[Speech of Rear-Admiral William T. Sampson at a banquet given in
his honor by citizens of Boston, Mass., February 6, 1899. Hon.
Richard Olney presided on the occasion.]
MR. PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN:--I rise to thank you for your most
generous greeting for myself, for my friends, and for all of the Navy
that you have included in the various remarks which have been made. I
want you to understand that I do not take it all to myself, but that
this is divided with all the men; and while with great hesitation I
attempt to make a speech at all, I feel that this is an opportunity
which should not be thrown away. I do not propose to say anything, as
you might expect, about the battle of Santiago, but I would like to say
a few words about the lessons which we have learned, or should learn,
from that battle.
First, I would say that neither that battle nor any other that I know
of, was won by chance. It requires an adequate means to accomplish such
a result. That battles are not won by chance, you have only to consider
for a moment a few--one or two--of the principal battles of the world.
Not that I mean to class the battle of Santiago as one of the great
battles of the world--but just as an illustration. You will see the
result of adequate means in the case of the battle of Waterloo, for
instance. When we remember that Wellington fought that battle with
130,000 men opposed to Napoleon's 80,000, we are not surprised that it
was Wellington's battle. Take another decisive battle--Sedan. When the
Germans had 125,000 men opposed to 84,000, it does not seem possible
that the result could have been anything else.
So we might go over a long list. The sea fights furnish many instances
where it was found that the most powerful fleet was the one that was
successful. Nelson was always in favor of overwhelming fleets, though he
did not have them always at his command. Our own war of 1812 furnishes
numerous instances where our victories depended upon the superior force.
It seems unnecessary that such self-evident truths should be stated
before this assemblage of intelligent gentlemen, but we are apt to
forget that a superior force is necessary to win a victory. As I said
before, victory is not due to chance. Had superior force not been our
own case at the battle of Santiago, had it been the reverse, or had it
been materially modified, what turned out to be a victory might have
been a disaster; and that we must not forget.
The second lesson, if we may call it so, is closely allied, perhaps, to
the first. Shall we learn the lesson which is taught us in this recent
war? Shall we rest on the laurels which we may have won, or shall we
prepare for the future? Shall we not imagine our foe in the future, as
might well be the case, to be superior to the one over which we have
been victorious? It is a question that comes home to us directly. On
July 3d, when Cervera was returned, on board the "Iowa," to the mouth of
the harbor at Santiago, he requested permission to send a telegram
reporting the state of the case to Captain-General Blanco. Of course, no
objection was raised to this, and Cervera wrote out a telegram and sent
it on board the flagship to be scrutinized and forwarded to Blanco. He
stated in this telegram that he obeyed his (General Blanco's) orders and
left the harbor of Santiago at 9.30 Sunday morning, and "now," he said,
"it is with the most profound regret that I have to report that my fleet
has been completely destroyed. We went out to meet the forces of the
enemy, which outnumbered us three to one."
I had so much sympathy with old Admiral Cervera that I did not have it
in my heart to modify or change in any respect the report which he
proposed to make to Captain-General Blanco. I felt that the truth would
be understood in the course of time, and that while I would not now, or
then, under any circumstances, admit that he was outnumbered in the
proportion of three to one, I still felt that he should be at liberty to
defend himself in that manner.
The fleets that were opposed to each other on that Sunday morning were,
as regards the number of the ships, about six to seven. Leaving out the
torpedo-destroyers and the "Gloucester," which may be said not to have
been fighting ships, the proportion was six to four. The fleet of the
Spaniards consisted of four beautiful ships. I think I am stating the
case within bounds when I say that they were--barring their condition at
that time, which, of course, we did not all know, in many respects--that
they were all our imaginations had led us to suppose. We outnumbered
them, but this is only another illustration of the fact which I wish to
bring before you, that it is necessary to have a superior force to make
sure of victory in any case.
It seems to me that you, gentlemen, who are so influential in
determining and deciding what the Navy of the United States should be,
should bear this emphatically in mind--that we must have more ships,
more guns, and all that goes to constitute an efficient navy. I am not
advocating a large navy. I do not believe that we should support a large
navy, but that it should be much larger than it is at present I think
you will all concede. The increased territory which we have added to our
country will probably produce an increase in our chances for war by at
least one hundred per cent.--not that we need increase the Navy to that
extent--but probably will.