When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez, when with eagle eyes
He stared at the Pacific."
Following this I had written by request a volume on the Navy in the
War of Secession, entitled _The Gulf and Inland Waters_; my first
appearance as an author. Herein also I had recognized that the same
class of military ideas took possession of my mind. I felt, therefore,
that I should bring interest and understanding to my task, and hoped
that the defects of knowledge, which I clearly realized, would be
overcome. I recalled also that at the Military Academy my father,
though professor only of engineering, military and civil, had of his
own motion introduced a course of strategy and grand tactics, which
had commended itself to observers. I trusted, therefore, that
heredity, too, might come to my aid.
As acceptance placed me on the road which led directly to all the
success I have had in life, I feel impelled to acknowledge my
indebtedness to Admiral Luce. With little constitutional initiative,
and having grown up in the atmosphere of the single cruiser, of
commerce-destroying, defensive warfare, and indifference to
battle-ships; an anti-imperialist, who for that reason looked upon Mr.
Blaine as a dangerous man; at forty-five I was drifting on the lines
of simple respectability as aimlessly as one very well could. My
environment had been too much for me; my present call changed it.
Meantime, however, there was delay. A relief would not be sent,
because the ship was to go home; and the ship did not go home because
there was, first, a revolution in Panama, and then a war between the
Central American states, both which required the _Wachusett's_
presence. Mr. Cleveland was elected at this time; there was a change
of administration, and with a new Secretary a lapse of Departmental
interest. The ship did not go to San Francisco till September, 1885,
nearly a year after the admiral's proposition reached me.
The year had not been unfruitful, however. Naturally predisposed, as I
have said, my mind ran continually on my subject. I imagined various
formations for developing to the best effect the powers of steamships,
and sudden changes to be instituted as the moment of collision
approached, calculated to disconcert the opponent, or to surprise an
advantage before he could parry. Spinning cobwebs out of one's
unassisted brain, without any previous absorption from external
sources, was doubtless a somewhat crude process; yet it had
advantages. One of my manoeuvres was to pass a column of ships by an
unexpected flank movement across the head of an enemy's column. This I
have since heard called "capping;" if, at least, I correctly
understand that word. Putting it afterwards before a body of officers
attending the College course, all men of years and experience, one
said to me, derisively, "Do you suppose an enemy would let you do
that?" "It is a question of how quick he is," I replied. "In these
days of twelve or fifteen knots he will have no time to ponder, and
scarcely time to act." The query illustrates a habit of mind
frequently met. It is like discussing the merits of a thrust _en
carte_. If the other man is quick enough, he will parry; if not, he
will be run through: sooner or later the more skilful usually will get
in.
Naval history gave me more anxiety, and I afterwards found it was that
which Luce particularly desired of me. I shared the prepossession,
common at that time, that the naval history of the past was wholly
past; of no use at all to the present. I well recall, during my first
term at the College, a visit from a reporter of one of the principal
New York journals. He was a man of rotund presence, florid face,
thrown-back head, and flowing hair, with all that magisterial
condescension which the environment of the Fourth Estate nourishes in
its fortunate members; the Roman citizen was "not in it" for
birthright. To my bad luck a plan of Trafalgar hung in evidence, as he
stalked from room to room. "Ah," he said, with superb up-to-date pity,
"you are still talking about Trafalgar;" and I could see that
Trafalgar and I were thenceforth on the top shelf of fossils in the
collections of his memory. This point of view was held by very many.
"You won't find much to say about history," was the direct
discouraging comment of an older officer. On the other hand, Sir
Geoffrey Hornby, less well known in this country than in Great
Britain, where twenty years ago he was recognized as the head of the
profession, distinctly commended to me the present value of naval
history. I myself, as I have just confessed, had had the contrary
impression--a tradition passively accepted. Thus my mind was troubled
how to establish relations between yesterday and to-day; so wholly
ignorant was I of the undying reproduction of conditions in their
essential bearings--a commonplace of military art.
He who seeks, finds, if he does not lose heart; and to me,
continuously seeking, came from within the suggestion that control of
the sea was an historic factor which had never been systematically
appreciated and expounded. Once formulated consciously, this thought
became the nucleus of all my writing for twenty years then to come;
and here I may state at once what I conceive to have been my part in
popularizing, perhaps in making effective, an argument for which I
could by no means claim the rights of discovery. Not to mention other
predecessors, with the full roll of whose names I am even now
unacquainted, Bacon and Raleigh, three centuries before, had
epitomized in a few words the theme on which I was to write volumes.
