Signing of Washington Naval Treaty

Date: February 6, 1922 • Location: Rome, Italy

Representatives from France, Italy, Japan, the United States, and the United Kingdom signed the Washington Naval Treaty (pictured), agreeing to limits on naval construction in the hopes of preventing an arms race.

The Washington Naval Treaty, also known as the Five-Power Treaty, was signed during 1922 among the major Allies of World War I, who agreed to prevent an arms race by limiting naval construction. It was negotiated at the Washington Naval Conference in Washington, D.C., from November 1921 to February 1922 and signed by the governments of the British Empire, United States, France, Italy, and Japan. It limited the construction of battleships, battlecruisers and aircraft carriers by the signatories. The numbers of other categories of warships, including cruisers, destroyers, and submarines, were not limited by the treaty, but those ships were limited to 10,000 tons displacement each.