year only twenty-six remained.
At the close of the war, when orders for mercantile tonnage began to fall off and at length almost entirely ceased to come in, the shipyards were forced to depend for their existence largely on Admiralty contracts. From their point of view the big naval program of 1920 was a veritable godsend. Irrespective of smaller vessels, it provided for the construction, within eight years, of a fleet of sixteen capital ships, with an average displacement of approximately 42,000 tons, and of this number at least one-half were to have been built in private yards. Under the Washington agreement no less than fourteen of these vessels were cancelled, including six that were already building. When this decision became known in Japan, there was an outcry from the shipbuilders, who saw themselves faced with ruin, and even louder protests came from the shipyard workers, who form one of the best organized branches of Japanese labor.
According to official .statistics, there were in Japan nine large private yards that were generally engaged in warship construction, employing between them 96,000 hands, and four naval dockyards, employing some 61,000 hands. Consequently, the number of workers who were interested in the building of warships was 157,000, of whom, it was estimated, fifty per cent would be thrown out of employment through the cancelling of battleship orders alone. Had auxiliary ships been included in the limitation scheme, the percentage of men rendered workless would have been as high as seventy-five.
Even as it was, organized labor became dangerously restive. Mass meetings of shipyard employees were held, and violent speeches made against the Government for having "betrayed" the workers. Agitators who had previously complained most bitterly of the burden of armaments were now foremost in opposing a reduction of that burden.
It has been hinted in some quarters that this popular clamor against the suspension of warship construction was by no means distasteful to the Government, who saw in it an excellent excuse for continuing the development of the navy on as large a scale as was possible without transgressing the letter of the treaty. Be that as it may, generous concessions were granted with a promptitude that was rather surprising, in view of the tendency of officialdom in Japan to resist any form of dictation by the masses.
Less than a month after the Washington Conference dispersed, it was announced at Tokyo that an agreement had been come to between the Government and the shipbuilders, whereby the latter would be provided with other work in lieu of the countermanded battleships, and the wholesale discharge of shipyard workers would thus be avoided. The scheme was to retain practically intact that part of the 1920 program which related to auxiliary ships, and to advance the dates of laying down these vessels. For example, contracts for cruisers which it had originally been intended to begin in 1923, 1924, and 1925 respectively were to be antedated twelve months, so that the normal building programs of 1922, 1923, and 1924 would in each case be increased to that extent. In other words, twice as many auxiliary ships were to be laid down each year as the original program had legislated for. This plan embraced destroyers, submarines, and supply ships, in addition to cruisers.
In allotting the new contracts, special regard was had to the claims of the shipyards which would have benefited most under the pre-Conference battleship program, orders for new light cruisers going to those state and private yards which had been promised, or were already at work upon battleships and battle cruisers. The largest cruisers will therefore be constructed at the Imperial dockyards of Kure and Yokosuka, and the private establishments of Kawasaki and Mitsubishi, and smaller units of this type by the Sasebo arsenal and Uraga Dock Company. At the same time contracts for destroyers, submarines, and fleet-supply ships are being distributed among the yards named and also among other establishments which suffered through the recision of the pre-Conference program. Furthermore, extra work has been provided for the state dockyards by assigning them the dismantling of condemned ships.
By these measures the crisis in the shipbuilding industry has been largely overcome, all the principal yards throughout the country have a fair amount of work in hand, and it has been necessary to discharge only a comparatively small number of workers.
On the other hand, the cost of all this auxiliary tonnage will be heavy enough to wipe out a great part of the sum saved by scrapping the capital-ship program, and the net saving effected in new naval construction will consequently be much less than the taxpayers had anticipated. There are not wanting those in Japan who censure the Government for adopting this policy of "robbing Peter to pay Paul." It would, they contend, have been better to encourage the shipyards to develop other branches of activity than naval construction, such as the manufacture of locomotives and other railroad and street-car material, iron and steelwork parts for bridges and structures, industrial power plants, automobiles, and the like, as has been done by European armament firms since the war.
As it is, the critics declare, the wealth of the nation is being dissipated on fighting ships which apparently have been ordered simply to keep the shipyards in operation, and not because they are absolutely essential for defense purposes.
Another and still graver objection urged against the Government's policy is that this sudden expansion of the auxiliary combatant fleet may evoke suspicion abroad as to Japan's bona fides in respect to disarmament, and lead other powers to strengthen their fleets in the same way, thus ushering in a new era of naval rivalry and mutual distrust. That these apprehensions are well-founded has already been made clear by the reported action of the American naval authorities in drawing up a new program to counterbalance Japan's growing strength in cruising ships and submarines.
