PART III
NAVAL AND NATIONAL POLICIES
31. EXPANSION AND OVER-SEA BASES[106]
_The Annexation of Hawaii_
[As the date indicates, the essay was written at the time of the Revolution in Hawaii, six years before its annexation. The part of the essay preceding points out the predominant interest of the United States in the Islands owing to their control of our trade routes and naval approaches, and refers to the benefit to the world from British colonial expansion.—EDITOR.]
But if a plea of the world’s welfare seem suspiciously like a cloak for national self-interest, let the latter be accepted frankly as the adequate motive which it assuredly is. Let us not shrink from pitting a broad self-interest against the narrow self-interest to which some would restrict us. The demands of our three great seaboards, the Atlantic, the Gulf, and the Pacific,—each for itself, and all for the strength that comes from drawing closer the ties between them,—are calling for the extension, through the Isthmian Canal, of that broad sea common along which, and along which alone, in all the ages prosperity has moved. Land carriage, always restricted and therefore always slow, toils enviously but hopelessly behind, vainly seeking to replace and supplant the royal highway of nature’s own making. Corporate interests, vigorous in that power of concentration which is the strength of armies and of minorities, may here withstand for a while the ill-organized strivings of the multitude, only dimly conscious of its wants; yet the latter, however temporarily opposed and baffled, is sure at last, like the blind forces of nature, to overwhelm all that stand in the way of its necessary progress. So the Isthmian Canal is an inevitable part in the future of the United States; yet one that cannot be separated from other necessary incidents of a policy dependent upon it, whose details cannot be foreseen exactly. But because the precise steps that hereafter may be opportune or necessary cannot yet be foretold certainly, is not a reason the less, but a reason the more, for establishing a principle of action which may serve to guide as opportunities arise. Let us start from the fundamental truth, warranted by history, that the control of the seas, and especially along the great lines drawn by national interest or national commerce, is the chief among the merely material elements in the power and prosperity of nations. It is so because the sea is the world’s great medium of circulation. From this necessarily follows the principle that, as subsidiary to such control, it is imperative to take possession, when it can be done righteously, of such maritime positions as contribute to secure command. If this principle be adopted, there will be no hesitation about taking the positions—and they are many—upon the approaches to the Isthmus, whose interests incline them to seek us. It has its application also to the present case of Hawaii.
There is, however, one caution to be given from the military point of view, beyond the need of which the world has not yet passed. Military positions, fortified posts, by land or by sea, however strong or admirably situated, do not confer control by themselves alone. People often say that such an island or harbor will give control of such a body of water. It is an utter, deplorable, ruinous mistake. The phrase indeed may be used by some only loosely, without forgetting other implied conditions of adequate protection and adequate navies; but the confidence of our own nation in its native strength, and its indifference to the defense of its ports and the sufficiency of its fleet, give reason to fear that the full consequences of a forward step may not be weighed soberly. Napoleon, who knew better, once talked this way. “The islands of San Pietro, Corfu, and Malta,” he wrote, “will make us masters of the whole Mediterranean.” Vain boast! Within one year Corfu, in two years Malta, were rent away from the state that could not support them by its ships. Nay, more: had Bonaparte not taken the latter stronghold out of the hands of its degenerate but innocuous government, that citadel of the Mediterranean would perhaps—would probably—never have passed into those of his chief enemy. There is here also a lesson for us.
32. APPLICATION OF THE MONROE DOCTRINE[107]
_Anglo-American Community of Interests_
The writer has too often already discussed, directly or incidentally, the strategic situation which finds its center in Panama to repeat the same here; but one or two remarks about the Monroe doctrine may be not out of place. Accepting as probably durable the new conditions, which have so largely modified the nation’s external policy in the direction of expansion, there is in them nothing to diminish, but rather to intensify, the purpose that there shall be no intrusion of the European political system upon territory whence military effect upon the Isthmus of Panama can be readily exerted. For instance, should a change anticipated by some occur, and Holland enter the German Empire, it will be advantageous that it should even now be understood, as it then would be necessary for us to say, that our consent could not be given to Curaçao forming part of that incorporation. The Isthmus of Panama—in addition to its special importance to us as a link between our Pacific and Atlantic coasts—sums up in itself that one of the two great lines of communication between the Atlantic and the farther East which especially concerns us, and we can no more consent to such a transfer of a fortress in the Caribbean, than we would ourselves have thought of acquiring Port Mahon, in the Mediterranean, as a result of our successful war with Spain.
Consideration of interests such as these must be dispassionate upon the one side and upon the other; and a perfectly candid reception must be accorded to the views and the necessities of those with whom we thus deal. During the process of deliberation not merely must preconceptions be discarded, but sentiment itself should be laid aside, to resume its sway only after unbiassed judgment has done its work. The present question of Asia, the evolution of which has taken days rather than years, may entail among its results no change in old maxims, but it nevertheless calls for a review of them in the light of present facts. If from this no difference of attitude results, the confirmed resolve of sober second thought will in itself alone be a national gain. This new Eastern question has greatly affected the importance of communications, enhancing that of the shorter routes, reversing political and military,—as distinguished from mercantile—conditions, and bringing again into the foreground of interest the Mediterranean, thus reinvested with its ancient pre-eminence. For the same reason the Caribbean Sea, because of its effect upon the Isthmus of Panama, attains a position it has never before held, emphasizing the application to it of the Monroe doctrine. The Pacific has advanced manifold in consequence to the United States, not only as an opening market, but as a means of transit, and also because our new possessions there, by giving increased opportunities, entail correspondingly heavier burdens of national responsibility. The isthmian canals, present and to come,—Suez and Panama,—summarize and locally accentuate the essential character of these changes, of which they are at once an exponent and a factor. It will be no light matter that man shall have shifted the Strait of Magellan to the Isthmus of Panama, and the Cape of Good Hope to the head of the Mediterranean.
The correlative of these new conditions is the comparative isolation, and the dwindled consequence, of the southern extremes of Africa and America, which now lie far apart from the changed direction imposed upon the world’s policies. The regions there situated will have small effect upon the great lines of travel, and must derive such importance as may remain to them from their intrinsic productive value. Does there, then, remain sound reason of national interest for pressing the Monroe doctrine to the extent of guaranteeing our support to American states which love us not, and whose geographical position, south of the valley of the Amazon, lies outside of effective influence upon the American isthmus? Does the disposition to do so arise from sound policy, or from sentiment, or from mere habit? And, if from either, do the facts justify retaining a burden of responsibility which may embarrass our effective
## action in fields of greater national consequence—just as South Africa
may prove a drain upon Great Britain’s necessary force about Suez? In short, while the principles upon which the Monroe doctrine reposes are not only unimpaired, but fortified, by recent changes, is it not possible that the application of them may require modification, intensifying their force in one quarter, diminishing it in another?
Not the least striking and important of the conditions brought about by the two contemporary events—the downfall of the Spanish colonial empire and the precipitation of the crisis in eastern Asia—has been the drawing closer together of the two great English-speaking nationalities. Despite recalcitrant objections here and there by unwilling elements on both sides, the fact remains concrete and apparent, endued with essential life, and consequent inevitable growth, by virtue of a clearly recognized community of interest, present and future. It is no mere sentimental phase, though sentiment, long quietly growing, had sufficiently matured to contribute its powerful influence at the opportune moment; but here, as ever, there was first the material,—identity of interest,—and not till afterwards the spiritual,—reciprocity of feeling,—aroused to mutual recognition by the causes and motives of the Spanish war. That war, and the occurrences attendant, proclaimed emphatically that the two countries, in their ideals of duty to the suffering and oppressed, stood together, indeed, but in comparative isolation from the sympathies of the rest of the world.[108]
The significance of this fact has been accentuated by the precision with which in the United States the preponderance of intelligence has discerned, and amid many superficially confusing details has kept in mind, as the reasonable guide to its sympathies, that the war in the Transvaal is simply a belated revival of the issue on which our own Revolution was fought, viz., that when representation is denied, taxation is violent oppression. The principle is common to Great Britain and to us, woven into the web of all her history, despite the momentary aberration which led to our revolt. The twofold incident—the two wars and the sympathies aroused, because in both each nation recognized community of principle and of ideals—indicates another great approximation to the unity of mankind; which will arrive in good time, but which is not to be hurried by force or by the impatience of dreamers. The outcome of the civil war in the United States, the unification of Italy, the new German Empire, the growing strength of the idea of Imperial Federation in Great Britain, all illustrate the tendency of humanity to aggregate into greater groups, which in the instances cited have resulted in political combination more or less formal and clearly defined. To the impulse and establishment of each of these steps in advance, war has played a principal part. War it was which preserved our Union. War it was which completed the political unity of Italy, and brought the Germans into that accord of sentiment and of recognized interest upon which rest the foundations and the continuance of their empire. War it is which has but now quickened the spirit of sympathy between Great Britain and her colonies, and given to Imperial Federation an acceleration into concrete action which could not otherwise have been imparted; and it needed the stress of war, the threat of outside interference with a sister nation in its mission of benevolence, to quicken into positive action the sympathy of Great Britain with the United States, and to dispose the latter to welcome gladly and to return cordially the invaluable support thus offered.
War is assuredly a very great evil; not the greatest, but among the greatest which afflict humanity. Yet let it be recognized at this moment, when the word “Arbitration” has hold of popular imagination, more perhaps by the melody of its associations,—like the “Mesopotamia” of the preacher,—than by virtue of a reasonable consideration of both sides of the question, of which it represents only one, that within two years two wars have arisen, the righteous object of either of which has been unattainable by milder methods. When the United States went to war with Spain, four hundred thousand of the latter’s colonial subjects had lost their lives by the slow misery of starvation, inflicted by a measure—Reconcentration—which was intended, but had proved inadequate, to suppress an insurrection incited by centuries of oppression and by repeated broken pledges. The justification of that war rests upon our right to interfere on grounds of simple humanity, and upon the demonstrated inability of Spain to rule her distant colonies by methods unharmful to the governed. It was impossible to accept renewed promises, not necessarily through distrust of their honesty, but because political incapacity to give just and good administration had been proved by repeated failures.
The justification of Great Britain’s war with the Transvaal rests upon a like right of interference—to relieve oppression—and upon the broad general principle for which our colonial ancestors fought the mother-country over a century ago, that “taxation without representation is tyranny.” Great Britain, indeed, did not demand the franchise for her misgoverned subjects, domiciled abroad; she only suggested it as a means whereby they might, in return for producing nine tenths of the revenue, obtain fair treatment from the state which was denying it to them. But be it remembered, not only that a cardinal principle upon which English and American liberty rests was being violated, but that at the time when the foreigners were encouraged to enter the Transvaal franchise was attainable by law in five years, while before the five years had expired the law was changed, and the privilege withdrawn by _ex post facto_ act.
In each of these wars one of the two nations which speak the English tongue has taken a part, and in each the one engaged has had outspoken sympathy from the other, and from the other alone. The fact has been less evident in the Transvaal war, partly because the issue has been less clear, or less clearly put, chiefly because many foreign-born citizens of the United States still carry with them the prepossessions of their birthplace, rather than those which should arise from perception of their country’s interest.
Nevertheless, the foundations stand sure. We have begun to know each other, in community of interest and of traditions, in ideals of equality and of law. As the realization of this spreads, the two states, in their various communities, will more and more closely draw together in the unity of spirit, and all the surer that they eschew the bondage of the letter of alliance.
33. CHANGES IN THE UNITED STATES AND JAPAN[109]
The occidentalization of Japan, in methods although not in national spirit,—which changes much more slowly,—has been fully demonstrated to an astonished world by the war of 1894 with China. It is one of the incidents of the closing nineteenth century. To this achievement in the military sphere, in the practice of war which Napoleon called the science of barbarians, must be added the development of civil institutions that has resulted in the concession to Japan of all international dignity and privilege; and consequently of a control over the administration of justice among foreigners within her borders, not heretofore obtained by any other Oriental State. It has thus become evident that the weight of Japan in the international balances depends not upon the quality of her achievement, which has been shown to be excellent, but upon the gross amount of her power. Moreover, while in wealth and population, with the resources dependent upon them, she may be deficient,—though rapidly growing,—her geographical position relatively to the Eastern center of interest, and her advantage of insularity, go far to compensate such defect. These confer upon her as a factor in the Eastern problem an influence resembling in kind, if not equaling in degree, that which Great Britain has held and still holds in the international relations centering around Europe, the Atlantic, and the Mediterranean.
Yet the change in Japan, significant as it is and influential upon the great problem of the Pacific and Asia, is less remarkable and less important than that which has occurred in the United States. If in the Orient a nation may be said to have been born in a day, even so the event is less sudden and less revolutionary than the conversion of spirit and of ideals—the new birth—which has come over our own country. In this are evident a rapidity and a thoroughness which bespeak impulse from an external source rather than any conscious set process of deliberation, of self-determination within, such as has been that of Japan in her recognition and adoption of material improvements forced upon her attention in other peoples. No man or group of men can pretend to have guided and governed our people in the adoption of a new policy, the acceptance of which has been rather instinctive—I would prefer to say inspired—than reasoned. There is just this difference between Japan and ourselves, the two most changed of peoples within the last half-century. She has adopted other methods; we have received another purpose. The one conversion is material, the other spiritual. When we talk about expansion we are in the realm of ideas. The material addition of expansion—the acreage, if I may so say—is trivial compared with our previous possessions, or with the annexations by European states within a few years. The material profit otherwise, the national gain to us, is at best doubtful. What the nation has gained in expansion is a regenerating idea, an uplifting of the heart, a seed of future beneficent activity, a going out of self into the world to communicate the gift it has so bountifully received.
34. OUR INTERESTS IN THE PACIFIC[110]
[The preceding pages of the essay explain the dependence of the “Open Door” policy on an international balance of power in the Pacific, and the modification of this balance owing to the growth of the German Navy and the increasing European tension.—EDITOR.]
