From the same source may be taken a passage of more intimate portrayal. “In person Mahan was tall, spare, erect, with blue eyes, fair complexion, hair and beard originally sandy. He respected the body as the temple of his soul, and he paid it the homage of abstemious living, of outdoor games and abundant exercise. In manner he was modest to excess, dignified, courteous. Reticent in speech with people in general, those who enjoyed the rare privilege of his intimacy knew him to be possessed of a keen sense of humor and a fund of delightful anecdotes. To such friends he was a most charming companion, so different from the grave, self-contained philosopher he appeared to the rest and less favored of his acquaintance. His home life was ideal.”
The lectures delivered at the Naval War College were the basis of “The Influence of Sea Power upon History.” The author tells us how the central idea came to him in the library of the English Club at Lima, Peru, while reading Momsen’s “History of Rome.” “It suddenly struck me ... how different things might have been could Hannibal have invaded Italy by sea, as the Romans often had Africa, instead of by the long land route.” A year later, when he returned to the United States, the plan of the lectures was already formed: “I would investigate coincidently the general history and the naval history of the past two centuries with a view to demonstrating the influence of the events of the one upon the other.” Written between May and September of 1886, and delivered as lectures during the next four years, the book was carefully revised before its publication in the spring of 1890.
This book exerted at the time, and has continued to exert, a widespread influence; and while its author’s reputation has been increased by his later writings, it remains his best known and greatest work. One reason for this is that it states his fundamental teaching, and in a form easy to grasp. The preface and the first chapter, which cover but eighty-nine pages, survey rapidly the rise and decline of great sea powers and the national characteristics affecting maritime development. The rest of the book, treating in detail the period between 1660 and 1783, reinforces the conclusions already stated.
Timeliness also contributed to its success. The book furnished authoritative guidance in a period of transition and new departures in international affairs. For nearly twenty years, under Bismarck, Germany had been consolidating the empire established in 1871. When William II ascended the throne in 1888, the ambitions of both ruler and nation were already turned toward colonial expansion and world power. A German Admiralty separate from the War Office was established in 1889; Heligoland was secured a year later; the Kiel Canal was nearing completion. In England, the Naval Defense Act of 1889 provided an increase of seventy ships during the next four years. The rivals against whom she measured her naval strength were still France and Russia. In the United States, Congress in 1890 authorized three battleships, the first vessels of this class to be added to the American navy. During the following ten years the rivalry of nations was chiefly in commercial and colonial aggrandisement, marked by the final downfall of Spain’s colonial empire and a greatly increased importance attached to control of the sea.
For the nations taking part in this expansion, Mahan was a kind of gospel, furnishing texts for every discussion of naval policy. “After his first book,” says a French writer, “and especially from 1895 on, Mahan supplied the sound basis for all thought on naval and maritime affairs; it was seen clearly that sea power was the principle which, adhered to or departed from, would determine whether empires should stand or fall.”[[5]]
To Great Britain in particular the book came as a timely analysis of the means by which she had grown in wealth and dominion. This was indeed no discovery. Nearly three centuries earlier Francis Bacon had written, “To be master of the sea is an abridgment [epitome] of monarchy ... he that commands the sea is at great liberty, and may take as much and as little of the war as he will.”[[6]] Before and after Bacon, England had acted upon this principle. But it remained for Mahan to give the thesis full expression, to demonstrate it by concrete illustration, and to apply it to modern conditions. “For the first time,” writes the British naval historian, Sir Julian Corbett, “naval history was placed on a philosophical basis. From the mass of facts which had hitherto done duty for naval history, broad generalizations were possible. The ears of statesmen and publicists were opened, and a new note began to sound in world politics. Regarded as a political pamphlet in the higher sense—for that is how the famous book is best characterized—it has few equals in the sudden and far-reaching effect it produced on political thought and action.”[[7]]
Germany was not slow to take to heart this interpretation of the vital dependence of world empire on sea power. The Kaiser read the book, annotated its pages, and placed copies in every ship of the German fleet.[[8]] It was soon translated not only into German but into French, Japanese, Russian, Italian, and Spanish. This and later works by the same author were perhaps most diligently studied by officers of the Japanese navy, then rising rapidly to the strength manifested in the Russian war. “As far as known to myself,” writes Mahan, “more of my works have been done into Japanese than into any other one tongue.”[[9]] The debt of all students of naval warfare is well expressed by a noted Italian officer and writer,—“Mahan, who is the great teacher of us all.”[[10]]
What has been said of “The Influence of Sea Power upon History” applies in varying degrees to the sixteen historical works and collections of essays which appeared in the ensuing twenty-five years. While extending the field covered by the earlier book, they maintained in general its high qualities. The most important of these, “The Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution and Empire,” covers the period from 1793 to 1812. This and the studies of the American Revolution and the War of 1812 form with his first book a continuous historical series from 1660 to 1815. The “Life of Nelson” and “Life of Farragut” are standard professional biographies of these two commanders, who, if we accept Mahan’s opinion, rank respectively first and second among naval leaders. The best of his thought on contemporary naval warfare is gathered up in his “Naval Strategy,” published in 1911. Based on lectures first delivered in 1887, and afterward frequently expanded and modified to meet changing conditions, this book, while invaluable to the professional student, lacks something of the continuity and clearness of structure of the historical works.
The authoritativeness of these writings, it may be repeated, was strengthened by the author’s technical equipment and long years of practical experience. Moreover, as Mr. Roosevelt has said, “Mahan was the only great naval writer who also possessed the mind of a statesman of the first class.”[[11]] His concern always was not merely with the facts of history but with the “logic of events” and their lessons for to-day.
Following his retirement, Admiral Mahan wrote more frequently and freely on problems of the present and future. Of the subjects treated, some were distinctly professional—the speed and size of battleships, the size, composition, and disposition of fleets, modifications in the international codes affecting naval warfare, naval events in contemporary wars. Others entered the wider field of world politics, voicing the author’s sincere belief in American colonial expansion and active participation in world affairs, in the need of a navy sufficient to make our influence felt, in the limitations as well as the usefulness of arbitration, in the continuance of force as an important factor in international relations.