COMPREHENSION OF MILITARY AND NAVAL MATTERS POSSIBLE TO THE PEOPLE,
AND IMPORTANT TO THE NATION.
It is somewhat of a commonplace among writers upon the Art of War,
that with it, as with Art in general, the leading principles remain
unimpaired from age to age. When recognized and truly mastered, not
held by a passive acquiescence in the statements of another, but
really appropriated, so as to enter decisively into a man's habit of
thought, forming in that direction the fibre of his mind, they not
only illuminate conditions apparently novel, by revealing the
essential analogies between them and the past, but they supply the
clue by which the intricacies of the present can best be threaded.
Nothing could be more utterly superficial, for instance, than the
remark of a popular writer that "the days of tacks and sheets"--of
sailing ships, that is--"have no value as lessons for the days of
steam and armor." Contrast with such an utterance the saying of the
great master of the art,--Napoleon: "If a man will surprise the
secrets of warfare, let him study the campaigns of Hannibal and of
Cæsar, as well as those of Frederick the Great and my own."
Comprehension of warfare, therefore, consists, first, in the
apprehension and acceptance--the mental grasp--of a few simple general
principles, elucidated and formulated by admitted authorities upon the
subject, and, second, in copious illustration of these principles by
the application of them to numerous specific instances, drawn from
actual experiences of war--from history. Such illustration, adequately
developed by exposition of facts and of principles in the several
cases, pointing out, where necessary, substantial identity underlying
superficial diversity, establishes gradually a body of precedents,
which reinforce, by all the weight of cumulative authority, the
principle that they illuminate. Thus is laid the substantial
foundation upon which the Art of War securely rests. It is perhaps
advisable--though it should be needless--to say that, when a student
has achieved such comprehension, when his mind has mastered the
principles, and his memory is richly stored with well-ordered
precedents, he is, in war, as in all other active pursuits of life,
but at the beginning of his labors. He has girded on his armor, but he
has not yet proved it,--far less is qualified to boast as one about to
put it off after a good life's fight. It remains yet to be seen
whether he has the gifts and the manhood to use that which he has
laboriously acquired, or whether, as happens with many other men
apparently well qualified, and actually well furnished with the raw
material of knowledge in various professions, he will be unable to
turn power into success. This question trial alone can decide in each
individual case; but while experience thus forces all to realize that
knowledge does not necessarily imply capacity to use it, that there
may be foundation upon which no superstructure will be raised,
few--and those not the wisest--are inclined to dispute that antecedent
training, well-ordered equipment, where other things are equal, does
give a distinct advantage to the man who has received it. The blaze
of glory and of success which, after forty years of patient waiting,
crowned the last six months of Havelock's life, raising him from
obscurity to a place among the immortals, attests the rapidity with
which the perfect flower of achievement can bud and fully bloom, when,
and only when, good seed has been sown in ground fitly prepared.
There are two principal methods of imparting the illustrations that,
in their entirety, compose the body of precedents, by which the
primary teachings of the Art of War are at once elucidated and
established. By the first, the several principles may be separately
stated, more or less at large, each being followed closely by the
appropriate illustrations, drawn, as these in such a treatment most
suitably may, from different periods and from conditions which on the
surface appear most divergent. Or, on the other hand, the consecutive
narrative of a particular series of operations may be given, in such
detail as is necessary, accompanied by a running commentary or
criticism, in which the successive occurrences are brought to the test
of recognized standards; inference being drawn, or judgment passed,
accordingly. The former is the more formal and methodical; it serves
better, perhaps, for starting upon his career the beginner who
proposes to make war the profession of his life; for it provides him,
in a compact and systematic manner, with certain brief rules, by the
use of which he can most readily apply, to his subsequent reading of
military history, criteria drawn from the experience of centuries. He
is thus supplied, in short, with digested knowledge. But digestion by
other minds can in no wise take the place of assimilation performed by
one's own mental processes. The cut and dried information of the
lecture room, and of the treatise, must in every profession be
supplemented by the hard work of personal practice; and failing the
experience of the campaign,--of actual warfare,--the one school of
progress for the soldier or seaman is to be found in the study of
military and naval history, which embodies the experience of others.
To such study the second method contributes; it bears to the first the
relation of an advanced course.
Nor let it be supposed that the experience of others, thus imparted,
is a poor substitute for that acquired by the actual hard work of the
field, or of the ocean. By the process, the fruit possibly may not be
fully matured; but it arrives at that perfection of form which
requires but a few suns to ripen. This, moreover, if not the only way
by which experience in the art of directing operations of war--of
command-in-chief--can be stored, is by far the most comprehensive and
thorough; for while utility cannot be denied to annual manoeuvres, and
to the practice of the sham battle, it must be remembered that these,
dealing with circumstances limited both in time and place, give a very
narrow range of observation; and, still more important, as was
remarked by the late General Sherman, the moral elements of danger and
uncertainty, which count for so much in real warfare, cannot be
adequately reproduced in mimic. The field of military history, on the
other hand, has no limit short of the military experience of the race;
it records the effect of moral influences of every kind, as well as of
the most diverse material conditions; the personal observation of even
the greatest of captains is in comparison but narrow. "What
experience of command," says one of the most eminent, "can a general
have, before he is called to command? and the experience of what one
commander, even after years of warfare, can cover all cases?"
Therefore he prescribes study; and as a help thereto tells the story
of one of his most successful campaigns, accompanying it with a
commentary in which he by no means spares himself. Napoleon abounds in
the same sense. "On the field of battle the happiest inspiration is
often but a recollection,"--not necessarily of one's own past; and he
admitted in after years that no finer work had been done by him than
in his first campaign, to which he came--a genius indeed, but--with
the acquisitions chiefly of a student, deep-steeped in reading and
reflection upon the history of warfare.
