NAVAL AND NATIONAL POLICIES
31. EXPANSION AND OVER-SEA BASES[106]
_The Annexation of Hawaii_
[As the date indicates, the essay was written at the time of the
Revolution in Hawaii, six years before its annexation. The part of the
essay preceding points out the predominant interest of the United States
in the Islands owing to their control of our trade routes and naval
approaches, and refers to the benefit to the world from British colonial
expansion.—EDITOR.]
But if a plea of the world’s welfare seem suspiciously like a cloak for
national self-interest, let the latter be accepted frankly as the
adequate motive which it assuredly is. Let us not shrink from pitting a
broad self-interest against the narrow self-interest to which some would
restrict us. The demands of our three great seaboards, the Atlantic, the
Gulf, and the Pacific,—each for itself, and all for the strength that
comes from drawing closer the ties between them,—are calling for the
extension, through the Isthmian Canal, of that broad sea common along
which, and along which alone, in all the ages prosperity has moved. Land
carriage, always restricted and therefore always slow, toils enviously
but hopelessly behind, vainly seeking to replace and supplant the royal
highway of nature’s own making. Corporate interests, vigorous in that
power of concentration which is the strength of armies and of
minorities, may here withstand for a while the ill-organized strivings
of the multitude, only dimly conscious of its wants; yet the latter,
however temporarily opposed and baffled, is sure at last, like the blind
forces of nature, to overwhelm all that stand in the way of its
necessary progress. So the Isthmian Canal is an inevitable part in the
future of the United States; yet one that cannot be separated from other
necessary incidents of a policy dependent upon it, whose details cannot
be foreseen exactly. But because the precise steps that hereafter may be
opportune or necessary cannot yet be foretold certainly, is not a reason
the less, but a reason the more, for establishing a principle of action
which may serve to guide as opportunities arise. Let us start from the
fundamental truth, warranted by history, that the control of the seas,
and especially along the great lines drawn by national interest or
national commerce, is the chief among the merely material elements in
the power and prosperity of nations. It is so because the sea is the
world’s great medium of circulation. From this necessarily follows the
principle that, as subsidiary to such control, it is imperative to take
possession, when it can be done righteously, of such maritime positions
as contribute to secure command. If this principle be adopted, there
will be no hesitation about taking the positions—and they are many—upon
the approaches to the Isthmus, whose interests incline them to seek us.
It has its application also to the present case of Hawaii.
There is, however, one caution to be given from the military point of
view, beyond the need of which the world has not yet passed. Military
positions, fortified posts, by land or by sea, however strong or
admirably situated, do not confer control by themselves alone. People
often say that such an island or harbor will give control of such a body
of water. It is an utter, deplorable, ruinous mistake. The phrase indeed
may be used by some only loosely, without forgetting other implied
conditions of adequate protection and adequate navies; but the
confidence of our own nation in its native strength, and its
indifference to the defense of its ports and the sufficiency of its
fleet, give reason to fear that the full consequences of a forward step
may not be weighed soberly. Napoleon, who knew better, once talked this
way. “The islands of San Pietro, Corfu, and Malta,” he wrote, “will make
us masters of the whole Mediterranean.” Vain boast! Within one year
Corfu, in two years Malta, were rent away from the state that could not
support them by its ships. Nay, more: had Bonaparte not taken the latter
stronghold out of the hands of its degenerate but innocuous government,
that citadel of the Mediterranean would perhaps—would probably—never
have passed into those of his chief enemy. There is here also a lesson
for us.
32. APPLICATION OF THE MONROE DOCTRINE[107]
_Anglo-American Community of Interests_
The writer has too often already discussed, directly or incidentally,
the strategic situation which finds its center in Panama to repeat the
same here; but one or two remarks about the Monroe doctrine may be not
out of place. Accepting as probably durable the new conditions, which
have so largely modified the nation’s external policy in the direction
of expansion, there is in them nothing to diminish, but rather to
intensify, the purpose that there shall be no intrusion of the European
political system upon territory whence military effect upon the Isthmus
of Panama can be readily exerted. For instance, should a change
anticipated by some occur, and Holland enter the German Empire, it will
be advantageous that it should even now be understood, as it then would
be necessary for us to say, that our consent could not be given to
Curaçao forming part of that incorporation. The Isthmus of Panama—in
addition to its special importance to us as a link between our Pacific
and Atlantic coasts—sums up in itself that one of the two great lines of
communication between the Atlantic and the farther East which especially
concerns us, and we can no more consent to such a transfer of a fortress
in the Caribbean, than we would ourselves have thought of acquiring Port
Mahon, in the Mediterranean, as a result of our successful war with
Spain.
