I am not disposed to question, or to doubt, that if the Russian squadron had escaped Togo, and if the separated supply train had been intercepted, it would have been very embarrassing to the ships of war refitting at Vladivostok. Nor do I question that, in case of such escape, the coal remaining in consequence of the deck loads taken would have been of much value for future operations. The more real and the greater those distracting considerations, like those of William III in Ireland, the more do they throw into relief the greatness, as well as the necessity, of subordinating them to the one thing needful, namely, to be ready to the utmost on the day of battle. They illustrate, too, how misleading is the disposition to compromise, to concede something all around; to straddle the two horses, escape and battle.
Rozhestvensky’s course was a compromise, a mix-up of escape and fighting; a strategic blunder to begin with, in not concentrating attention on the one needful thing clearly indicated by the course of events, and hence resulting necessarily in a series of blunders, which comprehensively may be called tactical. They all hang together, as the results of a frame of mind; the overloading with coal, the increased danger of fire therefrom, the submersion of the armor belts, the loss of speed and tactical capacity, the neglect of scouting, the company of the transports,—each of which is a tactical error,—all proceed from the failure to observe that the one governing consideration of strategy, in this war, was a naval battle under the most favorable conditions. It is the repetition of the mistakes of the Port Arthur division. When it becomes clearly imminent that one may have to fight under conditions less favorable than one would desire, conditions are changed; but there is no change of the principles involved. Vladivostok reached, the principle would have required the utmost preparation the yard offered, in the least possible time, so as to be the most fit possible to fight. At the Saddles, the same fitness required the dismissal from influence upon conduct of all thought of Vladivostok, and of supplies there, so far as such thought might modify the preparation for probable battle. It seems very probable that the defective conceptions deducible from Rozhestvensky’s conduct were emphasized and reinforced by the heavy preoccupations about supplies, necessarily incidental to his anxious outward voyage. His mind and morale had got a twist, a permanent set, from which they could not recover.
PART III
NAVAL AND NATIONAL POLICIES
31. Expansion and Over-Sea Bases[[106]]
The Annexation of Hawaii
[As the date indicates, the essay was written at the time of the Revolution in Hawaii, six years before its annexation. The part of the essay preceding points out the predominant interest of the United States in the Islands owing to their control of our trade routes and naval approaches, and refers to the benefit to the world from British colonial expansion.—Editor.]
But if a plea of the world’s welfare seem suspiciously like a cloak for national self-interest, let the latter be accepted frankly as the adequate motive which it assuredly is. Let us not shrink from pitting a broad self-interest against the narrow self-interest to which some would restrict us. The demands of our three great seaboards, the Atlantic, the Gulf, and the Pacific,—each for itself, and all for the strength that comes from drawing closer the ties between them,—are calling for the extension, through the Isthmian Canal, of that broad sea common along which, and along which alone, in all the ages prosperity has moved. Land carriage, always restricted and therefore always slow, toils enviously but hopelessly behind, vainly seeking to replace and supplant the royal highway of nature’s own making. Corporate interests, vigorous in that power of concentration which is the strength of armies and of minorities, may here withstand for a while the ill-organized strivings of the multitude, only dimly conscious of its wants; yet the latter, however temporarily opposed and baffled, is sure at last, like the blind forces of nature, to overwhelm all that stand in the way of its necessary progress. So the Isthmian Canal is an inevitable part in the future of the United States; yet one that cannot be separated from other necessary incidents of a policy dependent upon it, whose details cannot be foreseen exactly. But because the precise steps that hereafter may be opportune or necessary cannot yet be foretold certainly, is not a reason the less, but a reason the more, for establishing a principle of action which may serve to guide as opportunities arise. Let us start from the fundamental truth, warranted by history, that the control of the seas, and especially along the great lines drawn by national interest or national commerce, is the chief among the merely material elements in the power and prosperity of nations. It is so because the sea is the world’s great medium of circulation. From this necessarily follows the principle that, as subsidiary to such control, it is imperative to take possession, when it can be done righteously, of such maritime positions as contribute to secure command. If this principle be adopted, there will be no hesitation about taking the positions—and they are many—upon the approaches to the Isthmus, whose interests incline them to seek us. It has its application also to the present case of Hawaii.
There is, however, one caution to be given from the military point of view, beyond the need of which the world has not yet passed. Military positions, fortified posts, by land or by sea, however strong or admirably situated, do not confer control by themselves alone. People often say that such an island or harbor will give control of such a body of water. It is an utter, deplorable, ruinous mistake. The phrase indeed may be used by some only loosely, without forgetting other implied conditions of adequate protection and adequate navies; but the confidence of our own nation in its native strength, and its indifference to the defense of its ports and the sufficiency of its fleet, give reason to fear that the full consequences of a forward step may not be weighed soberly. Napoleon, who knew better, once talked this way. “The islands of San Pietro, Corfu, and Malta,” he wrote, “will make us masters of the whole Mediterranean.” Vain boast! Within one year Corfu, in two years Malta, were rent away from the state that could not support them by its ships. Nay, more: had Bonaparte not taken the latter stronghold out of the hands of its degenerate but innocuous government, that citadel of the Mediterranean would perhaps—would probably—never have passed into those of his chief enemy. There is here also a lesson for us.