A History of Sea Power

by William Oliver Stevens; Allan F. Westcott

CONCLUSION

The brief survey of sea power in the preceding chapters has shown that the ocean has been the highway for the march of civilization and empire. Crete in its day became a great island power and distributed throughout the Mediterranean the wealth and the arts of its own culture and that of Egypt. In turn, Phœnicia held sway on the inland sea, and though creating little, she seized upon and developed the material and intellectual resources of her neighbors, and carried them not only to the corners of the Mediterranean, but far out on the unknown sea. Later when Phœnicia was subject to Persia, Athens by her triremes saved the growing civilization of Greece, and during a brief period of glory planted the seeds of Greek, as opposed to Asiatic culture, on the islands and coasts of the Ægean. After Athens, Carthage inherited the trident, and in turn fell before the energy of a land power, Rome. And as the Roman Empire grew to include practically all of the known world, every waterway, river and ocean, served to spread Roman law, engineering, and ideals of practical efficiency, at the same time bringing back to the heart of the Empire not only the products of the colonies, but such impalpable treasures as the art, literature, and philosophy of Greece. This was the story of the sea in antiquity.

After the dissolution of the Roman empire, as Christian peoples were struggling in blood and darkness, a great menace came from Arabia, the Saracen invasion, which was checked successfully and repeatedly by the navy of Constantinople. To this, primarily, is due the preservation of the Christian ideal in the world. Later, the cities of Italy began to reëstablish sea commerce, which had been for centuries interrupted by pirates. Venice gained the ascendancy, and Venetian ships carried the Crusading armies during the centuries when western peoples went eastward to fight for the Cross and brought back new ideas they had learned from the Infidels. Then there arose a new Mohammedan threat, the Turk, determined like the earlier Saracen to conquer the world for the Crescent. Constantinople, betrayed by Christian nations, fell, Christian peoples of the Levant were made subject to the Turk, and thereafter till our day the Ægean was a Turkish lake. About the same time a new Mohammedan sea power arose in the Moors of the African coast, and for a century and more the Mediterranean was a no-man's land between the rival peoples and the rival religions.

Meanwhile the trade with the East by caravan routes to the Arabian Gulf had been stopped by the presence of the Turk. To reach the old markets, therefore, new routes had to be found and there came the great era of discovery. The new world was only an accidental discovery in a search for the westward route to Asia. The claims of Spain to this new region called forth her fleets of trading ships. But the lure of the West attracted the energies of the English also, and England and Spain clashed. As Spain became more and more dependent on her western colonies for income, and yet failed to establish her ascendancy over the Atlantic routes, she declined in favor of her enemies, England and Holland. The latter country, being dependent on the sea for sustenance, early captured a large part of the world's carrying trade, especially in the Mediterranean and the East. Her rich profits excited the envy and rivalry of the English, and in consequence, after three hard-fought naval wars, the scepter of the sea passed to England. The subsequent wars between England and France served only to strengthen England's control of trade routes and extend her colonial possessions; with one notable exception, when France, denying to her rival the control of the sea at a critical juncture in the American Revolution, deprived her of her richest and most extensive colony. It was primarily England with her navy that broke the power of Napoleon in the subsequent conflict, and throughout a century of peace the spread of English speech and institutions has extended to the uttermost parts of the world. One power in our day challenged Britain's control of the sea—now even more essential to her security than it was in the 17th century to that of Holland—and the World War was the consequence.

In all this story it is interesting to note that insularity in position is the reverse of insularity in fact. Crete touched the far shores of the Mediterranean because she was an island and her people were forced upon the sea. Similarly, Phœnicia, driven to sea by mountains and desert at her back, spread her sails beyond the Pillars of Hercules. And England, hemmed in by the Atlantic, has carried her goods and her language to every nook and cranny of the earth. Thus the ocean has served less to separate than to bring together. As a common highway it has not only excited quarrels, but established common interests between nations. Special agreements governing the suppression of piracy and the slave trade, navigation regulations and the like, have long since brought nations together in peace on a common ground. It has also gone far to create international law for the problems of war. Rules governing blockade, contraband, and neutral rights have been agreed upon long since. But, as every war has proved, international law has needed a higher authority to enforce its rules in the teeth of a powerful belligerent. To remedy this defect is one of the purposes of a League of Nations.

Such has been the significance of the sea. The nations who have used it have made history and have laid the rest of the world under their dominion intellectually, commercially, and politically. Indeed, the story of the sea is the history of civilization.

At the conclusion of this survey, it is appropriate to pause and summarize what is meant by the term "sea power." It is a catch phrase, made famous by Mahan and glibly used ever since. What does sea power mean? What are its elements?

Obviously it means, in brief, a nation's ability to enforce its will upon the sea. This means a navy superior to those of its enemies. But it means also strategic bases equipped for supplying a fleet for battle or offering refuge in defeat. To these bases there must run lines of communication guarded from interruption by the enemy. Imagine, for instance, the Suez or the Panama Canal held by a hostile force, or a battlefleet cut off from its fuel supply of coal or oil.

The relation of shipping to sea power is not what it was in earlier days. Merchantmen are indeed still useful in war for transport and auxiliary service, but it is no longer true that men in the merchant service are trained for man-of-war service. The difference between them has widened as the battleship of to-day differs from a merchantman of to-day. Nor can a merchantship be transformed into a cruiser, as in the American navy of a hundred years ago. The place of shipping in sea power is therefore subsidiary. In fact, unless a nation can control the sea, the amount of its wealth dispersed in merchantmen is just so much loss in time of war.

The major element in sea power is the fleet, but possession of the largest navy is no guarantee of victory or even of control of the sea. Size is important, but it is an interesting fact that most of the great victories in naval history have been won by a smaller fleet over a larger. The effectiveness of a great navy depends first on its quality, secondly, on how it is handled, and thirdly, on its power of reaching the enemy's communications.