Just as the new 16-inch battleships of the Chinese, the United States, and Great Britain began to be launched, and the Germans began to think about the next class of battleships, all the other countries interested in the sea had to drag their half-dead bodies already dragged by the war to keep up with the pace of the advancers. And two of them are the most active, one is France and the other is Italy! The reason for France is very realistic and tragic, after this war, the French Navy can already be described as existential in name only, and finally there are only 2 capital ships left, you know, at the beginning of the war, the French Navy is the fifth in the world, ranking higher than Italy, but after many bloody battles, the French Navy lost as many as hundreds of thousands of tons of warships, it can be said that the old capital of the years have been thrown in. However, as a country with a vast colony and adjacent to Italy as a Mediterranean sea power, France has to have a strong navy, although the current French navy no longer has the ambition and strength to compete for the ocean, but at least it can't be bullied by the Italians at home!

France, which also has no money, is still making relevant preparations, although it will not build it immediately. In general, the French were quite satisfied with the Brestani-class battleships. Even with the battleships of the US Navy were relatively satisfied. In addition, the mission of the French Navy has changed from competing for hegemony in the oceans to ensuring the security of the Mediterranean and the colonies, so the requirements for endurance and speed are not very high. As a result, the French Navy focused on armor and protection for new battleships. But even so, the French Navy still has a lot of criticism about the Americans' Colorado-class battleships. The low speed is really okay. And the protection and firepower are slightly worse, they feel that the firepower of the Tianjin-class battleships in Huaxia is arranged. And the performance in all aspects is very balanced, the speed is not particularly fast, but it is enough. It is also about firepower and protection.

However, considering the relationship between France and China in general. It's hard to get the technology and design you want. At the same time, the Americans are not very happy with the Colorado class. So the French decided to follow the old path of the Brestany-class and work with the Americans to develop a new battleship of the first class.

In 1921, the French planned to start construction of two battleships armed with 16-inch guns, and the fast battleships, named the Dunkirk class, had a guaranteed displacement of about 38,000 tons and a speed of about 25 knots. It is armed with 9 16-inch L45 naval guns. The armor protection requirements were stronger than those of the Hood-class battleships of the British. In addition to this class of fast battleships, the air force in World War 1 also attracted the attention of some high-level officials of the French Navy, and in the new maritime expansion plan, the French also proposed their own aircraft carrier design. But then in a high-level meeting of the Admiralty. Questions were raised about the fact that since the French Navy fought mainly in the Atlantic and Mediterranean Seas, there was no enemy too strong in the Atlantic direction. And the Mediterranean Sea is too small, almost within the combat radius of the French Air Force, in this case, is it necessary to build aircraft carriers? As a result, the two sides were at loggerheads. Plans for the construction of aircraft carriers were put on hold for the time being.

And the expansion plans of the French will inevitably affect Italy. Although in relation to the French Navy. The Italians still have a lot of possessions left, but in addition to a Longxiang-class battleship purchased from China, the remaining three Caraccino-class battleships are not ranked high in various countries, the German Bismarck-class battleships and two York-class battleships, the British's revenge-class battleships and Queen Elizabeth-class battleships, and the American Tennessee-class battleships are actually superior to the Caraccino-class battleships in terms of performance, and because of the damage caused by previous wars, this class of battleships has left quite a lot of hidden problems. So the Italian Navy also intends to update its own fleet. And the new expansion plan of the French navy has given Italy a sense of urgency. Italians don't forget jì. Italy had a lot to gain from France in this war!

Although Italy's national strength was not as strong as France's, its losses in the war were much smaller than France's. Plus after the end of this war, Italy had nothing left except 4 capital ships and some destroyers. So replenishment of battleships is also needed. However, in addition to these well-known reasons, there is another reason for Italy's military expansion, that is, Italy no longer trusts the Allied bloc led by Germany! Credibility can only be done once! Since last time, Germany was able to heed the advice of Austria-Hungary and use it to stumble on Italy. Then there will definitely be a next time, this time Italy is luck, and it was Huaxia who came forward to help solve the problem, so what about the next time? And strategically speaking, Italy was content with its current shape, and after acquiring parts of the Balkans and parts of North Africa, Italy was not much aggressive. Therefore, the opinion of Germany aimed to form a unified Allied fleet was not concerned, and Italy thought more about how to preserve the fruits of the present victory, and if necessary, to use its strength to ensure its neutrality.

