Mahan on naval warfare

by A. T. Mahan

LIST OF MAPS AND PLANS

	PAGE
Diagram Illustrating the Value of the Central Position	[54]
Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea	[101]
Rodney and Guichen, April 17, 1780	[161]
Graves and De Grasse, September 5, 1781	[167]
The Baltic and Its Approaches	Facing page [185]
North Atlantic Ocean	Facing page [197]
The Attack at Trafalgar	[214]
Scene of Naval War, Japan and Russia	[278]

PART I
NAVAL PRINCIPLES

MAHAN

ON NAVAL WARFARE

I. The Value of Historical Study[^[13]]

The history of Sea Power is largely, though by no means solely, a narrative of contests between nations, of mutual rivalries, of violence frequently culminating in war. The profound influence of sea commerce upon the wealth and strength of countries was clearly seen long before the true principles which governed its growth and prosperity were detected. To secure to one’s own people a disproportionate share of such benefits, every effort was made to exclude others, either by the peaceful legislative methods of monopoly or prohibitory regulations, or, when these failed, by direct violence. The clash of interests, the angry feelings roused by conflicting attempts thus to appropriate the larger share, if not the whole, of the advantages of commerce, and of distant unsettled commercial regions, led to wars. On the other hand, wars arising from other causes have been greatly modified in their conduct and issue by the control of the sea. Therefore the history of sea power, while embracing in its broad sweep all that tends to make a people great upon the sea or by the sea, is largely a military history; and it is in this aspect that it will be mainly, though not exclusively, regarded in the following pages.

A study of the military history of the past, such as this, is enjoined by great military leaders as essential to correct ideas and to the skillful conduct of war in the future. Napoleon names among the campaigns to be studied by the aspiring soldier, those of Alexander, Hannibal, and Cæsar, to whom gunpowder was unknown; and there is a substantial agreement among professional writers that, while many of the conditions of war vary from age to age with the progress of weapons, there are certain teachings in the school of history which remain constant, and being, therefore, of universal application, can be elevated to the rank of general principles. For the same reason the study of the sea history of the past will be found instructive, by its illustration of the general principles of maritime war, notwithstanding the great changes that have been brought about in naval weapons by the scientific advances of the past half-century, and by the introduction of steam as the motive power. [The pages omitted point out lessons to be drawn from galley and sailing-ship warfare.—Editor.]

Before hostile armies or fleets are brought into contact (a word which perhaps better than any other indicates the dividing line between tactics and strategy), there are a number of questions to be decided, covering the whole plan of operations throughout the theater of war. Among these are the proper function of the navy in the war; its true objective; the point or points upon which it should be concentrated; the establishment of depots of coal and supplies; the maintenance of communications between these depots and the home base; the military value of commerce-destroying as a decisive or a secondary operation of war; the system upon which commerce-destroying can be most efficiently conducted, whether by scattered cruisers or by holding in force some vital center through which commercial shipping must pass. All these are strategic questions, and upon all these history has a great deal to say. There has been of late a valuable discussion in English naval circles as to the comparative merits of the policies of two great English admirals, Lord Howe and Lord St. Vincent, in the disposition of the English navy when at war with France. The question is purely strategic, and is not of mere historical interest; it is of vital importance now, and the principles upon which its decision rests are the same now as then. St. Vincent’s policy saved England from invasion, and in the hands of Nelson and his brother admirals led straight up to Trafalgar.

It is then particularly in the field of naval strategy that the teachings of the past have a value which is in no degree lessened. They are there useful not only as illustrative of principles, but also as precedents, owing to the comparative permanence of the conditions. This is less obviously true as to tactics, when the fleets come into collision at the point to which strategic considerations have brought them. The unresting progress of mankind causes continual change in the weapons; and with that must come a continual change in the manner of fighting,—in the handling and disposition of troops or ships on the battlefield. Hence arises a tendency on the part of many connected with maritime matters to think that no advantage is to be gained from the study of former experiences; that time so used is wasted. This view, though natural, not only leaves wholly out of sight those broad strategic considerations which lead nations to put fleets afloat, which direct the sphere of their action, and so have modified and will continue to modify the history of the world, but is one-sided and narrow even as to tactics. The battles of the past succeeded or failed according as they were fought in conformity with the principles of war; and the seaman who carefully studies the causes of success or failure will not only detect and gradually assimilate these principles, but will also acquire increased aptitude in applying them to the tactical use of the ships and weapons of his own day. He will observe also that changes of tactics have not only taken place after changes in weapons, which necessarily is the case, but that the interval between such changes has been unduly long. This doubtless arises from the fact that an improvement of weapons is due to the energy of one or two men, while changes in tactics have to overcome the inertia of a conservative class; but it is a great evil. It can be remedied only by a candid recognition of each change, by careful study of the powers and limitations of the new ship or weapon, and by a consequent adaptation of the method of using it to the qualities it possesses, which will constitute its tactics. History shows that it is vain to hope that military men generally will be at the pains to do this, but that the one who does will go into battle with a great advantage,—a lesson in itself of no mean value.

2. “Theoretical” versus “Practical” Training[^[14]].

A Historical Instance

There have long been two conflicting opinions as to the best way to fit naval officers, and indeed all men called to active pursuits, for the discharge of their duties. The one, of the so-called practical man, would find in early beginning and constant remaining afloat all that is requisite; the other will find the best result in study, in elaborate mental preparation. I have no hesitation in avowing that personally I think that the United States Navy is erring on the latter side; but, be that as it may, there seems little doubt that the mental activity which exists so widely is not directed toward the management of ships in battle, to the planning of naval campaigns, to the study of strategic and tactical problems, nor even to the secondary matters connected with the maintenance of warlike operations at sea.[^[15]] Now we have had the results of the two opinions as to the training of naval officers pretty well tested by the experience of two great maritime nations, France and England, each of which, not so much by formulated purpose as by national bias, committed itself unduly to the one or the other. The results were manifested in our War of Independence, which gave rise to the only well-contested, widespread maritime war between nearly equal forces that modern history records. There remains in my own mind no doubt, after reading the naval history on both sides, that the English brought to this struggle much superior seamanship, learned by the constant practice of shipboard; while the French officers, most of whom had been debarred from similar experience by the decadence of their navy in the middle of the century, had devoted themselves to the careful study of their profession. In short, what are commonly called the practical and the theoretical man were pitted against each other, and the result showed how mischievous is any plan which neglects either theory or practice, or which ignores the fact that correct theoretical ideas are essential to successful practical work. The practical seamanship and experience of the English were continually foiled by the want of correct tactical conceptions on the part of their own chiefs, and the superior science of the French, acquired mainly by study. It is true that the latter were guided by a false policy on the part of their government and a false professional tradition. The navy, by its mobility, is pre-eminently fitted for offensive war, and the French deliberately and constantly subordinated it to defensive action. But, though the system was faulty, they had a system; they had ideas; they had plans familiar to their officers, while the English usually had none—and a poor system is better than none at all....

What is Practical?

It was said to me by some one: “If you want to attract officers to the College, give them something that will help them pass their next examination.” But the test of war, when it comes, will be found a more searching trial of what is in a man than the verdict of several amiable gentlemen, disposed to give the benefit of every doubt. Then you will encounter men straining every faculty and every means to injure you. Shall we then, who prepare so anxiously for an examination, view as a “practical” proceeding, worthy of “practical” men, the postponing to the very moment of imperative action the consideration of how to act, how to do our fighting, either in the broader domain of strategy, or in the more limited field of tactics, whether of the single ship or of the fleet? Navies exist for war; and the question presses for an answer: “Is this neglect to master the experience of the past, to elicit, formulate, and absorb its principles, is it practical?” Is it “practical” to wait till the squall strikes you before shortening sail? If the object and aim of the College is to promote such study, to facilitate such results, to foster and disseminate such ideas, can it be reproached that its purpose is not “practical,” even though at first its methods be tentative and its results imperfect?

The word “practical” has suffered and been debased by a misapprehension of that other word “theoretical,” to which it is accurately and logically opposed. Theory is properly defined as a scheme of things which terminates in speculation, or contemplation, without a view to practice. The idea was amusingly expressed in the toast, said to have been drunk at a meeting of mathematicians, “Eternal perdition to the man who would degrade pure mathematics by applying it to any useful purpose.” The word “theoretical,” therefore, is applied rightly and legitimately only to mental processes that end in themselves, that have no result in action; but by a natural, yet most unfortunate, confusion of thought, it has come to be applied to all mental processes whatsoever, whether fruitful or not, and has transferred its stigma to them, while “practical” has walked off with all the honors of a utilitarian age.

If therefore the line of thought, study and reflection, which the War College seeks to promote, is really liable to the reproach that it leads to no useful end, can result in no effective action, it falls justly under the condemnation of being not “practical.” But it must be said frankly and fearlessly that the man who is prepared to apply this stigma to the line of the College effort must also be prepared to class as not “practical” men like Napoleon, like his distinguished opponent, the Austrian Archduke Charles, and like Jomini, the profuse writer on military art and military history, whose works, if somewhat supplanted by newer digests, have lost little or none of their prestige as a profound study and exposition of the principles of warfare.

Jomini was not merely a military theorist, who saw war from the outside; he was a distinguished and thoughtful soldier, in the prime of life during the Napoleonic wars, and of a contemporary reputation such that, when he deserted the cause of the emperor, he was taken at once into a high position as a confidential adviser of the allied sovereigns. Yet what does he say of strategy? Strategy is to him the queen of military sciences; it underlies the fortunes of every campaign. As in a building, which, however fair and beautiful the superstructure, is radically marred and imperfect if the foundation be insecure—so, if the strategy be wrong, the skill of the general on the battlefield, the valor of the soldier, the brilliancy of victory, however otherwise decisive, fail of their effect. Yet how does he define strategy, the effects of which, if thus far-reaching, must surely be esteemed “practical”? “Strategy,” he said, “is the art of making war upon the map. It precedes the operations of the campaign, the clash of arms on the field. It is done in the cabinet, it is the work of the student, with his dividers in his hand and his information lying beside him.” In other words, it originates in a mental process, but it does not end there; therefore it is practical.

Most of us have heard an anecdote of the great Napoleon, which is nevertheless so apt to my purpose that I must risk the repetition. Having had no time to verify my reference, I must quote from memory, but of substantial accuracy I am sure. A few weeks before one of his early and most decisive campaigns, his secretary, Bourrienne, entered the office and found the First Consul, as he then was, stretched on the floor with a large map before him. Pricked over the map, in what to Bourrienne was confusion, were a number of red and black pins. After a short silence the secretary, who was an old friend of school days, asked him what it all meant. The Consul laughed goodnaturedly, called him a fool, and said: “This set of pins represents the Austrians and this the French. On such a day I shall leave Paris. My troops will then be in such positions. On a certain day,” naming it, “I shall be here,” pointing, “and my troops will have moved there. At such a time I shall cross the mountains, a few days later my army will be here, the Austrians will have done thus and so; and at a certain date I will beat them here,” placing a pin. Bourrienne said nothing, perhaps he may have thought the matter not “practical;” but a few weeks later, after the battle (Marengo, I think) had been fought, he was seated with the general in his military traveling carriage. The programme had been carried out, and he recalled the incident to Bonaparte’s mind. The latter himself smiled at the singular accuracy of his predictions in the particular instance.

In the light of such an incident, the question I would like to pose will receive of course but one answer. Was the work on which the general was engaged in his private office, this work of a student, was it “practical”? Or can it by any reasonable method be so divorced from what followed, that the word “practical” only applies farther on. Did he only begin to be practical when he got into his carriage to drive from the Tuileries, or did the practical begin when he joined the army, or when the first gun of the campaign was fired? Or, on the other hand, if he had passed that time, given to studying the campaign, in arranging for a new development of the material of war, and so had gone with his plans undeveloped, would he not have done a thing very far from “practical”?

But we must push our inquiry a little farther back to get the full significance of Bourrienne’s story. Whence came the facility and precision with which Bonaparte planned the great campaign of Marengo? Partly, unquestionably, from a native genius rarely paralleled; partly, but not by any means wholly. Hear his own prescription: “If any man will be a great general, let him study.” Study what? “Study history. Study the campaigns of the great generals—Alexander, Hannibal, Cæsar” (who never smelt gunpowder, nor dreamed of ironclads) “as well as those of Turenne, Frederick, and myself, Napoleon.” Had Bonaparte entered his cabinet to plan the campaign of Marengo, with no other preparation than his genius, without the mental equipment and the ripened experience that came from knowledge of the past, acquired by study, he would have come unprepared. Were, then, his previous study and reflection, for which the time of action had not come, were they not “practical,” because they did not result in immediate action? Would they even have been “not practical” if the time for action had never come to him?

As the wise man said, “There is a time for everything under the sun,” and the time for one thing cannot be used as the time for another. That there is time for action, all concede; few consider duly that there is also a time for preparation. To use the time of preparation for preparation is practical, whatever the method; to postpone preparation to the time for action is not practical. Our new navy is preparing now; it can scarcely be said, as regards its material, to be yet ready. The day of grace is still with us—or with those who shall be the future captains and admirals. There is time yet for study; there is time to imbibe the experience of the past, to become imbued, steeped, in the eternal principles of war, by the study of its history and of the maxims of its masters. But the time of preparation will pass; some day the time of action will come. Can an admiral then sit down and re-enforce his intellectual grasp of the problem before him by a study of history, which is simply a study of past experience? Not so; the time of action is upon him, and he must trust to his horse sense.

3. Elements of Sea Power[^[16]]

The first and most obvious light in which the sea presents itself from the political and social point of view is that of a great highway; or better, perhaps, of a wide common, over which men may pass in all directions, but on which some well-worn paths show that controlling reasons have led them to choose certain lines of travel rather than others. These lines of travel are called trade routes; and the reasons which have determined them are to be sought in the history of the world.

Notwithstanding all the familiar and unfamiliar dangers of the sea, both travel and traffic by water have always been easier and cheaper than by land. The commercial greatness of Holland was due not only to her shipping at sea, but also to the numerous tranquil water-ways which gave such cheap and easy access to her own interior and to that of Germany. This advantage of carriage by water over that by land was yet more marked in a period when roads were few and very bad, wars frequent and society unsettled, as was the case two hundred years ago. Sea traffic then went in peril of robbers, but was nevertheless safer and quicker than that by land. A Dutch writer of that time, estimating the chances of his country in a war with England, notices among other things that the water-ways of England failed to penetrate the country sufficiently; therefore, the roads being bad, goods from one part of the kingdom to the other must go by sea, and be exposed to capture by the way. As regards purely internal trade, this danger has generally disappeared at the present day. In most civilized countries, now, the destruction or disappearance of the coasting-trade would only be an inconvenience, although water transit is still the cheaper. Nevertheless, as late as the wars of the French Republic and the First Empire, those who are familiar with the history of the period, and the light naval literature that has grown up around it, know how constant is the mention of convoys stealing from point to point along the French coast, although the sea swarmed with English cruisers and there were good inland roads.