The result is to leave the two chief Pacific nations, the United States and Japan, whose are the only two great navies that have coastlines on that ocean, to represent there the balance of power. This is the best security for international peace; because it represents, not a bargain, but a fact, readily ascertainable. Those two navies are more easily able than any other to maintain there a concentration of force; and it may even be questioned whether sound military policy may not make the Pacific rather than the Atlantic the station for the United States battle fleet. For the balance of naval power in Europe, which compels the retention of the British and German fleets in the North Sea, protects the Atlantic coast of the United States,—and the Monroe Doctrine,—to a degree to which nothing in Pacific conditions corresponds. Under existing circumstances, neither Germany nor Great Britain can afford, even did they desire, to infringe the external policy of the United States represented in the Monroe Doctrine.
With Japan in the Pacific, and in her attitude towards the Open Door, the case is very different from that of European or American Powers. Her nearness to China, Manchuria, Korea, gives the natural commercial advantages that short and rapid transportation always confers. Labor with her is still cheap, another advantage in open competition; but the very fact of these near natural markets, and her interest in them, cannot but breed that sense of proprietorship which, in dealing with ill-organized states, easily glides into the attempt at political control that ultimately means control by force. Hence the frequent reports, true or untrue, that such advantage is sought and accomplished. Whether true or not, these illustrate what nations continually seek, when opportunity offers or can be made. This is in strict line with that which we call Protection; but with the difference that Protection is exercised within the sphere commonly recognized as legitimate, either by International Law or by the policy of competing states. The mingled weakness and perverseness of Chinese negotiators invite such attempt, and endanger the Open Door; give rise to continual suspicion that undue influence resting upon force is affecting equality of treatment, or is establishing a basis for inequality in the future. There can be no question that the general recent attitude of Russia and Japan, however laudably meant, does arouse such suspicions.
Then again, the American possession, the Hawaiian Islands, are predominantly Japanese in labor population; a condition which, as the outcome of little more than a generation, warrants the jealousy of Japanese immigration on the part of the Pacific coast. Finally, the population of that coast is relatively scanty, and its communications with the East, though rapid for express trains, are slow for the immense traffic of men and stores which war implies and requires. That is, the power of the country east of the Rocky Mountains has far to go, and with poor conveyance, in order to reinforce the Western Coast; the exact opposite of our advantage of rapid maritime access to the Panama Canal. In the absence of the fleet, invasion may be easy. Harm may be retrieved in measure by the arrival of the fleet later; but under present world conditions the Pacific coast seems incomparably the more exposed of the three great divisions of the American shore line—the Atlantic, the Gulf, and the Pacific.
35. THE GERMAN STATE AND ITS MENACE[111]
The prototype of modern Germany is to be found rather in the Roman Empire, to which in a certain sense the present German Empire may be said to be—if not heir—at least historically affiliated. The Holy Roman Empire merged into that somewhat extenuated figment attached to the Austrian Hapsburgs, which finally deceased at the opening of the nineteenth century; but the idea itself survived, and was influential in determining the form and name which the existing powerful Germanic unity has assumed. To this unity the national German character contributes an element not unlike that of antiquity, in the subordination of the individual to the state. As a matter of national characteristic, this differs radically from the more modern conception of the freedom and rights of the individual, exemplified chiefly in England and the United States. It is possible to accept the latter as the superior ideal, as a higher stage of advance, as ultimately more fruitful of political progress, yet at the same time to recognize the great immediate advantage of the massed action which subordinates the interests of the individual, sinks the unit in the whole, in order to promote the interests of the community. It may be noted incidentally, without further insistence just here, that the Japanese Empire, which in a different field from the German is manifesting the same restless need for self-assertion and expansion, comes to its present with the same inheritance from its past, of the submergence of the individual in the mass. It was equally the characteristic of Sparta among the city states of ancient Greece, and gave to her among them the preponderance she for a time possessed. As an exhibition of social development, it is generally anterior and inferior to that in which the rights of the individual are more fully recognized; but as an element of mere force, whether in economics or in international policies, it is superior.
The two contrasted conceptions, the claims of the individual and the claims of the state, are familiar to all students of history. The two undoubtedly must coexist everywhere, and have to be reconciled; but the nature of the adjustment, in the clear predominance of the one or the other, constitutes a difference which in effect upon the particular community is fundamental. In international relations, between states representing the opposing ideas, it reproduces the contrast between the simple discipline of an army and the complicated disseminated activities of the people, industrial, agricultural, and commercial. It repeats the struggle of the many minor mercantile firms against a single great combination. In either field, whatever the ultimate issue,—and in the end the many will prevail,—the immediate result is that preponderant concentrated force has its way for a period which may thus be one of great and needless distress; and it not only has its way, but it takes its way, because, whatever progress the world has made, the stage has not been reached when men or states willingly subordinate their own interests to even a reasonable regard for that of others. It is not necessary to indulge in pessimistic apprehension, or to deny that there is a real progress of the moral forces lumped under the name of “public opinion.” This unquestionably tells for much more than it once did; but still the old predatory instinct, that he should take who has the power, survives, in industry and commerce, as well as in war, and moral force is not sufficient to determine issues unless supported by physical. Governments are corporations, and corporations have not souls. Governments moreover are trustees, not principals; and as such must put first the lawful interests of their wards, their own people.
It matters little what may be the particular intentions now cherished by the German government. The fact upon which the contemporary world needs to fasten its attention is that it is confronted by the simple existence of a power such as is that of the German Empire; reinforced necessarily by that of Austria-Hungary, because, whatever her internal troubles and external ambitions, Austria is bound to Germany by nearness, by inferior power, and by interests, partly common to the two states, as surely as the moon is bound to the earth and with it constitutes a single group in the planetary system. Over against this stands for the moment a number of states, Russia, Italy, France, Great Britain. The recent action of Russia has demonstrated her international weakness, the internal causes of which are evident even to the most careless observer. Italy still belongs to the Triple Alliance, of which Germany and Austria are the other members; but the inclination of Italy towards England, springing from past sympathies, and as a state necessarily naval, because partly insular, partly peninsular, is known, as is also her recent drawing towards France as compared with former estrangement. Also, in the Balkan regions and in the Adriatic Sea there is more than divergence between the interest of Italy and the ambitions of Austria,—supported by Germany,—as shown in the late annexations and their antecedents. An Austrian journal, which fore-shadowed the annexations with singular acumen, has written recently,[112] “We most urgently need a fleet so strong that it can rule the Northern Adriatic basin,”—in which lies the Italian Venice, as well as the Austrian Trieste,—“support the operations of our land army, protect our chief commercial ports against hostile maritime undertakings, and prevent us from being throttled at the Strait of Otranto. To do this, the fleet must at least attain the approximate strength of our probable enemy. If we lag behind in developing our naval programme, Italy will so outrun us that we can never overtake her. Here more than elsewhere to stand still is to recede; but to recede would be to renounce the historical mission of Austria.” The Austrian _Dreadnoughts_ are proceeding, and the above throws an interesting side light upon the equipoise of the Triple Alliance. In the Algeciras Conference, concerning the affairs of Morocco, Italy did not sustain Germany; Austria only did so.
Analyzing thus the present international relations of Europe, we find on the one side the recently constituted Triple _Entente_, France, Great Britain, and Russia; on the other the Triple Alliance, Austria-Hungary, Germany, and Italy, of thirty years’ standing. The sympathies of Italy, as distinguished from the pressure of conditions upon her, and from her formal association, are doubtful; and the essentials of the situation seem to be summed up in the Triple _Entente_ opposed by the two mid-Europe military monarchies.
_The Bulwark of British Sea Power_[113]
[The intervening pages show that exposure on their land frontiers would weaken the aid that could be given Great Britain by her allies in continental Europe.—EDITOR.]
These conclusions, if reasonable, not only emphasize the paramount importance in world politics of the British navy, but they show also that there are only two naval states which can afford to help Great Britain with naval force, because they alone have no land frontiers which march with those of Germany. These states are Japan and the United States. In looking to the future, it becomes for them a question whether it will be to their interest, whether they can afford, to exchange the naval supremacy of Great Britain for that of Germany; for this alternative may arise. Those two states and Germany cannot, as matters now stand, touch one another, except on the open sea; whereas the character of the British Empire is such that it has everywhere sea frontiers, is everywhere assailable where local naval superiority does not exist, as for instance in Australia, and other Eastern possessions. The United States has upon Great Britain the further check of Canada, open to land attack.
A German navy, supreme by the fall of Great Britain, with a supreme German army able to spare readily a large expeditionary force for over-sea operations, is one of the possibilities of the future. Great Britain for long periods, in the Seven Years War and Napoleonic struggle, 1756–1815, has been able to do, and has done, just this; not because she has had a supreme army, but because, thanks to her insular situation, her naval supremacy covered effectually both the home positions and the expedition. The future ability of Germany thus to act is emphasized to the point of probability by the budgetary difficulties of Great Britain, by the general disorganization of Russia, and by the arrest of population in France. Though vastly the richer nation, the people of Great Britain, for the very reason of greater wealth long enjoyed, are not habituated to the economical endurance of the German; nor can the habits of individual liberty in England or America accept, unless under duress, the heavy yoke of organization, of regulation of individual action, which constitutes the power of Germany among modern states.
The rivalry between Germany and Great Britain to-day is the danger point, not only of European politics, but of world politics as well.
36. ADVANTAGES OF INSULAR POSITION[114]
_Great Britain and the Continental Powers_
Every war has two aspects, the defensive and the offensive, to each of which there is a corresponding factor of activity. There is something to gain, the offensive; there is something to lose, the defensive. The ears of men, especially of the uninstructed, are more readily and sympathetically open to the demands of the latter. It appeals to the conservatism which is dominant in the well-to-do, and to the widespread timidity which hesitates to take any risk for the sake of a probable though uncertain gain. The sentiment is entirely respectable in itself, and more than respectable when its power is exercised against breach of the peace for other than the gravest motives—for any mere lucre of gain. But its limitations must be understood. A sound defensive scheme, sustaining the bases of the national force, is the foundation upon which war rests; but who lays a foundation without intending a superstructure? The offensive element in warfare is the superstructure, the end and aim for which the defensive exists, and apart from which it is to all purposes of war worse than useless. When war has been accepted as necessary, success means nothing short of victory; and victory must be sought by offensive measures, and by them only can be ensured. “Being in, bear it, that the opposer may be ware of thee.” No mere defensive attitude or action avails to such end. Whatever the particular mode of offensive action adopted, whether it be direct military attack, or the national exhaustion of the opponent by cutting off the sources of national well-being, whatsoever method may be chosen, offense, injury, weakening of the foe, to annihilation if need be, must be the guiding purpose of the belligerent. Success will certainly attend him who drives his adversary into the position of the defensive and keeps him there.
Offense therefore dominates, but it does not exclude. The necessity for defense remains obligatory, though subordinate. The two are complementary. It is only in the reversal of _rôles_, by which priority of importance is assigned to the defensive, that ultimate defeat is involved. Nor is this all. Though opposed in idea and separable in method of action, circumstances not infrequently have permitted the union of the two in a single general plan of campaign, which protects at the same time that it attacks. “Fitz James’s blade was sword and shield.” Of this the system of blockades by the British Navy during the Napoleonic wars was a marked example. Thrust up against the ports of France, and lining her coasts, they covered—shielded—the operations of their own commerce and cruisers in every sea; while at the same time, crossing swords, as it were, with the fleets within, ever on guard, ready to attack, should the enemy give an opening by quitting the shelter of his ports, they frustrated his efforts at a combination of his squadrons by which alone he could hope to reverse conditions. All this was defensive; but the same operation cut the sinews of the enemy’s power by depriving him of sea-borne commerce, and promoted the reduction of his colonies. Both these were measures of offense; and both, it may be added, were directed upon the national communications, the sources of national well-being. The means was one, the effect twofold....
[It is shown that, in the case of insular states, offense and defense are often closely combined, home security depending on control of the sea assured by offensive action of the national fleet.—EDITOR.]
An insular state, which alone can be purely maritime, therefore contemplates war from a position of antecedent probable superiority from the twofold concentration of its policy; defense and offense being closely identified, and energy, if exerted judiciously, being fixed upon the increase of naval force to the clear subordination of that more narrowly styled military. The conditions tend to minimize the division of effort between offensive and defensive, purpose, and, by greater comparative development of the fleet, to supply a larger margin of disposable numbers in order to constitute a mobile superiority at a
## particular point of the general field. Such a decisive local superiority
at the critical point of action is the chief end of the military art, alike in tactics and strategy. Hence it is clear that an insular state, if attentive to the conditions that should dictate its policy, is inevitably led to possess a superiority in that particular kind of force, the mobility of which enables it most readily to project its power to the more distant quarters of the earth, and also to change its point of application at will with unequalled rapidity.
The general considerations that have been advanced concern all the great European nations, in so far as they look outside their own continent, and to maritime expansion, for the extension of national influence and power; but the effect upon the action of each differs necessarily according to their several conditions. The problem of sea-defense, for instance, relates primarily to the protection of the national commerce everywhere, and specifically as it draws near the home ports; serious attack upon the coast, or upon the ports themselves, being a secondary consideration, because little likely to befall a nation able to extend its power far enough to sea to protect its merchant ships. From this point of view the position of Germany is embarrassed at once by the fact that she has, as regards the world at large, but one coast-line. To and from this all her sea commerce must go; either passing the English Channel, flanked for three hundred miles by France on the one side and England on the other, or else going north about by the Orkneys, a most inconvenient circuit, and obtaining but imperfect shelter from recourse to this deflected route. Holland, in her ancient wars with England, when the two were fairly matched in point of numbers, had dire experience of this false position, though her navy was little inferior in numbers to that of her opponent. This is another exemplification of the truth that distance is a factor equivalent to a certain number of ships. Sea-defense for Germany, in case of war with France or England, means established naval predominance at least in the North Sea; nor can it be considered complete unless extended through the Channel and as far as Great Britain will have to project hers into the Atlantic. This is Germany’s initial disadvantage of position, to be overcome only by adequate superiority of numbers; and it receives little compensation from the security of her Baltic trade, and the facility for closing that sea to her enemies. In fact, Great Britain, whose North Sea trade is but one-fourth of her total, lies to Germany as Ireland does to Great Britain, flanking both routes to the Atlantic; but the great development of the British sea-coast, its numerous ports and ample internal communications, strengthen that element of sea-defense which consists in abundant access to harbors of refuge.
