ALFRED THAYER MAHAN
In his volume of reminiscences, “From Sail to Steam,” Rear Admiral Mahan gives us his father’s opinion and his own later judgment regarding his choice of the navy as a life work. “My father told me he thought me less fit for a military than for a civil profession, having watched me carefully. I think myself now that he was right; for though I have no cause to complain of unsuccess, I believe I should have done better elsewhere.”[[1]]
The father, Dennis Hart Mahan, was a graduate of West Point, in later life a distinguished professor of engineering at the Military Academy, and thus well qualified to weigh his son’s character and the requirements of a military career. The verdict of both father and son, moreover, may appear borne out by the fact that, while the name of Mahan is more widely known to-day than that of any other American naval officer, his fame rests, not on his achievements as a ship or fleet commander, but as a great naval historian and student of naval warfare.
Whatever the apparent wisdom of the choice at the time, it was in the event fortunate both for himself and for the naval profession. His long and varied service as an officer afloat and ashore gave him an invaluable background for the study of naval history and international affairs. On the other hand, his writings have brought home to every maritime nation the importance of sea power, and have stimulated in his own profession an interest in naval history and naval science which has helped to keep it abreast the progress of the age. This direct bearing of his professional experience upon his writings adds significance to the details of his life in the navy.
Alfred Thayer Mahan entered the Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland, September 30, 1856. Born at West Point, September 27, 1840, he was at the time of his entrance but three days above sixteen. Like many another candidate for the navy, he solicited his own appointment, obtaining it finally through the influence of Jefferson Davis, who had studied under his father at West Point, and was at this time Secretary of War. Having attended Columbia College for two years preceding, the boy was permitted—by a concession of which this is believed to be the only instance in the annals of the Academy—to omit the first year’s work and enter with the “Youngster” class, or “class of ’55 date,” according to the nomenclature then used. Up to the year 1851 the midshipmen’s course had consisted of five years at sea followed by one at the Academy. Mahan entered in the autumn after the graduation of the last class under the old scheme; and it was to the more mature, “sea-going” character of former classes that he attributes the total absence of hazing in his day. The practice was “not so much reprobated as ignored.” It came in later, when the Academy was moved to Newport during the Civil War, and “new ideals were evolved by a mass of schoolboys, severed from those elder associates with the influence of whom no professors nor officers can vie.”[[2]]
In the dusty files of Academy registers for that period one may read the names of boys famous in later years. George Dewey was a class ahead of Mahan; Schley and Sampson were respectively one class and two classes behind. On graduation, Dewey stood fifth in a class of fifteen; Mahan second in a class of twenty, with a record apparently very close to the leader’s; and Sampson stood first. In his last year the future historian was first in seamanship, physics, political science, and moral science, third in naval tactics and gunnery, fourth in “steam engine,” and fifth in astronomy and navigation. The year before he had excelled in physics, rhetoric, and Spanish. The details are noteworthy chiefly as they show the subjects of the old-time curriculum, in which so-called practical branches were less predominant than they are to-day. Of Mahan’s class, which numbered forty-nine at the time of entrance, twenty-nine had dropped back or resigned before the end of the course.
After a cruise in South American waters in the old frigate Congress, Mahan at once received his commission as lieutenant, August 31, 1861, and soon afterward an appointment as second in command of the steam corvette Pocahontas, then in the Potomac flotilla. It illustrates the rapid promotion of those war-time days that each member of his class received similar advancement in the first year of the war. In the Pocahontas he came under fire in the attack on Port Royal, and afterward spent many weary months in blockade duty, first in the Pocahontas off the south Atlantic coast, and later in the Seminole off Sabine Pass, Texas. This latter station, Mahan remarks, “was a jumping-off place, the end of nowhere.” “Day after day we lay inactive—roll, roll.” The monotony was broken by a pleasant eight months at the Naval Academy in Newport and a “practice cruise” to England in the Macedonian; and in the last year of the war he saw more varied service on the staff of Rear Admiral Dahlgren, again on the Atlantic coast blockade.
Commissioned lieutenant commander in 1865, Mahan passed the ensuing twenty years in the customary routine of alternate sea and shore duty. In 1867–1869, a long cruise in the steam frigate Iroquois to Japan, via Guadeloupe, Rio, Cape Town, Madagascar, Aden, and Bombay, gave opportunity, unusual even in the navy, to see the world, and brought him to Kobe in time to witness the opening of new treaty ports and the last days of medieval Japan.