Consideration of interests such as these must be dispassionate upon the
one side and upon the other; and a perfectly candid reception must be
accorded to the views and the necessities of those with whom we thus
deal. During the process of deliberation not merely must preconceptions
be discarded, but sentiment itself should be laid aside, to resume its
sway only after unbiassed judgment has done its work. The present
question of Asia, the evolution of which has taken days rather than
years, may entail among its results no change in old maxims, but it
nevertheless calls for a review of them in the light of present facts.
If from this no difference of attitude results, the confirmed resolve of
sober second thought will in itself alone be a national gain. This new
Eastern question has greatly affected the importance of communications,
enhancing that of the shorter routes, reversing political and
military,—as distinguished from mercantile—conditions, and bringing
again into the foreground of interest the Mediterranean, thus reinvested
with its ancient pre-eminence. For the same reason the Caribbean Sea,
because of its effect upon the Isthmus of Panama, attains a position it
has never before held, emphasizing the application to it of the Monroe
doctrine. The Pacific has advanced manifold in consequence to the United
States, not only as an opening market, but as a means of transit, and
also because our new possessions there, by giving increased
opportunities, entail correspondingly heavier burdens of national
responsibility. The isthmian canals, present and to come,—Suez and
Panama,—summarize and locally accentuate the essential character of
these changes, of which they are at once an exponent and a factor. It
will be no light matter that man shall have shifted the Strait of
Magellan to the Isthmus of Panama, and the Cape of Good Hope to the head
of the Mediterranean.
The correlative of these new conditions is the comparative isolation,
and the dwindled consequence, of the southern extremes of Africa and
America, which now lie far apart from the changed direction imposed upon
the world’s policies. The regions there situated will have small effect
upon the great lines of travel, and must derive such importance as may
remain to them from their intrinsic productive value. Does there, then,
remain sound reason of national interest for pressing the Monroe
doctrine to the extent of guaranteeing our support to American states
which love us not, and whose geographical position, south of the valley
of the Amazon, lies outside of effective influence upon the American
isthmus? Does the disposition to do so arise from sound policy, or from
sentiment, or from mere habit? And, if from either, do the facts justify
retaining a burden of responsibility which may embarrass our effective
action in fields of greater national consequence—just as South Africa
may prove a drain upon Great Britain’s necessary force about Suez? In
short, while the principles upon which the Monroe doctrine reposes are
not only unimpaired, but fortified, by recent changes, is it not
possible that the application of them may require modification,
intensifying their force in one quarter, diminishing it in another?
