A History of Sea Power

by William Oliver Stevens; Allan F. Westcott

The quality of a navy is two-fold, material and personal. In material, the great problem of modern days is to keep abreast of the time. The danger to a navy lies in conservatism and bureaucratic control. There is always the chance that a weaker power may defeat the stronger, not by using the old weapons, but by devising some new weapon that will render the old ones obsolete. The trouble with the professional man in any walk of life has always been that he sticks to the traditional ways. In consequence he lays himself open to the amateur, who, caring nothing about tradition, beats him with something novel. The inventions that have revolutionized naval warfare have come from men outside the naval profession. Thus the Romans, unable to match the Carthaginians in seamanship, made that seamanship of no value by their invention of the corvus. Greek fire not only saved the insignificant fleets of the Eastern Empire, but annihilated the huge armadas of Saracen and Slav. If the South in our Civil War had possessed the necessary resources, her ironclad rams would have made an end of the Union navy and of the war. In our own time the German submarine came within an ace of winning the war despite all the Allied dreadnoughts, because its potentialities had not been realized and no counter measures devised. A navy that drops behind is lost.

The personal side is a matter of training and morale. The material part is of no value unless it is operated by skill and by the will to win. Slackness or inexperience or lack of heart in officers or men—any of these may bring ruin. Napoleon once spoke of the Russian army as brave, but as "an army without a soul." A navy must have a soul. Unfortunately, the tendency in recent years has been to emphasize the material and the mechanical at the expense of the intellectual and spiritual. With all the enormous development of the ships and weapons, it must be remembered that the man is, and always will be, greater than the machine.

As to handling the navy, first of all the War Staff and the commander in chief must solve the strategic problem correctly. The fate of the Spanish Armada in the 16th Century and that of the Russian navy at the beginning of the 20th are eloquent of the effect of bad strategy on a powerful fleet. Secondly, the commander in chief must be possessed of the right fighting doctrine—the spirit of the offensive. In all ages the naval commander who sought to achieve his purpose by avoiding battle went to disaster. The true objective must be, now as always, the destruction of the enemy's fleet.

Such are the material and the spiritual essentials of sea power. The phrase has become so popular that a superior fleet has been widely accepted as a talisman in war. The idea is that a nation with sea power must win. But with all the tremendous "influence of sea power on history," the student must not be misled into thinking that sea power is invincible. The Athenian navy went to ruin under the catapults of Syracuse whose navy was insignificant. Carthage, the sea power, succumbed to a land power, Rome. In modern times France, with a navy second to England's, fell in ruin before Prussia, which had practically no navy at all. And in the World War it required the entry of a new ally, the United States, to save the Entente from defeat at the hands of land power, despite an overwhelming superiority on the sea.

The significance of sea power is communications. Just so far as sea control affects lines of communications vital to either belligerent, so far does it affect the war. To a sea empire like the British, sea control is essential as a measure of defense. If an enemy controls the sea the empire will fall apart like a house of cards, and the British Isles will be speedily starved into submission. It is another thing, however, to make the navy a sword as well as a shield. Whenever the British navy could cut the communications of the enemy, as in the case of the wars with Spain and Holland, it was terribly effective. When it fought a nation like Russia in the Crimean War, it hardly touched the sources of Russian supplies, because these came by the interior land communications. So also the French navy in 1870 could not touch a single important line of German communications and its effect therefore was negligible. If in 1914 Russia, for example, had been neutral, no Allied naval superiority could have saved France from destruction by the combined armies of Germany and Austria, just as the Grand Fleet was powerless to check the conquest or deny the possession of Belgium. It must be borne in mind that a land power has the advantages of central position and interior lines, and the interior lines of to-day are those of rail and motor transport, offering facilities for a rapid concentration on any front.

Of course, modern life and modern warfare are so complex that few nations are able to live and wage war entirely on their own resources; important communications extend across the sea. In this respect the United States is singularly fortunate. With the exception of rubber, every essential is produced in our country, and the sea power that would attempt to strangle the United States by a blockade on two coasts would find it unprofitable even if it were practicable. A hostile navy would have to land armies to strike directly at the manufacturing cities near the seaboard in order to affect our communications. In brief, sea power is decisive just so far as it cuts the enemy's communications.

Finally in considering sea power we should note the importance of coördinating naval policies with national. The character of a navy and the size of a navy depend on what policy a nation expects to stand for. It is the business of a navy to stand behind a nation's will. For Great Britain, circumstances of position have long made her policy consistent, without regard to change of party. She had to dominate the sea to insure the safety of the empire. With the United States, the situation has been different. The nation has not been conscious of any foreign policy, with the single exception of the Monroe Doctrine. And even this has changed in character since it was first enunciated.

At the present day, for example, how far does the United States purpose to go in the Monroe Doctrine? Shall we attempt to police the smaller South and Central American nations? Shall we make the Caribbean an area under our naval control? What is to be our policy toward Mexico? How far are we willing to go to sustain the Open Door policy in the Far East? Are we determined to resist the immigration of Asiatics? Are we bound to hold against conquest our outlying possessions,—the Philippines, Guam, Hawaiian Islands, and Alaska? Shall we play a "lone hand" among nations, or join an international league? Until there is some answer to these questions of foreign policy, our naval program is based on nothing definite. In short, the naval policy of a nation should spring from its national policy.

On that national policy must be based not only the types of ships built and their numbers, but also the number and locale of the naval bases and the entire strategic plan. In the past there has been too little mutual understanding between the American navy and the American people. The navy—the Service, as it is appropriately called—is the trained servant of the republic. It is only fair to ask that the republic make clear what it expects that servant to do. But before a national policy is accepted, it must be thought out to its logical conclusion by both the popular leaders and naval advisers. As Mahan has said, "the naval officer must be a statesman as well as a seaman." Is the policy accepted going to conflict with that of another nation; if so, are we prepared to accept the consequences?

The recent history of Germany is a striking example of the effect of a naval policy on international relations. The closing decade of the 19th century found Great Britain still following the policy of "splendid isolation," with France and Russia her traditional enemies. Her relations with Germany were friendly, as they always had been. At the close of the century, the Kaiser, inspired by Mahan's "Influence of Sea Power on History," launched the policy of a big navy. First, he argued, German commerce was growing with astonishing rapidity. It was necessary, according to Mahan, to have a strong navy to protect a great carrying trade. This von Tirpitz[1] emphasizes, though he never makes clear just what precise danger threatened the German trading fleets, provided Germany maintained a policy of friendly relations with England. Secondly, Germany found herself with no outlet for expansion. The best colonial fields had already been appropriated by other countries, chiefly England. To back up German claims to new territory or trading concessions, it was necessary to have a strong navy. All this was strictly by the book, and it is characteristic of the German mind that it faithfully followed the text. "Unsere Zukunft," cried the Kaiser, "liegt auf dem Wasser!" But what was implied in this proposal? A great navy increasing rapidly to the point of rivaling that of England could be regarded by that country only as a pistol leveled at her head. England would be at the mercy of any power that could defeat her navy. And this policy coupled with the demand for "a place in the sun," threatened the rich colonies that lay under the British flag. It could not be taken otherwise.