In 1885, when he had reached the rank of captain and was forty-five years of age, he had yet had little opportunity to display the distinctive talents which were to win him permanent fame. Partly, perhaps, in consequence of a book by his pen entitled “The Gulf and Inland Waters” and published two years before, but more likely as a result of the shrewd estimate which naval officers form regarding their fellows in the service, he was requested at this time to give a series of lectures on naval history and tactics at the Naval War College, then just established at Newport, Rhode Island. His acceptance of this duty marks a turning point in his career.
The call reached him in the Wachusett off the west coast of South America. It was nearly two years later, in August, 1886, when he took up his residence at the college, succeeding Rear Admiral Luce as president. A change of political administration in the meantime had brought about a less favorable policy toward this new departure in naval education, with the result that, to quote Mahan again, the college “was reefed close down, looking out for squalls at any moment from any quarter,” for the next four or five years. It bears evidence to his tact and tenacity, and it was not the least of his accomplishments for the navy, that he piloted the institution safely through this crucial period, with scant appropriations or none at all, in the face of a hostile Secretary of the Navy and a lukewarm service.
After seven years devoted chiefly to the War College, Mahan went to sea for the last time as commander of the cruiser Chicago in the European squadron. At this time “The Influence of Sea Power upon History” had already been published, and the volume on the French Revolution and Empire was nearly ready for the press. Upon requesting postponement of sea duty until its completion, he was informed by his superior in the Bureau of Navigation that it was “not the business of a naval officer to write books.” The remark was narrow, for the naval or any other profession would soon stagnate without the stimulus of free discussion and study, which finds its best outlet through the press; and it showed slight recognition of the immense value to the navy and the nation of Mahan’s writings. Still it was well for the author that he made this last cruise—his only experience with a ship of the new fleet. If the importance of his first book was not realized at home—and it is stated that he had great difficulty in finding a publisher—it was fully recognized abroad. His arrival in England was taken as an opportunity to pay a national tribute of appreciation, of which the degrees conferred by both Oxford and Cambridge were but one expression. There is a slightly humorous aspect to the competition of American universities to award similar honors upon his return.
Retiring in 1896 after forty years of service, he was recalled to act as a member of the Naval War Board from May 9, 1898, until the close of the War with Spain. His fellow members were Rear Admiral Montgomery Sicard and Captain A. S. Crowninshield. This board practically controlled the naval strategy of the war. Of its deliberations and the relative influence of its members we have no record; but the naval dispositions were effective, and, aside from the location of the “Flying Squadron” at Hampton Roads as a concession to the fears of coast cities, they are fully approved by Mahan in his writings.
His choice a year later as one of the American delegates to the first Peace Conference at The Hague was eminently fitting in view of his thorough knowledge of international relations and the rules governing naval warfare. In determining the attitude of the American delegation, he took a strong stand against any agreement that would contract our freedom of action with regard to the Monroe Doctrine, and against immunity of private property at sea. The arguments against this latter policy he afterward stated effectively in print[[3]] and in a memorandum to the Navy Department. With the fulfillment of this duty, his public services, aside from his work as a writer, came to a close.
In the navy, as in other walks of life, an incompatibility is often assumed—and often unjustly—between mastery of theory and skill in practice, between the thoughtful student and the capable man of action; and there is no denying that among his contemporaries this assumption was current with regard to Mahan. While a conclusion is difficult in such a matter, the case may well rest on the following statement by a friend and fellow officer: “Duty, in whatever form it came, was sacred. Invariably he gave to its performance the best that was in him. That he distinguished himself pre-eminently on shipboard cannot be claimed. Luck or circumstances denied him the opportunity of doing things heroic, and his modesty those purely spectacular. As a subordinate or as captain of a single ship, what he did was well done. No further proof of his qualities in this respect is needed than the fact that, at the outbreak of the Civil War, when finishing his midshipman’s cruise, he was asked by a shipmate, an officer who expected a command, to go with him as ‘first lieutenant.’ To his colleagues of the old navy this invitation was the highest form of professional approval. The fates decreed that the wider field should not be his wherein, as commander-in-chief of a fleet in war time, he could have exhibited the mastery he surely possessed of that art with which his name will forever be indissolubly linked.”[[4]]
From the same source may be taken a passage of more intimate portrayal. “In person Mahan was tall, spare, erect, with blue eyes, fair complexion, hair and beard originally sandy. He respected the body as the temple of his soul, and he paid it the homage of abstemious living, of outdoor games and abundant exercise. In manner he was modest to excess, dignified, courteous. Reticent in speech with people in general, those who enjoyed the rare privilege of his intimacy knew him to be possessed of a keen sense of humor and a fund of delightful anecdotes. To such friends he was a most charming companion, so different from the grave, self-contained philosopher he appeared to the rest and less favored of his acquaintance. His home life was ideal.”