Not the least striking and important of the conditions brought about by
the two contemporary events—the downfall of the Spanish colonial empire
and the precipitation of the crisis in eastern Asia—has been the drawing
closer together of the two great English-speaking nationalities. Despite
recalcitrant objections here and there by unwilling elements on both
sides, the fact remains concrete and apparent, endued with essential
life, and consequent inevitable growth, by virtue of a clearly
recognized community of interest, present and future. It is no mere
sentimental phase, though sentiment, long quietly growing, had
sufficiently matured to contribute its powerful influence at the
opportune moment; but here, as ever, there was first the
material,—identity of interest,—and not till afterwards the
spiritual,—reciprocity of feeling,—aroused to mutual recognition by the
causes and motives of the Spanish war. That war, and the occurrences
attendant, proclaimed emphatically that the two countries, in their
ideals of duty to the suffering and oppressed, stood together, indeed,
but in comparative isolation from the sympathies of the rest of the
world.[108]
The significance of this fact has been accentuated by the precision with
which in the United States the preponderance of intelligence has
discerned, and amid many superficially confusing details has kept in
mind, as the reasonable guide to its sympathies, that the war in the
Transvaal is simply a belated revival of the issue on which our own
Revolution was fought, viz., that when representation is denied,
taxation is violent oppression. The principle is common to Great Britain
and to us, woven into the web of all her history, despite the momentary
aberration which led to our revolt. The twofold incident—the two wars
and the sympathies aroused, because in both each nation recognized
community of principle and of ideals—indicates another great
approximation to the unity of mankind; which will arrive in good time,
but which is not to be hurried by force or by the impatience of
dreamers. The outcome of the civil war in the United States, the
unification of Italy, the new German Empire, the growing strength of the
idea of Imperial Federation in Great Britain, all illustrate the
tendency of humanity to aggregate into greater groups, which in the
instances cited have resulted in political combination more or less
formal and clearly defined. To the impulse and establishment of each of
these steps in advance, war has played a principal part. War it was
which preserved our Union. War it was which completed the political
unity of Italy, and brought the Germans into that accord of sentiment
and of recognized interest upon which rest the foundations and the
continuance of their empire. War it is which has but now quickened the
spirit of sympathy between Great Britain and her colonies, and given to
Imperial Federation an acceleration into concrete action which could not
otherwise have been imparted; and it needed the stress of war, the
threat of outside interference with a sister nation in its mission of
benevolence, to quicken into positive action the sympathy of Great
Britain with the United States, and to dispose the latter to welcome
gladly and to return cordially the invaluable support thus offered.
War is assuredly a very great evil; not the greatest, but among the
greatest which afflict humanity. Yet let it be recognized at this
moment, when the word “Arbitration” has hold of popular imagination,
more perhaps by the melody of its associations,—like the “Mesopotamia”
of the preacher,—than by virtue of a reasonable consideration of both
sides of the question, of which it represents only one, that within two
years two wars have arisen, the righteous object of either of which has
been unattainable by milder methods. When the United States went to war
with Spain, four hundred thousand of the latter’s colonial subjects had
lost their lives by the slow misery of starvation, inflicted by a
measure—Reconcentration—which was intended, but had proved inadequate,
to suppress an insurrection incited by centuries of oppression and by
repeated broken pledges. The justification of that war rests upon our
right to interfere on grounds of simple humanity, and upon the
demonstrated inability of Spain to rule her distant colonies by methods
unharmful to the governed. It was impossible to accept renewed promises,
not necessarily through distrust of their honesty, but because political
incapacity to give just and good administration had been proved by
repeated failures.
The justification of Great Britain’s war with the Transvaal rests upon a
like right of interference—to relieve oppression—and upon the broad
general principle for which our colonial ancestors fought the
mother-country over a century ago, that “taxation without representation
is tyranny.” Great Britain, indeed, did not demand the franchise for her
misgoverned subjects, domiciled abroad; she only suggested it as a means
whereby they might, in return for producing nine tenths of the revenue,
obtain fair treatment from the state which was denying it to them. But
be it remembered, not only that a cardinal principle upon which English
and American liberty rests was being violated, but that at the time when
the foreigners were encouraged to enter the Transvaal franchise was
attainable by law in five years, while before the five years had expired
the law was changed, and the privilege withdrawn by _ex post facto_ act.
In each of these wars one of the two nations which speak the English
tongue has taken a part, and in each the one engaged has had outspoken
sympathy from the other, and from the other alone. The fact has been
less evident in the Transvaal war, partly because the issue has been
less clear, or less clearly put, chiefly because many foreign-born
citizens of the United States still carry with them the prepossessions
of their birthplace, rather than those which should arise from
perception of their country’s interest.
Nevertheless, the foundations stand sure. We have begun to know each
other, in community of interest and of traditions, in ideals of equality
and of law. As the realization of this spreads, the two states, in their
various communities, will more and more closely draw together in the
unity of spirit, and all the surer that they eschew the bondage of the
letter of alliance.