That they had done so was, indeed, then unknown to me. For me, as for
them, the light dawned first on my inner consciousness; I owed it to
no other man. It has since been said by more than one that no claim
for originality could be allowed me; and that I wholly concede. What
did fall to me was, that no one since those two great Englishmen had
undertaken to demonstrate their thesis by an analysis of history,
attempting to show from current events, through a long series of
years, precisely what influence the command of the sea had had upon
definite issues; in brief, a concrete illustration. In the preface to
my first work on the subject, for the success of which I was quite
unprepared, I stated this as my aim: "An estimate of the effect of Sea
Power upon the course of history and the prosperity of nations; ...
resting upon a collection of special instances, in which the precise
effect has been made clear by an analysis of the conditions at the
given moments." This field had been left vacant, yielding me my
opportunity; and concurrently therewith, untouched from the point of
view proposed by me, there lay the whole magnificent series of events
constituting maritime history since the days of Raleigh and Bacon,
after the voyages of Columbus and De Gama gave the impetus to
over-sea activities, colonies, and commerce, which distinguishes the
past three hundred years. Even of this limited period I have occupied
but a part, though I fear I have skimmed the cream of that which it
offers; but back behind it lie virgin fields, in the careers of the
Italian republics, and others yet more remote in time, which can never
be for me to narrate, although I have examined them attentively.
I cannot now reconstitute from memory the sequence of my mental
processes; but while my problem was still wrestling with my brain
there dawned upon me one of those concrete perceptions which turn
inward darkness into light--give substance to shadow. The _Wachusett_
was lying at Callao, the seaport of Lima, as dull a coast town as one
could dread to see. Lima being but an hour distant, we frequently
spent a day there; the English Club extending to us its hospitality.
In its library was Mommsen's _History of Rome_, which I gave myself to
reading, especially the Hannibalic episode. It suddenly struck me,
whether by some chance phrase of the author I do not know, how
different things might have been could Hannibal have invaded Italy by
sea, as the Romans often had Africa, instead of by the long land
route; or could he, after arrival, have been in free communication
with Carthage by water. This clew, once laid hold of, I followed up in
the particular instance. It and the general theory already conceived
threw on each other reciprocal illustration; and between the two my
plan was formed by the time I reached home, in September, 1885. I
would investigate coincidently the general history and naval history
of the past two centuries, with a view to demonstrating the influence
of the events of the one upon the other. Original research was not
within my scope, nor was it necessary to the scheme thus outlined.
Perhaps it is only a subtle form of egotism, but as a condition of my
life experience I could wish to convey to others an appreciation of my
profound ignorance of both classes of history when I began, being then
forty-five; not that I mean to imply that now, or at any time since, I
have deluded myself with the imagination that I have become an
historian after the high modern pattern. I tackled my job much as I
presume an immigrant begins a clearing in the wilderness, not
troubling greatly which tree he takes first. I laid my hands on
whatever came along, reading with the profound attention of one who is
looking for something; and the something was kind enough to
acknowledge my devotion by shining forth in unexpected ways and
places. Any line of investigation, however unsystematic in method,
branches out in many directions, suggests continually new sources of
information, to one interested in his work; and I have felt constantly
the force of Johnson's dictum as to the superior profit from time
spent in reading what is congenial over the drudgery of constrained
application. Every faculty I possessed was alive and jumping.
Incidentally, I took up the study of land warfare, using Jomini and
Hamley. For naval history the first book upon which I chanced--the
word is exact--was just what I needed at that stage. It was a history
of the French navy, by a Lieutenant Lapeyrouse-Bonfils, published
about 1845. As naval history pure and simple, I think little of it;
but the author had a quiet, philosophical way of summing up causes and
effects in general history, as connected with maritime affairs, which
not only corresponded closely with my own purpose, but suggested to me
new material for thought--novel illustration. Such treatment was with
him only casual, but it opened to me new prospects.
It would be difficult to define precisely to what degree the art of
naval warfare had been formulated, or even consciously conceived, in
1885. There could scarcely be said to exist any systematic treatment,
or extensive commentary by acknowledged experts, such as for
generations had illuminated the theory of land warfare. Naval
histories abounded, but by far the most part were simply narratives.
Some valuable research, however, had then recently been done; notably
by Captain Chevalier, of the French navy, who had produced from French
documents a history of the maritime war connected with the American
struggle for independence. This he followed with a less exhaustive
account of the wars of the French Revolution and Empire, which also
appeared in time for me to use. These were marked by running comment,
rather than by a studied criticism such as that of Jomini or Napier.