The utility of such study of military history to the intending warrior
is established, not only by a few such eminent authorities, but by a
consensus among the leading soldiers and seamen of our own day,
whether they personally have, or have not, had the opportunity of
command in war. It may be asserted to be a matter of contemporary
professional agreement, as much as any other current opinion that now
obtains. In such study, native individual capacity and individual
temperament will largely affect inference and opinion; not only
causing them to differ more or less, but resulting frequently in
direct opposition of conclusion. It cannot be otherwise; for, like all
other callings of active life, war is a matter, not merely of
knowledge and of general principles, but of sound judgment, without
which both information and rules, being wrongly applied, become
useless. Opinions, even of the most eminent, while accorded the
respect due to their reputation, should therefore be brought to the
test of personal reflection.
The study of the Art and History of War is pre-eminently necessary to
men of the profession, but there are reasons which commend it also,
suitably presented, to all citizens of our country. Questions
connected with war--when resort to war is justifiable, preparation for
war, the conduct of war--are questions of national moment, in which
each voter--nay, each talker--has an influence for intelligent and
adequate action, by the formation of sound public opinion; and public
opinion, in operation, constitutes national policy. Hence it is
greatly to be desired that there should be more diffused interest in
the critical study of warfare in its broader lines. Knowledge of
technical details is not necessary to the apprehension of the greater
general principles, nor to an understanding of the application of
those principles to particular cases, when made by individual
students,--officers or others. The remark is sometimes heard, "When
military or naval officers agree, Congress--or the people--may be
expected to act." The same idea applied to other professions--waiting
for universal agreement--would bring the world to a standstill. Better
must be accepted without waiting for best. Better is more worth having
to-day than best is the day after the need has come and gone.
Hesitation and inaction, continued till the doctors agree, may result
in the death of the patient; yet such hesitation is almost inevitable
where there is no formed public opinion, and quite inevitable where
there is no public interest antecedent to the emergency arising.
It may be due to the bias of personal or professional inclination that
the present writer believes that military history,--including therein
naval,--simply and clearly presented in its leading outlines, divested
of superfluous and merely technical details, would be found to possess
an interest far exceeding that which is commonly imagined. The logical
coherence of any series of events, as of any process of Nature,
possesses an innate attraction for the inquisitive element of which
few intelligent minds are devoid. Unfortunately, technical men are
prone to delight in their technicalities, and to depreciate, with the
adjective "popular," attempts to bring their specialties within the
comprehension of the general public, or to make them pleasing and
attractive to it. However it may be with other specialties, the
utility of which is more willingly admitted, the navy and army in our
country cannot afford to take such an attitude. The brilliant, but
vague, excitement and glory of war, in its more stirring phases,
touches readily the popular imagination, as does intense action of
every description. It has all the charm of the dramatic, heightened by
the splendor of the heroic. But where there is no appeal beyond the
imagination to the intellect, such impressions lack distinctness, and
leave no really useful results. While there is a certain exaltation in
sharing, through vivid narrative, the emotions of those who have borne
a part in some deed of conspicuous daring, the fascination does not
equal that wrought upon the intellect, as it traces for the first time
the long-drawn sequence by which successive occurrences are seen to
issue in their necessary results, or causes apparently remote to
converge upon a common end, and understanding succeeds to the previous
sense of bewilderment, which is produced by military events as too
commonly treated.
There is, moreover, no science--or art--which lends itself to such
exposition more readily than does the Art of War. Its principles are
clear, and not numerous. Outlines of operations, presented in
skeleton, as they usually may be, are in most instances surprisingly
clear; and, these once grasped, the details fall into place with a
readiness and a precision that convey an ever increasing intellectual
enjoyment. The writer has more than once been witness of the pleasure
thus occasioned to men wholly strangers to military matters; a
pleasure partly of novelty, but which possesses the elements of
endurance because the stimulus is one that renews itself continually,
opening field after field for the exercise of the mind.
If such pleasure were the sole result, however, there might be
well-founded diffidence in recommending the study. The advantage
conferred upon the nation by a more wide-spread and intelligent
understanding of military matters, as a factor in national life that
must exist for some ages to come, and one which recent events, so far
from lessening, have rendered more conspicuous and more necessary,
affords a sounder ground for insisting that it is an obligation of
each citizen to understand something of the principles of warfare, and
of the national needs in respect of preparation, as well as thrill
with patriotic emotion over an heroic episode or a brilliant victory.
It is with the object of contributing to such intelligent
comprehension that the following critical narrative, which first
appeared in one of our popular monthlies, is again submitted to the
public in its present form. It professes no more than to be an
attempt, by a student of military as well as naval warfare, to
present a reasoned outline of a part of the operations of the war,
interspersed with such reflections upon naval warfare, in its generals
and its particulars, as have arisen naturally in the course of the
story. The method adopted, consequently, is the second of those
mentioned in the beginning of these remarks; a consecutive narrative,
utilized as a medium for illustrating the principles of war. The
application of those principles in this discussion represents the
views of one man, believed by him to be in accordance with a
considerable body of professional thought, although for this he has no
commission to speak; but to some of them also there is, in other
quarters, a certain distinct professional opposition.
