BRITAIN, FRANCE AND THE NAVAL ARMS TRADE IN THE BALTIC 1919– 1939 CASS SERIES: NAVAL POLICY AND HISTORY Series Editor: Geoffrey Till ISSN 1366-9478 This series consists primarily of original manuscripts by research scholars in the general area of naval policy and history, without national or chronological limitations. It will from time to time also include collections of important articles as well as reprints of classic works. 1. Austro-Hungarian Naval Policy, 1904–1914 Milan N.Vego 2. Far-Flung Lines: Studies in Imperial Defence in Honour of Donald Mackenzie Schurman Edited by Keith Neilson and Greg Kennedy 3. Maritime Strategy and Continental Wars Rear Admiral Raja Menon 4. The Royal Navy and German Naval Disarmament 1942–1947 Chris Madsen 5. Naval Strategy and Operations in Narrow Seas Milan N.Vego 6. The Pen and Ink Sailor: Charles Middleton and the King’s Navy, 1778–1813 John E.Talbott 7. The Italian Navy and Fascist Expansionism, 1935–1940 Robert Mallett 8. The Merchant Marine and International Affairs, 1850–1950 Edited by Greg Kennedy 9. Naval Strategy in Northeast Asia: Geo-strategic Goals, Policies and Prospects Duk-Ki Kim 10. Naval Policy and Strategy in the Mediterranean Sea: Past, Present and Future Edited by John B.Hattendorf 11. Stalin’s Ocean-going Fleet: Soviet Naval Strategy and Shipbuilding Programmes, 1935–1953 Jürgen Rohwer and Mikhail S.Monakov 12. Imperial Defence, 1868–1887 Donald Mackenzie Schurman; edited by John Beeler 13. Technology and Naval Combat in the Twentieth Century and Beyond Edited by Phillips Payson O’Brien 14. The Royal Navy and Nuclear Weapons Richard Moore 15. The Royal Navy and the Capital Ship in the Interwar Period: An Operational Perspective Joseph Moretz 16. Chinese Grand Strategy and Maritime Power Thomas M.Kane 17. Britain’s Anti-submarine Capability, 1919–1939 George Franklin 18. Britain, France and the Naval Arms Trade in the Baltic, 1919–1939: Grand Strategy and Failure Donald J.Stoker BRITAIN, FRANCE AND THE NAVAL ARMS TRADE IN THE BALTIC 1919–1939 Grand Strategy and Failure Donald J.Stoker Jr US Naval War College, College of Distance Education, Monterey Programs Office FRANK CASS LONDON • PORTLAND, OR First published in 2003 in Great Britain by FRANK CASS PUBLISHERS Crown House, 47 Chase Side, Southgate London N14 5BP This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to http://www.ebookstore.tandf.co.uk/.” and in the United States of America by FRANK CASS PUBLISHERS c/o ISBS, 920 N.E. 58th Avenue, Suite 300 Portland, Oregon, 97213–3786 Website: http://www.frankcass.com/ Copyright © 2003 D.Stoker British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Stoker, Donald J. Britain, France and the naval arms trade in the Baltic, 1919–1939: grand strategy and failure.—(Cass series. Naval policy and history; 18) 1. Sea Power—Great Britain— History—20th century 2. Sea-power— France—History—20th century 3. Arms transfers 4. Great Britain— Foreign relations—Baltic States 5. Great Britain—Foreign relations— 1910–1936 6. France—Foreign relations—Baltic States 7. France— Foreign relations—1914–1940 8. Baltic States—Foreign relations— Great Britain 9. Baltic States—Foreign relations—France I. Title 359′.03′0941′09042 ISBN 0-203-51964-7 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-58173-3 (Adobe e-Reader Format) ISBN 0-7146-5319-5 (Print Edition) (cloth) ISSN 1366-9478 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Stoker, Donald J. Britain, France and the naval arms trade in the Baltic, 1919–1939: grand strategy and failure/Donald J.Stoker, Jr. p. cm.—(Cass series-naval policy and history, ISSN 1366- 9478; 18) Includes bibliographical reference and index. ISBN 0-7146-5319-5 (cloth) 1. Europe- History, Naval-20th century. 2. Great Britain-Military relations-Baltic Sea Region. 3. France- Military relations-Baltic Sea Region. 4. Baltic Sea Region-Military relations-Great Britain. 5. Baltic Sea Region-Military relations-France. 6. Arms transfers-Europe-History-20th century. I. Title. II. Series. D436.S76 2003 359′.03′0947909041–dc21 20030043431 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher of this book. To Lyla Nabulsi and Diana Rineer —teachers Contents Series Editor’s Preface ix Acknowledgments xi List of Abbreviations xii Introduction 1 1 War, Intervention, and the Birth of the Successor States, 1914–19 12 2 Naval Development in the Baltic Successor States, 1918–22 21 3 Unintended Consequences: The Effects of the Washington Naval Treaties on 41 the Baltic 4 Contracts, Competition, and Corruption, 1923–25 52 5 General Kirke’s Mission to Finland, 1924–25 81 6 New Contracts, New Competition, New Corruption, 1926–32 95 7 The German Projects: Finnish Naval Development and Anglo-French 111 Failure, 1926–34 8 The Final Sales, 1933–39 129 9 The British Naval Treaties and British Abandonment, 1935–39 142 10 Grand Strategy and Failure 154 11 Conclusion 168 Select Bibliography 175 Index 188 Series Editor’s Preface As everyone knows, navies are an instrument for politicians and diplomats to wield in what they conceive to be the national interest, in both peace and war. Their military functions in war are well understood and frequently analysed, but much less attention is paid to their diplomatic function in peacetime. Much of what there is on this tends to be focused on naval activities that are aimed at powerful adversaries and are intended to be frankly coercive. It may be either a question of compelling an adversary to do something, or perhaps of deterring them from some unwanted act. Indeed, we see ample evidence of this kind of naval coercion in the Gulf and the Arabian Sea in the early twenty-first Century. By contrast, however, much less attention is paid to the business of coalition-building through naval diplomacy, an activity which has become an avowed function of modern navies. Coalition-building can be conducted by a wide variety of means, including port visits, combined exercises of varying sizes and levels of ambition and complexity, staff college exchanges, training programmes, naval agreements and cooperation in the procurement of naval platforms, weapons and sensors. In this book, Donald Stoker provides us with a detailed analysis of a particular case study of naval coalition-building through the naval arms trade that has been almost completely forgotten. He explores the thinking behind the British and French campaign to build an enduring relationship with Poland and the newly independent Baltic republics through the provision of advice and naval equipment in the period between the First and Second World Wars. This is obviously a historical topic with much contemporary relevance. Stoker shows that the prime motives of both the French and the British naval coalition-building effort were partly to help create a cordon sanitaire to the east of Germany that would produce a security architecture conducive to future security in the area, partly to outdo each other, and partly, perhaps mainly, to make money. The French were much more committed to all of these aims than were the British, and the British Admiralty in particular was generally unsympathetic to the notion that the naval arms trade should be used in this way. Poland and the Baltic republics showed the qualities characteristic of leaders of new states developing navies from scratch: a general lack of maritime experience and consequent inability to understand what they needed; maritime priorities that were quite low in comparison with other pressing issues; debilitating levels of administrative incompetence and corruption; and an over-reliance on the shady individuals and adventurers sometimes encountered in the murky arms-trade world. The aspiring arms sellers themselves were muddled in their own priorities and unclear as to whether they were they were using political means to achieve economic objectives or the other way about. The result was failure at every level. The locals did not manage to acquire navies of any material consequence in averting or escaping the great crisis of 1939–40 that was to