33. CHANGES IN THE UNITED STATES AND JAPAN[109]
The occidentalization of Japan, in methods although not in national
spirit,—which changes much more slowly,—has been fully demonstrated to
an astonished world by the war of 1894 with China. It is one of the
incidents of the closing nineteenth century. To this achievement in the
military sphere, in the practice of war which Napoleon called the
science of barbarians, must be added the development of civil
institutions that has resulted in the concession to Japan of all
international dignity and privilege; and consequently of a control over
the administration of justice among foreigners within her borders, not
heretofore obtained by any other Oriental State. It has thus become
evident that the weight of Japan in the international balances depends
not upon the quality of her achievement, which has been shown to be
excellent, but upon the gross amount of her power. Moreover, while in
wealth and population, with the resources dependent upon them, she may
be deficient,—though rapidly growing,—her geographical position
relatively to the Eastern center of interest, and her advantage of
insularity, go far to compensate such defect. These confer upon her as a
factor in the Eastern problem an influence resembling in kind, if not
equaling in degree, that which Great Britain has held and still holds in
the international relations centering around Europe, the Atlantic, and
the Mediterranean.
Yet the change in Japan, significant as it is and influential upon the
great problem of the Pacific and Asia, is less remarkable and less
important than that which has occurred in the United States. If in the
Orient a nation may be said to have been born in a day, even so the
event is less sudden and less revolutionary than the conversion of
spirit and of ideals—the new birth—which has come over our own country.
In this are evident a rapidity and a thoroughness which bespeak impulse
from an external source rather than any conscious set process of
deliberation, of self-determination within, such as has been that of
Japan in her recognition and adoption of material improvements forced
upon her attention in other peoples. No man or group of men can pretend
to have guided and governed our people in the adoption of a new policy,
the acceptance of which has been rather instinctive—I would prefer to
say inspired—than reasoned. There is just this difference between Japan
and ourselves, the two most changed of peoples within the last
half-century. She has adopted other methods; we have received another
purpose. The one conversion is material, the other spiritual. When we
talk about expansion we are in the realm of ideas. The material addition
of expansion—the acreage, if I may so say—is trivial compared with our
previous possessions, or with the annexations by European states within
a few years. The material profit otherwise, the national gain to us, is
at best doubtful. What the nation has gained in expansion is a
regenerating idea, an uplifting of the heart, a seed of future
beneficent activity, a going out of self into the world to communicate
the gift it has so bountifully received.
34. OUR INTERESTS IN THE PACIFIC[110]
[The preceding pages of the essay explain the dependence of the “Open
Door” policy on an international balance of power in the Pacific, and
the modification of this balance owing to the growth of the German Navy
and the increasing European tension.—EDITOR.]
The result is to leave the two chief Pacific nations, the United States
and Japan, whose are the only two great navies that have coastlines on
that ocean, to represent there the balance of power. This is the best
security for international peace; because it represents, not a bargain,
but a fact, readily ascertainable. Those two navies are more easily able
than any other to maintain there a concentration of force; and it may
even be questioned whether sound military policy may not make the
Pacific rather than the Atlantic the station for the United States
battle fleet. For the balance of naval power in Europe, which compels
the retention of the British and German fleets in the North Sea,
protects the Atlantic coast of the United States,—and the Monroe
Doctrine,—to a degree to which nothing in Pacific conditions
corresponds. Under existing circumstances, neither Germany nor Great
Britain can afford, even did they desire, to infringe the external
policy of the United States represented in the Monroe Doctrine.
With Japan in the Pacific, and in her attitude towards the Open Door,
the case is very different from that of European or American Powers. Her
nearness to China, Manchuria, Korea, gives the natural commercial
advantages that short and rapid transportation always confers. Labor
with her is still cheap, another advantage in open competition; but the
very fact of these near natural markets, and her interest in them,
cannot but breed that sense of proprietorship which, in dealing with
ill-organized states, easily glides into the attempt at political
control that ultimately means control by force. Hence the frequent
reports, true or untrue, that such advantage is sought and accomplished.