The aim of the author here, as in all his writings, has been so to
present his theme as to invest it with the rational interest attaching
to a clear exposition of causes and effects, as shown in a series of
events. Where he may have failed, the failure is in himself, not in
his subject. The recent Spanish-American War, while possessing, as
every war does, characteristics of its own, differentiating it from
others, nevertheless, in its broad analogies, falls into line with
its predecessors, evidencing that unity of teaching which pervades the
art from its beginnings unto this day. It has, moreover, the special
value of illustrating the reciprocal needs and offices of the army and
the navy, than which no lesson is more valuable to a nation situated
as ours is. Protected from any serious attempt at invasion by our
isolated position, and by our vast intrinsic strength, we are
nevertheless vulnerable in an extensive seaboard, greater, relatively
to our population and wealth--great as they are--than that of any
other state. Upon this, moreover, rests an immense coasting trade, the
importance of which to our internal commercial system is now scarcely
realized, but will be keenly felt if we ever are unable to insure its
freedom of movement.
We also are committed, inevitably and irrevocably, to an over-sea
policy, to the successful maintenance of which will be needed, not
only lofty political conceptions of right and of honor, but also the
power to support, and if need be to enforce, the course of action
which such conceptions shall from time to time demand. Such
maintenance will depend primarily upon the navy, but not upon it
alone; there will be needed besides an adequate and extremely mobile
army, and an efficient correlation of the one with the other, based
upon an accurate conception of their respective functions. The true
corrective to the natural tendency of each to exaggerate its own
importance to the common end is to be found only in some general
understanding of the subject diffused throughout the body of the
people, who are the ultimate arbiters of national policy.
In short, the people of the United States will need to understand, not
only what righteousness dictates, but what power, military and naval,
requires, in order duly to assert itself. The disappointment and
impatience, now being manifested in too many quarters, over the
inevitable protraction of the military situation in the Philippines,
indicates a lack of such understanding; for, did it exist, men would
not need to be told that even out of the best material, of which we
have an abundance, a soldier is not made in a day, nor an army in a
season; that when these, the necessary tools, are wanting, or are
insufficient in number, the work cannot but lag until they are
supplied; in short, that in war, as in every calling, he who wills the
end must also understand and will the means. It was the same with the
wide-spread panic that swept along our seaboard at the beginning of
the late war. So far as it was excusable, it was due to the want of
previous preparation; so far as it was unreasonable, it was due to
ignorance; but both the want of preparation and the ignorance were the
result of the preceding general indifference of the nation to military
and naval affairs, an indifference which necessarily had found its
reflection in the halting and inadequate provisions made by Congress.
Although changes and additions have been introduced where it has
seemed expedient, the author has decided to allow these articles to
stand, in the main, substantially as written immediately after the
close of hostilities. The opening paragraphs, while less applicable,
in their immediate purport, to the present moment, are nevertheless
not inappropriate as an explanation of the general tenor of the work
itself; and they suggest, moreover, another line of reflection upon
the influence, imperceptibly exerted, and passively accepted in men's
minds, by the quiet passing of even a single calendar year.
The very lapse of time and subsidence of excitement which tend to
insure dispassionate and impartial treatment by the historian, and a
juster proportion of impression in spectators, tend also to produce
indifference and lethargy in the people at large; whereas in fact the
need for sustained interest of a practical character still exists.
Intelligent provision for the present and future ought now to succeed
to the emotional experiences of the actual war. The reading public has
been gorged and surfeited with war literature, a fact which has been
only too painfully realized by publishers and editors, who purvey for
its appetite and have overstocked the larder. Coincident with this has
come an immense wave of national prosperity and consequent business
activity, which increasingly engross the attention of men's minds. So
far as the mere movement of the imagination, or the stirring of the
heart is concerned, this reaction to indifference after excessive
agitation was inevitable, and is not in itself unduly to be deplored;
but it will be a matter, not merely of lasting regret, but of
permanent harm, if the nation again sinks into the general apathy
concerning its military and naval necessities which previously
existed, and which, as the experience of Great Britain has shown, is
unfortunately characteristic of popular representative governments,
where present votes are more considered than future emergencies. Not
the least striking among the analogies of warfare are the sufferings
undergone, and the risks of failure incurred, through imperfect
organization, in the Crimea, and in our own recent hostilities with
Spain. And let not the public deceive itself, nor lay the fault
exclusively, or even chiefly, upon its servants, whether in the
military services or in the halls of Congress. The one and the other
will respond adequately to any demand made upon them, if the means are
placed betimes in their hands; and the officers of the army and navy
certainly have not to reproach themselves, as a body, with official
failure to represent the dangers, the exposure, and the needs of the
commonwealth. It should be needless to add that circumstances now are
greatly changed, through the occurrences of last year; and that
henceforth the risks from neglect, if continued, will vastly exceed
those of former days. The issue lies with the voters.
I
HOW THE MOTIVE OF THE WAR GAVE DIRECTION TO ITS EARLIER
MOVEMENTS.--STRATEGIC VALUE OF PUERTO RICO.--
CONSIDERATIONS ON THE SIZE AND QUALITIES OF
BATTLESHIPS.--MUTUAL RELATIONS OF COAST DEFENCE AND
NAVY.
It is a common and a true remark that final judgment cannot be passed
upon events still recent. Not only is time required for the mere
process of collecting data, of assorting and testing the numerous
statements, always imperfect and often conflicting, which form the
material for history, but a certain and not very short interval must
be permitted to elapse during which men's brains and feelings may
return to normal conditions, and permit the various incidents which
have exalted or depressed them to be seen in their totality, as well
as in their true relative importance. There are thus at least two
distinct operations essential to that accuracy of judgment to which
alone finality can be attributed,--first, the diligent and close study
of detail, by which knowledge is completed; and, second, a certain
detachment of the mind from the prejudgments and passions engendered
by immediate contact, a certain remoteness, corresponding to the idea
of physical distance, in virtue of which confusion and distortion of
impression disappear, and one is enabled not only to distinguish the
decisive outlines of a period, but also to relegate to their true
place in the scheme subordinate details which, at the moment of
occurrence, had made an exaggerated impression from their very
nearness.