Under modern conditions, however, home trade is but a part of the business of a country bordering on the sea. Foreign necessaries or luxuries must be brought to its ports, either in its own or in foreign ships, which will return, bearing in exchange the products of the country, whether they be the fruits of the earth or the works of men’s hands; and it is the wish of every nation that this shipping business should be done by its own vessels. The ships that thus sail to and fro must have secure ports to which to return, and must, as far as possible, be followed by the protection of their country throughout the voyage.

This protection in time of war must be extended by armed shipping. The necessity of a navy, in the restricted sense of the word, springs, therefore, from the existence of a peaceful shipping, and disappears with it,[^[17]] except in the case of a nation which has aggressive tendencies, and keeps up a navy merely as a branch of the military establishment. As the United States has at present no aggressive purposes, and as its merchant service has disappeared, the dwindling of the armed fleet and general lack of interest in it are strictly logical consequences. When for any reason sea trade is again found to pay, a large enough shipping interest will reappear to compel the revival of the war fleet. It is possible that when a canal route through the Central-American Isthmus is seen to be a near certainty, the aggressive impulse may be strong enough to lead to the same result. This is doubtful, however, because a peaceful, gain-loving nation is not far-sighted, and far-sightedness is needed for adequate military preparation, especially in these days.

As a nation, with its unarmed and armed shipping, launches forth from its own shores, the need is soon felt of points upon which the ships can rely for peaceful trading, for refuge and supplies. In the present day friendly, though foreign, ports are to be found all over the world; and their shelter is enough while peace prevails. It was not always so, nor does peace always endure, though the United States have been favored by so long a continuance of it. In earlier times the merchant seaman, seeking for trade in new and unexplored regions, made his gains at risk of life and liberty from suspicious or hostile nations, and was under great delays in collecting a full and profitable freight. He therefore intuitively sought at the far end of his trade route one or more stations, to be given to him by force or favor, where he could fix himself or his agents in reasonable security, where his ships could lie in safety, and where the merchantable products of the land could be continually collecting, awaiting the arrival of the home fleet, which should carry them to the mother-country. As there was immense gain, as well as much risk, in these early voyages, such establishments naturally multiplied and grew until they became colonies; whose ultimate development and success depended upon the genius and policy of the nation from which they sprang, and form a very great part of the history, and particularly of the sea history, of the world. All colonies had not the simple and natural birth and growth above described. Many were more formal, and purely political, in their conception and founding, the act of the rulers of the people rather than of private individuals; but the trading-station with its after expansion, the work simply of the adventurer seeking gain, was in its reasons and essence the same as the elaborately organized and chartered colony. In both cases the mother-country had won a foothold in a foreign land, seeking a new outlet for what it had to sell, a new sphere for its shipping, more employment for its people, more comfort and wealth for itself.

The needs of commerce, however, were not all provided for when safety had been secured at the far end of the road. The voyages were long and dangerous, the seas often beset with enemies. In the most active days of colonizing there prevailed on the sea a lawlessness the very memory of which is now almost lost, and the days of settled peace between maritime nations were few and far between. Thus arose the demand for stations along the road, like the Cape of Good Hope, St. Helena, and Mauritius, not primarily for trade, but for defense and war; the demand for the possession of posts like Gibraltar, Malta, Louisburg, at the entrance of the Gulf of St. Lawrence,—posts whose value was chiefly strategic, though not necessarily wholly so. Colonies and colonial posts were sometimes commercial, sometimes military in their character; and it was exceptional that the same position was equally important in both points of view, as New York was.

In these three things—production, with the necessity of exchanging products, shipping, whereby the exchange is carried on, and colonies, which facilitate and enlarge the operations of shipping and tend to protect it by multiplying points of safety—is to be found the key to much of the history, as well as of the policy, of nations bordering upon the sea. The policy has varied both with the spirit of the age and with the character and clear-sightedness of the rulers; but the history of the seaboard nations has been less determined by the shrewdness and foresight of governments than by conditions of position, extent, configuration, number and character of their people,—by what are called, in a word, natural conditions. It must however be admitted, and will be seen, that the wise or unwise action of individual men has at certain periods had a great modifying influence upon the growth of sea power in the broad sense, which includes not only the military strength afloat, that rules the sea or any part of it by force of arms, but also the peaceful commerce and shipping from which alone a military fleet naturally and healthfully springs, and on which it securely rests.

The principal conditions affecting the sea power of nations may be enumerated as follows: I. Geographical Position. II. Physical Conformation, including, as connected therewith, natural productions and climate. III. Extent of Territory. IV. Number of Population. V. Character of the People. VI. Character of the Government, including therein the national institutions.

I. Geographical Position.—It may be pointed out, in the first place, that if a nation be so situated that it is neither forced to defend itself by land nor induced to seek extension of its territory by way of the land, it has, by the very unity of its aim directed upon the sea, an advantage as compared with a people one of whose boundaries is continental. This has been a great advantage to England over both France and Holland as a sea power. The strength of the latter was early exhausted by the necessity of keeping up a large army and carrying on expensive wars to preserve her independence; while the policy of France was constantly diverted, sometimes wisely and sometimes most foolishly, from the sea to projects of continental extension. These military efforts expended wealth; whereas a wiser and consistent use of her geographical position would have added to it.

The geographical position may be such as of itself to promote a concentration, or to necessitate a dispersion, of the naval forces. Here again the British Islands have an advantage over France. The position of the latter, touching the Mediterranean as well as the ocean, while it has its advantages, is on the whole a source of military weakness at sea. The eastern and western French fleets have only been able to unite after passing through the Straits of Gibraltar, in attempting which they have often risked and sometimes suffered loss. The position of the United States upon the two oceans would be either a source of great weakness or a cause of enormous expense, had it a large sea commerce on both coasts.[^[18]]

England, by her immense colonial empire, has sacrificed much of this advantage of concentration of force around her own shores; but the sacrifice was wisely made, for the gain was greater than the loss, as the event proved. With the growth of her colonial system her war fleets also grew, but her merchant shipping and wealth grew yet faster. Still, in the wars of the American Revolution, and of the French Republic and Empire, to use the strong expression of a French author, “England, despite the immense development of her navy, seemed ever, in the midst of riches, to feel all the embarrassment of poverty.” The might of England was sufficient to keep alive the heart and the members; whereas the equally extensive colonial empire of Spain, through her maritime weakness, but offered so many points for insult and injury.

The geographical position of a country may not only favor the concentration of its forces, but give the further strategic advantage of a central position and a good base for hostile operations against its probable enemies. This again is the case with England; on the one hand she faces Holland and the northern powers, on the other France and the Atlantic. When threatened with a coalition between France and the naval powers of the North Sea and the Baltic, as she at times was, her fleets in the Downs and in the Channel, and even that off Brest, occupied interior positions, and thus were readily able to interpose their united force against either one of the enemies which should seek to pass through the Channel to effect a junction with its ally. On either side, also, Nature gave her better ports and a safer coast to approach. Formerly this was a very serious element in the passage through the Channel; but of late, steam and the improvement of her harbors have lessened the disadvantage under which France once labored. In the days of sailing-ships, the English fleet operated against Brest, making its base at Torbay and Plymouth. The plan was simply this: in easterly or moderate weather the blockading fleet kept its position without difficulty; but in westerly gales, when too severe, they bore up for English ports, knowing that the French fleet could not get out till the wind shifted, which equally served to bring them back to their station.

The advantage of geographical nearness to an enemy, or to the object of attack, is nowhere more apparent than in that form of warfare which has lately received the name of commerce-destroying, which the French call guerre de course. This operation of war, being directed against peaceful merchant vessels which are usually defenseless, calls for ships of small military force. Such ships, having little power to defend themselves, need a refuge or point of support near at hand; which will be found either in certain parts of the sea controlled by the fighting ships of their country, or in friendly harbors. The latter give the strongest support, because they are always in the same place, and the approaches to them are more familiar to the commerce-destroyer than to his enemy. The nearness of France to England has thus greatly facilitated her guerre de course directed against the latter. Having ports on the North Sea, on the Channel, and on the Atlantic, her cruisers started from points near the focus of English trade, both coming and going. The distance of these ports from each other, disadvantageous for regular military combinations, is an advantage for this irregular secondary operation; for the essence of the one is concentration of effort, whereas for commerce-destroying diffusion of effort is the rule. Commerce destroyers scatter, that they may see and seize more prey. These truths receive illustration from the history of the great French privateers, whose bases and scenes of action were largely on the Channel and North Sea, or else were found in distant colonial regions, where islands like Guadeloupe and Martinique afforded similar near refuge. The necessity of renewing coal makes the cruiser of the present day even more dependent than of old on his port. Public opinion in the United States has great faith in war directed against an enemy’s commerce; but it must be remembered that the Republic has no ports very near the great centers of trade abroad. Her geographical position is therefore singularly disadvantageous for carrying on successful commerce-destroying, unless she find bases in the ports of an ally.

If, in addition to facility for offense, Nature has so placed a country that it has easy access to the high sea itself, while at the same time it controls one of the great thoroughfares of the world’s traffic, it is evident that the strategic value of its position is very high. Such again is, and to a greater degree was, the position of England. The trade of Holland, Sweden, Russia, Denmark, and that which went up the great rivers to the interior of Germany, had to pass through the Channel close by her doors; for sailing-ships hugged the English coast. This northern trade had, moreover, a peculiar bearing upon sea power; for naval stores, as they are commonly called, were mainly drawn from the Baltic countries.

But for the loss of Gibraltar, the position of Spain would have been closely analogous to that of England. Looking at once upon the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, with Cadiz on the one side and Cartagena on the other, the trade to the Levant must have passed under her hands, and that round the Cape of Good Hope not far from her doors. But Gibraltar not only deprived her of the control of the Straits, it also imposed an obstacle to the easy junction of the two divisions of her fleet.

At the present day, looking only at the geographical position of Italy, and not at the other conditions affecting her sea power, it would seem that with her extensive sea-coast and good ports she is very well placed for exerting a decisive influence on the trade route to the Levant and by the Isthmus of Suez. This is true in a degree, and would be much more so did Italy now hold all the islands naturally Italian; but with Malta in the hands of England, and Corsica in those of France, the advantages of her geographical position are largely neutralized. From race affinities and situation those two islands are as legitimately objects of desire to Italy as Gibraltar is to Spain. If the Adriatic were a great highway of commerce, Italy’s position would be still more influential. These defects in her geographical completeness, combined with other causes injurious to a full and secure development of sea power, make it more than doubtful whether Italy can for some time be in the front rank among the sea nations.

As the aim here is not an exhaustive discussion, but merely an attempt to show, by illustration, how vitally the situation of a country may affect its career upon the sea, this division of the subject may be dismissed for the present; the more so as instances which will further bring out its importance will continually recur in the historical treatment. Two remarks, however, are here appropriate.

Circumstances have caused the Mediterranean Sea to play a greater part in the history of the world, both in a commercial and a military point of view, than any other sheet of water of the same size. Nation after nation has striven to control it, and the strife still goes on. Therefore a study of the conditions upon which preponderance in its waters has rested, and now rests, and of the relative military values of different points upon its coasts, will be more instructive than the same amount of effort expended in another field. Furthermore, it has at the present time a very marked analogy in many respects to the Caribbean Sea,—an analogy which will be still closer if a Panama canal route ever be completed. A study of the strategic conditions of the Mediterranean, which have received ample illustration, will be an excellent prelude to a similar study of the Caribbean, which has comparatively little history.

The second remark bears upon the geographical position of the United States relatively to a Central-American canal. If one be made, and fulfil the hopes of its builders, the Caribbean will be changed from a terminus, and place of local traffic, or at best a broken and imperfect line of travel, as it now is, into one of the great highways of the world. Along this path a great commerce will travel, bringing the interests of the other great nations, the European nations, close along our shores, as they have never been before. With this it will not be so easy as heretofore to stand aloof from international complications. The position of the United States with reference to this route will resemble that of England to the Channel, and of the Mediterranean countries to the Suez route. As regards influence and control over it, depending upon geographical position, it is of course plain that the center of the national power, the permanent base,[^[19]] is much nearer than that of other great nations. The positions now or hereafter occupied by them on island or mainland, however strong, will be but outposts of their power; while in all the raw materials of military strength no nation is superior to the United States. She is, however, weak in a confessed unpreparedness for war; and her geographical nearness to the point of contention loses some of its value by the character of the Gulf coast, which is deficient in ports combining security from an enemy with facility for repairing warships of the first class, without which ships no country can pretend to control any part of the sea. In case of a contest for supremacy in the Caribbean, it seems evident from the depth of the South Pass of the Mississippi, the nearness of New Orleans, and the advantages of the Mississippi Valley for water transit, that the main effort of the country must pour down that valley, and its permanent base of operations be found there. The defense of the entrance to the Mississippi, however, presents peculiar difficulties; while the only two rival ports, Key West and Pensacola, have too little depth of water, and are much less advantageously placed with reference to the resources of the country. To get the full benefit of superior geographical position, these defects must be overcome. Furthermore, as her distance from the Isthmus, though relatively less, is still considerable, the United States will have to obtain in the Caribbean stations fit for contingent, or secondary, bases of operations; which by their natural advantages, susceptibility of defense, and nearness to the central strategic issue, will enable her fleets to remain as near the scene as any opponent. With ingress and egress from the Mississippi sufficiently protected, with such outposts in her hands, and with the communications between them and the home base secured, in short, with proper military preparation, for which she has all necessary means, the preponderance of the United States on this field follows, from her geographical position and her power, with mathematical certainty.

II. Physical Conformation.—The peculiar features of the Gulf coast, alluded to, come properly under the head of Physical Conformation of a country, which is placed second for discussion among the conditions which affect the development of sea power.

The seaboard of a country is one of its frontiers; and the easier the access offered by the frontier to the region beyond, in this case the sea, the greater will be the tendency of a people toward intercourse with the rest of the world by it. If a country be imagined having a long seaboard, but entirely without a harbor, such a country can have no sea trade of its own, no shipping, no navy. This was practically the case with Belgium when it was a Spanish and an Austrian province. The Dutch, in 1648, as a condition of peace after a successful war, exacted that the Scheldt should be closed to sea commerce. This closed the harbor of Antwerp and transferred the sea trade of Belgium to Holland. The Spanish Netherlands ceased to be a sea power.

