But the treaty of Versailles also prevented Germany to build a strong navy, both Germany and the UK had signed the treaty of Versailles. So by what rights could the UK discard the limitations agreed at Versailles without consulting its allies ? At the Stresa conference, Italy, France and the UK had agreed to oppose against any repudiations of the treaties. The UK betrayed both France and Italy. Many British might not like to hear it, but their country bear its fair part of guilt in the german rearmament.
Problem of hindsight.
The US went home in 1918. Already then the French in particular were requesting the US to stick around to sort out the European post-war order. The US did not. The fact that it stuck around and did it properly after 1945 is in itself a kind of admission that this was a mistake.
So that left the European victors to sort things out themselves. However the UK drew down its forces to peace-time levels quite quickly, relying on the RN, as it was accustomed to.
Effect? The role of enforcer and policeman for the entire post-WWI political order in Europe fell to the French pretty much by default. The post-WWI peacetime strength of the French army was still 1,5 million men.
OK. That could still work, if the division of labour and the French being trust into this role was at least tacitly accepted, and the French allowed to put their weight about.
Except now there was the 1923 occupation of the Ruhr, over Germany not coughing up the dough agreed in the settlement. So the rather massive French army invaded and took control. No problem with that so far. Except then comes the political fall out, and France is now the fall guy and British and US political support of Germany forces France to abandon what it's doing and bugger out of the Ruhr by 1925.
And certainly the French were being beastly, and poor Weimar republic Germany was put upon and by and large every bit as respectable a republic as the French at the time. I.e. it's not difficult to relate to the sympathy from the British towards the Weimar republic, and antipathy for the obvious French high handedness.
Except now we have a situation where the victors of WWI have fallen out between each other, and the power propelled into the after all rather thankless role of enforcer gets in turn nerfed in that role by its former allies. Which opens the question, if France is not going to be allowed to be the muscles of the post-war situation, what is everyone going to get up to instead?