The Royal Navy's China Station and Britain's East Asian Empire During the 1920S
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Changes and challenges: The Royal Navy's China Station and Britain's East Asian empire during the 1920s Submitted by Matthew Joseph Heaslip, to the University of Exeter as a thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Maritime History, November 2018. This thesis is available for Library use on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. I certify that all material in this thesis which is not my own work has been identified and that no material has previously been submitted and approved for the award of a degree by this or any other University. (Signature) ……………………………………………………………………………… Page | 1 Abstract: Examining Britain’s position in 1920s East Asia at a point amid changes in the international balance of power, this thesis bridges the gap between the existing imperial and naval accounts of a key transition point in global history. In doing so, it focuses upon the foremost organisation involved in maintaining and supporting the peripheral regions of imperial influence, the Royal Navy’s China Station. The thesis provides an important new segment to help in explaining the wider story of the slow decline of British imperial and naval dominance in the 1920s. Foremost among the findings is an emphasis on how heavily inter-related Britain’s strategies for China and Japan were during the decade. Indeed, China was expected by the Admiralty to play a pivotal role in any future relationship between the British Empire and the increasingly expansionist Japan, which adds a significant new angle to existing discussion of Britain’s far eastern defence strategy. Providing fresh insights into how those grand strategies were implemented in practice, the thesis shows how naval officers serving in the region willingly and repeatedly deviated from official policy on a day-to-day basis in order to assist their counterparts from friendly powers. Likewise, the evolving threats posed by state and sub-state actors in China are shown to have led to the deployment of vast Royal Navy task force to Shanghai in 1927, which is now generally overlooked and misunderstood. That event marked the last time Britain was able to confidently display its global naval dominance to the world. Among the more controversial findings, the thesis reveals how the Admiralty secretly circumvented the Washington Treaty by developing military aviation capabilities at Hong Kong under the guise of imperial policing. In doing so it provides the first clear evidence that alongside Germany and Japan, Britain was also actively contravening the post-1918 disarmament treaties it had only recently signed. Away from preparations for another major conflict, the thesis also provides a fresh examination of the contrasting accounts of two violent clashes involving Britain in 1920s China. In doing so, the thesis shows that it is possible to establish a more balanced understanding of events such as the Nanjing and Wanxian incidents, despite the highly polarised accounts of what happened. Finally, the human side of the story is explored, during which the thesis discusses changing attitudes towards and use of Victorian gunboat diplomacy. Moreover, the stresses of commanding gunboats in such isolated circumstances are shown to have pushed some young officers beyond breaking point, with disastrous consequences for themselves and others. Archival material that is entirely new to histories of the Royal Navy has been used throughout the thesis, adding crucial details such as the important role of Treaty Port volunteer corps in influencing warship deployments. Likewise, by delving deep into the naval archives, the thesis helps to move the imperial histories beyond the wall of steel and blue uniforms to consider the Royal Navy as a complex entity containing a diverse set of individuals. In combination the thesis provides the first detailed examination of the Royal Navy’s everyday work maintaining the British Empire in East Asia against the wider backdrop of the transformative changes in world geopolitics. Page | 2 Table of Contents Introduction ............................................................................................................................................ 5 Chapter One: Between China and Japan, the China Station’s strategic balance .............................. 37 Chapter Two: Adapting to a new China in a violent peace ................................................................ 92 Chapter Three: Technological development and imperial policing .................................................. 146 Chapter Four: Changing attitudes, ideas, and approaches .............................................................. 203 Conclusion .......................................................................................................................................... 259 Appendices ......................................................................................................................................... 275 Bibliography........................................................................................................................................ 278 Page | 3 Table of Figures Figure 1: Royal Navy ‘stations’ during the 1920s (simplified) ............................................................ 11 Figure 2: 1920s China Station command structure ............................................................................ 13 Figure 3: Official Royal Navy storage facilities 1900-14 ...................................................................... 54 Figure 4: International warships anchored at Shanghai in April 1927 ............................................... 76 Figure 5: Foreign defensive lines for the Shanghai International Settlement 1927 .......................... 87 Figure 6: Foreign population of the Shanghai International Settlement 1915-20 ........................... 103 Figure 7: Royal Navy global deployment in November 1920 ........................................................... 119 Figure 8: Damage to HMS Bee 8 September 1926 ............................................................................ 155 Figure 9: Shanghai Volunteer Corps Membership 1920-27 .............................................................. 158 Figure 10: Movements of the cruiser HMS Carlisle 1920-23 ............................................................. 175 Figure 11: Map of Socony Hill and the surrounding area in 1927 .................................................... 192 Figure 12: Map of Nanjing in 1924 ..................................................................................................... 193 Figure 13: Merchant vessels and the Upper Yangtze rapids in 1928 ................................................ 208 Figure 14: Patrols by HMS Moorhen 1919-24.................................................................................... 216 Figure 15: Officers of the ‘cutting-out’ group taken the morning of 5 September ......................... 228 Figure 16: Map showing the extent of official Royal Navy protection on the Yangtze .................. 238 Page | 4 Introduction In recent years, discussion about the global balance of power has resurfaced amid China’s economic challenge to the United States of America (USA), questions about the relevance of post-1945 multilateral conventions, and renewed gunboat diplomacy. This is not the first time the world has seen such debates. Comparisons have already been drawn with the interwar period as a key phase in the previous transition between superpowers.1 British economic dominance had been broken by America’s rise. The British Empire hit its peak in size and influence, after which it began a slow decline that led to increasingly desperate attempts at maintaining the status quo, often using Britain’s key global power asset; the Royal Navy. Those inter-related transitions were particularly pronounced in East Asia, where British imperial influence came under sustained pressure. This thesis will explore the changes and challenges that affected the Royal Navy’s China Station, as it worked to maintain and defend the British Empire’s interests in and around China, over the course of that tumultuous decade. There have been some excellent studies of the two contrasting elements to developments in East Asia during the 1920s. In the field of imperial history, a recent flurry of accounts has explored specific elements of the economic, sociological, and diplomatic aspects of Britain’s relationship with China.2 Perhaps most notably, Robert Bickers has moved forward our understanding of the British Empire’s relationship with China and the ‘diplomacy of imperial retreat’, as Edmund Fung once described it, by a number of significant steps.3 In particular, 1 John H. Maurer and Christopher Bell, ‘Introduction’, in At the Crossroads Between Peace and War: The London Naval Conference in 1930 ed. by John H. Maurer and Christopher Bell, (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2014), pp.1-6. 2 E.g. Ian Phimister, 'Foreign Devils, Finance and Informal Empire: Britain and China c. 1900-1912', Modern Asian Studies 40/3 (2006), 737-759; Zhang Jianguo and Zhang Junyong, trans. by Alec Hill, Weihaiwei Under British Rule, (Jinan City: Shandong Pictorial, 2006); Zwia Lipkin, Useless to the State: "Social Problems" and Social Engineering in Nationalist Nanjing 1927-1937, (Cambridge, MA: HUP, 2006); Zhongping Chen, 'The May Fourth Movement and Provincial Warlords: A Reexamination' Modern China, 27/2 (2011), 135-169; Isabella