Numerous and deep harbors are a source of strength and wealth, and doubly so if they are the outlets of navigable streams, which facilitate the concentration in them of a country’s internal trade; but by their very accessibility they become a source of weakness in war, if not properly defended. The Dutch in 1667 found little difficulty in ascending the Thames and burning a large fraction of the English navy within sight of London; whereas a few years later the combined fleets of England and France, when attempting a landing in Holland, were foiled by the difficulties of the coast as much as by the valor of the Dutch fleet. In 1778 the harbor of New York, and with it undisputed control of the Hudson River, would have been lost to the English, who were caught at disadvantage, but for the hesitancy of the French admiral. With that control, New England would have been restored to close and safe communication with New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania; and this blow, following so closely on Burgoyne’s disaster of the year before, would probably have led the English to make an earlier peace. The Mississippi is a mighty source of wealth and strength to the United States; but the feeble defenses of its mouth and the number of its subsidiary streams penetrating the country made it a weakness and source of disaster to the Southern Confederacy. And lastly, in 1814, the occupation of the Chesapeake and the destruction of Washington gave a sharp lesson of the dangers incurred through the noblest water-ways, if their approaches be undefended; a lesson recent enough to be easily recalled, but which, from the present appearance of the coast defenses, seems to be yet more easily forgotten. Nor should it be thought that conditions have changed; circumstances and details of offense and defense have been modified, in these days as before, but the great conditions remain the same.

Before and during the great Napoleonic wars, France had no port for ships-of-the-line east of Brest. How great the advantage to England, which in the same stretch has two great arsenals, at Plymouth and at Portsmouth, besides other harbors of refuge and supply. This defect of conformation has since been remedied by the works at Cherbourg.

Besides the contour of the coast, involving easy access to the sea, there are other physical conditions which lead people to the sea or turn them from it. Although France was deficient in military ports on the Channel, she had both there and on the ocean, as well as in the Mediterranean, excellent harbors, favorably situated for trade abroad, and at the outlet of large rivers, which would foster internal traffic. But when Richelieu had put an end to civil war, Frenchmen did not take to the sea with the eagerness and success of the English and Dutch. A principal reason for this has been plausibly found in the physical conditions which have made France a pleasant land, with a delightful climate, producing within itself more than its people needed. England, on the other hand, received from Nature but little, and, until her manufactures were developed, had little to export. Their many wants, combined with their restless activity and other conditions that favored maritime enterprise, led her people abroad; and they there found lands more pleasant and richer than their own. Their needs and genius made them merchants and colonists, then manufacturers and producers; and between products and colonies shipping is the inevitable link. So their sea power grew. But if England was drawn to the sea, Holland was driven to it; without the sea England languished, but Holland died. In the height of her greatness, when she was one of the chief factors in European politics, a competent native authority estimated that the soil of Holland could not support more than one eighth of her inhabitants. The manufactures of the country were then numerous and important, but they had been much later in their growth than the shipping interest. The poverty of the soil and the exposed nature of the coast drove the Dutch first to fishing. Then the discovery of the process of curing the fish gave them material for export as well as home consumption, and so laid the corner-stone of their wealth. Thus they had become traders at the time that the Italian republics, under the pressure of Turkish power and the discovery of the passage round the Cape of Good Hope, were beginning to decline, and they fell heirs to the great Italian trade of the Levant. Further favored by their geographical position, intermediate between the Baltic, France, and the Mediterranean, and at the mouth of the German rivers, they quickly absorbed nearly all the carrying-trade of Europe. The wheat and naval stores of the Baltic, the trade of Spain with her colonies in the New World, the wines of France, and the French coasting-trade were, little more than two hundred years ago, transported in Dutch shipping. Much of the carrying-trade of England, even, was then done in Dutch bottoms. It will not be pretended that all this prosperity proceeded only from the poverty of Holland’s natural resources. Something does not grow from nothing. What is true, is, that by the necessitous condition of her people they were driven to the sea, and were, from their mastery of the shipping business and the size of their fleets, in a position to profit by the sudden expansion of commerce and the spirit of exploration which followed on the discovery of America and of the passage round the Cape. Other causes concurred, but their whole prosperity stood on the sea power to which their poverty gave birth. Their food, their clothing, the raw material for their manufactures, the very timber and hemp with which they built and rigged their ships (and they built nearly as many as all Europe besides), were imported; and when a disastrous war with England in 1653 and 1654 had lasted eighteen months, and their shipping business was stopped, it is said “the sources of revenue which had always maintained the riches of the State, such as fisheries and commerce, were almost dry. Workshops were closed, work was suspended. The Zuyder Zee became a forest of masts; the country was full of beggars; grass grew in the streets, and in Amsterdam fifteen hundred houses were untenanted.” A humiliating peace alone saved them from ruin.

This sorrowful result shows the weakness of a country depending wholly upon sources external to itself for the part it is playing in the world. With large deductions, owing to differences of conditions which need not here be spoken of, the case of Holland then has strong points of resemblance to that of Great Britain now; and they are true prophets, though they seem to be having small honor in their own country, who warn her that the continuance of her prosperity at home depends primarily upon maintaining her power abroad. Men may be discontented at the lack of political privilege; they will be yet more uneasy if they come to lack bread. It is of more interest to Americans to note that the result to France, regarded as a power of the sea, caused by the extent, delightfulness, and richness of the land, has been reproduced in the United States. In the beginning, their forefathers held a narrow strip of land upon the sea, fertile in parts though little developed, abounding in harbors and near rich fishing grounds. These physical conditions combined with an inborn love of the sea, the pulse of that English blood which still beat in their veins, to keep alive all those tendencies and pursuits upon which a healthy sea power depends. Almost every one of the original colonies was on the sea or on one of its great tributaries. All export and import tended toward one coast. Interest in the sea and an intelligent appreciation of the part it played in the public welfare were easily and widely spread; and a motive more influential than care for the public interest was also active, for the abundance of ship-building materials and a relative fewness of other investments made shipping a profitable private interest. How changed the present condition is, all know. The center of power is no longer on the seaboard. Books and newspapers vie with one another in describing the wonderful growth, and the still undeveloped riches, of the interior. Capital there finds its best investments, labor its largest opportunities. The frontiers are neglected and politically weak; the Gulf and Pacific coasts actually so, the Atlantic coast relatively to the central Mississippi Valley. When the day comes that shipping again pays, when the three sea frontiers find that they are not only militarily weak, but poorer for lack of national shipping, their united efforts may avail to lay again the foundations of our sea power. Till then, those who follow the limitations which lack of sea power placed upon the career of France may mourn that their own country is being led, by a like redundancy of home wealth, into the same neglect of that great instrument.

Among modifying physical conditions may be noted a form like that of Italy,—a long peninsula, with a central range of mountains dividing it into two narrow strips, along which the roads connecting the different ports necessarily run. Only an absolute control of the sea can wholly secure such communications, since it is impossible to know at what point an enemy coming from beyond the visible horizon may strike; but still, with an adequate naval force centrally posted, there will be good hope of attacking his fleet, which is at once his base and line of communications, before serious damage has been done. The long, narrow peninsula of Florida, with Key West at its extremity, though flat and thinly populated, presents at first sight conditions like those of Italy. The resemblance may be only superficial, but it seems probable that if the chief scene of a naval war were the Gulf of Mexico, the communications by land to the end of the peninsula might be a matter of consequence, and open to attack.

When the sea not only borders, or surrounds, but also separates a country into two or more parts, the control of it becomes not only desirable, but vitally necessary. Such a physical condition either gives birth and strength to sea power, or makes the country powerless. Such is the condition of the present kingdom of Italy, with its islands of Sardinia and Sicily; and hence in its youth and still existing financial weakness it is seen to put forth such vigorous and intelligent efforts to create a military navy. It has even been argued that, with a navy decidedly superior to her enemy’s, Italy could better base her power upon her islands than upon her mainland; for the insecurity of the lines of communication in the peninsula, already pointed out, would most seriously embarrass an invading army surrounded by a hostile people and threatened from the sea.

The Irish Sea, separating the British Islands, rather resembles an estuary than an actual division; but history has shown the danger from it to the United Kingdom. In the days of Louis XIV, when the French navy nearly equalled the combined English and Dutch, the gravest complications existed in Ireland, which passed almost wholly under the control of the natives and the French. Nevertheless, the Irish Sea was rather a danger to the English—a weak point in their communications—than an advantage to the French. The latter did not venture their ships-of-the-line in its narrow waters, and expeditions intending to land were directed upon the ocean ports in the south and west. At the supreme moment the great French fleet was sent upon the south coast of England, where it decisively defeated the allies, and at the same time twenty-five frigates were sent to St. George’s Channel, against the English communications. In the midst of a hostile people, the English army in Ireland was seriously imperiled, but was saved by the battle of the Boyne and flight of James II. This movement against the enemy’s communications was strictly strategic, and would be as dangerous to England now as in 1690.

Spain, in the same century, afforded an impressive lesson of the weakness caused by such separation when the parts are not knit together by a strong sea power. She then still retained, as remnants of her past greatness, the Netherlands (now Belgium), Sicily, and other Italian possessions, not to speak of her vast colonies in the New World. Yet so low had the Spanish sea power fallen, that a well-informed and sober-minded Hollander of the day could claim that “in Spain all the coast is navigated by a few Dutch ships; and since the peace of 1648 their ships and seamen are so few that they have publicly begun to hire our ships to sail to the Indies, whereas they were formerly careful to exclude all foreigners from there.... It is manifest,” he goes on, “that the West Indies, being as the stomach to Spain (for from it nearly all the revenue is drawn), must be joined to the Spanish head by a sea force; and that Naples and the Netherlands, being like two arms, they cannot lay out their strength for Spain, nor receive anything thence but by shipping,—all which may easily be done by our shipping in peace, and by it obstructed in war.” Half a century before, Sully, the great minister of Henry IV, had characterized Spain “as one of those States whose legs and arms are strong and powerful, but the heart infinitely weak and feeble.” Since his day the Spanish navy had suffered not only disaster, but annihilation; not only humiliation, but degradation. The consequences briefly were that shipping was destroyed; manufactures perished with it. The government depended for its support, not upon a widespread healthy commerce and industry that could survive many a staggering blow, but upon a narrow stream of silver trickling through a few treasure-ships from America, easily and frequently intercepted by an enemy’s cruisers. The loss of half a dozen galleons more than once paralyzed its movements for a year. While the war in the Netherlands lasted, the Dutch control of the sea forced Spain to send her troops by a long and costly journey overland instead of by sea; and the same cause reduced her to such straits for necessaries that, by a mutual arrangement which seems very odd to modern ideas, her wants were supplied by Dutch ships, which thus maintained the enemies of their country, but received in return specie which was welcome in the Amsterdam exchange. In America, the Spanish protected themselves as best they might behind masonry, unaided from home; while in the Mediterranean they escaped insult and injury mainly through the indifference of the Dutch, for the French and English had not yet begun to contend for mastery there. In the course of history the Netherlands, Naples, Sicily, Minorca, Havana, Manila, and Jamaica were wrenched away, at one time or another, from this empire without a shipping. In short, while Spain’s maritime impotence may have been primarily a symptom of her general decay, it became a marked factor in precipitating her into the abyss from which she has not yet wholly emerged.

Except Alaska, the United States has no outlying possession,—no foot of ground inaccessible by land. Its contour is such as to present few points specially weak from their saliency, and all important parts of the frontiers can be readily attained,—cheaply by water, rapidly by rail. The weakest frontier, the Pacific, is far removed from the most dangerous of possible enemies. The internal resources are boundless as compared with present needs; we can live off ourselves indefinitely in “our little corner,” to use the expression of a French officer to the author. Yet should that little corner be invaded by a new commercial route through the Isthmus, the United States in her turn may have the rude awakening of those who have abandoned their share in the common birthright of all people, the sea.

III. Extent of Territory.—The last of the conditions affecting the development of a nation as a sea power, and touching the country itself as distinguished from the people who dwell there, is Extent of Territory. This may be dismissed with comparatively few words.

As regards the development of sea power, it is not the total number of square miles which a country contains, but the length of its coast-line and the character of its harbors that are to be considered. As to these it is to be said that, the geographical and physical conditions being the same, extent of sea-coast is a source of strength or weakness according as the population is large or small. A country is in this like a fortress; the garrison must be proportioned to the enceinte. A recent familiar instance is found in the American War of Secession. Had the South had a people as numerous as it was warlike, and a navy commensurate to its other resources as a sea power, the great extent of its sea-coast and its numerous inlets would have been elements of great strength. The people of the United States and the Government of that day justly prided themselves on the effectiveness of the blockade of the whole Southern coast. It was a great feat, a very great feat; but it would have been an impossible feat had the Southerners been more numerous, and a nation of seamen. What was there shown was not, as has been said, how such a blockade can be maintained, but that such a blockade is possible in the face of a population not only unused to the sea, but also scanty in numbers. Those who recall how the blockade was maintained, and the class of ships that blockaded during great part of the war, know that the plan, correct under the circumstances, could not have been carried out in the face of a real navy. Scattered unsupported along the coast, the United States ships kept their places, singly or in small detachments, in face of an extensive network of inland water communications which favored secret concentration of the enemy. Behind the first line of water communications were long estuaries, and here and there strong fortresses, upon either of which the enemy’s ships could always fall back to elude pursuit or to receive protection. Had there been a Southern navy to profit by such advantages, or by the scattered condition of the United States ships, the latter could not have been distributed as they were; and being forced to concentrate for mutual support, many small but useful approaches would have been left open to commerce. But as the Southern coast, from its extent and many inlets, might have been a source of strength, so, from those very characteristics, it became a fruitful source of injury. The great story of the opening of the Mississippi is but the most striking illustration of an action that was going on incessantly all over the South. At every breach of the sea frontier, warships were entering. The streams that had carried the wealth and supported the trade of the seceding States turned against them, and admitted their enemies to their hearts. Dismay, insecurity, paralysis, prevailed in regions that might, under happier auspices, have kept a nation alive through the most exhausting war. Never did sea power play a greater or a more decisive part than in the contest which determined that the course of the world’s history would be modified by the existence of one great nation, instead of several rival States, in the North American continent. But while just pride is felt in the well-earned glory of those days, and the greatness of the results due to naval preponderance is admitted, Americans who understand the facts should never fail to remind the overconfidence of their countrymen that the South not only had no navy, not only was not a seafaring people, but that also its population was not proportioned to the extent of the sea-coast which it had to defend.

IV. Number of Population.—After the consideration of the natural conditions of a country should follow an examination of the characteristics of its population as affecting the development of sea power; and first among these will be taken, because of its relations to the extent of the territory, which has just been discussed, the number of the people who live in it. It has been said that in respect of dimensions it is not merely the number of square miles, but the extent and character of the sea-coast that is to be considered with reference to sea power; and so, in point of population, it is not only the grand total, but the number following the sea, or at least readily available for employment on shipboard and for the creation of naval material, that must be counted.