Figures showing the actual reduction that has been effected in Japan's naval expenditure by the limitation scheme are not yet available, but the gross amount appears to be in the neighborhood of 100,000,000 yen.
In 1920, the navy budget amounted to 320,000,000 yen, or nearly twice as much as it had been three years previously; and subsequent additions, due to the passing of the "eight-eight" program, brought the gross amount to nearly 500,000,000 yen. In the following year, another big increase was made, and, but for the limitation scheme, naval expenditure during the current year would have been not far short of 750,000,000 yen.
According to Tokyo press reports, the naval estimates submitted in July last provided for an ordinary expenditure of 120,000.000 yen and for an extraordinary outlay of 198,000,000 yen, showing decreases of 15,000,000 and 60,000,000 yen respectively. On October 30, it was announced that the Finance Department had further reduced the navy estimates in the forthcoming budget by 30,000,000 yen, making a total reduction of over 100,000,000 yen, or approximately one-seventh of the amount that would have been spent on fleet armament this year had the "eight-eight" program remained in force.
This saving is accounted for almost entirely by the deletion of the capital ships and the abandonment of new docks and harbor works; only a very small percentage is due to reductions in personnel; and, as we have seen, the bill for auxiliary construction, so far from showing any cut, has been greatly increased. Some money will also be saved by giving up Port Arthur as a naval station and reducing the status of the Maizuru base.
As no precise figures of the cost of man-of-war construction are published in Japan, the expenditure that will be incurred by virtually doubling the auxiliary building program over a term of several years can be only roughly estimated. It is known, however, that the light cruisers of the Kuma class, 5,500 tons, have cost nearly five million dollars each; that the 7,500-ton ships of the Yuhari class are priced at about seven and a half million dollars, and the new 10,000-ton ships, four in number, at not less than ten million dollars each. First-class destroyers, of which many are building and twenty-four projected, probably cost one and a half million dollars per boat; the medium submarines (900 tons) about the same; and the new large type (1,500 tons) three million dollars.
These prices are, if anything, underestimated, the cost of naval construction being abnormally high in Japan, despite the relative cheapness of labor. In any case, it is sufficiently obvious that a program which embraces not less than fifteen cruisers, ranging from 5,500 to 10,000 tons, forty destroyers, and fifty submarines, besides a great many supply and depot ships, will eventually cost an enormous sum of money.
II
It is patent to everyone that Japan is at present building more combatant tonnage than any other power; but what is not so generally appreciated is the fact that she is actually building more tonnage of this description than all the other powers combined. Once more it must be emphasized that the so called "Disarmament Treaty," while certainly bringing dreadnaught construction almost to a halt, has not only done nothing to limit the building of other man-of-war types, but has actually increased the number of these vessels in the case of Japan, and in all likelihood will eventually produce a corresponding expansion of the auxiliary ships of other navies.
It would occupy too much space to narrate in detail the various strategical reasons which the Japanese naval authorities have put forward, through the medium of the press, to justify the building of so many "auxiliary combatant ships"; but their arguments may be summarized as follows. The battle fleet has been so reduced under the limitation agreement that it will no longer be capable of fulfilling its proper function,—namely, going out to seek and engage an enemy fleet on the high seas,—but must henceforth be kept in reserve as a last card, only to be played if and when the enemy's preponderance has been reduced or destroyed by tactics of attrition. Therefore, to compensate for the loss of direct offensive power formerly vested in the battle fleet, Japan requires for her safety an unusually strong force of minor weapons of attack. She particularly needs an ample supply of swift ocean-keeping cruisers, to guard her own communications and harass those of an enemy, and also to prey upon his commerce, with the ulterior purpose of diverting part of his strength from the immediate war-zone.
For the same reasons, it is essential to have a large fleet of ocean-going submarines, which could be used alternatively for coast defense, for near and distant mine-laying expeditions, and for raiding commerce. The twofold problem confronting the Japanese Navy in war would be to maintain, as far as possible, the freedom of the ocean trade routes, and above all to guard communications with the Asiatic Continent, which would represent a vital and indispensable source of supply for foodstuffs and raw materials. In the absence of a really effective battle fleet, effective, that is, in the sense of being able to engage the battle fleet of any potential enemy with reasonable prospects of success,—these strategic tasks can best be performed by cruisers and submarines.
As regards the loss of power resulting from the limitation of the battle fleet to ten ships, this, it is argued, is far more serious than might be inferred from superficial observation. Four of the ships are battle cruisers of a design which post-war progress has made obsolete, and which could not be placed in the line of battle without exposing them to grave risk of summary destruction. This brings the battle fleet proper down to six ships, none of which could possibly be replaced if lost or disabled.
