Time flew by, and the world situation grew ever tenser. After the London Naval Arms Treaty expired, the major signatory powers failed to reach an agreement over their respective quotas, and the negotiations were declared a failure.
In 1933, before the nations had even managed to fully shake off the economic crisis, a naval arms race erupted.
To everyone's surprise, Bulgaria was not the first to provoke the arms race.
By convention, wasn't it always the world's number two challenging the world's number one? Why was the script wrong this time?
Hit by the economic crisis, Japan, deprived of American support, was the first to buckle, taking the lead down the road of militarism.
Germany and Italy followed suit, each tearing up the Treaty of Versailles and beginning to expand their armed forces in preparation for war.
In 1934, Germany's central government expanded its army from sixty thousand men to two hundred and thirty thousand; the Italians likewise expanded theirs from thirty thousand to one hundred and twenty thousand.
War had become the theme of all three nations. Germany and Italy had no choice but to head toward war—the pressure of the Versailles System had left their internal conflicts on the verge of boiling over.
Japan, meanwhile, had a government unable to control its military, and a military unable to control its officers and men. Dragged along by its mid- and lower-ranking officers, it marched step by step into the abyss.
In 1933, the Japanese government announced a new shipbuilding program: two battleships, one aircraft carrier, four cruisers, and more to be built within five years...
The Japanese Navy's primary hypothetical enemy was the British, with Bulgaria only second. Building more than forty warships of all sizes within five years was an outright record for the Japanese government.
Well, there