Whether true or not, these illustrate what nations continually seek,
when opportunity offers or can be made. This is in strict line with that
which we call Protection; but with the difference that Protection is
exercised within the sphere commonly recognized as legitimate, either by
International Law or by the policy of competing states. The mingled
weakness and perverseness of Chinese negotiators invite such attempt,
and endanger the Open Door; give rise to continual suspicion that undue
influence resting upon force is affecting equality of treatment, or is
establishing a basis for inequality in the future. There can be no
question that the general recent attitude of Russia and Japan, however
laudably meant, does arouse such suspicions.
Then again, the American possession, the Hawaiian Islands, are
predominantly Japanese in labor population; a condition which, as the
outcome of little more than a generation, warrants the jealousy of
Japanese immigration on the part of the Pacific coast. Finally, the
population of that coast is relatively scanty, and its communications
with the East, though rapid for express trains, are slow for the immense
traffic of men and stores which war implies and requires. That is, the
power of the country east of the Rocky Mountains has far to go, and with
poor conveyance, in order to reinforce the Western Coast; the exact
opposite of our advantage of rapid maritime access to the Panama Canal.
In the absence of the fleet, invasion may be easy. Harm may be retrieved
in measure by the arrival of the fleet later; but under present world
conditions the Pacific coast seems incomparably the more exposed of the
three great divisions of the American shore line—the Atlantic, the Gulf,
and the Pacific.
35. THE GERMAN STATE AND ITS MENACE[111]
The prototype of modern Germany is to be found rather in the Roman
Empire, to which in a certain sense the present German Empire may be
said to be—if not heir—at least historically affiliated. The Holy Roman
Empire merged into that somewhat extenuated figment attached to the
Austrian Hapsburgs, which finally deceased at the opening of the
nineteenth century; but the idea itself survived, and was influential in
determining the form and name which the existing powerful Germanic unity
has assumed. To this unity the national German character contributes an
element not unlike that of antiquity, in the subordination of the
individual to the state. As a matter of national characteristic, this
differs radically from the more modern conception of the freedom and
rights of the individual, exemplified chiefly in England and the United
States. It is possible to accept the latter as the superior ideal, as a
higher stage of advance, as ultimately more fruitful of political
progress, yet at the same time to recognize the great immediate
advantage of the massed action which subordinates the interests of the
individual, sinks the unit in the whole, in order to promote the
interests of the community. It may be noted incidentally, without
further insistence just here, that the Japanese Empire, which in a
different field from the German is manifesting the same restless need
for self-assertion and expansion, comes to its present with the same
inheritance from its past, of the submergence of the individual in the
mass. It was equally the characteristic of Sparta among the city states
of ancient Greece, and gave to her among them the preponderance she for
a time possessed. As an exhibition of social development, it is
generally anterior and inferior to that in which the rights of the
individual are more fully recognized; but as an element of mere force,
whether in economics or in international policies, it is superior.
The two contrasted conceptions, the claims of the individual and the
claims of the state, are familiar to all students of history. The two
undoubtedly must coexist everywhere, and have to be reconciled; but the
nature of the adjustment, in the clear predominance of the one or the
other, constitutes a difference which in effect upon the particular
community is fundamental. In international relations, between states
representing the opposing ideas, it reproduces the contrast between the
simple discipline of an army and the complicated disseminated activities
of the people, industrial, agricultural, and commercial. It repeats the
struggle of the many minor mercantile firms against a single great
combination. In either field, whatever the ultimate issue,—and in the
end the many will prevail,—the immediate result is that preponderant
concentrated force has its way for a period which may thus be one of
great and needless distress; and it not only has its way, but it takes
its way, because, whatever progress the world has made, the stage has
not been reached when men or states willingly subordinate their own
interests to even a reasonable regard for that of others. It is not
necessary to indulge in pessimistic apprehension, or to deny that there
is a real progress of the moral forces lumped under the name of “public
opinion.” This unquestionably tells for much more than it once did; but
still the old predatory instinct, that he should take who has the power,
survives, in industry and commerce, as well as in war, and moral force
is not sufficient to determine issues unless supported by physical.
Governments are corporations, and corporations have not souls.
Governments moreover are trustees, not principals; and as such must put
first the lawful interests of their wards, their own people.