For example, formerly and up to the end of the great wars following the French Revolution, the population of France was much greater than that of England; but in respect of sea power in general, peaceful commerce as well as military efficiency, France was much inferior to England. In the matter of military efficiency this fact is the more remarkable because at times, in point of military preparation at the outbreak of war, France had the advantage; but she was not able to keep it. Thus in 1778, when war broke out, France, through her maritime inscription, was able to man at once fifty ships-of-the-line. England, on the contrary, by reason of the dispersal over the globe of that very shipping on which her naval strength so securely rested, had much trouble in manning forty at home; but in 1782 she had one hundred and twenty in commission or ready for commission, while France had never been able to exceed seventy-one.

[The need is further shown, not only of a large seafaring population, but of skilled mechanics and artisans to facilitate ship construction and repair and supply capable recruits for the navy.—Editor.]

... That our own country is open to the same reproach is patent to all the world. The United States has not that shield of defensive power behind which time can be gained to develop its reserve of strength. As for a seafaring population adequate to her possible needs, where is it? Such a resource, proportionate to her coast-line and population, is to be found only in a national merchant shipping and its related industries, which at present scarcely exist. It will matter little whether the crews of such ships are native or foreign born, provided they are attached to the flag, and her power at sea is sufficient to enable the most of them to get back in case of war. When foreigners by thousands are admitted to the ballot, it is of little moment that they are given fighting-room on board ship.

Though the treatment of the subject has been somewhat discursive, it may be admitted that a great population following callings related to the sea is, now as formerly, a great element of sea power; that the United States is deficient in that element; and that its foundations can be laid only in a large commerce under her own flag.

V. National Character.—The effect of national character and aptitudes upon the development of sea power will next be considered.

If sea power be really based upon a peaceful and extensive commerce, aptitude for commercial pursuits must be a distinguishing feature of the nations that have at one time or another been great upon the sea. History almost without exception affirms that this is true. Save the Romans, there is no marked instance to the contrary.

[Here follows a survey, covering several pages, of the commercial history and colonial policies of Spain, Holland, and Great Britain.—Editor.]

... The fact of England’s unique and wonderful success as a great colonizing nation is too evident to be dwelt upon; and the reason for it appears to lie chiefly in two traits of the national character. The English colonist naturally and readily settles down in his new country, identifies his interest with it, and though keeping an affectionate remembrance of the home from which he came, has no restless eagerness to return. In the second place, the Englishman at once and instinctively seeks to develop the resources of the new country in the broadest sense. In the former particular he differs from the French, who were ever longingly looking back to the delights of their pleasant land; in the latter, from the Spaniards, whose range of interest and ambition was too narrow for the full evolution of the possibilities of a new country.

The character and the necessities of the Dutch led them naturally to plant colonies; and by the year 1650 they had in the East Indies, in Africa, and in America a large number, only to name which would be tedious. They were then far ahead of England in this matter. But though the origin of these colonies, purely commercial in its character, was natural, there seems to have been lacking to them a principle of growth. “In planting them they never sought an extension of empire, but merely an acquisition of trade and commerce. They attempted conquest only when forced by the pressure of circumstances. Generally they were content to trade under the protection of the sovereign of the country.” This placid satisfaction with gain alone, unaccompanied by political ambition, tended, like the despotism of France and Spain, to keep the colonies mere commercial dependencies upon the mother-country, and so killed the natural principle of growth.

Before quitting this head of the inquiry, it is well to ask how far the national character of Americans is fitted to develop a great sea power, should other circumstances become favorable.

It seems scarcely necessary, however, to do more than appeal to a not very distant past to prove that, if legislative hindrances be removed, and more remunerative fields of enterprise filled up, the sea power will not long delay its appearance. The instinct for commerce, bold enterprise in pursuit of gain, and a keen scent for trails that lead to it, all exist; and if there be in the future any fields calling for colonization, it cannot be doubted that Americans will carry to them all their inherited aptitude for self-government and independent growth.

VI. Character of the Government.—In discussing the effects upon the development of a nation’s sea power exerted by its government and institutions, it will be necessary to avoid a tendency to over-philosophizing, to confine attention to obvious and immediate causes and their plain results, without prying too far beneath the surface for remote and ultimate influences.

Nevertheless, it must be noted that particular forms of government with their accompanying institutions, and the character of rulers at one time or another, have exercised a very marked influence upon the development of sea power. The various traits of a country and its people which have so far been considered constitute the natural characteristics with which a nation, like a man, begins its career; the conduct of the government in turn corresponds to the exercise of the intelligent will-power, which, according as it is wise, energetic and persevering, or the reverse, causes success or failure in a man’s life or a nation’s history.

It would seem probable that a government in full accord with the natural bias of its people would most successfully advance its growth in every respect; and, in the matter of sea power, the most brilliant successes have followed where there has been intelligent direction by a government fully imbued with the spirit of the people and conscious of its true general bent. Such a government is most certainly secured when the will of the people, or of their best natural exponents, has some large share in making it; but such free governments have sometimes fallen short, while on the other hand despotic power, wielded with judgment and consistency, has created at times a great sea commerce and a brilliant navy with greater directness than can be reached by the slower processes of a free people. The difficulty in the latter case is to insure perseverance after the death of a particular despot.

England having undoubtedly reached the greatest height of sea power of any modern nation, the action of her government first claims attention. In general direction this action has been consistent, though often far from praiseworthy. It has aimed steadily at the control of the sea.

[The remainder of the chapter, quoted in part on pp. [141]–146, outlines the extension of Great Britain’s trade and sea power during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.—Editor.]

4. Definition of Terms[^[20]]

Strategy, Tactics, Logistics

“Strategy,” says Jomini, speaking of the art of war on land, “is the art of making war upon the map, and comprehends the whole theater of warlike operations. Grand tactics is the art of posting troops upon the battlefield, according to the accidents of the ground; of bringing them into action; and the art of fighting upon the ground in contradistinction to planning upon a map. Its operations may extend over a field of ten or twelve miles in extent. Strategy decides where to act. Grand tactics decides the manner of execution and the employment of troops,” when, by the combinations of strategy, they have been assembled at the point of action.

... Between Strategy and Grand Tactics comes logically Logistics. Strategy decides where to act; Logistics is the act of moving armies; it brings the troops to the point of action and controls questions of supply; Grand Tactics decides the methods of giving battle.

5. Fundamental Principles[^[21]]

Central Position, Interior Lines, Communications

The situation here used in illustration is taken from the Thirty Years’ War, 1618–1648, in which the French House of Bourbon opposed the House of Austria, the latter controlling Spain, Austria, and parts of Germany. France lay between Spain and Austria; but if Spain commanded the sea, her forces could reach the field of conflict in central Europe either by way of Belgium or by way of the Duchy of Milan in northern Italy, both of which were under her rule.

[The upper course of the Danube between Ulm and Ratisbon is also employed to illustrate central position, dominating the great European theater of war north of the Alps and east of the Rhine.—Editor.]

The situation of France relatively to her two opponents of this period—Spain and Austria—illustrates three elements of strategy, of frequent mention, which it is well here to name and to define, as well as to illustrate by the instance before you.

1. There is central position, illustrated by France; her national power and control interposing by land between her enemies. Yet not by land only, provided the coast supports an adequate navy; for, if that be the case, the French fleet also interposes between Spanish and Italian ports. The Danube is similarly an instance of central position.

2. Interior lines. The characteristic of interior lines is that of the central position prolonged in one or more directions, thus favoring sustained interposition between separate bodies of an enemy; with the consequent power to concentrate against either, while holding the other in check with a force possibly distinctly inferior. An interior line may be conceived as the extension of a central position, or as a series of central positions connected with one another, as a geometrical line is a continuous series of geometrical points. The expression “Interior Lines” conveys the meaning that from a central position one can assemble more rapidly on either of two opposite fronts than the enemy can, and therefore can utilize force more effectively. Particular examples of maritime interior lines are found in the route by Suez as compared with that by the Cape of Good Hope, and in Panama contrasted with Magellan. The Kiel Canal similarly affords an interior line between the Baltic and North Sea, as against the natural channels passing round Denmark, or between the Danish Islands,—the Sound and the two Belts.[^[22]] These instances of “Interior” will recall one of your boyhood’s geometrical theorems, demonstrating that, from a point interior to a triangle, lines drawn to two angles are shorter than the corresponding sides of the triangle itself. Briefly, interior lines are lines shorter in time than those the enemy can use. France, for instance, in the case before us, could march twenty thousand men to the Rhine, or to the Pyrenees, or could send necessary supplies to either, sooner than Spain could send the same number to the Rhine, or Austria to the Pyrenees, granting even that the sea were open to their ships.

3. The position of France relatively to Germany and Spain illustrates also the question of communications. “Communications” is a general term, designating the lines of movement by which a military body, army or fleet, is kept in living connection with the national power. This being the leading characteristic of communications, they may be considered essentially lines of defensive action; while interior lines are rather offensive in character, enabling the belligerent favored by them to attack in force one part of the hostile line sooner than the enemy can reinforce it, because the assailant is nearer than the friend. As a concrete instance, the disastrous attempt already mentioned, of Spain in 1639 to send reinforcements by the Channel, followed the route from Corunna to the Straits of Dover. It did so because at that particular moment the successes of France had given her control of part of the valley of the Rhine, closing it to the Spaniards from Milan; while the more eastern route through Germany was barred by the Swedes, who in the Thirty Years’ War were allies of France. The Channel therefore at that moment remained the only road open from Spain to the Netherlands, between which it became the line of communications. Granting the attempt had been successful, the line followed is exterior; for, assuming equal rapidity of movement, ten thousand men starting from central France should reach the field sooner.

The central position of France, therefore, gave both defensive and offensive advantage. In consequence of the position she had interior lines, shorter lines, by which to attack, and also her communications to either front lay behind the front, were covered by the army at the front; in other words, had good defense, besides being shorter than those by which the enemy on one front could send help to the other front. Further, by virtue of her position, the French ports on the Atlantic and Channel flanked the Spanish sea communications.

At the present moment, Germany and Austria-Hungary, as members of the Triple Alliance, have the same advantage of central and concentrated position against the Triple Entente, Russia, France, and Great Britain.

Transfer now your attention back to the Danube when the scene of war is in that region; as it was in 1796, and also frequently was during the period of which we are now speaking.... You have seen before, that, if there be war between Austria and France, as there so often was, the one who held the Danube had a central position in the region. Holding means possession by military power, which power can be used to the full against the North or against the South—offensive power—far more easily than the South and North can combine against him; because he is nearer to each than either is to the other. (See map.) Should North wish to send a big reinforcement to South, it cannot march across the part of the Danube held, but must march around it above or below; exactly as, in 1640, reinforcements from Spain to the Rhine had, so to say, to march around France. In such a march, on land, the reinforcement making it is necessarily in a long column, because roads do not allow a great many men to walk abreast. The road followed designates in fact the alignment of the reinforcement from day to day; and because its advance continually turns the side to the enemy, around whom it is moving, the enemy’s position is said to flank the movement, constituting a recognized danger. It makes no difference whether the line of march is straight or curved; it is extension upon it that constitutes the danger, because the line itself, being thin, is everywhere weak, liable to an attack in force upon a relatively small part of its whole. Communications are exposed, and the enemy has the interior line....

This is an illustration of the force of Napoleon’s saying, that “War is a business of positions.” All this discussion turns on position; the ordinary, semi-permanent, positions of Center, North, and South; or the succession of positions occupied by the detachment on that line of communications along which it moves. This illustrates the importance of positions in a single instance, but is by no means exhaustive of that importance. Fully to comprehend, it is necessary to study military and naval history; bearing steadily in mind Napoleon’s saying, and the definitions of central position, interior lines, and communications.

Take, for example, an instance so recent as to have been contemporary with men not yet old,—the Turkish position at Plevna in 1877. This stopped the Russian advance on Constantinople for almost five months. Why? Because, if they had gone on, Plevna would have been close to their line of communications, and in a central position relatively to their forces at the front and those in the rear, or behind the Danube. It was also so near, that, if the enemy advanced far, the garrison of Plevna could reach the only bridge across the Danube, at Sistova, and might destroy it, before help could come; that is, Plevna possessed an interior line towards a point of the utmost importance. Under these circumstances, Plevna alone arrested the whole Russian movement. In the recent war between Japan and Russia,[^[23]] the Port Arthur fleet similarly threatened the Japanese line of communications from Japan to Manchuria, and so affected the whole conduct of the war. It was central, as regards Japan and Liao-Yang, or Mukden. Study of such conditions reinforces knowledge, by affording numerous illustrations of the effect of position under very differing circumstances.

Let us now go back from the Danube with its Center, North, and South, to the communications between the Spanish coast and the Austrian army in Germany. Should the House of Austria in Spain desire to send large reinforcements to the Danube, or to the Rhine, by way of Italy, it can do so, provided it controls the sea; and provided also that France has not shaken its hold upon North Italy. Such a condition constitutes open and safe communications. If, however, command of the sea is not assured, if the French navy, say at Toulon, is equal to the Spanish navy in the neighborhood, there is danger of a reverse; while if the French navy is superior locally, there is great danger not merely of a reverse but of a serious disaster. In such a case the French navy, or the port of Toulon, flanks the Spanish line of communication; again an instance of position. As to position, Toulon would correspond to Plevna and Port Arthur. This instance illustrates, however, as Port Arthur conspicuously did, that the value of a position is not in the bare position, but in the use you make of it. This, it is pertinent to note, is just the value of anything a man possesses, his brains or his fortune—the use he makes of either. Should the French navy be decisively inferior locally to the Spanish, Toulon loses its importance. As position it is still good, but it cannot be used. It is an unavailable asset. So at Plevna, had the garrison been so small that it could not take the field, the place either would have been captured, or could have been watched by a detachment, while the main Russian body moved on. At Port Arthur, the inefficiency of the Russian navy permitted this course to the Japanese. They watched the place by navy and army, and went on with their march in Manchuria. Even so, the threat inherent in the position compelled an immense detachment of troops necessary for the siege, and so greatly weakened the main army in its action.