Japan is, therefore, at a grave disadvantage as compared with Britain and the United States, since their infinitely greater resources would enable either of those powers to build new capital ships very rapidly in place of any that were lost in action.
Another important factor in the revised scheme of defense is the chain of outlying naval bases with which Japan has girdled herself during the past few years; and, apropos of this subject, there can be no harm now in disclosing certain facts of which the American public has, perhaps, hitherto remained in ignorance.
In the fall of 1920, the Japanese naval authorities, in co-operation with the General Staff, worked out a scheme for fortifying the principal islands that guard the approach to the coasts of Japan proper. This measure was intended to counteract the then impending development of Cavite and Guam as first-class bases for the American Pacific fleet.
In September, 1920, a committee of experts, headed by Captain Mori, of the Navy Department, visited all the islands in question, reporting that the points where strong fortifications and naval facilities were needed most urgently were the Bonin Islands, Amami-Oshima, and Yajima in the Loochoo group. This report having been approved by the Government, steps were immediately taken to carry the proposals into effect, and the work of fortification was put in hand early in 1921.
For reasons of finance it was intended to spread the appropriations over two, if not three, years, as in view of the slow progress being made with the American works at Cavite and Guam it was thought that the completion of the Japanese insular bases might safely be prolonged till the end of 1922. But in the spring of last year (1921), it became known at Tokyo that the United States Government was meditating an appeal to the powers to join in a conference for the reduction of naval armaments, and this news decided the Japanese authorities to speed up the completion of their island forts, with the object of putting themselves in a favorable position strategically before the conference was summoned.
Consequently, from May 1921, the work at the Bonins went on with feverish energy, A large fleet of steamers was chartered to convey thither the thousands of laborers and the vast quantities of material needed to complete the task. So great was the demand for cement, that a temporary shortage of this material ensued. Throughout the summer and autumn, building operations went on night and day, and during this period the Bonin Islands were under a military administration which maintained a strict surveillance over visiting foreign ships. The Japanese press was also forbidden to publish any mention of what was in progress at the islands.
By December, the last of the batteries had been constructed and armed with heavy long-range guns, the barracks, munitions depots, aerodrome, and radio station had been constructed, and every navigable approach had been rendered impregnable.
Meanwhile the Washington Conference had assembled, and Admiral Baron Kato, of the Japanese delegation, had taken the first opportunity to inform his American colleagues that Japan regarded the abandonment of the Philippine and Guam fortifications as the condition precedent to negotiations for the reduction of her shipbuilding program. If the United States would agree to this, Japan, on her part, was prepared to suspend her own plans of fortifying her Pacific islands, and would at the same time co-operate most willingly in any practicable scheme for limiting her floating armaments.
Baron Kato did not add, however, that Japan, having been secretly engaged in fortifying her island bases for many months previously, had just completed the work, whereas scarcely any progress had been made in the development of the American stations at Cavite and Guam.
III
Whether the American naval experts were cognizant of the facts is a moot point, but it seems scarcely credible that they would have acquiesced in the status quo proposal for Pacific bases, had they known that Japan was already in possession of a thoroughly equipped naval station at the Bonins. If they did know this, one is forced to conclude that their protests against the renunciation of the right to put the Western Islands in an adequate state of defense were overruled by the Washington Cabinet on political grounds.
In any case, Japan scored a signal triumph in securing the adoption of the status quo agreement with regard to Pacific fortifications. From her point of view, it was a strategical gain of the first magnitude, which more than compensated for the reduction of her battle fleet.
That the full significance of the clause has come to be appreciated by American naval students is clear from certain outspoken criticisms which have appeared recently. The Japanese Foreign Office, betraying a sense of humor for which few would have given it credit, issued the following communiqué on February 22 last:
"The Treaty on the limitation of naval armaments signed at Washington on February 6, 1922, comes into force upon its ratification by all contracting powers. With regard, however, to certain fortifications and naval bases of the British Empire, the United States, and Japan, in the region of the Pacific Ocean, it is provided in Article XIX of the Treaty that the status quo at the time of its signature shall be maintained. In conformity with the spirit of this provision, the Japanese Government have decided forthwith to discontinue the work on the fortifications in the Bonin Islands and Amami-Oshima, and further to maintain the existing condition of fortifications and naval bases in Formosa and the Pescadores. The necessary measures for giving effect to this decision have already been taken."
