Der Fuehrer - Hitler's Rise to Power (1944) - Heiden

324 DER FUEHRERsparing excessive costs. At the conference of 1921 the United States hadbeen recognized by Great Britain as a sea power with equal rights, 'RuleBritannia' was a thing of the past. America, whose real strength consistsin her land-block, had now the maritime strength of England, whosepower depended entirely on her sea lanes. This was the outcome of theWorld War, and it is understandable that in England bitter doubts shouldarise as to the sense and utility of such a war.The rising sea power of Japan was not granted parity with the twoothers. The formula for the naval strengths of the five sea powers,United States, England, Japan, France, and Italy was set at 5, 5, 3, 1.75,1.75. Practically speaking, this resulted in Japanese parity, for theJapanese Navy, for any predictable period, was occupied only in thewestern half of the Pacific, the American on at least two oceans, and theBritish on all seven.This quiet argument among the great powers over the destinies of theearth was drowned out by the shrill bickering of France and Italy over arelatively small strip of the globe: the Mediterranean, the ancient cradleof human civilization and navigation. The British Navy dominated thewestern exit to the Mediterranean with the mighty rock fortress ofGibraltar; she dominated the eastern exit, the Suez Canal; and althoughfinancially France owned fifty-two per cent of the canal, British troops,stationed in Egypt and the canal zone since the eighties, proved to theeconomic age by their tranquil presence that military, not financial,domination is decisive. But up to 1925 Italian wrath was directedprimarily against the nearer France, more envied as her superiority wasnot felt to be so great. France laid claim to a stronger fleet than Italy;Italy insisted on her parity, granted in 1921 at Washington. It was Germanywhich profited from this quarrel. France insisted that the 'pocketbattleships' which Germany was permitted to build by the VersaillesTreaty (to use them in the Baltic against Soviet Russia) should belimited to twenty-one-centimeter guns; Italy obtained permission forGermany to retain the orignal twenty-eight-centimeter guns.Did this presage the coming Italian-French war? Hitler thought so;and it was plain that Italy was courting Germany with little