German pocket battleship/heavy cruiser Admiral Graf Spee
An item dated Paris 22 December reported that Paul Boncour (1) during the naval budget discussion in the parliament said about the coming London conference (2) that the USA and the United Kingdom expected far-reaching decisions. He expected that the minor countries which he called his best friends would at least supported France in moral sense. The main topic of the conference would be comparability/equality against which France in Geneva protested. The fact that England accepted this comparability would result in an increase of a world wide tonnage while England apparently would not reduced her navy. This statement caused a long applause in the French parliament. Disarmament of navies could not be separated from the armies and so the disarmament issue was to be discussed at Geneva where the League of Nations settled. Herriot (3) pointed out to what was happening in Germany which country did not join the conference but which launched a ship to be feared by all navies and of which six were to be confirmed as allowed by the Treaty of Versailles.(4)
Notes
1. Augustin Alfred Joseph Paul-Boncour (4 August 1873-28 March 1872), politician, between 1932 and 1936 permanent delegate to the League of Nations, minister of war in 1932, premier between December 1932 and January 1933 and foreign minister between December 1932 and January 1934, between January and June 1936 and in March 1938.
2. On 22 April 1930 signed England, Japan, France, Italy and the USA the so-called London Naval Treaty which became effective on 27 October of the same year. The treaty was a result of the naval conference at London between 21 January and 22 April that year which discussed the effects of the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922.
3. Édouard Marie Herriot (5 July 1872-26 March 1957), prime minister 14 June 1924-17 April 1925, 19-23 July 1926 and 3 June-18 December 1932 and further more was he minister of several departments.
4. The item was titled the ’German cruiser’ so I suppose Heriot referred to the heavy cruiser Deutschland which was laid down on 5 February 1929 at the shipyard of the Deutsche Werke at Kiel on 5 February 1929, launched on 19 May two years later and commissioned on 1 April 1933. Her displacement was 12,630 (design)-14,520 (full load) tons and as dimensions 186 x 21,69 x 7,25 metres or 610’3” x 71’2”x 23’9” and a armament of 2x3-28cm guns, 8x1-15cm guns and 8-53,3cm torpedo tubes. She and her two sister ships including the well known (Admiral) Graf Spee were also known as pocket battleships.
