Mahan on naval warfare

by A. T. Mahan

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.