For the Baltic Powers, which comprise all the maritime States east of Germany, the commercial drawback of the Orkney route is a little less than for Hamburg and Bremen, in that the exit from the Baltic is nearly equidistant from the north and south extremities of England; nevertheless the excess in distance over the Channel route remains very considerable. The initial naval disadvantage is in no wise diminished. For all the communities east of the Straits of Dover it remains true that in war commerce is paralyzed, and all the resultant consequences of impaired national strength entailed, unless decisive control of the North Sea is established. That effected, there is security for commerce by the northern passage; but this alone is mere defense. Offense, exerted anywhere on the globe, requires a surplusage of force, over that required to hold the North Sea, sufficient to extend and maintain itself west of the British Islands. In case of war with either of the Channel Powers, this means, as between the two opponents, that the eastern belligerent has to guard a long line of communications, and maintain distant positions, against an antagonist resting on a central position, with interior lines, able to strike at choice at either wing of the enemy’s extended front. The relation which the English Channel, with its branch the Irish Sea, bears to the North Sea and the Atlantic—that of an interior position—is the same which the Mediterranean bears to the Atlantic and the Indian Sea; nor is it merely fanciful to trace in the passage round the north of Scotland an analogy to that by the Cape of Good Hope. It is a reproduction in miniature. The conditions are similar, the scale different. What the one is to a war whose scene is the north of Europe, the other is to operations by European Powers in Eastern Asia.
To protract such a situation is intolerable to the purse and _morale_ of the belligerent who has the disadvantage of position. This of course leads us straight back to the fundamental principles of all naval war, namely, that defense is ensured only by offense, and that the one decisive objective of the offensive is the enemy’s organized force, his battle fleet. Therefore, in the event of a war between one of the Channel Powers, and one or more of those to the eastward, the control of the North Sea must be at once decided. For the eastern State it is a matter of obvious immediate necessity, of commercial self-preservation. For the western State the offensive motive is equally imperative; but for Great Britain there is defensive need as well. Her Empire imposes such a development of naval force as makes it economically impracticable to maintain an army as large as those of the Continent. Security against invasion depends therefore upon the fleet. Postponing more distant interests, she must here concentrate an indisputable superiority. It is, however, inconceivable that against any one Power Great Britain should not be able here to exert from the first a preponderance which would effectually cover all her remoter possessions. Only an economical decadence, which would of itself destroy her position among nations, could bring her so to forego the initial advantage she has, in the fact that for her offense and defense meet and are fulfilled in one factor, the command of the sea. History has conclusively demonstrated the inability of a state with even a single continental frontier to compete in naval development with one that is insular, although of smaller population and resources. A coalition of Powers may indeed affect the balance. As a rule, however, a single state against a coalition holds the interior position, the concentrated force; and while calculation should rightly take account of possibilities, it should beware of permitting imagination too free sway in presenting its pictures. Were the eastern Powers to combine they might prevent Great Britain’s use of the North Sea for the safe passage of her merchant shipping; but even so she would but lose commercially the whole of a trade, the greater part of which disappears by the mere fact of war. Invasion is not possible, unless her fleet can be wholly disabled from appearing in that sea. From her geographical position, she still holds her gates open to the outer world, which maintains three fourths of her commerce in peace.
37. BEARING OF POLITICAL DEVELOPMENTS ON NAVAL POLICY AND STRATEGY[115]
The external activities of Europe, noted a dozen years ago and before, have now to a certain extent been again superseded by rivalries within Europe itself. Those rivalries, however, are the result of their previous external activities, and in the last analysis they depend upon German commercial development. This has stimulated the German Empire to a prodigious naval programme, which affects the whole of Europe and may affect the United States. In 1897 I summed up two conspicuous European conditions as being the equilibrium then existing between France and Germany, with their respective allies, and the withdrawal of Great Britain from active association with the affairs of the Continent. At that date the Triple Alliance, Austria, Germany, Italy, stood against the Dual Alliance, France and Russia; Great Britain apart from both, but with elements of antagonism against Russia and France, and not against the German monarchies or Italy. These antagonisms arose wholly from conditions external to Europe,—in India against Russia, and in Africa against France. Later, the paralysis of Russia, through her defeat by Japan, and through her internal troubles, left France alone for a time; during which Germany, thus assured against land attack, was better able to devote much money to the fleet, as the protector of her growing commerce. The results have been a projected huge German navy, and a German altercation with France relative to Moroccan affairs; incidents which have aroused Great Britain to a sense of naval danger, and have propelled her to the understandings—whatever they amount to—with France and Russia, which we now know as the Triple _Entente_. In short, Great Britain has abandoned the isolation of twenty years ago, stands joined to the Dual Alliance, and it becomes a Triple _Entente_.
To the United States this means that Great Britain, once our chief opponent in matters covered by the Monroe Doctrine, but later by the logic of events drawn to recede from that opposition, so that she practically backed us against Europe in 1898, and subsequently conceded the Panama arrangement known as the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty, cannot at present count for as much as she did in naval questions throughout the world. It means to the United States and to Japan that Great Britain has too much at stake at home to side with the one or the other, granting she so wished, except as bound by treaty, which implies reciprocal obligations. Between her and Japan such specific obligations exist. They do not in the case of the United States; and the question whether the two countries are disposed to support one another, and, if so, to what extent, or what the attitude of Great Britain would be in case of difficulty between Japan and the United States, are questions directly affecting naval strategy.[116]
Great Britain does indeed for the moment hold Germany so far in check that the German Empire also can do no more than look after its European interests; but should a naval disaster befall Great Britain, leaving Germany master of the naval situation, the world would see again a predominant fleet backed by a predominant army, and that in the hands, not of a state satiated with colonial possessions, as Great Britain is, but of one whose late entry into world conditions leaves her without any such possessions at all of any great value. The habit of mind is narrow which fails to see that a navy such as Germany is now building will be efficacious for other ends than those immediately proposed. The existence of such a fleet is a constant factor in contemporary politics; the part which it shall play depending upon circumstances not always to be foreseen. Although the colonial ambitions of Germany are held in abeyance for the moment, the wish cannot but exist to expand her territory by foreign acquisitions, to establish external bases for the support of commercial or political interests, to build up such kindred communities as now help to constitute the British Empire, homes for emigrants, markets for industries, sources of supplies of raw materials, needed by those industries.
All such conditions and ambitions are incidents with which Strategy, comprehensively considered, has to deal. By the successive enunciations of the Monroe Doctrine the United States stands committed to the position that no particle of American soil shall pass into the hands of a non-American State other than the present possessor. No successful war between foreign states, no purchase, no exchange, no merger, such as the not impossible one of Holland with Germany, is allowed as valid cause for such transfer. This is a very large contract; the only guarantee of which is an adequate navy, however the term “adequate” be defined. Adequacy often depends not only upon existing balances of power, such, for instance, as that by which the British and German navies now affect one another, which for the moment secures the observance of the Doctrine. Account must be taken also of evident policies which threaten to disturb such balances, such as the official announcement by Germany of her purpose to create a “fleet of such strength that, even for the mightiest naval power, a war with Germany would involve such risks as to jeopardize its own supremacy.” This means, at least, that Great Britain hereafter shall not venture, as in 1898, to back the United States against European interference; nor to support France in Morocco; nor to carry out as against Germany her alliance with Japan. It is a matter of very distinct consequence in naval strategy that Great Britain, after years of contention with the United States, essentially opposed to the claims of the Monroe Doctrine, should at last have come to substantial coincidence with the American point of view, even though she is not committed to a formal announcement to that effect.[117] Such relations between states are primarily the concern of the statesman, a matter of international policies; but they are also among the data which the strategist, naval as well as land, has to consider, because they are among the elements which determine the constitution and size of the national fleet.
I here quote with approval a statement of the French Captain Darrieus:
“Among the complex problems to which the idea of strategy gives rise there is none more important than that of the constitution of the fleet; and every project which takes no account of the foreign relations of a great nation, nor of the material limit fixed by its resources, rests upon a weak and unstable base.”
I repeat also the quotation from Von der Goltz: “We must have a _national_ strategy, a _national_ tactics.” I cannot too entirely repudiate any casual word of mine, reflecting the tone which once was so traditional in the navy that it might be called professional,—that “political questions belong rather to the statesman than to the military man.” I find these words in my old lectures, but I very soon learned better, from my best military friend, Jomini; and I believe that no printed book of mine endorses the opinion that external politics are of no professional concern to military men.
It was in accordance with this changed opinion that in 1895, and again in 1897, I summed up European conditions as I conceived them to be; pointing out that the distinguishing feature at that time was substantial equilibrium on the Continent, constituting what is called the Balance of Power; and, in connection with the calm thus resulting, an immense colonizing movement, in which substantially all the great Powers were concerned. This I indicated as worthy of the notice of naval strategists, because there were parts of the American continents which for various reasons might attract upon themselves this movement, in disregard of the Monroe Doctrine.
Since then the scene has shifted greatly, the distinctive feature of the change being the growth of Germany in industrial, commercial, and naval power,—all three; while at the same time maintaining her military pre-eminence, although that has been somewhat qualified by the improvement of the French army, just as the growth of the German navy has qualified British superiority at sea. Coincident with this German development has been the decline of Russia, owing to causes generally understood; the stationariness of France in population, while Germany has increased fifty per cent; and the very close drawing together of Germany and Austria, for reasons of much more controlling power than the mere treaty which binds them. The result is that to-day central Europe, that is, Austria and Germany, form a substantially united body, extending from water to water, from North Sea to Adriatic, wielding a military power against which, on the land, no combination in Europe can stand. The Balance of Power no longer exists; that is, if my estimate is correct of the conditions and dispersion which characterize the other nations relatively to this central mass.
This situation, coinciding with British trade jealousies of the new German industries, and with the German naval programme, have forced Great Britain out of the isolation which the Balance of Power permitted her. Her _ententes_ are an attempt to correct the disturbance of the balance; but, while they tend in that direction, they are not adequate to the full result desired. The balance remains uneven; and consequently European attention is concentrated upon European conditions, instead of upon the colonizing movements of twenty years ago. Germany even has formally disavowed such colonizing ambitions, by the mouth of her ambassador to the United States, confirmed by her minister of foreign affairs, although a dozen years ago they were conspicuous. Concerning these colonizing movements, indeed, it might be said that they have reached a moment of quiet, of equilibrium, while internally Europe is essentially disquieted, as various incidents have shown.
The important point to us here is the growing power of the German Empire, in which the efficiency of the State as an organic body is so greatly superior to that of Great Britain, and may prove to be to that of the United States. The two English-speaking countries have wealth vastly superior, each separately, to that of Germany; much more if
## acting together. But in neither is the efficiency of the Government for
handling the resources comparable to that of Germany; and there is no apparent chance or recognized inducement for them to work together, as Germany and Austria now work in Europe. The consequence is that Germany may deal with each in succession much more effectively than either is now willing to consider; Europe being powerless to affect the issue so long as Austria stands by Germany, as she thoroughly understands that she has every motive to do.
It is this line of reasoning which shows the power of the German navy to be a matter of prime importance to the United States. The power to control Germany does not exist in Europe, except in the British navy; and if social and political conditions in Great Britain develop as they now promise, the British navy will probably decline in relative strength, so that it will not venture to withstand the German on any broad lines of policy, but only in the narrowest sense of immediate British interests. Even this condition may disappear, for it seems as if the national life of Great Britain were waning at the same time that that of Germany is waxing. The truth is, Germany, by traditions of two centuries, inherits now a system of state control, not only highly developed but with a people accustomed to it,—a great element of force; and this at the time when control of the individual by the community—that is, by the state—is increasingly the note of the times. Germany has in this matter a large start. Japan has much the same.
When it is remembered that the United States, like Great Britain and like Japan, can be approached only by sea, we can scarcely fail to see that upon the sea primarily must be found our power to secure our own borders and to sustain our external policy, of which at the present moment there are two principal elements; namely, the Monroe Doctrine and the Open Door. Of the Monroe Doctrine President Taft, in his first message to Congress, has said that it has advanced sensibly towards general acceptance; and that maintenance of its positions in the future need cause less anxiety than it has in the past. Admitting this, and disregarding the fact that the respect conceded to it by Europe depends in part at least upon European rivalries modifying European ability to intervene,—a condition which may change as suddenly as has the power of Russia within the decade,—it remains obvious that the policy of the Open Door requires naval power quite as really and little less directly than the Monroe Doctrine. For the scene of the Open Door contention is the Pacific; the gateway to the Pacific for the United States is the Isthmus; the communications to the Isthmus are by way of the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea. The interest of that maritime region therefore is even greater now than it was when I first undertook the strategic study of it, over twenty years ago. Its importance to the Monroe Doctrine and to general commercial interests remains, even if modified.
At the date of my first attempt to make this study of the Caribbean, and to formulate certain principles relative to Naval Strategy, there scarcely could be said to exist any defined public consciousness of European and American interest in sea power, and in the methods of its application which form the study of Strategy. The most striking illustration of this insensibility to the sea was to be found in Bismarck, who in a constructive sense was the greatest European statesman of that day. After the war with France and the acquisition of Alsace and Lorraine, he spoke of Germany as a state satiated with territorial expansion. In the matter of external policy she had reached the limits of his ambitions for her; and his mind thenceforth was set on internal development, which should harmonize the body politic and ensure Germany the unity and power which he had won for her. His scheme of external relations did not stretch beyond Europe. He was then too old to change to different conceptions, although he did not neglect to follow the demand of the people as their industry and commerce developed.