It matters little what may be the particular intentions now cherished by
the German government. The fact upon which the contemporary world needs
to fasten its attention is that it is confronted by the simple existence
of a power such as is that of the German Empire; reinforced necessarily
by that of Austria-Hungary, because, whatever her internal troubles and
external ambitions, Austria is bound to Germany by nearness, by inferior
power, and by interests, partly common to the two states, as surely as
the moon is bound to the earth and with it constitutes a single group in
the planetary system. Over against this stands for the moment a number
of states, Russia, Italy, France, Great Britain. The recent action of
Russia has demonstrated her international weakness, the internal causes
of which are evident even to the most careless observer. Italy still
belongs to the Triple Alliance, of which Germany and Austria are the
other members; but the inclination of Italy towards England, springing
from past sympathies, and as a state necessarily naval, because partly
insular, partly peninsular, is known, as is also her recent drawing
towards France as compared with former estrangement. Also, in the Balkan
regions and in the Adriatic Sea there is more than divergence between
the interest of Italy and the ambitions of Austria,—supported by
Germany,—as shown in the late annexations and their antecedents. An
Austrian journal, which fore-shadowed the annexations with singular
acumen, has written recently,[112] “We most urgently need a fleet so
strong that it can rule the Northern Adriatic basin,”—in which lies the
Italian Venice, as well as the Austrian Trieste,—“support the operations
of our land army, protect our chief commercial ports against hostile
maritime undertakings, and prevent us from being throttled at the Strait
of Otranto. To do this, the fleet must at least attain the approximate
strength of our probable enemy. If we lag behind in developing our naval
programme, Italy will so outrun us that we can never overtake her. Here
more than elsewhere to stand still is to recede; but to recede would be
to renounce the historical mission of Austria.” The Austrian
_Dreadnoughts_ are proceeding, and the above throws an interesting side
light upon the equipoise of the Triple Alliance. In the Algeciras
Conference, concerning the affairs of Morocco, Italy did not sustain
Germany; Austria only did so.
Analyzing thus the present international relations of Europe, we find on
the one side the recently constituted Triple _Entente_, France, Great
Britain, and Russia; on the other the Triple Alliance, Austria-Hungary,
Germany, and Italy, of thirty years’ standing. The sympathies of Italy,
as distinguished from the pressure of conditions upon her, and from her
formal association, are doubtful; and the essentials of the situation
seem to be summed up in the Triple _Entente_ opposed by the two
mid-Europe military monarchies.
_The Bulwark of British Sea Power_[113]
[The intervening pages show that exposure on their land frontiers would
weaken the aid that could be given Great Britain by her allies in
continental Europe.—EDITOR.]
These conclusions, if reasonable, not only emphasize the paramount
importance in world politics of the British navy, but they show also
that there are only two naval states which can afford to help Great
Britain with naval force, because they alone have no land frontiers
which march with those of Germany. These states are Japan and the United
States. In looking to the future, it becomes for them a question whether
it will be to their interest, whether they can afford, to exchange the
naval supremacy of Great Britain for that of Germany; for this
alternative may arise. Those two states and Germany cannot, as matters
now stand, touch one another, except on the open sea; whereas the
character of the British Empire is such that it has everywhere sea
frontiers, is everywhere assailable where local naval superiority does
not exist, as for instance in Australia, and other Eastern possessions.
The United States has upon Great Britain the further check of Canada,
open to land attack.
A German navy, supreme by the fall of Great Britain, with a supreme
German army able to spare readily a large expeditionary force for
over-sea operations, is one of the possibilities of the future. Great
Britain for long periods, in the Seven Years War and Napoleonic
struggle, 1756–1815, has been able to do, and has done, just this; not
because she has had a supreme army, but because, thanks to her insular
situation, her naval supremacy covered effectually both the home
positions and the expedition. The future ability of Germany thus to act
is emphasized to the point of probability by the budgetary difficulties
of Great Britain, by the general disorganization of Russia, and by the
arrest of population in France. Though vastly the richer nation, the
people of Great Britain, for the very reason of greater wealth long
enjoyed, are not habituated to the economical endurance of the German;
nor can the habits of individual liberty in England or America accept,
unless under duress, the heavy yoke of organization, of regulation of
individual action, which constitutes the power of Germany among modern
states.