Note that it is the nearness of Toulon, as of Plevna, which constitutes the menace to the line of communication; the line from the port to that of the communications is thus an interior line, short, enabling an attack by surprise, or in force. It is the same consideration that has made Cadiz at one time, Gibraltar now, Malta, Jamaica, Guantanamo Bay, all threatening positions; the ones to vessels bound up or down the Mediterranean to or from Suez, the others to vessels going to or from the Isthmus of Panama. If it had been feasible for Spain to carry her reinforcements south of Sardinia and thence north, Toulon would so far have lost much of this value. As the line drew near Genoa, it would have regained control only in some measure; that is, to a less degree and for a shorter time. As a matter of fact such roundabout lines, fausses routes as Napoleon called them, have played a notable part in the strategy of a weaker party. The most convenient commercial route is not necessarily the most significant to strategy. Napoleon, for example, when bound to Egypt from Malta in 1798, did not go direct, but first sighted Crete and then bore away for Egypt. Owing to this, Nelson in pursuit missed the French because he naturally went direct.

The same beneficial effect—the same amount of protection as a roundabout line would give—might have been obtained if the Spanish navy on the Atlantic coast threatened French ports and commerce, and thus induced France to keep her navy, in whole or in part, in that quarter, weakening her Toulon force; so that, though favorably situated, it was not strong enough to attack. This was actually the case up to 1634, in which year the defeat of the allies of France at Nordlingen, due to Spanish troops from Italy reinforcing the Imperial armies in Germany, compelled France to declare open war against Spain and to transfer her fleet to the Mediterranean. This effect was produced also in 1898 on the United States; not by the Spanish navy, which was innoxious in everything but talk, but by the fears of the American people, which prompted the American Government to keep the so-called Flying Squadron in Hampton Roads, instead of close to the probable scene of war. Owing to this distribution, if Cervera’s squadron had been efficient, it could have got into Cienfuegos instead of Santiago; a very much harder nut to crack, because in close railroad communication with Havana and with the great mass of the Spanish army in Cuba. It is the same sort of unintelligent fear which prompts the demand now to send half the battle fleet to the Pacific. No course could be more entirely satisfactory to an enemy, or more paralyzing to the United States fleet, than just this. All or none; the battle fleet concentrated, whether in the Pacific or the Atlantic.

You will remember that in the war with Spain the United States navy had reproduced for it the situation I have depicted, of a detachment trying to pass round the Danube from North to South. The “Oregon” was the detachment, and she had to join the American fleet in the West Indies, in spite of the Spanish squadron. She reached Barbados May 18; the day before Cervera entered Santiago, and six days after he left Martinique, which is only one hundred miles from Barbados. The utter inefficiency of the Spanish navy has caused us to lose sight of the risk to the “Oregon,” which was keenly felt by her commander, and concerning which at the moment two former secretaries of the navy expressed to me their anxiety. Despite this experience, there are those now who would reconstitute it for us, half the fleet in the Pacific and half in the Atlantic. Should then war arise with a European state, or with Japan, it would be open to either enemy to take the Danube position between our two divisions, as Togo did between the Port Arthur and the Baltic squadrons....

Concentration

The general war against the House of Austria, as conducted by Richelieu, appears to have suffered from the same cause that saps the vigor of many wars; he attempted too many things at once, instead of concentrating for decided superiority in some one or two localities. For such concentration he had good opportunities, owing to the central position and interior lines possessed by France. It was open to him to act in great force either in Belgium, or on the Rhine, or in Italy, or towards Spain. Moreover, he had the initial advantage of a natural concentration: one nation against two, and those separated in space. The proverbial weakness of alliances is due to inferior power of concentration. Granting the same aggregate of force, it is never as great in two hands as in one, because it is not perfectly concentrated. Each party to an alliance usually has its particular aim, which divides action. In any military scheme that comes before you, let your first question to yourself be, Is this consistent with the requirement of concentration? Never attempt to straddle, to do two things at the same time, unless your force is evidently so supreme that you have clearly more than enough for each.

Our profession has never produced a man more daring in enterprise, nor more skillful in management, than Nelson. Remember, therefore, and always, that, when he sent off two frigates on some expedition, he charged their captains:

“If you meet two enemies, do not each attack one. Combine both on one of the enemy; you will make sure of that one, and you may also get the other afterwards; but, whether the second escape or not, your country will have won a victory, and gained a ship.”

The same consideration applies to ship design. You cannot have everything. If you attempt it, you will lose everything; by which I mean that in no one quality will your vessel be as efficient as if you had concentrated purpose on that one. On a given tonnage,—which in ship-building corresponds to a given size of army or of fleet,—there cannot be had the highest speed, and the heaviest battery, and the thickest armor, and the longest coal endurance, which the tonnage would allow to any one of these objects by itself. If you try, you will be repeating Richelieu’s mistake when he tried to carry on offensive war on four frontiers.

The fighting order of navies still continues a line; which is called more properly a column, because the ships are ranged one behind the other. Nevertheless, if the arrangement of the guns, from van to rear, is regarded, it will be seen that they really are deployed on a line fronting the enemy. As a rule, in instructed naval warfare, attack has been on one flank of that line. It is commonly spoken of as an attack on van or rear, because of the columnar formation of the ships, but it is really a flank attack; and, whichever flank is chosen, the attack on the other is essentially refused, because the numbers devoted to it are not sufficient to press an attack home. The culmination of the sail era—Trafalgar—was fought exactly on these lines. Nelson concentrated the bulk of his fleet, a superior force, on the left flank of the enemy, which happened to be the rear; against the right flank he sent a smaller number. He did not indeed give specific orders to the smaller body not to attack, or to refuse themselves. That was not his way. Moreover, he intended himself to take charge of this attack in smaller force, and to be governed by circumstances as to the development of it; but the result was shown in the fact that the larger part of the enemy’s right flank escaped, and all probably would if they had maneuvered well. The hostile loss fell on the other flank and on the center; and not only was this the case in result, but also Nelson in form and in his orders purposed just this. He put the concentrated attack in the hands of his second; “I,” said he, in effect, “will see that the other flank of the enemy does not interfere.” Conditions modified his action; but that was his plan, and although, from the particular conditions, he actually pierced the enemy’s center, still, having done so, the subsequent attack fell upon the flank originally intended, while the other flank was kept in check by the rear ships of Nelson’s own division. These, as they advanced in column, lay athwart the line by which the enemy’s van, if it tacked, would approach the rear, or other flank; and they thus prevented its approach by that route until too late to be effective.

Nelson, who was a thoughtful as well as a daring tactician, expressed reasons for attacking one flank rather than another, under differing conditions in which the fleets presented themselves; but, speaking generally, the rear was the better to attack, because the van could not, and cannot, come as soon to help the rear as the rear can the van. It has to turn round, to begin with; and, before turning round, its commander has to make up his mind, which few men do quickly, unless they have reached conclusions beforehand. All this means time. Besides, the assailant can more easily place himself in the way of such new movement of the van, than he can of the rear coming up on the line of advance it already has. Still, there are some reasons in favor of the van. Nelson in 1801 said that in case of encountering a Russian fleet he would attack the van; because injury to it would throw the enemy’s order into confusion, from which the Russians were not good enough maneuverers to recover. That is a special reason, not a general. It takes account of a particular circumstance, as a general on shore does of a particular locality. When Farragut passed the Mobile forts his van was thrown into confusion, and all know what a critical moment that was. It matters little what the incident is, if the confusion is produced.

In the Battle of the Japan Sea the attack again was on a flank, and that the van. Whether this was due to previous purpose of the Japanese, or merely arose from the conditions as they presented themselves, I do not know; but its tendency certainly would be to cause confusion. I do not wish, however, to argue here a question of tactics. My subject is strategy, and I am using tactics simply to illustrate the predominance, everywhere, under all conditions and from the nature of things, of the one great principle of concentration; and that, too, in the specific method of so distributing your own force as to be superior to the enemy in one quarter, while in the other you hold him in check long enough to permit your main attack to reach its full result. That necessary time may be half an hour on a field of battle; in a campaign it may be days, weeks, perhaps more.

... In any frontier line, or any strategic front of operations, or any line of battle, offensive effort may, and therefore should, be concentrated in one part, not distributed along the whole. This possibility, and a convenient way of conceiving it, Jomini expresses in an aphorism which may be commended to memory, because it sums up one important consideration concerning any military disposition whatever; whether it be the strategic front of operations in a campaign, or a tactical order of battle, or a frontier. Every such situation, Jomini says, may be properly regarded as a line; and every line divides, logically and actually, into three parts,—the center, and the two extremes, or flanks.

Guard yourselves, of course, from imagining three equal parts. We are not dealing here with mathematics, but with military conceptions. For practical results, let us apply at once to the United States of to-day. The United States has a long ocean frontier, broken at Mexico by the interposition of land, as the French maritime frontier is broken at the Pyrenees; yet the coast lines, like the French, possess a certain maritime continuity, in that ships can pass from end to end by sea. In such cases, it may be said without exaggeration that an ocean frontier is continuous. At present, the United States has one frontier which is strictly continuous, by land as by water, from the coast of Maine to the Rio Grande. There are in it, by natural division, three principal parts: the Atlantic, the Gulf, and the Straits of Florida. I do not deny that for purposes of study further convenient subdivisions may be made; but it may fairly be claimed that these three are clear, are primary, and are principal. They are very unequal in length, and, from the military standpoint, in importance; for while the peninsula of Florida does not rank very high in the industrial interests of the nation, a superior hostile fleet securely based in the Straits of Florida could effectively control intercourse by water between the two flanks. It would possess central position; and in virtue of that central position, its superiority need not be over the whole United States navy, should that be divided on each side of the central position. The supposed enemy, in such position, would need only to be decisively superior to each of the divisions lying on either side; whereas, were they united, superiority would require to be over the whole. It was this condition which made Cuba for the first century of our national existence a consideration of the first importance in our International relations. It flanked national communications, commercial and military. We know that there exists in our country an element of wisdom which would treat such a situation, which geography has constituted for us, as two boys do an apple. This would divide the fleet between the two coasts, and call it fair to both; because, so it is reasoned,—or rather argued,—defending both. It certainly, however, would not be concentration, nor effective.

Before passing on, note the striking resemblance between the Florida peninsula and that of Korea. Togo, at Masampo, was to Rozhestvensky and the Russians at Vladivostok just as a hostile fleet in the Straits of Florida would be to American divisions in the Gulf and at Hampton Roads. In like manner at an earlier period Togo and Kamimura, working apart but on interior lines, separated the three fine fighting ships in Vladivostok from the Port Arthur division.

The United States, however, has an even more urgent situation as to frontier in its Atlantic and Pacific coasts. If my claim is correct, in the instance of France, that a water frontier is continuous when passage from end to end by water is practicable, this is also continuous; and the battle fleet has demonstrated the fact within the past few years. The United States, then, has a maritime frontier line from Eastport, Maine, to Puget Sound; and, like other military lines, it divides into three principal parts immediately obvious,—the Atlantic Coast, the Pacific Coast, and the line between. This summary will not be any more true, nor any more useful for reflection, when the line passes by Panama instead of the Straits of Magellan; but it certainly will be more obvious. It then will be seen easily, as now may be seen certainly, that the important part of the long line in the present case, as in the future, is the center, because that insures or prevents passage in force from side to side; the transfer of force; in short, the communications. This reproduces again the Danube position, and also the chain of Spanish positions from Genoa to Belgium. It is once more the central position, which we have met before in such varying localities and periods; but the central position of Panama has over that now open to us, by Magellan, the advantage of interior lines, of which class of lines indeed the contrast between the existing and the future of routes offers a notable illustration.

6. Strategic Positions[^[24]]

The strategic value of any place depends upon three principal conditions:

1. Its position, or more exactly its situation. A place may have great strength, but be so situated with regard to the strategic lines as not to be worth occupying.

2. Its military strength, offensive and defensive. A place may be well situated and have large resources and yet possess little strategic value, because weak. It may, on the other hand, while not naturally strong, be given artificial strength for defense. The word “fortify” means simply to make strong.

3. The resources, of the place itself and of the surrounding country....

Where all three conditions, situation, intrinsic strength, and abundant resources, are found in the same place, it becomes of great consequence strategically and may be of the very first importance, though not always. For it must be remarked that there are other considerations, lesser in the purely military point of view, which enhance the consequence of a seaport even strategically; such as its being a great mart of trade, a blow to which would cripple the prosperity of the country; or the capital, the fall of which has a political effect additional to its importance otherwise.

I. Situation

Of the three principal conditions, the first, situation, is the most indispensable; because strength and resources can be artificially supplied or increased, but it passes the power of man to change the situation of a port which lies outside the limits of strategic effect.

Generally, value of situation depends upon nearness to a sea route; to those lines of trade which, when drawn upon the ocean common, are as imaginary as the parallels of the chart, yet as really and usefully exist. If the position be on two routes at the same time, that is, near the crossing, the value is enhanced. A cross-roads is essentially a central position, facilitating action in as many directions as there are roads. Those familiar with works on the art of land war will recognize the analogies. The value becomes yet more marked if, by the lay of the land, the road to be followed becomes very narrow; as at the Straits of Gibraltar, the English Channel, and in a less degree the Florida Strait. Perhaps narrowing should be applied to every inlet of the sea, by which trade enters into and is distributed over a great extent of country; such as the mouth of the Mississippi, of the Dutch and German rivers, New York harbor, etc. As regards the sea, however, harbors or the mouths of rivers are usually termini or entrepôts, at which goods are transshipped before going farther. If the road be narrowed to a mere canal, or to the mouth of a river, the point to which vessels must come is reduced almost to the geometrical definition of a point and near-by positions have great command. Suez presents this condition now, and Panama soon will.

Analogously, positions in narrow seas are more important than those in the great ocean, because it is less possible to avoid them by a circuit. If these seas are not merely the ends—“termini”—of travel but “highways,” parts of a continuous route; that is, if commerce not only comes to them but passes through to other fields beyond, the number of passing ships is increased and thereby the strategic value of the controlling points....

[Illustrations are here employed to show that, owing to the freedom of movements on the open sea, dangerous positions when not located in narrow channels are more easily avoided than on land. Hence “fausses routes et moments perdus,” in Napoleon’s phrase, play an important part in naval operations, as shown by Napoleon’s route to Egypt via Malta and Crete, and Rozhestvensky’s choice of routes before Tsushima. On the other hand, obstacles when they exist are impassable. Only submarines can avoid danger by transit over land.—Editor.]

II. Military Strength

A. Defensive Strength. [Military strength is considered in two aspects, (A) defensive, and (B) offensive. Under defensive strength, it is first pointed out that, as illustrated by Port Arthur and Santiago, coast bases are in chief danger of capture from the land side. While it is the business of the navy to prevent the landing of forces, its operations, though defensive in result, must be offensive in character, and not confined to the vicinity of the bases.—Editor.]