The contrast between the condition of indifference to the sea which he illustrated and that which now exists is striking; and the German Empire, which owes to him above all men its modern greatness, offers the most conspicuous illustration of the change. The new great navies of the world since 1887 are the German, the Japanese, and the American. Every state in Europe is now awake to the fact that the immediate coming interests of the world, which are therefore its own national interest, must be in the other continents. Europe in its relatively settled conditions offers really the base of operations for enterprises and decisive events, the scene of which will be in countries where political or economical backwardness must give place to advances which will be almost revolutionary in kind. This can scarcely be accomplished without unsettlements, the composing of which will depend upon force. Such force by a European state—with the single exception of Russia, and possibly, in a less degree, of Austria—can be exerted only through a navy.
38. SEIZURE OF PRIVATE PROPERTY AT SEA[118]
The essence of the question involved in the seizure of “private property” at sea is transportation; and with three such conspicuous instances[119] within a century its effectiveness is historically demonstrated. The belligerent state, in the exercise of a right as yet conceded by international law, says in substance to its adversary, “I forbid your citizens the maritime transportation of their commercial property. Articles of whatever character, including the vessels which carry them, violating this lawful order will be seized and condemned.” Seizure is made contingent upon movement; otherwise the property is merely bidden to stay at home, where it will be safe. All this is in strict conformity with the execution of law under common conditions; and the practice is now regulated with a precision and system consonant to other legal adjudication, the growth of centuries of jurisprudence directed to this particular subject. Its general tendency I have indicated by certain specific instances. It is efficient to the ends of war, more or less, according to circumstances; and by distributing the burden over the whole community affected it tends to peace, as exemption from capture could not do. If the suffering of war could be made to fall only on the combatants actually in the field, the rest of the nation being protected from harm and loss by the assured ability to pursue their usual avocations undisturbed, the selfishness of men would more readily resort to violence to carry their ends.
In support of the widespread effects of interruption to transportation, I gladly quote one of the recent contendents for immunity of “private property” from maritime capture. Having on one page maintained the ineffectiveness of the seizure, because individual losses never force a nation to make peace, he concludes his article by saying:
“The question interests directly and vitally thousands of people in every country. It is of vital importance to those who go down to the sea in ships, and those who occupy their business in great waters. It appeals not only to every shipowner, but also to every merchant whose goods are shipped upon the sea, to every farmer whose grain is sent abroad, to every manufacturer who sells to a foreign market, and to every banker who is dependent upon the prosperity of his countrymen.”
I can do little to enhance this vivid presentation by an opponent; yet if we add to his list the butchers, the bakers, the tailors, shoemakers, grocers, whose customers economize; the men who drive drays to and from shipping, and find their occupation gone; the railroads, as the great common carriers, whose freights fall off; the stockholders whose dividends shrink; we shall by no means have exhausted the far-reaching influence of this intermeddling with transportation. It is a belligerent measure which touches every member of the hostile community, and, by thus distributing the evils of war, as insurance distributes the burden of other losses, it brings them home to every man, fostering in each a disposition to peace.
It doubtless will not have escaped readers familiar with the subject of maritime prize that so far I have not distinguished between the interruption of transportation by blockade and that by seizure on the high seas. The first, it may be said, is not yet in question; the second only is challenged. My reason has been that the underlying military principle—and, as I claim, justification—is the same in both; and, as we are dealing with a question of war, the military principle is of equal consideration with any other, if not superior. The effect produced is in character the same in both. In efficacy, they differ, and their comparative values in this respect are a legitimate subject for discussion. In principle and method, however, they are identical; both aim at the stoppage of transportation, as a means of destroying the resources of the enemy, and both are enforced by the seizure and condemnation of “private property” transgressing the orders.
This community of operation is so evident that, historically, the advocates of exemption of private property from confiscation in the one case have demanded, or at the least suggested, that blockade as a military measure cannot be instituted against commerce—that it can be resorted to only as against contraband, or where a port is “invested” by land as well as by sea. This was Napoleon’s contention in the Berlin Decree; and it is worthy of grave attention that, under the pressure of momentary expediency, the United States more than once, between 1800 and 1812, advanced the same view. This I have shown in my history of the War of 1812.[120] Had this opinion then prevailed, the grinding blockade of the War of Secession could not have been applied. If we may imagine the United States and the Confederate States parties to a Hague Conference, we can conceive the impassioned advocacy of restricted blockade by the one, and the stubborn refusal of the other. This carries a grave warning to test seeming expediency in retaining or yielding a prescriptive right. There is no moral issue, if my previous argument is correct; unless it be moral, and I think it is, to resort to pecuniary pressure rather than to bloodshed to enforce a belligerent contention. As regards expediency, however, each nation should carefully weigh the effects upon itself, upon its rivals, and upon the general future of the community of states, before abandoning a principle of far-reaching consequence, and in operation often beneficent in restraining or shortening war.
It has been urged that conditions have so changed, through the numerous alternatives to sea transport now available, that the former efficacy can no longer be predicted. There might be occasional local suffering, but for communities at large the streams of supply are so many that the
## particular result of general popular distress will not be attained to
any decisive degree. Has this argument really been well weighed? None, of course, will dispute that certain conditions have been much modified, and for the better. Steam not only has increased rapidity of land transit for persons and goods; it has induced the multiplication of roads, and enforced the maintenance of them in good condition. Thanks to such maintenance, we are vastly less at the mercy of the seasons than we once were, and communities now have several lines of communication open where formerly they were dependent upon one. Nevertheless, for obvious reasons of cheapness and of facility, water transport sustains its ascendancy. It may carry somewhat less proportionately than in old times; but, unless we succeed in exploiting the air, water remains, and always must remain, the great medium of transportation. The open sea is a road which needs neither building nor repairs. Compared with its boundless expanse, two lines of rails afford small accommodation—a circumstance which narrowly limits their capacity for freight.
[It is shown that water transportation still plays an immense part in commerce, even in the case of inland watercourses in competition with railroads, and that any interruption of commerce throws a heavy burden on the nation involved.—EDITOR.]
Such derangement of an established system of sea transportation is more searching, as well as more easy, when the shipping involved has to pass close by an enemy’s shores; and still more if the ports of possible arrival are few. This is conspicuously the case of Germany and the Baltic States relatively to Great Britain, and would be of Great Britain were Ireland independent and hostile. The striking development of German mercantile tonnage is significant of the growing grandeur, influence, and ambitions of the empire. Its exposure, in case of war with Great Britain, and only in less degree with France, would account, were other reasons wanting, for the importunate demand for naval expansion. Other reasons are not wanting; but in the development of her merchant shipping Germany, to use a threadbare phrase, has given a hostage to Fortune. Except by the measure advocated, and here opposed, of exempting from capture merchant vessels of a belligerent, with their cargoes, as being “private property,” Germany is bound over to keep the peace, unless occasion of national safety—vital interests—or honor drive her, or unless she equip a navy adequate to so great a task as protecting fully the carrying-trade she has laboriously created. The exposure of this trade is not merely a matter of German interest, nor yet of British. It is of international concern, a circumstance making for peace.
The retort is foreseen: How stands a nation to which the native mercantile shipping, carrying-trade, is a distinctly minor interest, and therefore does not largely affect the question of transportation? This being maintained by neutrals, the accretion of national wealth by circulation may go on little impaired by hostilities. The first most obvious reply is that such is a distinctly specialized case in a general problem, and that its occurrence and continuance are dependent upon circumstances which frequently vary. It lacks the elements of permanence, and its present must therefore be regarded with an eye to the past and future. A half-century ago the mercantile marine of the United States was, and for nearly a century before had been, a close second to that of Great Britain; to-day it is practically non-existent, except for coasting-trade. On the other hand, during the earlier period the thriving Hanse towns were nearly the sole representatives of German shipping, which now, issuing from the same harbors, on a strip of coast still narrow, is pressing rapidly forward under the flag of the empire to take the place vacated by the Americans.
With such a reversal of conditions in two prominent examples, the problem of to-day in any one case is not that of yesterday, and may very well not be that of to-morrow. From decade to decade experience shifts like a weather-cock; the statesman mounted upon it becomes a Mr. Facing-Bothways. The denial of commercial blockade, the American national expediency of 1800, suggested by such eminent jurists as John Marshall and James Madison, would have been ruinous manacles to the nation of 1861–65. A government weighing its policy with reference to the future, having regard to possible as well as actual conditions, would do well before surrendering existing powers—the bird in the hand—to consider rather the geographical position of the country, its relation to maritime routes—the strategy, so to say, of the general permanent situation—and the military principles upon which maritime capture rests. In that light a more accurate estimate will be made of temporary tactical circumstances, to-day’s conditions—such, for instance, as set forth by the present Lord Chancellor of Great Britain.[121] In his letter, favoring immunity from capture for “private property,” disproportionate stress is laid upon the dangers of Great Britain, the points which make against her; a serious tactical error. The argument from exposure is so highly developed, that the possible enemies whose co-operation is needed to secure the desired immunity for “private” property might well regard the request to assist as spreading the net in the sight of the bird; a vanity which needs not a wise man to detect. On the other hand, the offensive advantage of capture to Great Britain, owing to her situation, is, in my judgment, inadequately appreciated.
The writer has fallen into the mistake which our General Sherman characterized as undue imagination concerning what “the man on the other side of the hill” might do; a quaint version of the first Napoleon’s warning against “making a picture to yourself.” The picture of Great Britain’s dangers is overdrawn; that to her enemies—“the full measure of the mischief we could do to a Continental nation”—is underdrawn. It would seem as if, in his apprehension, “the disastrous consequences[122] which would flow from even slight depredations by commerce destroyers on British shipping” could find no parallel in the results to a Continental trade from British cruisers. France or Germany, for example, shut off from the sea, can be supplied by rail from, say, Antwerp or Rotterdam; but it is apparently inconceivable that, in the contingency of a protracted naval war, the same ports might equally supply Great Britain by neutral ships. Alternate sea routes close, apparently automatically; only alternate land routes stay open. Thus undue weight is laid upon defensive motives, where the offensive requires the greater emphasis. The larger merchant tonnage of Great Britain involves a greater defensive element, yes; but are not defensive conditions favorably modified by her greater navy, and by her situation, with all her western ports open to the Atlantic, from Glasgow to Bristol and round to Southampton? And is not the station for such defense identical with the best for offense by maritime capture? The British vessels there occupy also a superior position for coal renewal; the difficulty of which for an enemy, threatening the Atlantic approaches to Great Britain, seems too largely discounted by imaginations preoccupied with hostile commerce destroyers.
The concluding sentence of Lord Loreburn’s letter contains a warning familiar to military thought. “Great Britain will gain much from a change long and eagerly _desired_ by the great majority of other Powers.” The wish of a possible enemy is the beacon which suggests the shoal. The truth is, if the British Navy maintains superiority, it is to the interest of her enemies to have immunity from capture for “private property;” if it falls, it is to their interest to be able to capture. The inference is safe that probable enemies, if such there be, and if they entertain the wish asserted, do not expect shortly to destroy the British Navy.
While unconvinced by the reasoning, it is refreshing to recognize in this letter a clear practical enunciation which sweeps away much sentimental rhetoric. “I urge [immunity for private property] not upon any ground of sentiment or humanity (indeed, no operation of war inflicts less suffering than the capturing of unarmed vessels at sea), but upon the ground that on the balance of argument, coolly weighed, the interests of Great Britain will gain much from the change.” I more than doubt the conclusion; but its sobriety contrasts pleasantly with the exuberances, “noble and enlightened action,” “crown of glory,” and the like, with which it pleases certain of our American advocates to enwreathe this prosaic utilitarian proposition.
A possibility which affects the general question much more seriously than others so far considered, is that of neutral carriers taking the place of a national shipping exposed to capture under present law. This is one phase of a change which has come over the general conditions of carrying-trade since the United States became a nation, and since Great Britain, three quarters of a century afterwards, formally repealed her Navigation Acts. The discussion preceding this repeal, together with the coincident Free Trade movement, preceded by but a few years the Treaty of Paris in 1856, and gave an impulse which doubtless facilitated the renouncement in that treaty by Great Britain of the right to capture enemy’s property under a neutral flag. The concession was in the air, as we say; which proves only that it was contagious, not that it was wise. Like many hasty steps, however, once taken it probably is irreversible.
The effect of this concession has been to legalize, among the several great states signatory to the treaty, the carriage of belligerent property by neutral ships, in which previously it had been liable to seizure. In its later operation, the condemnation of the enemy’s property had not involved the neutral carrier further than by the delays necessary to take her into port, adjudicate the question of ownership, and remove the property, if found to be belligerent. Such detention, however, was a strong deterrent, and acted as an impediment to the circulation of belligerent wealth by neutral means. It tended to embarrass and impoverish the belligerent; hence the removal of it is a modification of much importance. Neutral shipping thus is now free to take a part in hostilities, which formerly it could only do at the risk of loss, more or less serious. To carry belligerent property, which under its own flag would be open to seizure, is to aid the belligerent; is to take part in the war.
In considering such an amelioration, if it be so regarded, it is possible to exaggerate its degree. If a nation cherishes its carrying-trade, does a large part of its transportation in its own vessels, and is unable in war to protect them, the benefit of the innovation will be but partial. Its own shipping, driven from the sea, is an important element in the total navigation of the world, and the means to replace it will not be at once at hand. Neutrals have their own commerce to maintain, as well as that of the weaker belligerent. They would not undertake the whole of the latter, if they could; and, if they would, they will not at once have the means. Steamships driven off the sea, and for the moment lost to navigation, cannot be replaced as rapidly as the old sailing-vessels. Moreover, neutral merchants have to weigh the chances of hostilities being short, and that the banished shipping of the belligerent may return in its might to the seas with the dawn of peace, making their own a drug on the market. In short, while the belligerent profits from a change which gives him free use of neutral ships, whereas he formerly had only a limited use, a considerable embarrassment remains. The effect is identical in principle and operation with that before indicated, as resulting from blockading a few chief harbors. A certain large fraction of transportation is paralyzed, and the work done by it is thrown upon ports and roads which have not the necessary facilities. It is as though a main trunk line of railroad were seized and held. The general system is deranged, prices rise, embarrassment results, and is propagated throughout the business community. This affects the nation by the suffering of thousands of individuals, and by the consequent reduction of revenue.