In Great Britain, James held, and I think still holds, the field for
exhaustive collection of information, documentary or oral in origin,
during the period treated by him, 1793-1815; but he has not a military
idea in his head beyond that of downright hard fighting, punishing and
being punished. In his pages, to take a tactical advantage seems
almost a disgrace. The Navy Records Society of Great Britain had not
then begun the fruitful labors which within the last decade and a half
has made accessible in print a very large amount of new matter; nor
had the late Admiral Colomb published his comprehensive book, _Naval
Warfare_. So far as I was concerned, the old works of Lediard, Entick,
Campbell, Beatson,--in French, Paul Hoste, Troude, Guerin, and others
equally remote,--had to be my main reliance; though numerous modern
scattered monographs, English and French, were existent. In connection
with these one of my most interesting experiences was lighting upon a
paper in the _Revue Maritime et Coloniale_, describing in full the
Four Days' battle between the English and Dutch in 1666. It purported
to be, and I have no doubt was, from a personal letter recently
discovered; but I subsequently found it almost word for word in the
_Memoires du Comte de Guiche_, also a participant, printed in 1743.
This _Revue_ contained many able and suggestive articles, historical
and professional, as did the British _Journal of the United Service
Institution_; each being in its own country a principal medium for the
exchange of professional views. Conspicuous in these contributions to
naval history and thought, in England, were Admiral Colomb and
Professor Laughton; upon the last named of whom, since these words
were first written, has been bestowed the honor of knighthood, a
recognition in the evening of life which will be heartily welcomed by
his many naval friends on both sides of the Atlantic. In short, apart
from the first-hand inquiry which I did not yet attempt, the material
available in 1885 was chiefly histories written long before,
supplemented by a great many scattered papers of more recent date.
Before leaving this part of my experience I will say a good word for
Campbell's _Lives of the Admirals_, so far as his own work--down to
1744--is concerned. Under this title it is really a history of the
British navy, very well done for enabling a professional man to
understand the naval operations; but, more than this, maritime
occurrences of other sorts, commercial movement, and naval policy, are
presented clearly, and with sufficient fulness to illustrate the
influence of sea power in its broadest sense upon the general history.
Bearing, as it does, strong indications of a full use of accessible
accounts, contemporary with the events narrated, I know no naval work
superior to it for lucidity and breadth of treatment. Campbell was he
of whom Dr. Johnson said: "Campbell is a good man, a pious man; I am
afraid he has not been inside a church for many years; but he never
passes a church without pulling off his hat. This shows he has good
principles."
In history other than naval I was for my object as fortunate as I had
been in Lapeyrouse-Bonfils. An accident first placed in my hands
Henri Martin's _History of France_. I happened to see the volumes,
then unknown to me, on the shelves of a friend. The English
translation of Martin covered only the reigns of Louis XIV. and XV.,
and of Louis XVI. to 1783, the close of the War of American
Independence. The scope of my first book, _The Influence of Sea Power
upon History_, coincides precisely with this period, and may thus have
been determined. I think, however, that the beginning of the work was
fixed for me by the essentially new departure in the history of
England and France, connoted by the almost simultaneous accession of
Charles II. and Louis XIV.; while the end was dictated by the
necessity to stop and take breath. Besides, I had to lecture, which
for the moment interrupted both reading and writing. The particular
value of Martin to me was the attention paid by him to commercial and
maritime policy, as shown in those frank methods of national
regulation which in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
characterized all governments, but were to be seen in their simplest
and most efficient executive operation in an absolute monarchy. A more
advanced age may doubt the wisdom of such manipulation of trade; but
in the hands of a genius like Colbert it became a very active and
powerful force, the workings of which were the more impressive for
their directness. They could be easily followed. Whatever Martin's
views on political economy, he was in profound sympathy with Colbert
as an administrator, and enlarged much on his commercial policy as
conducing to the financial stability upon which that great statesman
sought to found the primacy of his country. To one as ignorant as I
was of mercantile movement, the story of Colbert's methods, owing to
their pure autocracy, was a kind of introductory primer to this
element of sea power. Thus received, the impression was both sharper
and deeper. New light was shed upon, and new emphasis given to, the
commonplace assertion of the relations between commerce and a navy;
civil and military sea power. While I have no claim to mastery of the
arguments for and against free trade and protection, Colbert, as
expounded by Martin, sent me in later days to the study of trade
statistics; as indicative of naval or political conditions deflecting
commercial interchange, and influencing national prosperity. The
strong interest such searches had for me may show a natural bent, and
certainly conduced to the understanding of sea power in its broadest
sense. Martin set my feet in the way, though Campbell helped me much
by incidental mention.