Napoleon's dictum that "war is an affair of positions" applies to the sea no less than to the land, and to a far greater degree than was the case a century ago. A fleet in those days was largely self-supporting, and could remain at sea for months at a time, independent of bases, because it had no fuel problem to contend with. But the conditions today are vastly different. The "reach" of a modern battle fleet can be measured with almost mathematical precision, governed as it is by the number and situation of the points d'appui available. In time of war, no fleet dare venture to cruise for long in waters where ample facilities for refueling do not exist. If the ships of which it is composed have an average fuel-endurance of, say, 10,000 miles, that does not mean that they would be able to advance to a point 5,000 miles from home and still be sure of getting back in safety. For the maximum cruising radius of a ship is always reckoned in terms of economical speed, and bears no relation to the distance that could be steamed if the engines were running at full power. Thus, a battleship able to cover 10,000 miles at a constant speed of 12 knots might be unable to travel more than 3,000 miles at her full speed of 21 knots—and in war-zone operations high-speed steaming is the rule rather than the exception. To cruise under a small head of steam in waters where enemy submarines might be encountered would be to risk destruction.
Now the only insular base in the Pacific where the American battle fleet could be sure of finding adequate supplies of fuel is Hawaii, and we are therefore justified in assuming that 2,000 miles represents the utmost distance to which the fleet could venture to the west or south of Hawaii in time of war; and even this would leave a dangerously narrow margin of fuel for emergencies. But if America fights in the Pacific at all, she will fight for definite objects, among which will be the protection, or—what is far more likely—the recovery, of the Philippines, and to gain these objects she must be prepared to undertake active naval operations in the immediate zone of war, namely, the Far Western Pacific.
How this is to be done without local base facilities is a problem which apparently defies solution. It is certain that in their present defenseless condition, now to be stereotyped by the treaty, both the Philippines and Guam would become Japanese in the first weeks of war.
This is fully realized and freely admitted by American strategists; but it is interesting, nevertheless, to have Japanese testimony on the point. In the Dai Nihon, of August 1921, a thoughtful monthly review published at Tokyo, the editor, Mr. Seijiro Kawashima, discussed the probable course of hostilities between his country and the United States, and affirmed that, should the outbreak of war find the main American naval force at Panama, San Francisco, or even at Hawaii, "it will be open for Japan to take the Philippines, indeed Guam…Should the worst happen, therefore, Japan would risk everything to destroy these two bases, and the ferocity with which she will fight may well be imagined." Clearly, therefore, the islands in question must be ruled out of any objective examination of the task that would confront the United States Navy in a war with Japan.
IV
It remains, then, to consider how far offensive operations in the Western Pacific would be feasible without bases. From Hawaii to the nearest Japanese coast is some 3,400 miles, making 6,800 miles for the round voyage, which would be well within the cruising capacity of modern battleships at economical speed.
But, as was emphasized above, ships steaming at low speed in an area frequented by hostile submarines would be in continual danger of attack. To be reasonably safe from submarines, they must not only steam at a high rate of speed, but make frequent alterations of course—a method of progression which involves an abnormally heavy consumption of fuel in traversing a given distance.
It is, therefore, extremely doubtful whether the fuel-endurance of the ships would suffice even for the outward journey of 3,400 miles; and if the fleet found itself close to the enemy's coast with empty bunkers, and no friendly base at hand, it would be exposed to certain annihilation.
Consequently, on the surface of things, it looks as if the American Navy would be physically incapable of undertaking major war-operations in the Western area of the Pacific; there is no visible means whereby the fatal handicap of nonexistent bases might be overcome. It is as if the United States, in pledging itself not to proceed with the fortification of its distant islands, had voluntarily surrendered, not merely the power to defend these possessions, but the power to defend its interests in the Far East generally, no matter how vital they are or may become in the future.
Japan, on the other hand, has gained a strategical predominance in her adjacent waters far exceeding that which she could ever have hoped to achieve had the competition in naval armaments pursued its normal course. For good or ill, the doors of the Far East have been slammed, barred, and bolted, and the keys placed in Japanese keeping.
The British Empire, it is true, might be in a position to dispute this supremacy, thanks to its actual and potential base-resources in the Pacific; but here again the factor of distance would come into play on the side of Japan, by making sustained offensive operations against her coast next to impossible, even for a greatly superior British fleet pivoted on Singapore, New Guinea, or Australian harbors.
If these premises are sound they seem to warrant the conclusion that a naval war between the United States and Japan would speedily result in a stalemate, affording no opportunity for a decision by direct action from either side, since the opposing battle fleets would be unlikely to come within several thousand miles of each other. It is here, however, that the significance of the large program of minor naval construction, upon which Japan is now engaged, may be manifest.