It is yet too soon to look for such fulness and justness of treatment
in respect to the late hostilities with Spain. Mere literal truth of
narrative cannot yet be attained, even in the always limited degree to
which historical truth is gradually elicited from a mass of partial
and often irreconcilable testimony; and literal truth, when presented,
needs to be accompanied by a discriminating analysis and estimate of
the influence exerted upon the general result by individual
occurrences, positive or negative. I say positive or negative, for we
are too apt to overlook the vast importance of negative factors, of
inaction as compared to action, of things not done in comparison with
those that were done, of mistakes of omission as contrasted with those
of commission. Too frequently men, spectators or actors in careers
essentially of action, imagine that a safe course is being held
because things continue seemingly as they were; whereas, at least in
war, failure to dare greatly is often to run the greatest of risks.
"Admiral Hotham," wrote Nelson in 1795, "is perfectly satisfied that
each month passes without any losses on our side." The result of this
purely negative conduct, of this military sin of mere omission, was
that Bonaparte's great Italian campaign of 1796 became possible, that
the British Fleet was forced to quit the Mediterranean, and the map of
Europe was changed. It is, of course, a commonplace that things never
really remain as they were; that they are always getting better or
worse, at least relatively.
But while it is true that men must perforce be content to wait a while
for the full and sure accounts, and for the summing up which shall
pass a final judgment upon the importance of events and upon the
reputations of the actors in them, it is also true that in the drive
of life, and for the practical guidance of life, which, like time and
tide, waits for no man, a rapid, and therefore rough, but still a
working decision must be formed from the new experiences, and
inferences must be drawn for our governance in the present and the
near future, whose exigencies attend us. Absolutely correct
conclusions, if ever attained in practical life, are reached by a
series of approximations; and it will not do to postpone action until
exhaustive certainty has been gained. We have tried it at least once
in the navy, watching for a finality of results in the experimental
progress of European services. What the condition of our own fleet was
at the end of those years might be fresh in all our memories, if we
had time to remember. Delayed action maybe eminently proper at one
moment; at another it may mean the loss of opportunity. Nor is the
process of rapid decision--essential in the field--wholly unsafe in
council, if inference and conclusion are checked by reference to
well-settled principles and fortified by knowledge of the experience
of ages upon whose broad bases those principles rest. Pottering over
mechanical details doubtless has its place, but it tends to foster a
hesitancy of action which wastes time more valuable than the resultant
gain.
The preceding remarks indicate sufficiently the scope of these papers.
It is not proposed to give a complete story of the operations, for
which the material is not yet available. Neither will it be attempted
to pronounce decisions absolutely final, for the time is not yet ripe.
The effort will be rather to suggest general directions to thought,
which may be useful to a reader as he follows the many narratives,
official or personal, given to the public; to draw attention to facts
and to analogies; to point out experiences, the lessons from which may
be profitable in determining the character of the action that must
speedily be taken to place the sea power of the Republic upon a proper
material basis; and, finally, to bring the course of this war into
relation with the teachings of previous history,--the experiences of
the recent past to reinforce or to modify those of the remoter past;
for under superficial diversity, due to differences of conditions,
there often rests fundamental identity, the recognition of which
equips the mind, quickens it, and strengthens it for grappling with
the problems of the present and the future. The value of history to us
is as a record of human experience; but experiences must be
understood.
The character and the direction of the first movements of the United
States in this conflict with Spain were determined by the occasion,
and by the professed object, of the hostilities. As frequently
happens, the latter began before any formal declaration of war had
been made; and, as the avowed purpose and cause of our action were not
primarily redress for grievances of the United States against Spain,
but to enforce the departure of the latter from Cuba, it followed
logically that the island became the objective of our military
movements, as its deliverance from oppression was the object of the
war. Had a more general appreciation of the situation been adopted, a
view embracing the undeniable injury to the United States, from the
then existing conditions, and the generally iniquitous character of
Spanish rule in the colonies, and had war for these reasons been
declared, the objective of our operations might have been differently
chosen for strategic reasons; for our leading object in such case
would not have been to help Cuba, but to constrain Spain, and to
compel her to such terms as we might demand. It would have been open,
for instance, to urge that Puerto Rico, being between five and six
hundred miles from the eastern end of Cuba and nearly double that
distance from the two ports of the island most important to
Spain,--Havana on the north and Cienfuegos on the south,--would be
invaluable to the mother country as an intermediate naval station and
as a base of supplies and reinforcements for both her fleet and army;
that, if left in her undisturbed possession, it would enable her,
practically, to enjoy the same advantage of nearness to the great
scene of operations that the United States had in virtue of our
geographical situation; and that, therefore, the first objective of
the war should be the eastern island, and its reduction the first
object. The effect of this would have been to throw Spain back upon
her home territory for the support of any operations in Cuba, thus
entailing upon her an extremely long line of communications, exposed
everywhere throughout its course, but especially to the molestation of
small cruisers issuing from the harbors of Puerto Rico, which flank
the routes, and which, upon the supposition, would have passed into
our hands. This view of the matter was urged upon the writer, a few
days before hostilities began, by a very old and intelligent naval
officer who had served in our own navy and in that of the Confederate
States. To a European nation the argument must have been quite
decisive; for to it, as distant, or more distant than Spain from Cuba,
such an intermediate station would have been an almost insurmountable
obstacle while in an enemy's hands, and an equally valuable base if
wrested from him. To the United States these considerations were
applicable only in part; for, while the inconvenience to Spain would
be the same, the gain to us would be but little, as our lines of
communication to Cuba neither required the support of Puerto Rico, nor
were by it particularly endangered.
