The Last Chance at Regulating Naval Warfare: The London Naval Conference of 1909
Channel: War Studies KCL
Date: 06/12/2021

Speaker: Alan M. Anderson, King’s College London

Alan’s presentation today explores the genesis and conduct of the 1909 London Naval Conference. It considers the resulting consensus on the laws of naval warfare – an agreement that became the benchmark against which the naval actions of England and Imperial Germany during the early part of the First World War were measured, until the London declaration was finally abandoned in 1916. Alan argues that the fact the agreement was never fully implemented illustrates the difficulties inherent in achieving a lasting agreement regulating any aspect of naval warfare when belligerents are faced with the uncertainties and vicissitudes of war. In this respect, the 1909 London Naval Conference is an under-appreciated predictor of the eventual failure of the international naval conferences of the interwar years that sought a far more ambitious outcome – naval disarmament and warship limitations.