Since history contains no record of a war having been decided wholly, or even mainly, by the destruction of maritime trade, the greatest authorities have always excluded the guerre de course from the domain of grand strategy, relegating it to a subsidiary place in the general scheme of belligerent operations at sea. Nevertheless, there was one period of the World War when it seemed as if science had placed in Germany's hands the means of undermining what had come to be regarded as a fundamental principle of naval strategy. The submarine campaign came very near to breaking the resistance of the Allies, and did, in fact, produce that anomalous situation in which the power supreme at sea, whose warships held undisputed command of the ocean surface in nearly every part of the world, nevertheless found its marine communications menaced to a highly dangerous degree, and was able only by superhuman exertions to maintain the minimum amount of sea-borne traffic essential to the further conduct of the war.
At an earlier stage of the struggle, grave loss was caused to shipping by the few German cruisers which were at large when the war began. It took a good many months to dispose of these surface corsairs, and the task was accomplished only by diverting a numerous force of swift cruisers from other war-service, and sending them to scour every ocean area where the raiders were likely to be met with.
Comparatively large as was the fleet of cruising ships at the disposal of the Allies, it barely sufficed to meet this demand. Had fewer ships been available, the German commerce destroyers would have enjoyed a much longer lease of life, and the embarrassment they caused must have been infinitely more serious.
Among naval men a firm conviction obtains that the next great war will inevitably witness the revival of submarine attack on merchant shipping, since they believe that parchment safeguards against this practice will soon collapse under the stress of war. Assuming then that the naval methods in vogue during the World War are likely to reappear in the event of a Pacific campaign, the advantages which Japan would derive from her powerful fleet of cruisers and submarines are obvious. They would enable her, while maintaining her battle fleet intact behind its impregnable barrier of insular and coastal defenses, to wage ruthless war against her enemy's trade and communications.
When the current building program has been completed, she will possess at least twenty-five modern cruisers of great speed and wide radius of action, together with more than seventy submarines specially designed for prolonged voyaging, the majority of them being well able to cross and recross the Pacific Ocean without needing to replenish their fuel.
V
What resources has the United States Navy to deal with this immense fleet of potential commerce-destroyers? On the basis of recent war experience, it has been estimated that from four to six fast cruisers are required to circumvent the activities of one enemy surface raider; while some idea of the tremendous array of force necessary to cope with submarine attack on merchant shipping is conveyed by the fact that upward of 3,000 patrol craft of every type were kept in service by Great Britain alone, though the Germans never had more than thirty U-boats at sea simultaneously.
At the present time, there are only ten modern cruisers built or building in the United States. Even if all these ships were released from duty with the fleet, in order to protect trade routes, what could they hope to achieve against twenty-five enemy raiders with speeds not inferior to their own?
The task would, of course, be hopeless from the start. Unless, therefore, the convoy system were adopted,—and this would be at once a difficult and a precarious business under the peculiar conditions governing warfare in the area we are considering—American merchant shipping would, in all probability, be swept from the Pacific very soon after the outbreak of hostilities with Japan.
While there is not the least reason to suppose that this blow would force the United States into submission, the combined loss of trade and prestige resulting therefrom would be a serious matter. Nor would it be possible to retaliate with any marked effect; for the same dearth of cruisers that rendered the United States powerless to protect its overseas trade would debar it from molesting the communications of the enemy.
Moreover, provided that her connections with the Asiatic mainland were secure, Japan could afford to dispense for a time with other external sources of supply, and practically the whole of her cruisers and submarines, having but little patrol duty, would be free to engage in offensive operations.
Thus, the widely held idea that a war in the Pacific must speedily end in a deadlock, in which neither opponent could inflict any appreciable damage on the other, is seen to be fallacious. It would have been sound enough had the naval limitation agreement embraced all types of fighting craft; but the failure of the Conference to extend the ratio system to cruiser and submarine tonnage has completely altered the situation.
In view of the foregoing considerations, it would cause no surprise to learn that American naval authorities entertain profound misgivings with regard to future developments in the Far East. That their responsibilities have been immeasurably increased by the Limitation Treaty is self-evident. Indeed, it might be affirmed without fear of contradiction that the treaty, by depriving the United States of all power to intervene by force of arms, has placed her interests in the Far East completely at the mercy of a foreign state, upon whose good-will they must henceforth depend. The task of defending them against aggression would have been difficult enough, had the naval limitation scheme never been conceived. As things are, their defense—by warlike action, at any rate—has to all appearances become impossible.