The lectures delivered at the Naval War College were the basis of “The Influence of Sea Power upon History.” The author tells us how the central idea came to him in the library of the English Club at Lima, Peru, while reading Momsen’s “History of Rome.” “It suddenly struck me ... how different things might have been could Hannibal have invaded Italy by sea, as the Romans often had Africa, instead of by the long land route.” A year later, when he returned to the United States, the plan of the lectures was already formed: “I would investigate coincidently the general history and the naval history of the past two centuries with a view to demonstrating the influence of the events of the one upon the other.” Written between May and September of 1886, and delivered as lectures during the next four years, the book was carefully revised before its publication in the spring of 1890.
This book exerted at the time, and has continued to exert, a widespread influence; and while its author’s reputation has been increased by his later writings, it remains his best known and greatest work. One reason for this is that it states his fundamental teaching, and in a form easy to grasp. The preface and the first chapter, which cover but eighty-nine pages, survey rapidly the rise and decline of great sea powers and the national characteristics affecting maritime development. The rest of the book, treating in detail the period between 1660 and 1783, reinforces the conclusions already stated.
Timeliness also contributed to its success. The book furnished authoritative guidance in a period of transition and new departures in international affairs. For nearly twenty years, under Bismarck, Germany had been consolidating the empire established in 1871. When William II ascended the throne in 1888, the ambitions of both ruler and nation were already turned toward colonial expansion and world power. A German Admiralty separate from the War Office was established in 1889; Heligoland was secured a year later; the Kiel Canal was nearing completion. In England, the Naval Defense Act of 1889 provided an increase of seventy ships during the next four years. The rivals against whom she measured her naval strength were still France and Russia. In the United States, Congress in 1890 authorized three battleships, the first vessels of this class to be added to the American navy. During the following ten years the rivalry of nations was chiefly in commercial and colonial aggrandisement, marked by the final downfall of Spain’s colonial empire and a greatly increased importance attached to control of the sea.
For the nations taking part in this expansion, Mahan was a kind of gospel, furnishing texts for every discussion of naval policy. “After his first book,” says a French writer, “and especially from 1895 on, Mahan supplied the sound basis for all thought on naval and maritime affairs; it was seen clearly that sea power was the principle which, adhered to or departed from, would determine whether empires should stand or fall.”[[5]]
To Great Britain in particular the book came as a timely analysis of the means by which she had grown in wealth and dominion. This was indeed no discovery. Nearly three centuries earlier Francis Bacon had written, “To be master of the sea is an abridgment [epitome] of monarchy ... he that commands the sea is at great liberty, and may take as much and as little of the war as he will.”[[6]] Before and after Bacon, England had acted upon this principle. But it remained for Mahan to give the thesis full expression, to demonstrate it by concrete illustration, and to apply it to modern conditions. “For the first time,” writes the British naval historian, Sir Julian Corbett, “naval history was placed on a philosophical basis. From the mass of facts which had hitherto done duty for naval history, broad generalizations were possible. The ears of statesmen and publicists were opened, and a new note began to sound in world politics. Regarded as a political pamphlet in the higher sense—for that is how the famous book is best characterized—it has few equals in the sudden and far-reaching effect it produced on political thought and action.”[[7]]
Germany was not slow to take to heart this interpretation of the vital dependence of world empire on sea power. The Kaiser read the book, annotated its pages, and placed copies in every ship of the German fleet.[[8]] It was soon translated not only into German but into French, Japanese, Russian, Italian, and Spanish. This and later works by the same author were perhaps most diligently studied by officers of the Japanese navy, then rising rapidly to the strength manifested in the Russian war. “As far as known to myself,” writes Mahan, “more of my works have been done into Japanese than into any other one tongue.”[[9]] The debt of all students of naval warfare is well expressed by a noted Italian officer and writer,—“Mahan, who is the great teacher of us all.”[[10]]
What has been said of “The Influence of Sea Power upon History” applies in varying degrees to the sixteen historical works and collections of essays which appeared in the ensuing twenty-five years. While extending the field covered by the earlier book, they maintained in general its high qualities. The most important of these, “The Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution and Empire,” covers the period from 1793 to 1812. This and the studies of the American Revolution and the War of 1812 form with his first book a continuous historical series from 1660 to 1815. The “Life of Nelson” and “Life of Farragut” are standard professional biographies of these two commanders, who, if we accept Mahan’s opinion, rank respectively first and second among naval leaders. The best of his thought on contemporary naval warfare is gathered up in his “Naval Strategy,” published in 1911. Based on lectures first delivered in 1887, and afterward frequently expanded and modified to meet changing conditions, this book, while invaluable to the professional student, lacks something of the continuity and clearness of structure of the historical works.
