Interwar optimism meets the Great Depression

Before the settlement, international conditions could be read as steadily improving, while extremist movements still appeared marginal. The boom economy encouraged governments to mortgage the future and assume continued prosperity, but the Great Depression exposed the fragility of that outlook. The treaty would have seemed far less damaging if peace had endured; its reputation instead reflects the rapid arrival of another world war. Without the London limits, Britain might have answered depression-era unemployment with cruiser, destroyer, and sloop construction, producing a younger and more numerous escort fleet by 1939.