The rivalry between Germany and Great Britain to-day is the danger
point, not only of European politics, but of world politics as well.
36. ADVANTAGES OF INSULAR POSITION[114]
_Great Britain and the Continental Powers_
Every war has two aspects, the defensive and the offensive, to each of
which there is a corresponding factor of activity. There is something to
gain, the offensive; there is something to lose, the defensive. The ears
of men, especially of the uninstructed, are more readily and
sympathetically open to the demands of the latter. It appeals to the
conservatism which is dominant in the well-to-do, and to the widespread
timidity which hesitates to take any risk for the sake of a probable
though uncertain gain. The sentiment is entirely respectable in itself,
and more than respectable when its power is exercised against breach of
the peace for other than the gravest motives—for any mere lucre of gain.
But its limitations must be understood. A sound defensive scheme,
sustaining the bases of the national force, is the foundation upon which
war rests; but who lays a foundation without intending a superstructure?
The offensive element in warfare is the superstructure, the end and aim
for which the defensive exists, and apart from which it is to all
purposes of war worse than useless. When war has been accepted as
necessary, success means nothing short of victory; and victory must be
sought by offensive measures, and by them only can be ensured. “Being
in, bear it, that the opposer may be ware of thee.” No mere defensive
attitude or action avails to such end. Whatever the particular mode of
offensive action adopted, whether it be direct military attack, or the
national exhaustion of the opponent by cutting off the sources of
national well-being, whatsoever method may be chosen, offense, injury,
weakening of the foe, to annihilation if need be, must be the guiding
purpose of the belligerent. Success will certainly attend him who drives
his adversary into the position of the defensive and keeps him there.
Offense therefore dominates, but it does not exclude. The necessity for
defense remains obligatory, though subordinate. The two are
complementary. It is only in the reversal of _rôles_, by which priority
of importance is assigned to the defensive, that ultimate defeat is
involved. Nor is this all. Though opposed in idea and separable in
method of action, circumstances not infrequently have permitted the
union of the two in a single general plan of campaign, which protects at
the same time that it attacks. “Fitz James’s blade was sword and
shield.” Of this the system of blockades by the British Navy during the
Napoleonic wars was a marked example. Thrust up against the ports of
France, and lining her coasts, they covered—shielded—the operations of
their own commerce and cruisers in every sea; while at the same time,
crossing swords, as it were, with the fleets within, ever on guard,
ready to attack, should the enemy give an opening by quitting the
shelter of his ports, they frustrated his efforts at a combination of
his squadrons by which alone he could hope to reverse conditions. All
this was defensive; but the same operation cut the sinews of the enemy’s
power by depriving him of sea-borne commerce, and promoted the reduction
of his colonies. Both these were measures of offense; and both, it may
be added, were directed upon the national communications, the sources of
national well-being. The means was one, the effect twofold....
[It is shown that, in the case of insular states, offense and defense
are often closely combined, home security depending on control of the
sea assured by offensive action of the national fleet.—EDITOR.]
An insular state, which alone can be purely maritime, therefore
contemplates war from a position of antecedent probable superiority from
the twofold concentration of its policy; defense and offense being
closely identified, and energy, if exerted judiciously, being fixed upon
the increase of naval force to the clear subordination of that more
narrowly styled military. The conditions tend to minimize the division
of effort between offensive and defensive, purpose, and, by greater
comparative development of the fleet, to supply a larger margin of
disposable numbers in order to constitute a mobile superiority at a
particular point of the general field. Such a decisive local superiority
at the critical point of action is the chief end of the military art,
alike in tactics and strategy. Hence it is clear that an insular state,
if attentive to the conditions that should dictate its policy, is
inevitably led to possess a superiority in that particular kind of
force, the mobility of which enables it most readily to project its
power to the more distant quarters of the earth, and also to change its
point of application at will with unequalled rapidity.
