Even in its present form the term is not of very recent date. Grote [2] speaks of 'the conversion of Athens from a land-power into a sea-power.' In a lecture published in 1883, but probably delivered earlier, the late Sir J. R. Seeley says that 'commerce was swept out of the Mediterranean by the besom of the Turkish sea-power.'[3] The term also occurs in vol. xviii. of the 'Encyclopædia Britannica,' published in 1885. At p. 574 of that volume (art. Persia) we are told that Themistocles was 'the founder of the Attic sea-power.' The sense in which the term is used differs in these extracts. In the first it means what we generally call a 'naval power'—that is to say, a state having a considerable navy in contradistinction to a 'military power,' a state with a considerable army but only a relatively small navy. In the last two extracts it means all the elements of the naval strength of the state referred to; and this is the meaning that is now generally, and is likely to be exclusively, attached to the term owing to the brilliant way in which it has been elucidated by Captain A. T. Mahan of the United States Navy in a series of remarkable works.[4] The double use of the term is common in German, though in that language both parts of the compound now in use are Teutonic. One instance out of many may be cited from the historian Adolf Holm.[5] He says[6] that Athens, being in possession of a good naval port, could become '_eine_bedeutende_ Seemacht,' i.e. an important naval power. He also says[7] that Gelon of Syracuse, besides a large army (Heer), had 'eine _bedeutende_Seemacht_,' meaning a considerable navy. The term, in the first of the two senses, is old in German, as appears from the following, extracted from Zedler's 'Grosses Universal Lexicon,' vol. xxxvi:[8] 'Seemachten, Seepotenzen, Latin. summae _potestates_mari_potentes_.' 'Seepotenzen' is probably quite obsolete now. It is interesting as showing that German no more abhors Teuto-Latin or Teuto-Romance compounds than English. We may note, as a proof of the indeterminate meaning of the expression until his own epoch-making works had appeared, that Mahan himself in his earliest book used it in both senses. He says,[9] 'The Spanish Netherlands ceased to be a sea-power.' He alludes[10] to the development of a nation as a 'sea-power,' and[11] to the inferiority of the Confederate States 'as a sea-power.' Also,[12] he remarks of the war of the Spanish Succession that 'before it England was one of the sea-powers, after it she was the sea-power without any second.' In all these passages, as appears from the use of the indefinite article, what is meant is a naval power, or a state in possession of a strong navy. The other meaning of the term forms the general subject of his writings above enumerated. In his earlier works Mahan writes 'sea power' as two words; but in a published letter of the 19th February 1897, he joins them with a hyphen, and defends this formation of the term and the sense in which he uses it. We may regard him as the virtual inventor of the term in its more diffused meaning, for—even if it had been employed by earlier writers in that sense—it is he beyond all question who has given it general currency. He has made it impossible for anyone to treat of sea-power without frequent reference to his writings and conclusions.
[Footnote 2: _Hist._of_Greece_, v. p. 67, published in 1849, but with preface dated 1848.]
[Footnote 3: _Expansion_of_England_, p. 89.]
[Footnote 4: _Influence_of_Sea-power_on_History_, published 1890; _Influence_of_Sea-power_on_the_French_Revolution_and_Empire_, 2 vols. 1892; _Nelson:_the_Embodiment_of_the_Sea-power_of_Great_ Britain, 2 vols. 1897.]
[Footnote 5: _Griechische_Geschichte_. Berlin, 1889.]
[Footnote 6: Ibid. ii. p. 37.]
[Footnote 7: Ibid. ii. p. 91.]
[Footnote 8: Leipzig und Halle, 1743.]
[Footnote 9: _Influence_of_Sea-power_on_History_, p. 35.]
[Footnote 10: Ibid. p. 42.]