How an intact fleet reshapes Allied bargaining

Britain wanted German naval capability removed, while France and Italy had counted on captured battleships strongly enough that Italy paused its Caracciolo class and France allowed its own construction to move slowly. Wilson's stroke and a Republican-controlled Congress had already weakened American cooperation over Versailles and the League of Nations. An American share of the intact fleet would give Washington a reason to remain engaged because a separate peace might jeopardize access to the prizes. The ships were less useful operationally than first-rank domestic construction, with foreign machinery and logistics difficult to integrate, yet numbers, prestige, technical value, and expendability mattered politically. A free battle division could therefore raise a smaller navy's status and power even if it burdened that navy in service.