[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.