It would seem, therefore, that even under modern conditions maritime capture—of “private” property—is a means of importance to the ends of war; that it acts directly upon the individual citizens and upon the financial power of the belligerent, the effect being intensified by indirect influence upon the fears of the sensitive business world. These political and financial consequences bring the practice into exact line with military principle; for, being directed against the resources of the enemy, by interrupting his communications with the outer world, it becomes strictly analogous to operations against the communications of an army with its base—one of the chief objects of strategy. Upon the maintenance of communications the life of an army depends, upon the maintenance of commerce the vitality of a state. Money, credit, is the life of war. Lessen it, and vigor flags; destroy it, and resistance dies. Accepting these conclusions, each state has to weigh the probable bearing upon its own fortunes of the continuance or discontinuance of the practice. From the military point of view the question is not merely, nor chiefly, “What shall our people escape by the abandonment of this time-sanctioned method?” but, “What power to overcome the enemy shall we thereby surrender?” It is a question of balance, between offense and defense. As Jefferson said, when threatened with a failure of negotiations, “We shall have to begin the irrational process of trying which can do the other most harm.” As a summary of war, the sentence is a caricature; but it incidentally embodies Farragut’s aphorism, “The best defense is a rapid fire from our own guns.” For the success of war, offense is better than defense; and in contemplating this or any other military measure, let there be dismissed at once, as preposterous, the hope that war can be carried on without some one or something being hurt; that the accounts should show credit only and no debit.
For the community of states a broader view should be taken, from the standpoint that whatever tends to make war more effective tends to shorten it and to prevent it.
39. THE MORAL ASPECT OF WAR[123]
The poet’s words, “The Parliament of man, the federation of the world,” were much in men’s mouths this past summer. There is no denying the beauty of the ideal, but there was apparent also a disposition, in contemplating it, to contemn the slow processes of evolution by which Nature commonly attains her ends, and to impose at once, by convention, the methods that commended themselves to the sanguine. Fruit is not best ripened by premature plucking, nor can the goal be reached by such short cuts. Step by step, in the past, man has ascended by means of the sword, and his more recent gains, as well as present conditions, show that the time has not yet come to kick down the ladder which has so far served him. Three hundred years ago, the people of the land in which the Conference was assembled wrenched with the sword civil and religious peace, and national independence, from the tyranny of Spain. Then began the disintegration of her empire, and the deliverance of peoples from her oppression; but this was completed only last year, and then again by the sword—of the United States.
In the centuries which have since intervened, what has not “justice, with valor armed,” when confronted by evil in high places, found itself compelled to effect by resort to the sword? To it was due the birth of the United States, not least among the benefits of which was the stern experience that has made Great Britain no longer the mistress, but the mother, of her dependencies. The control, to good from evil, of the devastating fire of the French Revolution, and of Napoleon, was due to the sword. The long line of illustrious names and deeds, of those who bore it not in vain, has in our times culminated—if indeed the end is even yet nearly reached—in the new birth of the United States by the extirpation of human slavery, and in the downfall, but yesterday, of a colonial empire identified with tyranny. What the sword, and it supremely, tempered only by the stern demands of justice and of conscience, and the loving voice of charity, has done for India and for Egypt, is a tale at once too long and too well known for repetition here. Peace, indeed, is not adequate to all progress; there are resistances that can be overcome only by explosion. What means less violent than war would in a half-year have solved the Caribbean problem, shattered national ideas deep rooted in the prepossessions of a century, and planted the United States in Asia, face to face with the great world problem of the immediate future? What but the War of 1898 rent the veil which prevented the English-speaking communities from seeing eye to eye, and revealed to each the face of a brother? Little wonder that a war which, with comparatively little bloodshed, brought such consequences, was followed by the call for a Peace Conference!
Power, force, is a faculty of national life; one of the talents committed to nations by God. Like every other endowment of a complex organization, it must be held under control of the enlightened intellect and of the upright heart; but no more than any other can it be carelessly or lightly abjured, without incurring the responsibility of one who buries in the earth that which was entrusted to him for use. And this obligation to maintain right, by force if need be, while common to all states, rests peculiarly upon the greater, in proportion to their means. Much is required of those to whom much is given. So viewed, the ability speedily to put forth the nation’s power, by adequate organization and other necessary preparation, according to the reasonable demands of the nation’s intrinsic strength and of its position in the world, is one of the clear duties involved in the Christian word “watchfulness,”—readiness for the call that may come, whether expectedly or not. Until it is demonstrable that no evil exists, or threatens the world, which cannot be obviated without recourse to force, the obligation to readiness must remain; and, where evil is mighty and defiant, the obligation to use force—that is, war—arises. Nor is it possible, antecedently, to bring these conditions and obligations under the letter of precise and codified law, to be administered by a tribunal. The spirit of legalism is marked by blemishes as real as those commonly attributed to “militarism,” and not more elevated. The considerations which determine good and evil, right and wrong, in crises of national life, or of the world’s history, are questions of equity often too complicated for decision upon mere rules, or even upon principles, of law, international or other. The instances of Bulgaria, of Armenia, and of Cuba, are entirely in point; and it is most probable that the contentions about the future of China will afford further illustration. Even in matters where the interest of nations is concerned, the moral element enters; because each generation in its day is the guardian of those which shall follow it. Like all guardians, therefore, while it has the power to act according to its best judgment, it has no right, for the mere sake of peace, to permit known injustice to be done to its wards.
The present strong feeling in favor of arbitration, throughout the nations of the world, is in itself a subject for congratulation almost unalloyed. It carries indeed a promise, to the certainty of which no paper covenants can pretend; for it influences the conscience by inward conviction, not by external fetter. But it must be remembered that such sentiments, from their very universality and evident laudableness, need correctives, for they bear in themselves a great danger of excess or of precipitancy. Excess is seen in the disposition, far too prevalent, to look upon war not only as an evil, but as an evil unmixed, unnecessary, and therefore always unjustifiable; while precipitancy, to reach results considered desirable, is evidenced by the wish to _impose_ arbitration, to prevent recourse to war, by a general pledge previously made. Both frames of mind receive expression in the words of speakers among whom a leading characteristic is lack of measuredness and of proportion. Thus an eminent citizen is reported to have said: “There is no more occasion for two nations to go to war than for two men to settle their difficulties with clubs.” Singularly enough, this point of view assumes to represent peculiarly Christian teaching. In so doing, it willfully ignores the truth that Christianity, while it will not force the conscience by other than spiritual arguments, as “compulsory” arbitration might, distinctly recognizes the sword as the resister and remedier of evil in the sphere “of this world.”
Arbitration’s great opportunity has come in the advancing moral standards of states, whereby the disposition to deliberate wrong-doing has diminished; consequently, the occasions for redressing wrong by force are less frequent to arise. In view of recent events, however, and very especially of notorious, high-handed oppression, initiated since the calling of the Peace Conference,[124] and resolutely continued during its sessions in defiance of the public opinion of the world at large, it is premature to assume that such occasions belong wholly to the past. Much less can it be assumed that there will be no further instances of a community believing, conscientiously and entirely, that honor and duty require of it a certain course, which another community with equal integrity may hold to be inconsistent with the rights and obligations of its own members. It is, for instance, quite possible, especially to one who has recently visited Holland, to conceive that Great Britain and the Boers are alike satisfied of the substantial justice of their respective claims. It is permissible most earnestly to hope that, in disputes between sovereign states, arbitration may find a way to reconcile peace with fidelity to conscience, in the case of both; but if the conviction of conscience remains unshaken, war is better than disobedience,—better than acquiescence in recognized wrong. The great danger of undiscriminating advocacy of arbitration, which threatens even the cause it seeks to maintain, is that it may lead men to tamper with equity, to compromise with unrighteousness, soothing their conscience with the belief that war is so entirely wrong that beside it no other tolerated evil is wrong. Witness Armenia, and witness Crete. War has been avoided; but what of the national consciences that beheld such iniquity and withheld the hand?
40. THE PRACTICAL ASPECT OF WAR[125]
If it be true, as I have expressed my own conviction, that moral motives are gaining in force the world over, we can have hope of the time when they shall prevail; but it is evident that they must prevail over all nations equally, or with some approach to equality, or else discussion between two disputants will not rest on the same plane. In the difference between the United States and Spain, I suppose the argument of the United States, the moral justification to itself of its proposed
## action, would be that misgovernment of Cuba, and needless Cuban
suffering, had continued so long as to show that Spain was not capable of giving good government to her distant dependency. There was no occasion to question her desire to give it, the honesty either of her assertions or measures to that end; but it was quite apparent that it was not in her to give effect to her efforts. Now, presuming Spain to take that view, it is conceivable (to the imagination) that her rulers might say, “Yes, it is true, we have failed continuously. The Cubans have a moral right to good government, and as we have not been able to give it them, it is right that we should step out.” But, assuming Spain unequal to such sublime moral conviction and self-abnegation, what was the United States to do, as a practical matter? What she did was perfectly practical; she used the last argument of nations as international law stands; but, suppose she had gone to arbitration, upon what grounds would the Court proceed? What the solid prearranged basis of its decision, should that be that Spain must evacuate Cuba? Is there anything in the present accord of states, styled International Law, that would give such power? And, more pertinent still, are states prepared now to concede to an arbitral Court the power to order them out of territory which in its opinion they misgovern, or which in its opinion they should not retain after conquest? _e. g._, Schleswig Holstein, Alsace and Lorraine, the Transvaal, Porto Rico and the Philippine Islands?
Or, take another impending and very momentous instance, one fraught with immeasurable issues. If I rightly appreciate conditions, there is, among the English-speaking communities bordering the Pacific, a deep instinctive popular determination, one of those before which rulers have to bow, to exclude, from employment in the sparsely settled territories occupied by them, the concentrated crowded mass of mankind found in Japan and China. More than anything else this sums up the question of the Pacific. Two seas of humanity, on very different levels as to numbers and economical conditions, stand separated only by this artificial dyke of legislation, barring the one from rushing upon and flooding the other. I do not criticize an attitude with which, whether I approve or not, I can sympathize; but as I look at the legislation, and contrast the material conditions, I wonder at the improvidence of Australasia in trusting that laws, though breathing the utmost popular conviction and purpose, can protect their lands from that which threatens. “Go home,” said Franklin to a fellow colonist in the days of unrest in America, “and tell them to get children. That will settle all our difficulties.” Fill up your land with men of your own kind, if you wish to keep it for yourselves. The Pacific States of North America are filling up, and, more important, they back solidly upon, and are politically one with, other great communities into which the human tide is pouring apace; yet in them, too, labor may inflict upon its own aims revolutionary defeat, if for supposed local advantage it embarrasses the immigration of its own kind. It is very different for those who are severed from their like by sea, and therefore must stand on their own bottom. All the naval· power of the British Empire cannot suffice ultimately to save a remote community which neither breeds men in plenty nor freely imports them.
We speak of these questions now as racial, and the expression is convenient. It is compact, and represents truly one aspect of such situations, which, however, are essentially economical and territorial. In long-settled countries race and territory tend to identity of meaning, but we need scarce a moment’s recollection to know that race does not bind as do border lines, nor even they as do economical facts. Economical facts largely brought about the separation of America from Great Britain; economical facts brought about the American Union and continue to bind it. The closer union of the territories which now constitute the British Empire must be found in economical adjustments; the fact of common race is not sufficient thereto. Now, economical influences are of the most purely material order—the order of personal self-interest; in that form at least they appeal to the great majority, for the instructed political economists form but a small proportion of any community. Race, yes; territory—country—yes; the heart thrills, the eyes fill, self-sacrifice seems natural, the moral motive for the moment prevails; but in the long run the hard pressure of economical truth comes down upon these with the tyranny of the despot. There are, indeed, noble leaders not a few, who see in this crushing burden upon their fellow millions an enemy to be confronted and vanquished, not by direct opposition, but by circumvention, relieving his sway by bettering environment, and so giving play to the loftier sentiments. But that these men may so work they need to be, as we say, independent, released from the grip of daily bread; and their very mission, alike in its success and its failures, testifies to the preponderant weight of economical conditions in the social world....
If with wealth, numbers and opportunity, a people still cannot so organize their strength as to hold their own, it is not practical to expect that those to whom wealth and opportunity are lacking, but who have organizing faculty and willingness to fight, will not under the pressure of need enter upon an inheritance which need will persuade themselves is ethically their due. What, it may be asked, is likely to be the reasoning of an intelligent Chinese or Japanese workman, realizing the relative opportunities of his crowded country and those of Australia and California, and finding himself excluded by force? What ethical, what moral, value will he find in the contention that his people should not resort to force to claim a share in the better conditions from which force bars him? How did the white races respect the policy of isolation in Japan and China, though it only affected commercial advantages? I do not in the least pronounce upon the ethical propriety of exclusion by those in possession—the right of property, now largely challenged. I merely draw attention to the apparent balance of ethical argument, with the fact of antagonistic economical conditions; and I say that for such a situation the only practical arbiter is the physical force, of which war is merely the occasional political expression.
