1. Hurray for History!!! By Yours Truly: Kiralee Knotts

2. The Geneva Naval Conference of 1927 This conference was held to discuss the naval arms limitation Limitations on battleships and aircraft carriers were established in the treaties of the Washington Naval Conference (1921-22) President Coolidge, in February of 1927, called to the Big Five Powers to discuss the issues of naval rivalries. - Big 5 = US, Japan, Britain, France, Italy ↑

3. More to know about 1927: Britain and Japan=YES! France and Italy=NO! France and Italy declined due to the fact that they were involved with the League of Nations disarmament efforts U.S. aimed towards extending the 5:5:3 ratio to lesser vessels rather than capital ships - i.e. cruisers, submarines, destroyers British and Japanese delegates agreed, but then gave various reasons as to why they should be special and be exempt from the strict terms of the proposal. After weeks of talking, in which tensions had been steadily rising, the conference was ended without reaching any agreement The U.S. saw the conference’s failure as a means of accomplishing arms limitation by continuing the naval construction race. - If the US could outspend the others, rivals would be forced to seek an agreement!

4. Geneva Naval Conference TAKE #2: 1932 Take #2 on the discussion of naval arms limitation Also held to discuss a reduction in land forces and limits on weapons 61 countries (including the US, the USSR, and Germany!) came to the conference with a want of deduction in general arms. Little progress was made, as Hitler came to power in 1933, taking Germany out of the Geneva Conference and the League of Nations (questionable, but nothing was done)

5. Fun Facts about 1932: The conference dragged on until 1934, but produced no result Americans regarded the conference more as a “European peace conference with European political questions to be settled.” - work to be done by the leaders of Europe. Germany’s position in European affairs couldn’t be ignored like they had at the first Geneva conference in 1927, or at the London conference in 1930.

6. FUN FACTS!!! Just for the heck of it! The US did not know how to reconcile German military ambition and hoped that the Europeans would find a solution. The US had already lost interest in the Geneva Conference because previous treaties had already limited its naval and army forces, and further reduction would be unnecessary and frankly, just plain crazy. Also, the US hesitated over further naval disarmament due to the Manchurian Crisis, and was worried whether action in the far east would be possible because of the small size of their forces.