It is now accepted with naval and military men who study their
profession, that history supplies the raw material from which they are
to draw their lessons, and reach their working conclusions. Its
teachings are not, indeed, pedantic precedents; but they are the
illustrations of living principles. Napoleon is reported to have said
that on the field of battle the happiest inspiration is often but a
recollection. The authority of Jomini chiefly set me to study in this
fashion the many naval histories before me. From him I learned the
few, very few, leading considerations in military combination; and in
these I found the key by which, using the record of sailing navies and
the actions of naval leaders, I could elicit, from the naval history
upon which I had looked despondingly, instruction still pertinent. The
actual course of the several campaigns, or of the particular battles,
I worked out as one does any historical conclusion, by comparison of
the individual witnesses presented in the several accounts; but the
result of this constructive process became to me something more than a
narrative. Both the general outcome and the separate incidents passed
through tests which formed in me an habitual critical habit of mind.
My judgments, one or all, might be erroneous; but, right or wrong,
what I brought before myself was no mere portrayal, accurate as I
could achieve, but a rational whole, of composite cause and effect,
with its background and foreground, its centre of interest and
argument, its greater and smaller details, its decisive culmination;
for even to a drawn battle or a neutral issue there is something which
definitely prevented success. It was the same with questions of naval
policy. Jomini's dictum, that the organized forces of the enemy are
ever the chief objective, pierces like a two-edged sword to the joints
and marrow of many specious propositions; to that of the French
postponement of immediate action to "ulterior objects," or to
Jefferson's reliance upon raw citizen soldiery, a mob ready
disorganized to the enemy's hands when he saw fit to lay on. From
Jomini also I imbibed a fixed disbelief in the thoughtlessly accepted
maxim that the statesman and general occupy unrelated fields. For this
misconception I substituted a tenet of my own, that war is simply a
violent political movement; and from an expression of his, "The
sterile glory of fighting battles merely to win them," I deduced, what
military men are prone to overlook, that "War is not fighting, but
business."
It was with such hasty equipment that I approached my self-assigned
task, to show how the control of the sea, commercial and military, had
been an object powerful to influence the policies of nations; and
equally a mighty factor in the success or failure of those policies.
This remained my guiding aim; but incidentally thereto I had by this
determined to prepare a critical analysis of the naval campaigns and
battles, a decision for which I had to thank Jomini chiefly. This
would constitute in measure a treatment of the art of naval war; not
formal, nor systematic, but in the nature of commentary, developing
and illustrating principles. I may interject, as possibly suggestive
to professional men, that such current comment on historical events
will lead them on, as it led me irresistibly, to digest the principles
thus drawn out; reproducing them in concise definitions, applicable to
the varying circumstances of naval warfare,--an elementary treatise.
This I did also, somewhat later, in a series of lectures; which,
though necessarily rudimentary, I understand still form a groundwork
of instruction at the War College. For the framework of general
history, which was to serve as a setting to my particular thesis, I
relied upon the usual accredited histories of the period, as I did
upon equally well-known professional histories for the nautical
details. The subject lay so much on the surface that my handling of it
could scarcely suffer materially from possible future discoveries.
What such or such an unknown man had said or done on some back-stairs,
or written to some unknown correspondent, if it came to light, was not
likely to affect the received story of the external course of military
or political events. Did I make a mistake in the detail of some
battle, as I got one fleet on the wrong tack in Byng's action, or as
in the much-argued case of Torrington at Beachy Head, it would for my
leading purpose do little more harm than a minor tactical error does
to the outcome of a large strategic plan, when accurately conceived.
As a colleague phrased it to me, speaking of the cautious deliberation
of some men, "A second-best position to-day is better than a
first-best to-morrow, when the occasion has passed." Strike while the
iron is hot! and between reading and thinking my iron was very hot by
the time I laid it on the anvil. Moreover, I had to meet the emergency
of lecturing, one of the main reliances of our incipient undertaking.
I had begun my reading with Lapeyrouse-Bonfils, in October, 1885. The
preceding summer at Panama had so far affected my health as to cause a
month's severe illness in the winter; and when recovered I
unguardedly let myself in for another month's work, on naval tactics,
which might have been postponed. Hence the end of the following May
had arrived before I began to write; but I was so full of matter,
absorbed or evolved, that I ran along with steady pace, and by
September had on paper, in lecture form, all of my first _Sea Power_
book, except the summary of conclusions which constitutes the final
chapter. Before publication, in 1890, the whole had been very
carefully revised; but the changes made were mostly in the details of
battles, or else verbal in character, to develop discussions in
amplitude or clearness. Battles had been to me at first a secondary
consideration; hence for revision I had accumulated many fresh data,
notably from two somewhat scarce books: _Naval Battles in the West
Indies_, by Lieutenant Matthews, and _Naval Researches_, by Captain
Thomas White, British officers contemporary and participant in the
events which they narrate of the War of American Independence.