In the broad outlook, which embraces not merely armed collision, but the condition of preparation and attitude of mind that enable a people to put forth, on demand, the full measure of their physical strength,—numerical, financial and military,—to repel a threatened injury or maintain a national right, war is the regulator and adjuster of those movements of the peoples, which in their tendencies and outcome constitute history. These are natural forces, which from their origin and power are self-existent and independent in relation to man. His provision against them is war; the artificial organization of other forces, intrinsically less powerful materially, but with the advantage which intelligent combination and direction confer. By this he can measurably control, guide, delay, or otherwise beneficially modify, results which threaten to be disastrous in their extent, tendency, or suddenness. So regarded war is remedial or preventive.
I apprehend that these two adjectives, drawn from the vocabulary of the healer, embody both the practical and moral justification of war. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. It will be well that we invoke moral power to help heal the evils of the world, as the physician brings it to bear on the ills of the body; but few are prepared to rely upon it alone. We need material aid as well. The dikes of Holland withstand by direct opposition the natural mission of the North Sea to swallow up the land they protect. The levees of the Mississippi restrain and guide to betterment the course of the mighty current, which but for them would waste its strength to devastate the shores on either hand. These two artificial devices represent a vast expenditure of time, money, and energy; of unproductive labor so-called; but they are cheaper than a flood. The police of our great cities prevent the outburst of crime, the fearful possibilities of which manifest themselves on the happily rare occasions when material prevention has from any cause lapsed. The police bodies are a great expense; but they cost less than a few days of anarchy. Let us not deceive ourselves by fancying that the strong material impulses which drive those masses of men whom we style nations, or races, are to be checked or guided, unless to the argument of a reasonable contention there be given the strong support of organized material power. If the organized disappear, the unorganized will but come into surer and more dreadful collision.
41. MOTIVES FOR NAVAL POWER[126]
There is one further conclusion to be drawn from the war between Japan and Russia, which contradicts a previous general impression that I myself have shared, and possibly in some degree have contributed to diffuse. That impression is, that navies depend upon maritime commerce as the cause and justification of their existence. To a certain extent, of course, this is true; and, just because true to a certain extent, the conclusion is more misleading. Because partly true, it is accepted as unqualifiedly true. Russia has little maritime commerce, at least in her own bottoms; her merchant flag is rarely seen; she has a very defective sea-coast; can in no sense be called a maritime nation. Yet the Russian navy had the decisive part to play in the late war; and the war was unsuccessful, not because the navy was not large enough, but because it was improperly handled. Probably, it also was intrinsically insufficient—bad in quality; poor troops as well as poor generalship. The disastrous result does not contravene the truth that Russia, though with little maritime shipping, was imperatively in need of a navy.
I am not particularly interested here to define the relations of commerce to a navy. It seems reasonable to say that, where merchant shipping exists, it tends logically to develop the form of protection which is called naval; but it has become perfectly evident, by concrete examples, that a navy may be necessary where there is no shipping. Russia and the United States to-day are such instances in point. More and more it becomes clear, that the functions of navies are distinctly military and international, whatever their historical origin in
## particular cases. The navy of the United States, for example, took its
rise from purely commercial considerations. External interests cannot be confined to those of commerce. They may be political as well as commercial; may be political because commercial, like the claim to “the open door” in China; may be political because military, essential to national defense, like the Panama Canal and Hawaii; may be political because of national prepossessions and sympathies, race sympathies, such as exist in Europe, or traditions like the Monroe Doctrine. The Monroe Doctrine in its beginnings was partly an expression of commercial interest, directed against a renewal of Spanish monopoly in the colonial system; it was partly military, defensive against European aggressions and dangerous propinquity; partly political, in sympathy with communities struggling for freedom.
A broad basis of mercantile maritime interests and shipping will doubtless conduce to naval efficiency, by supplying a reserve of material and personnel. Also, in representative governments, military interests cannot without loss dispense with the backing which is supplied by a widely spread, deeply rooted, civil interest, such as merchant shipping would afford us.
To prepare for war in time of peace is impracticable to commercial representative nations, because the people in general will not give sufficient heed to military necessities, or to international problems, to feel the pressure which induces readiness. All that naval officers can do is to realize to themselves vividly, make it a part of their thought, that a merchant shipping is only one form of the many which the external relations of a country can assume. We have such external questions in the Monroe Doctrine, the Panama Canal, the Hawaiian Islands, the market of China, and, I may add, in the exposure of the Pacific Coast, with its meagre population, insufficiently developed resources, and somewhat turbulent attitude towards Asiatics. The United States, with no aggressive purpose, but merely to sustain avowed policies, for which her people are ready to fight, although unwilling to prepare, needs a navy both numerous and efficient, even if no merchant vessel ever again flies the United States flag. If we hold these truths clearly and comprehensively, as well as with conviction, we may probably affect those who affect legislation. At all events, so to hold will do no harm.
APPENDIX
CHRONOLOGICAL OUTLINE
1840. September 27, Alfred Thayer Mahan born at West Point, New York, son of Professor Dennis Hart Mahan of the U. S. Military Academy.
1854–1856. Student at Columbia College in the City of New York.
1856. September 30, entered the third class, U. S. Naval Academy, as
## acting midshipman. Appointed from the 10th Congressional
District of New York.
1859. June 9, graduated as midshipman.
1859–1861, Frigate _Congress_, Brazil station.
1861. August 31, promoted to lieutenant. Converted steamer _James Adger_ for ten days.
1861–1862. Steam corvette _Pocahontas_, in the Potomac flotilla; capture of Port Royal, November 7, 1861; South Atlantic Blockading Squadron.
1862–1863. Naval Academy at Newport, Rhode Island. First lieutenant in the _Macedonian_ during the summer practice cruise to England in 1863.
1863–1864. Steam corvette _Seminole_, West Gulf Blockading Squadron.
1864–1865. _James Adger_; staff of Rear Admiral Dahlgren, South Atlantic Blockading Squadron; _James Adger_.
1865–1866. Double-ender _Muscoota_.
1865. June 7, promoted to lieutenant commander.
1866. Ordnance duty, Washington Navy Yard.
1867–1869. Steam sloop _Iroquois_, to Asiatic station, via Cape of Good Hope. Detached in 1869; returned via Rome and Paris.
1869. Commanding gunboat _Aroostook_, Asiatic station.
1870–1871. Navy yard, New York.
1871. _Worcester_, home station.
1872. Promoted to commander. Receiving ship, New York.
1873–1874. Commanding side-wheel steamer _Wasp_ in the Rio de la Plata.
1875–1876. Navy yard, Boston.
1877–1880. Naval Academy, Annapolis.
1880–1883. Navy yard, New York.
1883–1885. Commanding steam sloop _Wachusett_, South Pacific Squadron.
1885. Assigned to Naval War College, as lecturer on naval history and strategy.
1886–1889. President of Naval War College.
1889–1892. Special duty, Bureau of Navigation. Member of commission to choose site for navy yard in Puget Sound.
1892–1893. President of Naval War College.
1893–1895. Commanding cruiser _Chicago_, flagship of Rear Admiral Erben, European station.
1895–1896. Special duty at the Naval War College.
1896. November 17, retired as captain on his own application after forty years’ service.
1896–1912. Special duty in connection with Naval War College.
1898. Member of Naval War Board during Spanish War.
1899. Delegate to Hague Peace Conference.
1906. June 29, rear admiral on the retired list.
1914. December 1, died at the Naval Hospital, Washington.
ACADEMIC HONORS
D.C.L., Oxford, 1894; LL.D., Cambridge, 1894; LL.D., Harvard, 1895; LL.D., Yale, 1897; LL.D., Columbia, 1900; LL.D., Magill, 1909; President of the American Historical Association, 1902.
PUBLISHED WORKS
1883. “The Gulf and Inland Waters.”
1890. “The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660–1783.”
1892. “The Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution and Empire, 1793–1812.” Two volumes.
“The Life of Admiral Farragut.”
1897. “The Life of Nelson: the Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain.” Two volumes.
“The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future.”
1899. “Lessons of the War with Spain.”
1900. “The Problem of Asia, and its Effect upon International Policies.”
“The Story of the War with South Africa, 1899–1900.”
1901. “Types of Naval Officers, Drawn from the History of the British Navy.”
1902. “Retrospect and Prospect: Studies in International Relations, Naval and Political.”
1905. “Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812.” Two volumes.
1907. “Some Neglected Aspects of War.”
“From Sail to Steam: Recollections of a Naval Life.”
1908. “Naval Administration and Warfare.”
1909. “The Harvest Within: Thoughts on the Life of a Christian.”
1910. “The Interest of America in International Conditions.”
1911. “Naval Strategy, Compared and Contrasted with the Principles and Practice of Military Operations on Land.”
1912. “Armaments and Arbitration: the Place of Force in International Relations.”
1913. “The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence.”
UNCOLLECTED ESSAYS
“Reflections, Historical and Other, Suggested by the Battle of the Sea of Japan,” _U. S. Naval Institute_, June, 1906; Reprinted in _Journal of the Royal United Service Institution_, November, 1906.
“The Battleship of All Big Guns,” _World’s Work_, January, 1911.
“Misrepresenting Mr. Roosevelt,” _Outlook_, June 17, 1911.
“Importance of Command of the Sea,” _Scientific American_, December 9, 1911.
“Was Panama a Chapter of National Dishonor?” _North American Review_, October, 1912.
“Japan among Nations,” _Living Age_, August 2, 1913.
“Twentieth Century Christianity,” _North American Review_, April, 1914.
“Macdonough at Plattsburg,” _North American Review_, August, 1914.
“The Panama Canal and the Distribution of the Fleet,” _North American Review_, September, 1914.
REFERENCES
There is at present no printed source for the life of Mahan except his autobiographical record “From Sail to Steam,” which is confined almost entirely to the period preceding his retirement in 1896. Aside from book reviews, the more important critical essays and tributes are as follows:
“Mahan’s Counsels to the United States,” G. S. Clarke, _Nineteenth Century, Review_, February, 1898.
“Mahan on Sea Power,” S. G. W. Benjamin, _New York Times Book Review_, January 18, 1902.
“La Maîtrise de la Mer,” Auguste Moireau, _Revue des Deux Mondes_, October, 1902.
“Some American Historians,” Professor H. Morse Stephens, _World’s Work_, July, 1902.
“Lee at Appomattox and Other Papers,” Charles Francis Adams, 1903, p. 356 ff.
“The Writings of Mahan,” _New York Nation_, December 10, 1914.
“A Great Public Servant,” Theodore Roosevelt, _Outlook_, January 13, 1915. See also _Outlook_, December 9, 1914.
“Alfred Thayer Mahan—In Memoriam,” _United States Naval Institute_, January–February, 1915.
“The Influence of America’s Greatest Naval Strategist on the War in Europe,” _Current Opinion_, February, 1915. (Taken from Paris _Figaro_.)
“Naval History: Mahan and his Successors,” _Military Historian and Economist_, January, 1918.
INDEX
Aden, #$1#, 152
Admiralty, British, organization of, 118–122, 194, 195
Adriatic Sea, 26, 306
Africa, 46. _See_ SOUTH AFRICA
Alabama, Confederate cruiser, 96
Alaska, 40
Alava, Spanish admiral, 215
Alexander the Great, campaigns of, 4, 14
Alexander I, of Russia, 224–226
Algeciras Conference, 306
Alliances, military weakness of, 60, 61, 315. _See_ ENTENTE; TRIPLE ALLIANCE
Alsace-Lorraine, 326, 349
American Independence, War of, 23, 85, 343; unwise policy of England in, 143–144; influence of sea power in, 164–170.
Amsterdam, 34, 39.