In the sphere of maritime war, the navy represents the army in the field; and the fortified strategic harbors, upon which it falls back as ports of refuge after battle or defeat, for repairs or for supplies, correspond precisely to strongholds, like Metz, Strasburg, Ulm, upon which, systematically occupied with reference to the strategic character of the theater of war, military writers agree the defense of a country must be founded. The foundation, however, must not be taken for the superstructure for which it exists. In war, the defensive exists mainly that the offensive may act more freely. In sea warfare, the offensive is assigned to the navy; and if the latter assumes to itself the defensive, it simply locks up a part of its trained men in garrisons, which could be filled as well by forces that have not their peculiar skill. To this main proposition I must add a corollary, that if the defense of ports, many in number, be attributed to the navy, experience shows that the navy will be subdivided among them to an extent that will paralyze its efficiency. I was amused, but at the same time instructed as to popular understanding of war, by the consternation aroused in Great Britain by one summer’s maneuvers, already alluded to, and the remedy proposed in some papers. It appeared that several seaports were open to bombardment and consequent exaction of subsidies by a small squadron, and it was gravely urged that the navy should be large enough to spare a small detachment to each port. Of what use is a navy, if it is to be thus whittled away? But a popular outcry will drown the voice of military experience.

... The strictly defensive strength of a seaport depends therefore upon permanent works, the provision of which is not the business of naval officers. The navy is interested in them because, when effective, they release it from any care about the port; from defensive action to the offensive, which is its proper sphere.

There is another sense in which a navy is regarded as defensive; namely, that the existence of an adequate navy protects from invasion by commanding the sea. That is measurably and in very large degree true, and is a strategic function of great importance; but this is a wholly different question from that of the defensive strength of seaports, of strategic points, with which we are now dealing. It therefore will be postponed, with a simple warning against the opinion that because the navy thus defends there is no need for local protection of the strategic ports; no need, that is, for fortifications. This view affirms that a military force can always, under all circumstances, dispense with secure bases of operations; in other words, that it can never be evaded, nor know momentary mishap.

I have now put before you reasons for rejecting the opinion that the navy is the proper instrument, generally speaking, for coast defense in the narrow sense of the expression, which limits it to the defense of ports. The reasons given may be summed up, and reduced to four principles, as follows:

1. That for the same amount of offensive power, floating batteries, or vessels of very little mobility, are less strong defensively against naval attack than land works are.

2. That by employing able-bodied seafaring men to defend harbors you lock up offensive strength in an inferior, that is, in a defensive, effort.

3. That it is injurious to the morale and skill of seamen to keep them thus on the defensive and off the sea. This has received abundant historical proof in the past.

4. That in giving up the offensive the navy gives up its proper sphere, which is also the most effective.

B. Offensive Strength.—The offensive strength of a seaport, considered independently of its strategic situation and of its natural and acquired resources, consists in its capacity:

1. To assemble and hold a large military force, of both ships of war and transports.

2. To launch such force safely and easily into the deep.

3. To follow it with a continued support until the campaign is ended. In such support are always to be reckoned facilities for docking, as the most important of all supports.

[These points are discussed in detail. It is noted that a port with two outlets, like New York and Vladivostok, has a decided advantage.—Editor.]

III. Resources

The wants of a navy are so many and so varied that it would be time lost to name them separately. The resources which meet them may be usefully divided under two heads, natural and artificial. The latter, again, may be conveniently and accurately subdivided into resources developed by man in his peaceful occupation and use of a country, and those which are immediately and solely created for the maintenance of war.

Other things being equal, the most favorable condition is that where great natural resources, joined to a good position for trade, have drawn men to settle and develop the neighboring country. Where the existing resources are purely artificial and for war, the value of the port, in so far, is inferior to that of one where the ordinary occupations of the people supply the necessary resources. To use the phraseology of our subject, a seaport that has good strategic situation and great military strength, but to which all resources must be brought from a distance, is much inferior to a similar port having a rich and developed friendly region behind it. Gibraltar and ports on small islands, like Santa Lucia and Martinique, labor under this disadvantage, as compared with ports of England, France, the United States; or even of a big island like Cuba, if the latter be developed by an industrial and commercial people.

7. Strategic Lines[^[25]]

Communications

The most important of strategic lines are those which concern the communications. Communications dominate war. This has peculiar force on shore, because an army is immediately dependent upon supplies frequently renewed. It can endure a brief interruption much less readily than a fleet can, because ships carry the substance of communications largely in their own bottoms. So long as the fleet is able to face the enemy at sea, communications mean essentially, not geographical lines, like the roads an army has to follow, but those necessaries, supplies of which the ships cannot carry in their own hulls beyond a limited amount. These are, first, fuel; second, ammunition; last of all, food. These necessaries, owing to the facility of water transportation as compared with land, can accompany the movements of a fleet in a way impossible to the train of an army. An army train follows rather than accompanies, by roads which may be difficult and must be narrow; whereas maritime roads are easy, and inimitably wide.

Nevertheless, all military organizations, land or sea, are ultimately dependent upon open communications with the basis of the national power; and the line of communications is doubly of value, because it usually represents also the line of retreat. Retreat is the extreme expression of dependence upon the home base. In the matter of communications, free supplies and open retreat are two essentials to the safety of an army or of a fleet. Napoleon at Marengo in 1800, and again at Ulm in 1805, succeeded in placing himself upon the Austrian line of communication and of retreat, in force sufficient to prevent supplies coming forward from the base, or the army moving backward to the base. At Marengo there was a battle, at Ulm none; but at each the results depended upon the same condition,—the line of communication controlled by the enemy. In the War of Secession the forts of the Mississippi were conquered as soon as Farragut’s fleet, by passing above, held their line of communications. Mantua in 1796 was similarly conquered as soon as Napoleon had placed himself upon the line of retreat of its garrison. It held out for six months, very properly; but the rest of the campaign was simply an effort of the outside Austrians to drive the French off the line, and thus to reinforce the garrison or to enable it to retreat.

Importance of Sea Communications[^[26]]

Except Russia and Japan, the nations actively concerned in this great problem [the problem of Asia] rest, for home bases, upon remote countries. We find therefore two classes of powers: those whose communication is by land, and those who depend upon the sea. The sea lines are the most numerous and easy, and they will probably be determinative of the courses of trade. Among them there are two the advantages of which excel all others—for Europe by Suez, from America by way of the Pacific Ocean. The latter will doubtless receive further modification by an isthmian canal, extending the use of the route to the Atlantic seaboard of America, North and South.

Communications dominate war; broadly considered, they are the most important single element in strategy, political or military. In its control over them has lain the pre-eminence of sea power—as an influence upon the history of the past; and in this it will continue, for the attribute is inseparable from its existence. This is evident because, for reasons previously explained, transit in large quantities and for great distances is decisively more easy and copious by water than by land. The sea, therefore, is the great medium of communications—of commerce. The very sound, “commerce,” brings with it a suggestion of the sea, for it is maritime commerce that has in all ages been most fruitful of wealth; and wealth is but the concrete expression of a nation’s energy of life, material and mental. The power, therefore, to insure these communications to one’s self, and to interrupt them for an adversary, affects the very root of a nation’s vigor, as in military operations it does the existence of an army, or as the free access to rain and sun—communication from without—does the life of a plant. This is the prerogative of the sea powers; and this chiefly—if not, indeed, this alone—they have to set off against the disadvantage of position and of numbers under which, with reference to land power, they labor in Asia. It is enough. Pressure afar off—diversion—is adequate to relieve that near at hand, as Napoleon expected to conquer Pondicherry on the banks of the Vistula. But if the sea powers embrace the proposition that has found favor in America, and, by the concession of immunity to an enemy’s commerce in time of war, surrender their control of maritime communications, they will have abdicated the scepter of the sea, for they will have abandoned one chief means by which pressure in one quarter—the sea—balances pressure in a remote and otherwise inaccessible quarter. Never was moment for such abandonment less propitious than the present, when the determination of influence in Asia is at stake.

8. Offensive Operations[^[27]]

[The situation here considered is that of a fleet that has driven the enemy from a base in the theater of war, but has still to cope with the enemy fleet falling back on another base.—Editor.]

The case of further advance from your new base may not be complicated by the consideration of great distance. The next step requisite to be taken may be short, as from Cuba to Jamaica; or it may be that the enemy’s fleet is still at sea, in which case it is the great objective, now as always. Its being at sea may be because retreating, from the position you have occupied, towards his remoter base; either because conscious of inferiority, or, perhaps, after a defeat more or less decisive. It will then be necessary to act with rapidity, in order to cut off the enemy from his port of destination. If there is reason to believe that you can overtake and pass him with superior force, every effort to do so must be made. The direction of his retreat is known or must be ascertained, and it will be borne in mind that the base to which he is retreating and his fleet are separated parts of one force, the union of which must be prevented. In such a case, the excuses frequently made for a sluggish pursuit ashore, such as fatigue of troops, heavy roads, etc., do not apply. Crippled battleships must be dropped, or ordered to follow with the colliers. Such a pursuit presumes but one disadvantage to the chasing fleet, viz., that it is leaving its coal base while the chase is approaching his; and this, if the calculations are close, may give the pursuing admiral great anxiety. Such anxieties are the test and penalty of greatness. In such cases, excuses for failure attributed to shortness of coal will be closely scrutinized; and justly. In all other respects, superiority must be assumed, because on no other condition could such headlong pursuit be made. It aims at a great success, and successes will usually be in proportion to superiority, either original or acquired. “What the country needs,” said Nelson, “is the annihilation of the enemy. Only numbers can annihilate.”

If such a chase follow a battle, it can scarcely fail that the weaker party—the retreating party—is also distressed by crippled ships, which he may be forced to abandon—or fight. Strenuous, unrelaxing pursuit is therefore as imperative after a battle as is courage during it. Great political results often flow from correct military action; a fact which no military commander is at liberty to ignore. He may very well not know of those results; it is enough to know that they may happen, and nothing can excuse his losing a point which by exertion he might have scored. Napoleon, says Jomini, never forgave the general who in 1796, by resting his troops a couple of hours, failed to get between an Austrian division and Mantua, in which it was seeking refuge, and by his neglect found it. The failure of Admiral de Tourville to pursue vigorously the defeated Dutch and English fleet, after the battle of Beachy Head, in 1690, caused that victory to be indecisive, and helped to fasten the crown of England on the head of a Dutch King, who was the soul of the alliance against France. Slackness in following up victory had thus a decisive influence upon the results of the whole war, both on the continent and the sea. I may add, it has proved injurious to the art of naval strategy, by the seeming confirmation it has given to the theory of the “fleet in being.” It was not the beaten and crippled English and Dutch “fleet in being” that prevented an invasion of England. It was the weakness or inertness of Tourville, or the unreadiness of the French transports.

Similarly, the refusal of Admiral Hotham to pursue vigorously a beaten French fleet in 1795, unquestionably not only made that year’s campaign indecisive, but made possible Napoleon’s Italian campaign of 1796, from which flowed his whole career and its effects upon history. The same dazzling career received its sudden mortal stab when, in the height of his crushing advance in Spain, with its capital in his hands, at the very moment when his vast plans seemed on the eve of accomplishment, a more enterprising British leader, Sir John Moore, moved his petty army to Sahagun, on the flank of Napoleon’s communications between France and Madrid. The blow recoiled upon Moore, who was swept as by a whirlwind to Coruña, and into the sea; but Spain was saved. The Emperor could not retrieve the lost time and opportunity. He could not return to Madrid in person, but had to entrust to several subordinates the task which only his own supreme genius could successfully supervise. From the military standpoint, his downfall dates from that day. The whole career of Wellington, to Waterloo, lay in the womb of Moore’s daring conception. But for that, wrote Napier, the Peninsular War would not have required a chronicler.

An admiral may not be able to foresee such remote consequences of his action, but he can safely adopt the principle expressed by Nelson, in the instance just cited, after hearing his commander-in-chief say they had done well enough: “If ten ships out of eleven were taken, I would never call it well enough, if we were able to get at the eleventh.”

The relations between the fleets of Admirals Rozhestvensky and Togo prior to their meeting off Tsushima bore no slight resemblance to those between a pursued and a pursuing fleet. The Russian fleet, which had started before the Port Arthur division succumbed, was placed by that event in the position of a fleet which has suffered defeat so severe that its first effort must be to escape into its own ports. This was so obvious that many felt a retreat upon the Baltic was the only course left open; but, failing that, Rozhestvensky argued that he should rush on to Vladivostok at once, before the Japanese should get again into the best condition to intercept him, by repairing their ships, cleaning the bottoms, and refreshing the ships’ companies. Instead of so ordering, the Russian government decided to hold him at Nossi-Bé (the north end of Madagascar), pending a reinforcement to be sent under Admiral Nebogatoff. Something is to be said for both views, in the abstract; but considering that the reinforcement was heterogeneous and inferior in character, that the Russian first aim was not battle but escape to Vladivostok, and, especially, that the Japanese were particularly anxious to obtain the use of delay for the very purpose Rozhestvensky feared, it seems probable that he was right. In any event, he was delayed at Nossi-Bé from January 9 to March 16; and afterwards at Kamranh Bay in French Cochin-China, from April 14 to May 9, when Nebogatoff joined. Allowing time for coaling and refitting, this indicates a delay of sixty to seventy days; the actual time underway from Nossi-Bé to Tsushima being only forty-five days. Thus, but for the wait for Nebogatoff, the Russian division would have reached Tsushima two months before it did, or about March 20.

Togo did not have to get ahead of a flying fleet, for by the fortune of position he was already ahead of it; but he did have to select the best position for intercepting it, as well as to decide upon his general course of action: whether, for instance, he should advance to meet it; whether he should attempt embarrassment by his superior force of torpedo vessels, so as to cripple or destroy some of its units, thus reducing further a force already inferior; also the direction and activities of his available scouts. His action may be taken as expressing his opinions on these subjects. He did not advance; he did not attempt harassment prior to meeting; he concentrated his entire battle force on the line by which he expected the enemy must advance; and he was so far in ignorance of their movements that he received information only on the very morning of the battle. This was well enough; but it is scarcely unreasonable to say it might have been bettered. The Japanese, however, had behind them a large part of a successful naval campaign, the chief points of which it is relevant to our subject to note. They had first by a surprise attack inflicted a marked injury on the enemy’s fleet, which obtained for them a time of delay and opportunity during its enforced inactivity. They had then reduced one of the enemy’s two naval bases, and destroyed the division sheltered in it. By this they had begun to beat the enemy in detail, and had left the approaching reinforcement only one possible port of arrival.

If a flying fleet has been lost to sight and has but one port of refuge, pursuit, of course, will be directed upon that port; but if there are more, the chasing admiral will have to decide upon what point to direct his fleet, and will send out despatch vessels in different directions to find the enemy and transmit intelligence. Cruisers engaged in such duty should be notified of the intended or possible movements of the fleet, and when practicable should be sent in couples; for although wireless telegraphy has now superseded the necessity of sending one back with information, while the other remains in touch with the enemy, accidents may happen, and in so important a matter it seems expedient to double precautions. The case resembles duplicating important correspondence; for wireless cannot act before it has news, and to obtain news objects must be seen. It is to be remembered, too, that wireless messages may be intercepted, to the serious disadvantage of the sender. It seems possible that conjunctures may arise when it will be safer to send a vessel with tidings rather than commit them to air waves.