The authoritativeness of these writings, it may be repeated, was strengthened by the author’s technical equipment and long years of practical experience. Moreover, as Mr. Roosevelt has said, “Mahan was the only great naval writer who also possessed the mind of a statesman of the first class.”[[11]] His concern always was not merely with the facts of history but with the “logic of events” and their lessons for to-day.
Following his retirement, Admiral Mahan wrote more frequently and freely on problems of the present and future. Of the subjects treated, some were distinctly professional—the speed and size of battleships, the size, composition, and disposition of fleets, modifications in the international codes affecting naval warfare, naval events in contemporary wars. Others entered the wider field of world politics, voicing the author’s sincere belief in American colonial expansion and active participation in world affairs, in the need of a navy sufficient to make our influence felt, in the limitations as well as the usefulness of arbitration, in the continuance of force as an important factor in international relations.
In such discussions, he wrote without the slightest trace of jingoism or sensation mongering; and it would be a fanatic advocate of immediate disarmament and universal arbitration who would deny the steadying and beneficent effect of his opposition, with its grip on realities and steadfast respect for truth. Whatever he wrote was not only backed by firm conviction but inspired by the highest ideals.
His style naturally varied somewhat with the audience and the theme. His historical writings have been justly described as burdened with qualifications, and marked by a laborious fullness of statement, which strains the attention, while it adds weight and dignity to the presentation. This in general is true of the histories; but there are many passages in these where the subject inspires him to genuine eloquence. In the “Life of Nelson” and “Types of Naval Officers” there is little of the defect mentioned, and there are few more entertaining volumes of naval reminiscence than “From Sail to Steam.” “The besetting anxiety of my soul,” writes the author himself, “was to be exact and lucid. I might not succeed, but my wish was indisputable. To be accurate in facts and correct in conclusions, both as to application and expression, dominated all other motives.”[[12]] One might dispense with reams of “fine writing” for a page of prose guided by these standards.
On December 1, 1914, Rear Admiral Mahan died suddenly of heart failure. A month before, he had left his home at Quogue, Long Island, and come to Washington to pursue investigations for a history of American expansion and its bearing on sea power. His death, occurring four months after the outbreak of hostilities in Europe, was perhaps hastened by constant study of the diplomatic and military events of the war, the approach of which he had clearly foreseen, as well as America’s vital interest in the Allied cause. It was unfortunate that his political and professional wisdom should have been lost at that time.
His work, however, was largely accomplished. By his influence on both public and professional opinion, by prevision and warm advocacy, he had done much to further the execution of many important naval and national policies. Among such may be mentioned the peace-time concentration of fleets in preparation for war, the abandonment of a strictly defensive naval policy, the systematic study of professional problems, the strengthening of our position in the Caribbean, the fortification of Panama. “His interest,” writes Mr. Roosevelt, “was in the larger side of his subjects; he was more concerned with the strategy than with the tactics of both naval war and statesmanship.” In this larger field his writings will retain a value little affected by the lapse of time.
Allan Westcott.
United States Naval Academy,
June, 1918.