Antilles, Lesser, strategic value of, 102, 105, 107, 108
Antwerp, 30, 306
Arbitration, #$1#, inadequacy of, 293–295, 344–347
Armenia, 345, 347
Armored cruiser, a faulty type, 260
Asia. _See_ CHINA; JAPAN; FAR EAST
Atlantic Coast, of United States, 35, 65–67, 111–112, 274, 285
Australia, 148, 149, 350
Austria, in Thirty Years’ War, 50 ff.; in Napoleonic Wars, 76, 191, 228; in Seven Years’ War, 147; an ally of Germany, 304–306, 317, 322, 323, 327
Balkan States, 306
Baltic Sea, 31, 82, 186, 188, 191, 273, 274, 313
Barbados, 60, 196
Bases, naval, for permanent operations, 28; in the Caribbean, 29; exposed to land attack, 71; useless without a navy, 287. _See_ PORTS; STRATEGIC POSITIONS
Battleships, design of, 61–62. _See_ SPEED
Beachy Head, battle of, 81, 155, 157
Belgium, ports of, closed, 30; a possession of Spain, 38, 50, 57, 60, 67
Berlin Decree, 95, 331
Bermuda, 105
Biscay, Bay of, 192
Bismarck, Prince, #$1#, 326
Blockade, in the Civil War, 41–42, 94; military, 86; commercial, 94–99, 330–331; defense against, 129–132; of Santiago, 251–255; of France, in Napoleonic Wars, 300–311
Bombardment, defense against, 129–132
Bombay, #$1#, 153
Boulogne, 191, 192, 194, 197
Bourrienne, Napoleon’s secretary, 13, 14
Boyne, battle of, 37
Brest, 23, 24, 31, 154, 174, 192–194, 196, 222
Brock, General, 233, 234
_Brunswick_, British ship, 180–182
_Bucentaure_, French ship, 215–219
Bulgaria, 345
Byng, British Admiral, 85, 86, 158
Cadiz, 26, 58; Villeneuve at, 197–202, 208–211, 219–222
Cæsar, campaigns of, 4, 14
Calder, British Admiral, 196
Cámara, Spanish Admiral, 252
Canada, 143, 147, 154; in War of 1812, 229–240, 307
Cape Verde Islands, 241
Caribbean Sea, strategic importance of, 27–29, 289, 325; features of, 100–112; map of, 100; hurricane in, 244
Cartagena, 26
Central Line, or Position, defined and illustrated, 50–67, 103; of Germany, 53
Cervera, Spanish Admiral, squadron of, 59, 88, 89; approach of, 241–249; blockaded at Santiago, 251–255
Champlain, Lake, battle of, 235, 239
Channel, British, 23, 24, 25, 52, 53, 69, 140; defenses in, against Napoleon, 191–195; controlled by England, 312–315
Charles, Archduke, campaigns of, 11 ff
Chauncey, Commodore, 235–236
Chemulpo, 256, 267
Cherbourg, 31, 174
Chesapeake Bay, British forces in, 31; battle off, 164–170
China, at war with Japan, 296; and foreign powers, 300, 345; emigration from, 349, 352. _See_ OPEN DOOR
Cienfuegos, 59, 88, 89, 103, 241, 246, 247
Civil War, American, Mahan’s service in, #$1#; blockade in, 41–42, 94–96; Farragut in, 76; results of, 292
Clausewitz, Karl von, quoted, 89
Clinton, Sir Henry, 164, 167
Coasts, influence of, on naval development, 28–32, 40–42; defense of, 89, 129–133; fortification of, 261. _See_ FRONTIERS
Codrington, Sir Edward, 178, 183, 201
Colbert, French Minister, 138, 139
Collingwood, British Admiral, at battle of June First, 178; off Rochefort, 192; at Trafalgar, 197, 201, 206, 213–217, 220
Colonies, national policies regarding, #$1#, 45–46; as motives for a navy, 20; British, 22; Germany’s desire for, 319, 323
Commerce, easier by sea than by land, 16; importance of foreign, 17, 148; as a motive for naval power, 18–19, 355–357; routes of, 69–70, 76–78
Commerce Warfare, operations of, discussed, 5, 91–99; a weapon of the weaker sea power, 24; requires distant bases, 25, 154; in the Napoleonic Wars, 198, 223–228. _See_ BLOCKADE; PRIVATE PROPERTY
Communications, facility of, by sea, 16, 77, 286, 331–332; between England and Ireland, 37, 38; importance of, in warfare, 52–60, 75–78, 92; maintained by naval forces, 154; altered by interoceanic canals, 288–290
Compromise, evils of, 259–262; in Rozhestvensky’s plans, 281
Concentration, defined and illustrated, 60–67; disregarded by Russia in war with Japan, 270–275, 277–282
Continental System, Napoleon’s, 198, 223–228
Contraband, 99
Convoys, 17
Copenhagen, Nelson’s campaign of, 184–191
Corbett, Sir Julian, quoted, 85, 89
Corfu, 287
Cornwallis, British Admiral, 192, 194, 196
Cornwallis, General, at Yorktown, 159, 164–170
Corsica, 26
Corunna, 52
Crete, 58, 70, 347
Cronstadt, 273
Cuba, strategic value of, 59, 74, 79, 100–112; in Spanish War, 243, 245, 345, 348, 349
Culebra Island, 111
Curaçao, 241, 248
_Curieux_, British brig, 196
Curtis, British Captain, 178, 179, 183
Cyprus, 153
D’Aché, French Admiral, 153
Danube, central position on, 50, 53–56, 60, 67
Dearborn, General, 236, 238
De Barras, French Admiral, in the American Revolution, 164–168
Defensive, limited rôle of, in naval warfare, 87–90, 309–311; in the War of 1812, 228 ff
De Grasse, French Admiral, at Saints’ Passage, 160; off the Chesapeake, 164–170
Du Guichen, French Admiral, engaged with Rodney, 159–163
Denmark, trade of, 25; waters of, 51; Nelson’s campaign against, 184–190
De Ruyter, Dutch Admiral, 207
Detroit, 233, 238, 239
Dewey, Admiral, #$1#
Dominica, 160
Dumanoir, French Admiral, at Trafalgar, 218–220
Egypt, Napoleon in, 58, 127, 192; British rule in, 152, 191, 343
England. _See_ GREAT BRITAIN
Entente, Triple, 53, 304–306, 317–318
Erie, Lake, operations on, 232, 233, 235–236, 238, 240
Far East, political conditions in, 289–291, 296–297. _See_ CHINA; JAPAN; OPEN DOOR
Farragut, Admiral, his place as a naval leader, #$1#; at Mobile, 64, 251; on the Mississippi, 76; quoted, 340
Ferrol, 192, 196, 197
Fighting Instructions, of the British Navy, 157–158
Fleet in Being, theory of, 81; illustrated by Cervera’s fleet, 242–248; in Russo-Japanese War, 258–269
Florida, exposed position of, 36, 65, 66; Straits of, 69, 147
Flying Squadron, in Spanish War, #$1#, 59, 88, 89, 241, 246
Fortress Fleet, 258–269
Française, Cape, 165, 166
France, a rival of Great Britain, #$1#; geographical conditions affecting, 22–25; ports of, 31, 32; in Napoleonic Wars, 43–44, 171–174; colonial policy of, 46; in Thirty Years’ War, 50–57; exhausted under Louis XIV, 137–140; in American Revolution, 143–144; in Seven Years’ War, 147, 153–154; opposed to Germany, 305, 317–318, 320; arrested growth of, in population, 307, 322; Channel coast of, 312–313. _See_ NAVY, FRENCH
Franklin, Benjamin, quoted, 350
Frederick the Great, 14, 147
French Revolution, 152; effect on French navy, 171–174, 178
Frontiers, advantage of seaboard, 30; of United States, regarded as a line, 65–67, 112; warfare on, in 1812, 229–234. _See_ COASTS
Genoa, 67
Germany, recent naval policy of, #$1#–xv, 51; trade of, 25; rivers of, 33, 69; central position of, 53; possible acquisitions in West Indies, 288; political character and aims of, 292, 302–308, 317–327; and Far East, 299; her sea routes threatened by Great Britain, 312–316, 333, 336. _See_ NAVY, GERMAN
Gibraltar, an important base, 20, 22, 58, 69, 74, 152, 154; acquired by Great Britain, 26, 147, 157; siege of, 85, 86, 107, 178; Nelson at, 196, 199, 209
Good Hope, Cape of, 20, 26, 33, 51, 152, 290, 314
Graves, British Admiral, off the Chesapeake, 160, 164–170
Gravina, Spanish Admiral, at Trafalgar, 210–211, 214, 219–220
Great Britain, growth of, in naval power, #$1#, 32–34, 43–44; colonial policy of, 45, 46, 343; naval policy of, 47–48, 141–146; community of interests with United States, 111, 291–295, 318–332; in American Revolution, 143–144; gains of, in Seven Years’ War, 147–154; navy her first line of defense, 191–195; in commerce warfare with Napoleon, 223–228, 310–311; and problem of imperial federation, 293; threatened by Germany, 302–308; policy of, relating to seizure of private property at sea, 333–338. _See_ NAVY, BRITISH
Guadeloupe, 25, 143
Guantanamo, 58, 103–107, 111
Hague, The, 155–157, 165, 166. _See_ PEACE CONFERENCES
Haiti, 105, 108
Halifax, 105
Hamilton, Lady Emma, 200
Hampton Roads, #$1#, 59, 66, 89, 241, 246
Hannibal, campaigns of, 4, 14
Havana, 39, 59, 88, 89, 105, 106, 110, 143, 166, 241, 246, 247
Havre, 174
Hawaiian Islands, value of, to the United States, 285–287, 356, 357; Japanese in, 301
Hawke, British Admiral, 155
Heligoland, #$1#
Holland, dependent on commerce, 161; as a sea power, 22, 23; trade of, 25; closes Belgian ports, 30; raids Chatham, 30; naval rivalry with England, 32–34, 312, 313; at war with Spain, 37–38, 342; colonial policy of, 45–46; rivers of, 69; in wars of Louis XIV, 137–140; in Napoleonic Wars, 193; possible union with Germany, 320
Hood, British Admiral, 167, 168
Hotham, British Admiral, 81
Howe, British Admiral, policy of, 5; in the battle of June First, 175–183
Hudson River, 31, 166
India, British in, 147, 151, 317, 343; route to, 152, 153
Interior Lines, value of, in warfare, 51–67; illustrated, 103, 314
International Law, regard for, in Napoleonic Wars, 227–228; inadequate to check national aggressions, 300
Ireland, 37, 313
Italy, position of, 26; exposed by sea, 36–37; in wars of France and Austria, 50, 56, 60; unification of, 292; interests of, opposed to those of Germany and Austria, 305–306, 317
Jamaica, lost by Spain, 39; threatening position of, 58; strategic value of, 100–112
James II, of England, 38, 277; fighting instructions issued by, 157–158
Japan, influenced by Mahan’s writings, #$1#; in war with Russia, 56, 57, 60; influence in Asia, 76–78, 82–84; coerced by the European powers, 291–292; growth of, 296–297, 326; and the Open Door Policy, 299–301; compared with Germany, 303, 324; and Great Britain, 306–307, 318, 320; emigration from, 349–352. _See_ RUSSO-JAPANESE WAR
Jervis. _See_ ST. VINCENT
Jomini, on strategy, 11, 12, 49, 321; on strategic lines, 64, 65, 238; on Napoleon, 80; on British sea power, 141
June First, battle of, 175–183
Kamimura, Japanese Admiral, 66
Kamranh Bay, 83
Keith, British Admiral, 194
Key West, 29, 36, 111, 241, 269
Kiel Canal, #$1#, 51
Kingston, in Canada, 231–240; in Jamaica, 107
Korea, 256, 300, 346
Kuropatkin, Russian General, 256, 257
Lafayette, General, 164, 169
La Hogue, battle of, 155–157, 165, 166
Levant, trade of, 33
Line of Battle, of fleets, 62, 156, 158, 162, 163. _See_ STRATEGIC LINES
Logistics, defined, 49
London, 30
Louis XIV, of France, 37, 155; wars of, 137–141
Louis XVI, of France, 172
Louisburg, 20, 154
Macdonough, Commodore, 142
Madagascar, #$1#, 82
Madrid, 81, 209
Magellan, Straits of, 51, 67, 290
Malta, 20, 26, 58, 70, 107, 152, 287
Manchuria, 56, 57, 267, 300
Manila, 39, 143
Mantua, 76, 80
Marengo, battle of, 13, 14, 76, 257
Marlborough, Duke of, 142
Martinique, 25, 74, 104, 143, 154, 160, 161, 196, 241
Masampo Bay, 66
Mauritius, 20, 152
Mediterranean Sea, position of France on, 22, 59, 140; importance of, as a trade route, 27, 31, 39, 289–290; Villeneuve ordered to, 198–199; bases in, 287, 314
Metz, 71
Mexico, Gulf of, 29, 31, 35, 36, 65, 66; strategic features of, 100–112, 325
Milan, 50, 53
Minorca, 39, 107, 147, 154, 158
Mississippi River, importance of, 29, 31, 35, 69, 100, 101; in the Civil War, 42, 76, 143
Mobile Bay, battle of, 64, 251
Mona Passage, 102
Monroe Doctrine, 102, 111, 149, 288–291, 318, 320–322, 325, 356
Montreal, 231, 233, 234, 238, 240
Moore, Sir John, 81
Morocco, 306, 318, 320
Mukden, battle of, 56, 256
Naples, 38, 39
Napoleon, as a strategian, 11; anecdote of, 12–14; quoted, 4, 14, 55, 58, 70, 78, 110, 155, 173, 241, 271, 287, 296, 335; at Marengo and Mantua, 76, 257; a believer in the offensive, 80, 81, 152, 153; in commerce warfare with Great Britain, 92, 93, 95, 223–228, 331; armies of, 172; and the northern neutrals, 184, 187; his plan for the invasion of England, 191–198; and the Trafalgar campaign, 221–223, 248; downfall of, 237; at Waterloo, 239
Napoleonic Wars, 12, 31, 80, 81, 142, 307, 310, 343
Naval Administration, civil _vs._ military, 113–115; in peace and war, 115–118; British, 118–122; United States, 122–124. _See_ ADMIRALTY
Naval Training, 8–15
Naval War College, Mahan at, #$1#; aims of, 10–15
Navarino, battle of, 178
Navies, motives for, 18, 355–357; a protection for commerce, 19; fighting order of, 61; an offensive weapon, 71–73
Navigation Acts, British, 337
Navy, _British_; training of officers in, 8–9; compared with French, 43; maneuvers of, 72; tactics of, in the 18th century, 156–158; protection afforded by, 306–308; _French_: training of officers in, 8–9; compared with British, 43; weakness of, in Revolutionary Wars, 146, 171–174, 178; faulty policy of, 155–158; _German_: growth and purpose of, 111, 299, 307, 317–320; _United States_: interested chiefly in material, 8; in Civil War, 41; insufficient, 44; in Spanish War, 59–60, 245, 250–253; concentration of fleet of, 60, 274–275; administration of, 122–124; requirements of, 128–134
Nebogatoff, Russian Admiral, 83
Nelson, British Admiral, his place as a naval leader, #$1#; in the Trafalgar campaign, 5, 62, 63, 196–223; his pursuit of Napoleon in the Mediterranean, 58; on concentration, 61; quoted, 80, 82, 85, 175, 253; and the rule of obedience, 126–127; in the Copenhagen campaign, 184–190; in command of channel forces, 191–192, 195
Netherlands. _See_ BELGIUM; HOLLAND
Neutrality, League of Armed, 184–190
Newport, Rhode Island, #$1#, 164, 166
New York, 31, 69, 73, 164–167
Niagara frontier, warfare on, 231–232, 235–236
Nile, battle of, 153
North Sea, 23, 25, 51, 313–316
Nossi-Bé, 82, 83
Offensive, advantage of, in war, 128–133, 229, 309–311; operations of, discussed, 79–86; navy chiefly useful for, 70–73
Ontario, Lake, campaign on, in War of 1812, 229–240
Open Door Policy, 299–301, 325, 356, 357
_Oregon_, United States ship, 59, 60
Oswego, 232
Pacific Coast, of United States, 35, 40, 67, 111, 112, 285, 289; immigration to, 350, 356
Pacific Ocean, interest of the United States in, 289, 299–301
Panama Canal, its effect on naval policy, 18, 27–29, 325; an interior line, 51, 301; central position of, 67, 70, 77; strategic importance of, 100–112, 149, 150, 356–357; need of controlling approaches to, 285–287; and the Monroe Doctrine, 288–291, 318
Paris, Treaty of, 147–148; Declaration of, 99, 337; city of, 198
Parker, British Admiral, 184–190
Peace Conferences, at The Hague, #$1#, 132, 331, 342, 346
Peninsular War, 81, 82
Pensacola, 29
Philippine Islands, 252, 349
Pitt, Sir William, British Prime Minister, 143, 151
Plevna, 56, 57
Plymouth, England, 24, 31
Pondicherry, 78, 154
Population, affecting sea power, 43–44; of Pacific Coast, 301
Port Arthur, threatening Japanese communications, 56, 57; attacked by siege, 71, 82; squadron based on, 256–271, 275
Port Mahon, 289
Porto Rico, 241, 349
Ports, in Gulf and Caribbean, 128, 29; flanking communications, 56–58
Portsmouth, England, 31
Preparation, for war, 128–134, 229–230, 237–238, 357
Private property at sea, immunity of, 78, 93, 98, 99, 328–341; Rule of 1756 regarding, 227–228
Prussia, 147, 153, 189, 191, 228
Puget Sound, 67
Pyrenees, 52, 65
Ratisbon, 50
Red Sea, 152
Resources, affecting strategic value of positions, 68, 69, 74
Revel, 188–190
Rhine River, 50, 52, 53, 55, 56, 60, 197.