This estimate of the military importance of Puerto Rico should never
be lost sight of by us as long as we have any responsibility, direct
or indirect, for the safety or independence of Cuba. Puerto Rico,
considered militarily, is to Cuba, to the future Isthmian canal, and
to our Pacific coast, what Malta is, or may be, to Egypt and the
beyond; and there is for us the like necessity to hold and strengthen
the one, in its entirety and in its immediate surroundings, that there
is for Great Britain to hold the other for the security of her
position in Egypt, for her use of the Suez Canal, and for the control
of the route to India. It would be extremely difficult for a European
state to sustain operations in the eastern Mediterranean with a
British fleet at Malta. Similarly, it would be very difficult for a
transatlantic state to maintain operations in the western Caribbean
with a United States fleet based upon Puerto Rico and the adjacent
islands. The same reasons prompted Bonaparte to seize Malta in his
expedition against Egypt and India in 1798. In his masterly eyes, as
in those of Nelson, it was essential to the communications between
France, Egypt, and India. His scheme failed, not because Malta was
less than invaluable, but for want of adequate naval strength,
without which no maritime position possesses value.
There were, therefore, in America two possible objectives for the
United States, in case of a war against Spain waged upon grounds at
all general in their nature; but to proceed against either was purely
a question of relative naval strength. Unless, and until, the United
States fleet available for service in the Caribbean Sea was strong
enough to control permanently the waters which separated the Spanish
islands from our territory nearest to them, the admitted vast
superiority of this country in potential resources for land warfare
was completely neutralized. If the Spanish Navy preponderated over
ours, it would be evidently impossible for transports carrying troops
and supplies to traverse the seas safely; and, unless they could so
do, operations of war in the enemy's colonies could neither be begun
nor continued. If, again, the two fleets were so equally balanced as
to make the question of ultimate preponderance doubtful, it was
clearly foolish to land in the islands men whom we might be compelled,
by an unlucky sea-fight, to abandon there.
This last condition was that which obtained, as war became imminent.
The force of the Spanish Navy--on paper, as the expression goes--was
so nearly equal to our own that it was well within the limits of
possibility that an unlucky incident--the loss, for example, of a
battleship--might make the Spaniard decisively superior in nominal, or
even in actual, available force. An excellent authority told the
writer that he considered that the loss of the _Maine_ had changed the
balance--that is, that whereas with the _Maine_ our fleet had been
slightly superior, so after her destruction the advantage, still
nominal, was rather the other way. We had, of course, a well-founded
confidence in the superior efficiency of our officers and men, and in
the probable better condition of our ships and guns; but where so much
is at stake as the result of a war, or even as the unnecessary
prolongation of war, with its sufferings and anxieties, the only safe
rule is to regard the apparent as the actual, until its reality has
been tested. However good their information, nations, like fencers,
must try their adversary's force before they take liberties.
Reconnaissance must precede decisive action. There was, on the part
of the Navy Department, no indisposition to take risks, provided
success, if obtained, would give an adequate gain. It was clearly
recognized that war cannot be made without running risks; but it was
also held, unwaveringly, that no merely possible success justified
risk, unless it gave a fair promise of diminishing the enemy's naval
force, and so of deciding the control of the sea, upon which the issue
of the war depended. This single idea, and concentration of purpose
upon it, underlay and dictated every step of the Navy Department from
first to last,--so far, at least, as the writer knows,--and it must be
borne in mind by any reader who wishes to pass intelligent judgment
upon the action or non-action of the Department in particular
instances.
It was this consideration that brought the _Oregon_ from the Pacific
to the Atlantic,--a movement initiated before hostilities opened,
though not concluded until after they began. The wisdom of the step
was justified not merely, nor chiefly, by the fine part played by that
ship on July 3, but by the touch of certainty her presence imparted to
the grip of our fleet upon Cervera's squadron during the preceding
month, and the consequent power to move the army without fear by sea
to Santiago. Few realize the doubts, uncertainties, and difficulties
of the sustained watchfulness which attends such operations as the
"bottling" of the Spanish fleet by Admiral Sampson; for "bottling" a
hostile fleet does not resemble the chance and careless shoving of a
cork into a half-used bottle,--it is rather like the wiring down of
champagne by bonds that cannot be broken and through which nothing can
ooze. This it is which constitutes the claim of the American
Commander-in-Chief upon the gratitude of his countrymen; for to his
skill and tenacity in conducting that operation is primarily due the
early ending of the war, the opportunity to remove our stricken
soldiery from a sickly climate, the ending of suspense, and the saving
of many lives. "The moment Admiral Cervera's fleet was destroyed,"
truly said the London "Times" (August 16), "the war was practically at
an end, unless Spain had elected to fight on to save the point of
honor;" for she could have saved nothing else by continued war.
To such successful operation, however, there is needed not only ships
individually powerful, but numbers of such ships; and that the numbers
of Sampson's fleet were maintained--not drawn off to other, though
important, operations--even under such sore temptation as the dash of
Cámara's fleet from Cadiz towards the Philippines, was due to the
Department's ability to hold fast the primary conception of
concentration upon a single purpose, even though running thereby such
a risk as was feared from Cámara's armored ships reaching Dewey's
unarmored cruisers before they were reinforced. The chances of the
race to Manila, between Cámara, when he started from Cadiz, and the
two monitors from San Francisco, were deliberately taken, in order to
ensure the retention of Cervera's squadron in Santiago, or its
destruction in case of attempted escape. Not till that was
sufficiently provided for would Watson's division be allowed to
depart. Such exclusive tenacity of purpose, under suspense, is more
difficult of maintenance than can be readily recognized by those who
have not undergone it. To avoid misconception, it should be added here
that our division at the Philippines was not itself endangered,
although it was quite possible that Manila Bay might have to be
temporarily abandoned if Cámara kept on. The movements of the monitors
were well in hand, and their junction assured, even under the control
of a commander of less conspicuous ability than that already shown by
Admiral Dewey. The return of the united force would speedily have
ensured Cámara's destruction and the restoration of previous
conditions. It is evident, however, that a certain amount of national
mortification, and possibly of political complication, might have
occurred in the interim.
