Short-lived Nations of the Sea
The ocean is no passive element to maritime races. By deriving power from the sea they become subject to the sea. The more strength they draw from the ocean, the less firm becomes their footing upon the land. Finally, their power no longer remains rooted in the land, but grows to resemble that of a fleet resting upon the waves; it may with but small expenditure of effort extend its influence over an enormously wide area, but it may also be swept away by the first storm. As yet all maritime nations have been short-lived; their rise has been swift, often surprisingly so; but they have never remained long at the zenith of prosperity, and, as a rule, their decay has been as rapid as their elevation to power. The cause of the fall of all maritime nations has been the smallness of their basis, their foreign possessions, widely separated from one another and difficult to defend, and their dependence upon these foreign possessions. In many cases the over-balancing of political by economic interests, the neglect of materials for defence, and effeminacy resulting from commercial prosperity, have also contributed to their destruction.
MAN’S FIRST STEP TOWARDS THE CONQUEST OF THE EARTH
The most momentous event in the early history of man was the launching of the first raft. That moment was instinct with all the mighty conquests and discoveries yet to be accomplished over seas; and even the discovery of fire, says Professor Ratzel, has been of less moment to the progress of mankind than that of the inventor who first joined logs together into a raft and set out on a voyage of discovery to the nearest islet.
LARGER IMAGE
Special combinations of characteristics arising from the geographical positions of oceans, continents, and islands are connected with the broad features common to oceanic continuity. These characteristics are reflected from the sea back to the land, and there give rise to historical groups. The historical significance of such groups is expressed in their names even—Mediterranean World, Baltic Nations, Atlantic Powers, and Pacific Sphere of Civilisation. They are primarily the results of commerce and exchange, and of the furthering, correlating influences of all coasts and islands. When they united all peninsulas, islands, and coasts of the Mediterranean into one state the Romans merely set a political crown upon the civilised community that had developed round about, and by means of, this sea.
Uniqueness of the Mediterranean
And if we wish rightly to estimate the significance of Roman expansion from a Central European point of view, we may express our conception very shortly—the diffusion of Mediterranean culture over Western and Central Europe. It was at the same time a widening of the horizon of a landlocked sea to that of the open ocean. The Atlantic Ocean succeeded to the Mediterranean Sea. The Americans and the Russians, and the Japanese, repeating their words, maintain that in the same manner the Pacific must succeed to the Atlantic; but they forget the peculiar features of the Mediterranean, especially its conditions of area. It is no more probable that such a compact, isolated development will occur again than that the history of Athens will repeat itself on the Korean peninsula or at Shantung. The greater the ocean, the farther is it removed from the isolated sea. It was not the Atlantic that succeeded to the Mediterranean, but the broad world-ocean that succeeded to the narrow basin called the Mediterranean Sea. There have always been differences between the various divisions of the main sea; and these variations will ever continue to be prominent, although constantly tending to become less and less so.