Richelieu, Cardinal, 31, 60
Rions, Commodore de, 174
Robespierre, 178
Rochambeau, 164, 166, 170
Rochefort, 174, 192
Rodney, Admiral, in battle with De Guichen, 155, 159–164
Roman Empire, 301
Rooke, British Admiral, 156, 157
Rosily, French Admiral, 199, 208, 221
Rotterdam, 336
_Royal Sovereign_, British ship, 123–217
Rozhestvensky, Russian Admiral, 66, 70, 82–84, 257, 265, 270, 274, 276–282
Russia, trade of, 25; alliance of, 53; in Asia, 76–78, 153, 300; in Seven Years’ War, 147; in Napoleonic Wars, 184–190, 192, 224–226; a member of the Entente, 305, 317–318; decreased strength of, 322; her need of a navy, 327, 355–356. _See_ RUSSO-JAPANESE WAR
Russo-Japanese War, 56–57, 64, 66, 82–84, 88, 256–282, 355
Sackett’s Harbor, 232, 239
St. George’s Channel, 37
St. Helena, 20, 152
St. Lawrence, Gulf of, 20; river, true frontier in 1812, 230 ff.
St. Thomas, 103
St. Vincent, Lord, policy of, 5, 193
Saint-André, French Commissioner, 173, 179
Saints’ Passage, battle of, 160, 169
Samana Bay, 103
Sampson, Admiral, #$1#, 241, 249, 250–255
Santa Lucia, 74, 103, 105, 108
Santiago de Cuba, 71, 103, 104, 107, 241, 243, 246, 247; blockade and battle of, 250–255
_Santisima Trinidad_, Spanish ship, 214, 215, 217, 218, 220
Sardinia, 37
Scheldt River, 30, 248
Schleswig Holstein, 349
Schley, Admiral, 241, 246
Sea Power, dependence on, a British policy, #$1#; scope of history of, 3; elements of, 16–47; conditions affecting, 21; growth of British, 141–146, 151–152; controls communications, 77–78; decisive in warfare, 98, 99; an important element in national growth, 154, 286–287; in Napoleonic Wars, 191–197, 221–224; a protection against aggressions by land powers, 306–308; interest in, 326–327
Secession, War of. _See_ CIVIL WAR
Semenoff, Russian Captain, quoted, 280
Seven Years’ War, 85–86, 142–144, 147–154, 307
Shafter, General, 269
Sherman, General, quoted, 335
Ship design, unity of purpose in, 61–62
Sicily, 37, 38, 39, 42
Situation, determines strategic value of a point, 69–70, 110
Smith, Sir Sidney, 126
Socotra, 152
Sound, between North and Baltic Seas, 51, 185, 186, 190
South Africa, 290; war in, 293–295, 347
South America, unstable political conditions in, 148–149; application of Monroe Doctrine to, 290
Spain, position of, 26; dependence on sea power, 38, 39; colonial policy of, 45; in 18th century, 141–142, 143–144, 151–152; in Napoleonic Wars, 81, 221, 226; colonial empire of, lost, 291, 342. _See_ SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR
Spanish-American War, strategy of, #$1#, 59–60, 88–90; Cervera’s fleet in, 241–249; Santiago blockade, 250–255; strengthened Anglo-American unity, 291–295; could not have been avoided by arbitration, 342, 348–349
Speed, of battleships, 61, 246–248
Strasburg, 71, 137
Strategic Lines and Positions, in the Caribbean, 65–78, 100–112; in the War of 1812, 238–240
Strategy, defined, 4, 12, 49; value of study of, 5; in War of 1812, 229–240; must take into account political conditions, 250–253, 320–327; illustrated by mistakes, 257; must be exercised in time of peace, 274; chief aim of, 311
Submarines, 70, 99
Suez Canal, 26, 28, 51, 70, 77, 152, 252, 261, 289, 290
Suffren, French Admiral, 86, 153
Sully, French Minister, 38
Suvarof, General, 262
Sweden, trade of, 25; in Thirty Years’ War, 53; in 1800, 184–190
Tactics, defined, 4, 49; illustrated in history, 5–7; in naval combats, 62–64; formalism in, 155–158; changes in, at close of 18th century, 159 ff., 168; chief aim of, 311
Territory, extent of, affecting sea power, 39–42
Texel, 193
Tobago, 160
Togo, Japanese Admiral, 60, 66, 82–84, 90, 270, 276–280
Torbay, 24
Toronto, 231, 236
Torpedo craft, 130–134
Torrington, British Admiral, 242, 248
Toulon, 57, 58, 154, 174, 192, 193, 196, 248
Tourville, French Admiral, 80, 81, 155, 159, 207
Trade. _See_ COMMERCE
Trafalgar, battle of, 5, 62, 192, 194, 196–223, 248
Trieste, 306
Trincomalee, 86
Triple Alliance, 53, 304–306, 317–318
Triple Entente. _See_ ENTENTE
Tsushima, battle of, 64, 70, 82–84, 88, 265, 276–282
Turkey, 33, 148, 150
Ulm, 50, 71, 76, 191
United States, merchant marine of, 18, 35; geographical position of, 22; and Panama Canal, 27–29; seacoasts of, inadequately protected, 34–36; exposed only by sea, 39; deficient in seafaring population, 44; colonial policy of, 46; seacoasts of, regarded as a line, 65–67; naval requirements of, 133–134; community of interests with Great Britain, 291–295, 306–308, 318–327; expansion of, 297–298; and the Open Door Policy, 299; political ideals of, 302; policy of, regarding commerce warfare, 331–333. _See_ NAVY, UNITED STATES
Utrecht, peace of, 141–142
Vengeur, French ship, 180–182
Venice, 306
_Victory_, Nelson’s flagship, 213–214
Vigo Bay, 157
Villaret-Joyeuse, French Admiral, 178
Villeneuve, French Admiral, quoted, 173; in Trafalgar campaign, 196, 199, 202, 210–223
Vistula River, 12, 78
Vladivostok, 66, 73, 82, 83, 88; squadron based on, 256–261, 265, 266, 270, 274; objective of Rozhestvensky, 276–282
Von der Goltz, General, quoted, 321
War, principles of, 6; causes of, 148; preparedness for, 128–134; beneficial results of, 292–295, 342–354
War of 1812, commerce warfare in, 91–99, 226–228; strategy of, 229–240
Washington, General, 164; quoted, 169, 170
Washington, city of, 31
Waterloo, battle of, 82, 239
Weapons, changes in, 6
Wellington, Duke of, 82, 234, 239
West Indies, a source of wealth for Spain, 37; Nelson in, 196–197, 202. _See_ CARIBBEAN SEA
William II, of England, 81, 277, 281
Wilkinson, General, 238
Windward Passage, 102
Wireless, in war, 84, 85
Yalu River, 268
Yang-tse River, 276
Yeo, British Commodore, 235
Yucatan Passage, 102, 104
Zuyder Zee, 34
-----
Footnote 1:
“From Sail to Steam,” p. xiv.
Footnote 2:
“From Sail to Steam,” p. 55.
Footnote 3:
See pp. 328–341.
Footnote 4:
Rear Admiral Bradley A. Fiske, _U. S. Naval Institute_, January–February, 1915, p. 2.
Footnote 5:
“La Maîtrise de la Mer,” Auguste Moireau, _Revue des Deux Mondes_, October, 1902.
Footnote 6:
“Of Kingdoms and Estates.”
Footnote 7:
“The Revival of Naval History,” _Contemporary Review_. November, 1917. While the term “political pamphlet” suggests the influence of the book abroad, it is obviously inappropriate in describing its purpose and method of treatment.
Footnote 8:
“The Kaiser’s Dreams of Sea Power,” Archibald Hurd, _Fortnightly Review_, August, 1906.
Footnote 9:
“From Sail to Steam,” p. 303.
Footnote 10:
“Captain Romeo Bernotti,” letter to the editor, April 25, 1918.
Footnote 11:
“A Great Public Servant,” _The Outlook_, January 13, 1915.
Footnote 12:
“From Sail to Steam,” p. 288.
Footnote 13:
“The Influence of Sea Power upon History,” pp. 1–2, 8–10.
Footnote 14:
“Naval Administration and Warfare,” Objects of the Naval War College (1888), pp. 193–194, 233–240.
Footnote 15:
In a preceding passage the author shows that American naval thought has been preoccupied with problems of material.—EDITOR.
Footnote 16:
“The Influence of Sea Power upon History,” pp. 25–59. Mr. S. G. W. Benjamin has pointed out (N. Y. _Times_ Book Review, Feb. 2, 1902) that it was in the preface and opening chapter of this book, “comprising only eighty-nine pages, that Captain Mahan brought forward his famous presentation of the theory about the influence of sea power on empire.” The present selection includes the major part of the first chapter.—EDITOR.
Footnote 17:
For the author’s later opinion on the need of a navy, see pp. 355–357.—EDITOR.
Footnote 18:
Written before 1890.—EDITOR.
Footnote 19:
By a base of permanent operations “is understood a country whence come all the resources, where are united the great lines of communication by land and water, where are the arsenals and armed posts.”
Footnote 20:
“Naval Administration and Warfare,” pp. 199, 206. For the distinction drawn, see also pp. 4, 12.—EDITOR.
Footnote 21:
“Naval Strategy,” pp. 31–53.
Footnote 22:
An interesting instance of the method and forethought which cause German naval development of all kinds to progress abreast, on parallel lines, is found in the fact that by the time the three Dreadnoughts laid down in 1911 are completed, and with them two complete Dreadnought squadrons of eight each, which probably will be in 1914, the Kiel Canal will have been enlarged to permit their passage. There will then be a fleet of thirty-eight battleships; including these sixteen, which will be stationed, eight in the North Sea, eight in the Baltic, linked for mutual support by the central canal. The programme contemplates a continuous prearranged replacing of the present pre-Dreadnoughts by Dreadnoughts.
Footnote 23:
See map on page 278.
Footnote 24:
“Naval Strategy,” pp. 130–163.
Footnote 25:
“Naval Strategy,” pp. 166–167. For illustration and further discussion of strategic lines, see “General Strategy of the War of 1812,” in this volume, pp. 229–240.—EDITOR.
Footnote 26:
“The Problem of Asia” (1900), pp. 124–127.
Footnote 27:
“Naval Strategy,” pp. 266–272.
Footnote 28:
“Naval Strategy,” pp. 277–280.
Footnote 29:
“Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812,” Vol. I, pp. 284–290.
Footnote 30:
“History of the United States,” Vol. VIII, chap. VIII.
Footnote 31:
“The Influence of Sea Power upon History,” p. 138.
Footnote 32:
This immunity of enemy property in neutral ships, guaranteed by the Declaration of Paris in 1856, has been to a large extent nullified in recent practice by extension of the lists of contraband, to say nothing of the violations of all law in submarine warfare.—EDITOR.
Footnote 33:
“Naval Strategy,” pp. 303–304, 356–367, 381–382.
Footnote 34:
“Naval Administration and Warfare” (1903), pp. 5–11.
Footnote 35:
“Naval Administration and Warfare” (1903). pp. 26–31.
Footnote 36:
“Naval Administration and Warfare” (1903), pp. 46–48.
Footnote 37:
These bureaus are seven in number: Yards and Docks, Navigation, Ordnance, Construction and Repairs, Steam Engineering, Supplies and Accounts, and Medicine and Surgery. The Chief of Naval Operations, whose office was created in 1915, stands second to the Secretary and acts as his expert professional adviser, with the specific task of co-ordinating the work of the navy, preparing plans, and directing operations in war. He is, _ex officio_, a member of the General Board of the Navy, created in 1900, which serves as an expert advisory body.—EDITOR.
Footnote 38:
“Retrospect and Prospect,” pp. 258–259, 270–272.
Footnote 39:
“The Interest of America in Sea Power” (1896), pp. 192–200.
Footnote 40:
Bombardment of _undefended_ ports, towns, etc., is forbidden by Convention IX of the Hague conference of 1907, with the broad concession, however, that depots, store houses, and all constructions that serve military purposes may be destroyed.—EDITOR.
Footnote 41:
“The Influence of Sea Power upon History” (1660–1783), pp. 197–200. Admiral Mahan’s major historical works treat consecutively the history of naval warfare from 1660 to 1815; and his essays and shorter studies cover subsequent wars. The selections in