The necessity and the difficulty of thus watching the squadrons of an
enemy within his ports--of "blockading" them, to use a common
expression, of "containing" them, to conform to a strictly accurate
military terminology--are more familiar to the British naval mind than
to ours; for, both by long historical experience and by present-day
needs, the vital importance of so narrowly observing the enemy's
movements has been forced upon its consciousness. A committee of very
distinguished British admirals a few years since reported that, having
in view the difficulty of the operation in itself, and the chances of
the force detailed falling below its _minimum_ by accidents, or by
absence for coal or refits, British naval supremacy, vital to the
Empire, demanded the number of five British battleships to three of
the fleet thus to be controlled. Admiral Sampson's armored ships
numbered seven to Cervera's four, a proportion not dissimilar; but
those seven were all the armored ships, save monitors, worthless for
such purpose, that the United States owned, or would own for some
months yet to come. It should be instructive and convincing to the
American people to note that when two powerful armored ships of the
enemy were thus on their way to attack at one end of the world an
admiral and a division that had deserved so well of their country, our
whole battle-fleet, properly so called, was employed to maintain off
Santiago the proportions which foreign officers, writing long before
the conditions arose, had fixed as necessary. Yet the state with which
we were at war ranks very low among naval Powers.
The circumstance possesses a furthermost practical present interest,
from its bearing upon the question between numbers and individual
size in the organization of the naval line of battle; for the ever
importunate demand for increase in dimensions in the single ship is
already upon the United States Navy, and to it no logical, no simply
rational, limit has yet been set This question may be stated as
follows: A country can, or will, pay only so much for its war fleet.
That amount of money means so much aggregate tonnage. How shall that
tonnage be allotted? And, especially, how shall the total tonnage
invested in armored ships be divided? Will you have a few very big
ships, or more numerous medium ships? Where will you strike your mean
between numbers and individual size? You cannot have both, unless your
purse is unlimited. The Santiago incident, alike in the battle, in the
preceding blockade, and in the concurrent necessity of sending
battleships to Dewey, illustrates various phases of the argument in
favor of numbers as against extremes of individual size. Heavier ships
were not needed; fewer ships might have allowed some enemy to escape;
when Cervera came out, the _Massachusetts_ was coaling at Guantanamo,
and the _New York_ necessarily several miles distant, circumstances
which, had the ships been bigger and fewer, would have taken much
more, proportionately, from the entire squadron at a critical moment.
Above all, had that aggregate, 65,934 of tonnage, in seven ships, been
divided among five only, of 13,000 each, I know not how the two ships
that were designated to go with Watson to the Philippines could
possibly have sailed.
The question is momentous, and claims intelligent and immediate
decision; for tonnage once locked up in a built ship cannot be got out
and redistributed to meet the call of the moment. Neither may men
evade a definite conclusion by saying that they will have both
unlimited power--that is, size--and unlimited number; for this they
cannot have. A decision must be reached, and upon it purpose must be
concentrated unwaveringly; the disadvantages as well as the advantages
of the choice must be accepted with singleness of mind. Individual
size is needed, for specific reasons; numbers also are necessary.
Between the two opposing demands there is doubtless a mean of
individual size which will ensure the maximum offensive power _of the
fleet_; for that, and not the maximum power of the single ship, is
the true object of battleship construction. Battleships in all ages
are meant to act together, in fleets; not singly, as mere cruisers.
A full discussion of all the considerations, on one side or the other,
of this question, would demand more space, and more of technical
detail, than the scope of these papers permits. As with most
conclusions of a concrete character dealing with contradictory
elements, the result reached will inevitably be rather an
approximation than an absolute demonstrable certainty; a broad general
statement, not a narrow formula. All rules of War, which is not an
exact science, but an art, have this characteristic. They do not tell
one exactly how to do right, but they give warning when a step is
being contemplated which the experience of ages asserts to be wrong.
To an instructed mind they cry silently, "Despite all plausible
arguments, this one element involved in that which you are thinking to
do shows that in it you will go wrong." In the judgment of the writer,
two conditions must be primarily considered in determining a class of
battleship to which, for the sake of homogeneousness, most of the
fleet should conform. Of these two, one must be given in general
terms; the other can be stated with more precision. The chief
requisite to be kept in view in the battleship is the offensive power
of the fleet of which it is a member. The aggregate gun-power of the
fleet remaining the same, the increase of its numbers, by limiting the
size of the individual ships, tends, up to a certain point, to
increase its offensive power; for war depends largely upon
combination, and facility of combination increases with numbers.
Numbers, therefore, mean increase of offensive power, other things
remaining equal. I do not quote in defence of this position Nelson's
saying, that "numbers only can annihilate," because in his day
experience had determined a certain mean size of working battleship,
and he probably meant merely that preponderant numbers of that type
were necessary; but weight may justly be laid upon the fact that our
forerunners had, under the test of experience, accepted a certain
working mean, and had rejected those above and below that mean, save
for exceptional uses.