Thus, in theory, and to make execution perfect,—to capture, so to say, Nelson’s eleventh ship,—the aim must be to drive the enemy out of every foothold in the whole theater of war, and particularly to destroy or shut up his fleet. Having accomplished the great feature of the task by getting hold of the most decisive position, further effort must be directed towards, possibly not upon, those points which may serve him still for bases. In so doing, your fleet must not be divided, unless overwhelmingly strong, and must not extend its lines of communication beyond the power of protecting them, unless it be for a dash of limited duration.

If compelled to choose between fortified ports of the enemy and his fleet, the latter will be regarded as the true objective; but a blockade of the ports, or an attack upon them, may be the surest means of bringing the ships within reach. Thus, in the War of American Independence, the siege of Gibraltar compelled the British fleet on more than one occasion to come within fighting reach of the enemy’s blockading fleet, in order to throw in supplies. That the allies did not attack, except on one occasion, does not invalidate the lesson. Corbett in his “Seven Years’ War” points out very justly, in Byng’s celebrated failure, which cost him his life, that if he had moved against the French transports, in a neighboring bay, the French admiral would have had to attack, and the result might have been more favorable to the British. Such movements are essentially blows at the communications of the enemy, and if aimed without unduly risking your own will be in thorough accord with the most assured principles of strategy. A militarily effective blockade of a base essential to the enemy will force his fleet either to fight or to abandon the theater of war. Thus, as has been pointed out elsewhere, in Suffren’s campaign in Indian Seas, so long as Trincomalee was in possession of the British, a threat at it was sure to bring them out to fight, although it was not their principal base. The abandonment of the theater of war by the navy will cause the arsenal to fall in time, through failure of resources, as Gibraltar must have fallen if the British fleet had not returned and supplied it at intervals. Such a result, however, is less complete than a victory over the enemy’s navy, which would lead to the same end, and so be a double success, ships and port.

9. The Value of the Defensive[^[28]]

It is true that in certain respects the defensive has advantages, the possession of which may even justify an expression, which has been stated as a maxim of war, that “Defense is a stronger form of war than Offense is.” I do not like the expression, for it seems to me misleading as to the determinative characteristics of a defensive attitude; but it may pass, if properly qualified. What is meant by it is that in a particular operation, or even in a general plan, the party on the defense, since he makes no forward movement for the time, can strengthen his preparations, make deliberate and permanent dispositions; while the party on the offensive, being in continual movement, is more liable to mistake, of which the defense may take advantage, and in any case has to accept as part of his problem the disadvantage, to him, of the accumulated preparations that the defense has been making while he has been marching. The extreme example of preparation is a fortified permanent post; but similar instances are found in a battle field carefully chosen for advantages of ground, where attack is awaited, and in a line of ships, which by the solidarity of its order, and deployment of broadside, awaits an enemy who has to approach in column with disadvantage as to train of guns. In so far, the form taken by the defense is stronger than the form assumed for the moment by the offense.

If you will think clearly, you will recognize that at Tsushima the Japanese were on the defensive, for their object was to stop, to thwart, the Russian attempt. Essentially, whatever the tactical method they adopted, they were to spread their broadsides across the road to Vladivostok, and await. The Russians were on the offensive, little as we are accustomed so to regard them; they had to get through to Vladivostok—if they could. They had to hold their course to the place, and to break through the Japanese,—if they could. In short, they were on the offensive, and the form of their approach had to be in column, bows on,—a weaker form,—which they had to abandon, tactically, as soon as they came under fire.

In our hostilities with Spain, also, Cervera’s movement before reaching Santiago was offensive in character, the attitude of the United States defensive; that is, he was trying to effect something which the American Navy was set to prevent. There being three principal Spanish ports, Havana, Cienfuegos, and Santiago, we could not be certain for which he would try, and should have been before two in such force that an attempt by him would have assured a battle. We were strong enough for such a disposition. The two ports thus to be barred were evidently Havana and Cienfuegos. The supposed necessity for defending our northern coast left Cienfuegos open. Had Cervera made for it, he would have reached it before the Flying Squadron did. The need for keeping the Flying Squadron in Hampton Roads was imaginary, but it none the less illustrates the effect of inadequate coast defenses upon the military plan of the nation.

The author whom I quote (Corbett, “Seven Years’ War,” Vol. I, p. 92), who himself quotes from one of the first of authorities, Clausewitz, has therefore immediately to qualify his maxim, thus:

“When we say that defense is a stronger form of war, that is, that it requires a smaller force, if soundly designed, we are speaking, of course, only of one certain line of operations. If we do not know the general line of operation on which the enemy intends to attack, and so cannot mass our force upon it, then defense is weak, because we are compelled to distribute our force so as to be strong enough to stop the enemy on any line of operations he may adopt.”

Manifestly, however, a force capable of being strong enough on several lines of operation to stop an enemy possesses a superiority that should take the offensive. In the instance just cited, of Cervera’s approach, the American true policy of concentration would have had to yield to distribution, between Cienfuegos and Havana. Instead of a decisive superiority on one position, there would have been a bare equality upon two. Granting an enemy of equal skill and training, the result might have been one way or the other; and the only compensation would have been that the enemy would have been so badly handled that, to use Nelson’s phrase, he would give no more trouble that season, and the other American division would have controlled the seas, as Togo did after August 10, 1904. From the purely professional point of view it is greatly to be regretted that the Spaniards and Russians showed such poor professional aptitude.

The radical disadvantage of the defensive is evident. It not only is the enforced attitude of a weaker party, but it labors under the further onerous uncertainty where the offensive may strike, when there is more than one line of operation open to him, as there usually is. This tends to entail dissemination of force. The advantages of the defensive have been sufficiently indicated; they are essentially those of deliberate preparation, shown in precautions of various kinds. In assuming the defensive you take for granted the impossibility of your own permanent advance and the ability of the enemy to present himself before your front in superior numbers; unless you can harass him on the way and cause loss enough to diminish the inequality. Unless such disparity exists, you should be on the offensive. On the other hand, in the defensive it has to be taken for granted that you have on your side a respectable though inferior battle fleet, and a sea frontier possessing a certain number of ports which cannot be reduced without regular operations, in which the armed shipping can be got ready for battle, and to which, as to a base, they can retire for refit. Without these two elements there can be no serious defense.

10. Commerce-Destroying and Blockade[^[29]]

It is desirable to explain here what was, and is, the particular specific utility of operations directed toward the destruction of an enemy’s commerce; what its bearing upon the issues of war; and how, also, it affects the relative interests of antagonists, unequally paired in the matter of sea power. Without attempting to determine precisely the relative importance of internal and external commerce, which varies with each country, and admitting that the length of transportation entails a distinct element of increased cost upon the articles transported, it is nevertheless safe to say that, to nations having free access to the sea, the export and import trade is a very large factor in national prosperity and comfort. At the very least, it increases by so much the aggregate of commercial transactions, while the ease and copiousness of water carriage go far to compensate for the increase of distance. Furthermore, the public revenue of maritime states is largely derived from duties on imports. Hence arises, therefore, a large source of wealth, of money; and money—ready money or substantial credit—is proverbially the sinews of war, as the War of 1812 was amply to demonstrate. Inconvertible assets, as business men know, are a very inefficacious form of wealth in tight times; and war is always a tight time for a country, a time in which its positive wealth, in the shape of every kind of produce, is of little use, unless by freedom of exchange it can be converted into cash for governmental expenses. To this sea commerce greatly contributes, and the extreme embarrassment under which the United States as a nation labored in 1814 was mainly due to commercial exclusion from the sea. To attack the commerce of the enemy is therefore to cripple him, in the measure of success achieved, in the particular factor which is vital to the maintenance of war. Moreover, in the complicated conditions of mercantile activity no one branch can be seriously injured without involving others.

This may be called the financial and political effect of “commerce destroying,” as the modern phrase runs. In military effect, it is strictly analogous to the impairing of an enemy’s communications, of the line of supplies connecting an army with its base of operations, upon the maintenance of which the life of the army depends. Money, credit, is the life of war; lessen it, and vigor flags; destroy it, and resistance dies. No resource then remains except to “make war support war;” that is, to make the vanquished pay the bills for the maintenance of the army which has crushed him, or which is proceeding to crush whatever opposition is left alive. This, by the extraction of private money, and of supplies for the use of his troops, from the country in which he was fighting, was the method of Napoleon, than whom no man held more delicate views concerning the gross impropriety of capturing private property at sea, whither his power did not extend. Yet this, in effect, is simply another method of forcing the enemy to surrender a large part of his means, so weakening him, while transferring it to the victor for the better propagation of hostilities. The exaction of a pecuniary indemnity from the worsted party at the conclusion of a war, as is frequently done, differs from the seizure of property in transit afloat only in method, and as peace differs from war. In either case, money or money’s worth is exacted; but when peace supervenes, the method of collection is left to the Government of the country, in pursuance of its powers of taxation, to distribute the burden among the people; whereas in war, the primary object being immediate injury to the enemy’s fighting power, it is not only legitimate in principle, but particularly effective, to seek the disorganization of his financial system by a crushing attack upon one of its important factors, because effort thus is concentrated on a readily accessible, fundamental element of his general prosperity. That the loss falls directly on individuals, or a class, instead of upon the whole community, is but an incident of war, just as some men are killed and others not. Indirectly, but none the less surely, the whole community, and, what is more important, the organized government, are crippled; offensive powers impaired.

But while this is the absolute tendency of war against commerce, common to all cases, the relative value varies greatly with the countries having recourse to it. It is a species of hostilities easily extemporized by a great maritime nation; it therefore favors one whose policy is not to maintain a large naval establishment. It opens a field for a sea militia force, requiring little antecedent military training. Again, it is a logical military reply to commercial blockade, which is the most systematic, regularized, and extensive form of commerce-destruction known to war. Commercial blockade is not to be confounded with the military measure of confining a body of hostile ships of war to their harbor, by stationing before it a competent force. It is directed against merchant vessels, and is not a military operation in the narrowest sense, in that it does not necessarily involve fighting, nor propose the capture of the blockaded harbor. It is not usually directed against military ports, unless these happen to be also centers of commerce. Its object, which was the paramount function of the United States Navy during the Civil War, dealing probably the most decisive blow inflicted upon the Confederacy, is the destruction of commerce by closing the ports of egress and ingress. Incidental to that, all ships, neutrals included, attempting to enter or depart, after public notification through customary channels, are captured and confiscated as remorselessly as could be done by the most greedy privateer. Thus constituted, the operation receives far wider scope than commerce-destruction on the high seas; for this is confined to merchantmen of belligerents, while commercial blockade, by universal consent, subjects to capture neutrals who attempt to infringe it, because, by attempting to defeat the efforts of one belligerent, they make themselves parties to the war.

In fact, commercial blockade, though most effective as a military measure in broad results, is so distinctly commerce-destructive in essence, that those who censure the one form must logically proceed to denounce the other. This, as has been seen, Napoleon did; alleging in his Berlin Decree, in 1806, that war cannot be extended to any private property whatever, and that the right of blockade is restricted to fortified places, actually invested by competent forces. This he had the face to assert, at the very moment when he was compelling every vanquished state to extract, from the private means of its subjects, coin running up to hundreds of millions to replenish his military chest for further extension of hostilities. Had this dictum been accepted international law in 1861, the United States could not have closed the ports of the Confederacy, the commerce of which would have proceeded unmolested; and hostile measures being consequently directed against men’s persons instead of their trade, victory, if accomplished at all, would have cost three lives for every two actually lost.

It is apparent, immediately on statement, that against commerce-destruction by blockade, the recourse of the weaker maritime belligerent is commerce-destruction by cruisers on the high sea. Granting equal efficiency in the use of either measure, it is further plain that the latter is intrinsically far less efficacious. To cut off access to a city is much more certainly accomplished by holding the gates than by scouring the country in search of persons seeking to enter. Still, one can but do what one can. In 1861 to 1865, the Southern Confederacy, unable to shake off the death grip fastened on its throat, attempted counteraction by means of the “Alabama,” “Sumter,” and their less famous consorts, with what disastrous influence upon the navigation—the shipping—of the Union it is needless to insist. But while the shipping of the opposite belligerent was in this way not only crippled, but indirectly was swept from the seas, the Confederate cruisers, not being able to establish a blockade, could not prevent neutral vessels from carrying on the commerce of the Union. This consequently suffered no serious interruption; whereas the produce of the South, its inconvertible wealth—cotton chiefly—was practically useless to sustain the financial system and credit of the people. So, in 1812 and the two years following, the United States flooded the seas with privateers, producing an effect upon British commerce which, though inconclusive singly, doubtless co-operated powerfully with other motives to dispose the enemy to liberal terms of peace. It was the reply, and the only possible reply, to the commercial blockade, the grinding efficacy of which it will be a principal object of these pages to depict. The issue to us has been accurately characterized by Mr. Henry Adams, in the single word “Exhaustion.”[^[30]]

Both parties to the War of 1812 being conspicuously maritime in disposition and occupation, while separated by three thousand miles of ocean, the sea and its navigable approaches became necessarily the most extensive scene of operations. There being between them great inequality of organized naval strength and of pecuniary resources, they inevitably resorted, according to their respective force, to one or the other form of maritime hostilities against commerce which have been indicated. To this procedure combats on the high seas were merely incidental. Tradition, professional pride, and the combative spirit inherent in both peoples, compelled fighting when armed vessels of nearly equal strength met; but such contests, though wholly laudable from the naval standpoint, which under ordinary circumstances cannot afford to encourage retreat from an equal foe, were indecisive of general results, however meritorious in particular execution. They had no effect upon the issue, except so far as they inspired moral enthusiasm and confidence. Still more, in the sequel they have had a distinctly injurious effect upon national opinion in the United States. In the brilliant exhibition of enterprise, professional skill, and usual success, by its naval officers and seamen, the country has forgotten the precedent neglect of several administrations to constitute the navy as strong in proportion to the means of the country as it was excellent through the spirit and acquirements of its officers. Sight also has been lost of the actual conditions of repression, confinement, and isolation, enforced upon the maritime frontier during the greater part of the war, with the misery and mortification thence ensuing. It has been widely inferred that the maritime conditions in general were highly flattering to national pride, and that a future emergency could be confronted with the same supposed facility, and as little preparation, as the odds of 1812 are believed to have been encountered and overcome. This mental impression, this picture, is false throughout, alike in its grouping of incidents, in its disregard of proportion, and in its ignoring of facts. The truth of this assertion will appear in due course of this narrative, and it will be seen that, although relieved by many brilliant incidents, indicative of the real spirit and capacity of the nation, the record upon the whole is one of gloom, disaster, and governmental incompetence, resulting from lack of national preparation, due to the obstinate and blind prepossessions of the Government, and, in part, of the people.