In terms of the design of the battleship, Vittorio, who is already old, built an Italian imitation of the Tianjin-class battleship of the Chinese people, and considering the naval cooperation between the two countries, some information can still be obtained. So it was decided to design a new ship on this basis, because the economic situation was not good, so Italy decided to start the same number of warships as France. In terms of aviation, the Italian Navy is a little ahead of the French Navy, and the reason is that the Italian top brass realizes that only the Navy can really constitute a certain deterrent to other powers, and in terms of land, Italy is not as good as Britain, France and Germany, even Austria-Hungary and the Russians! But fortunately, there are mountains in the north as a block, and the pressure is not very great. Therefore, in order to maintain the deterrent effect of this long sword at sea, the Italian top will do everything to strengthen the construction of naval aviation, including aircraft carriers.

In addition to these two countries, Austria-Hungary is also considering its own naval reconstruction plan, after all, Austria-Hungary now has only 1 capital ship, and similar to the German strategic situation, since the fall of Russia, Austria-Hungary's ground pressure has become very small, the need for land will also be reduced, and at the same time, in response to Germany's strategy of eastward expansion into India, Austria-Hungary is also in urgent need of expanding its fleet. This was not only because of the restorative growth after the defeat, but also because of the expansion tendencies.

As in history, Austria-Hungary also decided to hug Germany's thigh this time, and how the next German battleship was built, then how it built itself. Considering that the other two naval powers in the Mediterranean are planning to start construction of two capital ships, let's start one by ourselves, it is really faceless, let's start construction of three, and the economy is very tight, so they simply start construction of two, as for aircraft carriers, Austria-Hungary has no idea. The Germans had never done this, and Austria-Hungary had nothing to learn from, and more importantly, it was not so urgent.

In addition to these countries, there is another silent country that is also on the rise, and this country is Russia that was born on the corpse of Tsarist Russia. With the support of Germany, the former Russian Provisional Government finally swept away the opposition forces in the country, although Russia had lost North Asia at this time, the entire Central Asian region was also independent, and even the most elite part of Russia in Eastern Europe was gnawed off a large piece, Ukraine was also split from it, and now, Russia, which was originally a second-rate power in the world, has finally become a last-tier power. However, if you only look at the total area of the country, the newly born Russia is still a large European country!

After Italy's abnormal behavior, Germany felt that it needed to make up for the impact of the lack of an Italian navy, so Russia became an excellent choice to replace Italy, but at this time Russia no longer had the need to have a navy, the Baltic Sea was Germany's inland sea, and the Black Sea coast was basically no longer connected to Russia. However, as a government supported by Germany, Russia did not have much choice. And considering the reason why Russia's vitality was greatly damaged at this time, and the domestic disputes had just been settled, Germany's request to Russia was also very simple, mainly to provide some destroyers, light cruisers and submarines.

The war has ended, but the major powers are preparing for the next war, the vast majority of countries are already powerless, Britain and France have shed blood in World War 1, and Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy have obtained war dividends, but it will take time to digest these dividends. Funds are also very tight in a short period of time. Although the United States and China do not have any problems economically, they both want to exchange their own advantages at the lowest price, and the result of the endless arms race can only be thankless, for the United States and China, the two countries are in the best economic situation at present, and the possibility of direct confrontation between these two countries is extremely low from a geographical point of view, and the vast Pacific Ocean makes it impossible for either side to do anything with the other. Sometimes the muscles are just to deter the opponent and prepare for the peace talks that follow.

As for Britain, France, Germany, Austria and Italy and other countries, they have long hoped that they can limit the opponent's armament through negotiations, in order to heal the wounds of the war, it is impossible to have a few years, so they wish that everyone would not build warships, and then wait until their strength is restored before starting an arms race.

And this time it was US President Nelson who proposed the naval arms negotiations, and then Britain and France responded, China expressed its support, and the Allied bloc also said that it was acceptable after research, unlike history, more countries participated in the naval arms negotiations this time, including China, the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Austria, Italy, Spain and Turkey, a total of nine countries participated in the negotiations, of course, the latter two countries were strongly requested by the Entente group to join, because the other party is an enemy country, although the strength is not good, However, in order to completely close the loopholes, they were also asked to join the negotiations, and Germany also demanded that the warship tonnage of the British Dominion also be added to the British Navy. As for the place of negotiations? After agreeing on the agreement, the two sides decided to hold negotiations in Beijing, the capital of China, the only neutral country. As a result, the negotiations on the arms limitation of the Beijing Navy, which had a huge impact in later generations, slowly kicked off.

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