The second requisite to be fulfilled in the battleship is known
technically as coal endurance,--ability to steam a certain distance
without recoaling, allowing in the calculation a reasonable margin of
safety, as in all designs. This standard distance should be the
greatest that separates two coaling places, as they exist in the
scheme of fortified coaling ports which every naval nation should
frame for itself. In our own case, such distance is that from Honolulu
to Guam, in the Ladrones,--3,500 miles. The excellent results obtained
from our vessels already in commission, embodying as they do the
tentative experiences of other countries, as well as the reflective
powers of our own designers, make it antecedently probable that 10,000
and 12,000 tons represent the extremes of normal displacement
advantageous for the United States battleship. When this limit is
exceeded, observation of foreign navies goes to show that the numbers
of the fleet will be diminished and its aggregate gun-power not
increased,--that is, ships of 15,000 tons actually have little more
gun-power than those of 10,000. Both results are deviations from the
ideal of the battle-fleet already given. In the United States Navy the
tendency to huge ships needs to be particularly watched, for we have
a tradition in their favor, inherited from the successes of our heavy
frigates in the early years of this century. It must be recalled,
therefore, that those ships were meant to act singly, but that long
experience has shown that for fleet operations a mean of size gives
greater aggregate efficiency, both in force and in precision of
manoeuvre. In the battleship great speed also is distinctly secondary
to offensive power and to coal endurance.
To return from a long digression. Either Cuba or Puerto Rico might, in
an ordinary case of war, have been selected as the first objective of
the United States operations, with very good reasons for either
choice. What the British island Santa Lucia is to Jamaica, what
Martinique would be to France, engaged in important hostilities in the
Caribbean, that, in measure, Puerto Rico is to Cuba, and was to Spain.
To this was due the general and justifiable professional expectation
that Cervera's squadron would first make for that point, although the
anchorage at San Juan, the principal port, leaves very much to be
desired in the point of military security for a fleet,--a fact that
will call for close and intelligent attention on the part of the
professional advisers of the Navy Department. But, while either of the
Spanish islands was thus eligible, it would have been quite out of the
question to attempt both at the same time, our navy being only equal
to the nominal force of Spain; nor, it should be added, could a
decided superiority over the latter have justified operations against
both, unless our numbers had sufficed to overbear the whole of the
hostile war fleet at both points. To have the greater force and then
to divide it, so that the enemy can attack either or both fractions
with decisively superior numbers, is the acme of military stupidity;
nor is it the less stupid because in practice it has been frequently
done. In it has often consisted the vaunted operation of "surrounding
an enemy," "bringing him between two fires," and so forth; pompous and
troublesome combinations by which a divided force, that could
perfectly well move as a whole, starts from two or three widely
separated points to converge upon a concentrated enemy, permitting him
meanwhile the opportunity, if alert enough, to strike the divisions in
detail.
Having this obvious consideration in mind, it is curious now to recall
that in the "North American Review," so lately as February, 1897,
appeared an article entitled, "Can the United States afford to fight
Spain?" by "A Foreign Naval Officer,"--evidently, from internal
indications, a Spaniard,--in which occurred this brilliant statement:
"For the purposes of an attack upon Spain in the West Indies, the
American fleet would necessarily divide itself into two squadrons, one
ostensibly destined for Puerto Rico, the other for Cuba.... Spain,
before attempting to inflict serious damage upon places on the
American coast, would certainly try to cut off the connection between
the two American squadrons operating in the West Indies, and to attack
each separately." The remark illustrates the fool's paradise in which
many Spaniards, even naval officers, were living before the war, as is
evidenced by articles in their own professional periodicals. To
attribute such folly to us was not complimentary; and I own my
remarks, upon first reading it, were not complimentary to the writer's
professional competency.
All reasons, therefore, combined to direct the first movement of the
United States upon Cuba, and upon Cuba alone, leaving Spain in
undisputed possession of such advantages as Puerto Rico might give.
But Cuba and Puerto Rico, points for attack, were not, unluckily, the
only two considerations forced upon the attention of the United
States. We have a very long coast-line, and it was notorious that the
defences were not so far advanced, judged by modern standards, as to
inspire perfect confidence, either in professional men or in the
inhabitants. By some of the latter, indeed, were displayed evidences
of panic unworthy of men, unmeasured, irreflective, and therefore
irrational; due largely, it is to be feared, to that false gospel of
peace which preaches it for the physical comfort and ease of mind
attendant, and in its argument against war strives to smother
righteous indignation or noble ideals by appealing to the fear of
loss,--casting the pearls of peace before the swine of self-interest.
But a popular outcry, whether well or ill founded, cannot be wholly
disregarded by a representative Government; and, outside of the
dangers to the coast,--which, in the case of the larger cities at
least, were probably exaggerated,--there was certainly an opportunity
for an enterprising enemy to embarrass seriously the great coasting
trade carried on under our own flag. There was much idle talk, in
Spain and elsewhere, about the injury that could be done to United
States commerce by scattered cruisers, commerce-destroyers. It was
overlooked that our commerce under our own flag is inconsiderable:
there were very few American ships abroad to be captured. But the
coasting trade, being wholly under our own flag, was, and remains, an
extremely vulnerable interest, one the protection of which will make
heavy demands upon us in any maritime war. Nor can it be urged that
that interest alone will suffer by its own interruption. The bulky
cargoes carried by it cannot be transferred to the coastwise railroads
without overtaxing the capacities of the latter; all of which means,
ultimately, increase of cost and consequent suffering to the consumer,
together with serious injury to all related industries dependent upon
this traffic.