Command of the Sea Decisive[^[31]]

It is not the taking of individual ships or convoys, be they few or many, that strikes down the money power of a nation; it is the possession of that overbearing power on the sea which drives the enemy’s flag from it, or allows it to appear only as a fugitive; and which, by controlling the great common, closes the highways by which commerce moves to and from the enemy’s shores. This overbearing power can only be exercised by great navies, and by them (on the broad sea) less efficiently now than in the days when the neutral flag had not its present immunity.[^[32]] It is not unlikely that, in the event of a war between maritime nations, an attempt may be made by the one having a great sea power and wishing to break down its enemy’s commerce, to interpret the phrase “effective blockade” in the manner that best suits its interests at the time; to assert that the speed and disposal of its ships make the blockade effective at much greater distances and with fewer ships than formerly. The determination of such a question will depend, not upon the weaker belligerent, but upon neutral powers; it will raise the issue between belligerent and neutral rights; and if the belligerent have a vastly overpowering navy he may carry his point, just as England, when possessing the mastery of the seas, long refused to admit the doctrine of the neutral flag covering the goods.

11. Strategic Features of the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean[^[33]]

In the special field proposed for our study, there are two principal points of such convergence—or divergence: the mouth of the Mississippi River, and the Central-American Isthmus. At the time when these lectures were first written the opinion of the world was hesitating between Panama and Nicaragua as the best site for a canal through the Isthmus. This question having now been settled definitively in favor of Panama, the particular point of convergence for trade routes passing through the Caribbean for the Pacific will continue at Colon, whither it for so long has been determined because there is the terminus of the Panama Railroad.

These two meeting points or cross-roads have long been, and still are, points of supreme interest to all mankind. At the one all the highways of the Mississippi valley, all the tributaries and sub-tributaries of the great river, meet, and thence they part. At the other all highways between the Atlantic and Pacific focus and intersect. The advancing population and development of the Mississippi valley, and the completion of the Panama Canal, will work together to cause this international interest to grow proportionately in the future. Among the great Powers of the world, no one is concerned so vitally in this progress as is the United States; because of her possession of one of these centers, the mouth of the Mississippi with its huge back country, and because of her geographical nearness to the other. This peculiar interest, which is natural and inevitable in virtue of proximity, is emphasized by the national policy known as the Monroe Doctrine; and still more by the particular result of the Doctrine which has involved the control, administration, and military protection of that belt of Isthmian territory called the Panama Canal Zone.

[In the intervening pages, it is shown that the triangle drawn on the map (p. [101]) includes all points of strategic importance, these being indicated by black squares. Cuba is the key to the Gulf of Mexico, and also controls three entrances to the Caribbean—the Yucatan, Windward, and Mona Passages. The entrances, the chief points of destination (Jamaica and the Isthmus), and the routes thither, constitute the main objects of military control in the Caribbean.—Editor.]

... Taking all together, control over transit depending upon situation only, other conditions being equal, is greatest with Jamaica, next with Cuba, least with the Lesser Antilles.

Accepting these conclusions as to control over transit, we now revert to that question to which all other inquiries are subsidiary, namely, Which of the three bases of operations in the Caribbean—one of the Lesser Antilles, Jamaica, or Cuba with its sphere of influence—is most powerful for military control of the principal objective points in the same sea? These principal objectives are Jamaica and the Isthmus; concerning the relative importance of which it may be remarked that, while the Isthmus intrinsically, and to the general interest of the world, is incomparably the more valuable, the situation of Jamaica gives such command over all the approaches to the Isthmus, as to make it in a military sense the predominant factor in the control of the Caribbean. Jamaica is a pre-eminent instance of central position, conferring the advantage of interior lines, for action in every direction within the field to which it belongs.

Military control depends chiefly upon two things, position and active military strength. As equal military strength has been assumed throughout, it is now necessary only to compare the positions held by other states in the field with that of the occupant of Cuba. This inquiry also is limited to the ability either to act offensively against these objective points, or, on the contrary, to defend them if already held by oneself or an ally; transit having been considered already.

Control by virtue of position, over a point external to your territory, depends upon nearness in point of time and upon the absence of obstacles capable of delaying or preventing your access to it.

Both Santiago (or Guantanamo) and Cienfuegos are nearer to the Isthmus than is any other one of the first-class strategic points that have been chosen on the borders of the Caribbean Sea, including Samana Bay and St. Thomas. They are little more than half the distance of the British Santa Lucia and the French Martinique. The formidable island and military stronghold of Jamaica, within the sea, is nearer the Isthmus than Guantanamo is, by one hundred and fifty miles, and than Cienfuegos by yet more.

Taking into consideration situation only, Jamaica is admirably placed for the control of the Caribbean. It is equidistant from Colon, from the Yucatan Passage, and from the Mona Passage. It shares with Guantanamo and Santiago control of the Windward Passage, and of that along the south coast of Cuba; while, with but a slight stretching out of its arm, it reaches the routes from the Gulf of Mexico to the Isthmus. Above all, as towards Cuba, it so blocks the road to the Isthmus that any attempt directed upon the Isthmus from Cuba must first have to account with the military and naval forces of Jamaica.

There are, however, certain deductions to be made from the strength of Jamaica that do not apply as forcibly to Cuba. Leaving to one side the great and widely scattered colonial system of Great Britain, which always throws that empire on the defensive and invites division of the fleet, owing to the large number of points open to attack, and confining our attention strictly to the field before us, it will be observed that in a scheme of British operations Jamaica is essentially, as has been said before, an advanced post; singularly well situated, it is true, but still with long and difficult communications. Its distance from Antigua, a possible intermediate base of supplies, is over nine hundred miles; from Santa Lucia, the chief British naval station in the Lesser Antilles, over one thousand miles, not less than three days’ economical steaming. Great Britain, if at war with a state possessing Cuba, is shut out from the Windward Passage by Guantanamo, and from the Gulf of Mexico by Havana. The Mona Passage, also, though not necessarily closed, will be too dangerous to be relied upon. For these reasons, in order to maintain communications with Jamaica, an intermediate position and depot, like Santa Lucia, will be urgently needed. Supplies coming from Bermuda, Halifax, or England would probably have to be collected first there, or at Antigua, and thence make a more secure, but still exposed, voyage to Kingston. The north coasts of Cuba and Haiti must be looked upon as practically under the control of the Cuban fleet, in consequence of the command which it exercises over the Windward Passage, by virtue of position.

The possessor of Cuba, on the contrary, by his situation has open communication with the Gulf of Mexico, which amounts to saying that he has all the resources of the United States at his disposal, through the Mississippi Valley. Cruisers from Jamaica attempting to intercept that trade would be at a great disadvantage, especially as to coal, compared with their enemy resting upon Havana. Cruisers from Havana, reaching their cruising ground with little or no consumption, can therefore remain longer, and consequently are equivalent to a greater number of ships. On the other hand, cruisers from Santiago could move almost with impunity by the north side of Haiti as far as the Mona Passage, and beyond that without any other risk than that of meeting and fighting vessels of equal size. If they stretch their efforts toward the Anegada Passage, they would feel the same disadvantage, relatively to cruisers from Santa Lucia, that Jamaica cruisers in the Gulf would undergo as compared with those from Havana; but by inclining their course more to the northward, to or about the point Q (see map, page [101]), they would there be equidistant from Guantanamo and Santa Lucia, and so on an equality with the latter, while at the same time in a position gravely to endanger supplies from any point in North America. If it be replied that Bermuda can take care of these cruisers at Q, the answer is plain: on the supposition of equal forces, it can do so only by diminishing the force at Santa Lucia. In short, when compared with Jamaica, in respect of strategic relations to Bermuda, Halifax, and Santa Lucia, Cuba enjoys the immense advantage of a central position, and of interior lines of communication, with consequent concentration of force and effort.

It is not easy to see how, in the face of these difficulties, Great Britain, in the supposed case of equal force in this theater of war, could avoid dividing her fleet sufficiently to put Jamaica at a disadvantage as to Cuba. In truth, Cuba here enjoys not only the other advantages of situation already pointed out, but also that of being central as regards the enemy’s positions; and what is, perhaps, even more important, she possesses secure interior land lines of supply and coal between the points of her base, while covering the sea lines in her rear, in the Gulf of Mexico. For Guantanamo and Santiago have communication by rail with Havana, while the island itself covers the lines from Havana to the Gulf coast of the United States; whereas Jamaica depends wholly upon the sea, by lines of communication not nearly as well sheltered.

Contrasted with Cuba, Jamaica is seen to be, as has been more than once said, a strong advanced post, thrust well forward into the face of an enemy to which it is much inferior in size and resources, and therefore dependent for existence upon its power of holding out, despite uncertain and possibly suspended communication. Its case resembles that of Minorca, Malta, Gibraltar, the endurance of which, when cut off from the sea, has always been measurable. The question here before us, however, is not that of mere holding out on the defensive, which would be paralysis. If Cuba can reduce Jamaica to a passive defensive, Jamaica disappears as a factor in the control of the Caribbean and Isthmus—no obstacle then stands in the way of Cuba using her nearness to Panama. If Cuba can bring about a scarcity of coal at Kingston she achieves a strategic advantage; if a coal famine, the enemy’s battle fleet must retire, probably to the Lesser Antilles.

The case of Jamaica, contrasted with Cuba, covers that of all strategic points on the borders of the Caribbean Sea, east, west, north, or south. Almost on the border itself, although within it, Jamaica has in nearness, in situation, in size, and in resources, a decisive advantage over any of the ports of Haiti or of the smaller islands. If Jamaica is inferior to Cuba, then is each of the other points on the circumference, and, it may be added, all of them together....

[It is shown that, while Santa Lucia is essential to Jamaica, the two are too far apart to work together in concert. As for the Lesser Antilles, they may be said to control the approaches from Europe, while Cuba controls those from North America; but the Antilles are twice as far from the Isthmus as Cuba is, and much weaker in resources.—Editor.]

As to resources, those of all the West India islands for war will depend mainly upon the policy and preparation of the governments. Except Cuba, they are deficient in natural resources adequately developed. Outside of direct governmental action it can only be said that the much greater population of Cuba will draw more supplies and furnish more material for troops and garrisons. At present, as already noted, the resources of the United States are in effect also the resources of Cuba.

As between the three possible bases for attempted control of the Caribbean, no doubts can remain that Cuba is the most powerful, Jamaica next, and the Antilles least. Jamaica being where it is, Cuba cannot put forth her power against the Isthmus or against the lines of transit in the Caribbean, until she has materially reduced, if not neutralized, the offensive power of her smaller opponent. Upon the supposition of equal fleets, if the Cuban fleet move against the Isthmus, or into the Caribbean, it uncovers its communications; if it seeks to cover these, it divides its force. Jamaica exactly meets the case supposed in a previous chapter: “If, in moving upon the coveted objective you pass by a strategic point held by the enemy, capable of sheltering his ships—a point from which he may probably intercept your supplies of coal or ammunition, the circle of influence of that point will require your attention and reduce your force.”

In that case it was laid down that, if you cannot observe the port without reducing your fleet below that of the enemy, you must not divide it; either the intermediate point must be taken, or, if you think you can accomplish your special aim with the supplies on board, you may cut loose from your base, giving up your communications. Undoubtedly, the same difficulty would be felt by the Jamaica fleet, if it moved away from home leaving the Cuban fleet in port in Santiago or Guantanamo; but, of the two, Jamaica has the inside track. It is not so with operations based upon the Lesser Antilles only, and directed against the Isthmus, or against any position in the western basin of the Caribbean, Cuba being hostile; the line of communication in that case is so long as to be a very serious comparative disadvantage.

Upon the whole, then, Jamaica, though less powerful than Cuba, seems to deserve the title of the “key to the Caribbean.” Only when Cuba has mastered it can she predominantly control the positions of that sea. But if Jamaica in this sense be the key, Cuba has the grip that can wrest it away. Secure as to her own communications, in the rear, towards the Gulf of Mexico, Cuba has it in her power to impose upon her enemy a line so long and insecure as to be finally untenable. First a scarcity of coal, then a famine, lastly the retreat of the Jamaica fleet to the most available coal station. Such is the solution I believe possible to the military problem of the Caribbean as dependent upon geographical conditions,—that is, upon positions; concerning which Napoleon has said that “War is a business of positions.” The instant the Cuban fleet has gained a decided superiority over that of Jamaica, it can take a position covering at once the approaches to that island and the Windward Channel, keeping all its own ships in hand while cutting off the enemy’s supplies and reinforcements. The converse is not true of the Jamaica fleet, in case it gains a momentary superiority, because the southern ports of Cuba should be able to receive supplies by land, from the Gulf of Mexico through Havana.

The general discussion of the strategic features of the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean ends here; but the treatment of the subject will not be complete, unless there be some further specific consideration of the bearing which the conclusions reached have upon the facilities of the United States for naval action in the region studied.

[The political developments between 1887 and 1911 are here considered, including the growth of the American Navy; the construction of the Panama Canal; the acquisition by the United States of strategic points along the line from Key West to Culebra Island, centering at Guantanamo and “most effectual for military and naval action in the Caribbean;” and, finally, our increased responsibilities arising from the growth of the German Navy and the consequent limitation of England’s co-operation in support of the Monroe Doctrine.—Editor.]

... The Caribbean Sea and the Isthmus of Panama furnish the student of naval strategy with a very marked illustration of the necessity of such cohesion and mutual support between military positions assumed; as well as between those positions and the army in the field,—that is, the navy. It affords therefore a subject of the first importance for such a student to master, and that in fuller detail than is expedient for a series of lectures, the object of which should be to suggest lines of thought, rather than to attempt exhaustive treatment. For an American naval officer, the intimate relation of the Isthmus and its coming canal to the mutual support of the Atlantic and Pacific coasts renders the subject doubly interesting. This interest is yet farther increased by the consideration that the general international importance to commerce of such a point as the Canal can scarcely fail to make the conditions of its tenure and use a source of international difference and negotiation, which often are war under another form; that is, the solution depends upon military power, even though held in the background. There are questions other than commercial dependent upon the tenure of the Isthmus, of which I will not here speak explicitly. To appreciate them fully there must be constant reading and reflection upon the general topics of the day.

One thing is sure: in the Caribbean Sea is the strategic key to the two great oceans, the Atlantic and Pacific, our own chief maritime frontiers.