Under these combined influences the United States Government found
itself confronted from the beginning with two objects of military
solicitude, widely divergent one from the other, both in geographical
position and in method of action; namely, the attack upon Cuba and the
protection of its own shores. As the defences did not inspire
confidence, the navy had to supplement their weakness, although it is
essentially an offensive, and not a defensive, organization. Upon this
the enemy counted much at the first. "To defend the Atlantic coasts in
case of war," wrote a Spanish lieutenant who had been Naval Attaché in
Washington, "the United States will need one squadron to protect the
port of New York and another for the Gulf of Mexico. But if the
squadron which it now possesses is devoted to the defence of New York
(including Long Island Sound), the coasts of the Gulf of Mexico must
be entirely abandoned and left at the mercy of blockade and
bombardment." Our total force for the order of battle, prior to the
arrival of the _Oregon_, was nominally only equal to that of the
enemy, and, when divided between the two objects named, the halves
were not decisively superior to the single squadron under
Cervera,--which also might be reinforced by some of the armored ships
then in Spain. The situation, therefore, was one that is not
infrequent, but always embarrassing,--a double purpose and a single
force, which, although divisible, ought not to be divided.
It is proper here to say, for the remark is both pertinent and most
important, that coast defences and naval force are not interchangeable
things; neither are they opponents, one of the other, but
complementary. The one is stationary, the other mobile; and, however
perfect in itself either may be, the other is necessary to its
completeness. In different nations the relative consequence of the two
may vary. In Great Britain, whose people are fed, and their raw
materials obtained, from the outside world, the need for a fleet
vastly exceeds that for coast defences. With us, able to live off
ourselves, there is more approach to parity. Men may even differ as to
which is the more important; but such difference, in this question,
which is purely military, is not according to knowledge. In equal
amounts, mobile offensive power is always, and under all conditions,
more effective to the ends of war than stationary defensive power.
Why, then, provide the latter? Because mobile force, whatever shape
it take, ships or men, is limited narrowly as to the weight it can
bear; whereas stationary force, generally, being tied to the earth, is
restricted in the same direction only by the ability of the designer
to cope with the conditions. Given a firm foundation, which
practically can always be had, and there is no limit to the amount of
armor,--mere defensive outfit,--be it wood, stone, bricks, or iron,
that you can erect upon it; neither is there any limit to the weight
of guns, the offensive element, that the earth can bear; only they
will be motionless guns. The power of a steam navy to move is
practically unfettered; its ability to carry weight, whether guns or
armor, is comparatively very small. Fortifications, on the contrary,
have almost unbounded power to bear weight, whereas their power to
move is _nil_; which again amounts to saying that, being chained, they
can put forth offensive power only at arm's length, as it were. Thus
stated, it is seen that these two elements of sea warfare are in the
strictest sense complementary, one possessing what the other has not;
and that the difference is fundamental, essential, unchangeable,--not
accidental or temporary. Given local conditions which are generally
to be found, greater power, defensive and offensive, can be
established in permanent works than can be brought to the spot by
fleets. When, therefore, circumstances permit ships to be squarely
pitted against fortifications,--not merely to pass swiftly by
them,--it is only because the builders of the shore works have not,
for some reason, possibly quite adequate, given them the power to
repel attack which they might have had. It will not be asserted that
there are no exceptions to this, as to most general rules; but as a
broad statement it is almost universally true. "I took the liberty to
observe," wrote Nelson at the siege of Calvi, when the commanding
general suggested that some vessels might batter the forts, "that the
business of laying wood against walls was much altered of late."
Precisely what was in his mind when he said "of late" does not appear,
but the phrase itself shows that the conditions which induced any
momentary equality between ships and forts when brought within range
were essentially transient.
As seaports, and all entrances from the sea, are stationary, it
follows naturally that the arrangements for their defence also should,
as a rule, be permanent and stationary, for as such they are
strongest. Indeed, unless stationary, they are apt not to be
permanent, as was conclusively shown in the late hostilities, where
all the new monitors, six in number, intended for coast defence, were
diverted from that object and despatched to distant points; two going
to Manila, and stripping the Pacific coast of protection, so far as
based upon them. This is one of the essential vices of a system of
coast defence dependent upon ships, even when constructed for that
purpose; they are always liable to be withdrawn by an emergency, real
or fancied. Upon the danger of such diversion to the local security,
Nelson insisted, when charged with the guard of the Thames in 1801.
The block ships (floating batteries), he directed, were on no account
to be moved for any momentary advantage; for it might very well be
impossible for them to regain their carefully chosen positions when
wanted there. Our naval scheme in past years has been seriously
damaged, and now suffers, from two misleading conceptions: one that a
navy is for defence primarily, and not for offensive war; the other,
consequent mainly upon the first, that the monitor, being stronger
defensively than offensively, and of inferior mobility, was the best
type of warship. The Civil War, being, so far as the sea was
concerned, essentially a coast war, naturally fostered this opinion.
The monitor in smooth water is better able to stand up to shore guns
than ships are which present a larger target; but, for all that, it is
more vulnerable, both above water and below, than shore guns are if
these are properly distributed. It is a hybrid, neither able to bear
the weight that fortifications do, nor having the mobility of ships;
and it is, moreover, a poor gun-platform in a sea-way.
There is no saying of Napoleon's known to the writer more pregnant of
the whole art and practice of war than this, "Exclusiveness of purpose
is the secret of great successes and of great operations." If,
therefore, in maritime war, you wish permanent defences for your
coasts, rely exclusively upon stationary works, if the conditions
admit, not upon floating batteries which have the weaknesses of ships.
If you wish offensive war carried on vigorously upon the seas, rely
exclusively upon ships that have the qualities of ships and not of
floating batteries. We had in the recent hostilities 26,000 tons of
shipping sealed up in monitors, of comparatively recent construction,
in the Atlantic and the Pacific. There was not an hour from first to
last, I will venture to say, that we would not gladly have exchanged
the whole six for two battleships of less aggregate displacement; and
that although, from the weakness of the Spanish defences, we were able
to hug pretty closely most parts of the Cuban coast. Had the Spanish
guns at Santiago kept our fleet at a greater distance, we should have
lamented still more bitterly the policy which gave us sluggish
monitors for mobile battleships.