The general considerations that have been advanced concern all the great
European nations, in so far as they look outside their own continent,
and to maritime expansion, for the extension of national influence and
power; but the effect upon the action of each differs necessarily
according to their several conditions. The problem of sea-defense, for
instance, relates primarily to the protection of the national commerce
everywhere, and specifically as it draws near the home ports; serious
attack upon the coast, or upon the ports themselves, being a secondary
consideration, because little likely to befall a nation able to extend
its power far enough to sea to protect its merchant ships. From this
point of view the position of Germany is embarrassed at once by the fact
that she has, as regards the world at large, but one coast-line. To and
from this all her sea commerce must go; either passing the English
Channel, flanked for three hundred miles by France on the one side and
England on the other, or else going north about by the Orkneys, a most
inconvenient circuit, and obtaining but imperfect shelter from recourse
to this deflected route. Holland, in her ancient wars with England, when
the two were fairly matched in point of numbers, had dire experience of
this false position, though her navy was little inferior in numbers to
that of her opponent. This is another exemplification of the truth that
distance is a factor equivalent to a certain number of ships.
Sea-defense for Germany, in case of war with France or England, means
established naval predominance at least in the North Sea; nor can it be
considered complete unless extended through the Channel and as far as
Great Britain will have to project hers into the Atlantic. This is
Germany’s initial disadvantage of position, to be overcome only by
adequate superiority of numbers; and it receives little compensation
from the security of her Baltic trade, and the facility for closing that
sea to her enemies. In fact, Great Britain, whose North Sea trade is but
one-fourth of her total, lies to Germany as Ireland does to Great
Britain, flanking both routes to the Atlantic; but the great development
of the British sea-coast, its numerous ports and ample internal
communications, strengthen that element of sea-defense which consists in
abundant access to harbors of refuge.
For the Baltic Powers, which comprise all the maritime States east of
Germany, the commercial drawback of the Orkney route is a little less
than for Hamburg and Bremen, in that the exit from the Baltic is nearly
equidistant from the north and south extremities of England;
nevertheless the excess in distance over the Channel route remains very
considerable. The initial naval disadvantage is in no wise diminished.
For all the communities east of the Straits of Dover it remains true
that in war commerce is paralyzed, and all the resultant consequences of
impaired national strength entailed, unless decisive control of the
North Sea is established. That effected, there is security for commerce
by the northern passage; but this alone is mere defense. Offense,
exerted anywhere on the globe, requires a surplusage of force, over that
required to hold the North Sea, sufficient to extend and maintain itself
west of the British Islands. In case of war with either of the Channel
Powers, this means, as between the two opponents, that the eastern
belligerent has to guard a long line of communications, and maintain
distant positions, against an antagonist resting on a central position,
with interior lines, able to strike at choice at either wing of the
enemy’s extended front. The relation which the English Channel, with its
branch the Irish Sea, bears to the North Sea and the Atlantic—that of an
interior position—is the same which the Mediterranean bears to the
Atlantic and the Indian Sea; nor is it merely fanciful to trace in the
passage round the north of Scotland an analogy to that by the Cape of
Good Hope. It is a reproduction in miniature. The conditions are
similar, the scale different. What the one is to a war whose scene is
the north of Europe, the other is to operations by European Powers in
Eastern Asia.
To protract such a situation is intolerable to the purse and _morale_ of
the belligerent who has the disadvantage of position. This of course
leads us straight back to the fundamental principles of all naval war,
namely, that defense is ensured only by offense, and that the one
decisive objective of the offensive is the enemy’s organized force, his
battle fleet. Therefore, in the event of a war between one of the
Channel Powers, and one or more of those to the eastward, the control of
the North Sea must be at once decided. For the eastern State it is a
matter of obvious immediate necessity, of commercial self-preservation.
For the western State the offensive motive is equally imperative; but
for Great Britain there is defensive need as well. Her Empire imposes
such a development of naval force as makes it economically impracticable
to maintain an army as large as those of the Continent. Security against
invasion depends therefore upon the fleet. Postponing more distant
interests, she must here concentrate an indisputable superiority. It is,
however, inconceivable that against any one Power Great Britain should
not be able here to exert from the first a preponderance which would
effectually cover all her remoter possessions. Only an economical
decadence, which would of itself destroy her position among nations,
could bring her so to forego the initial advantage she has, in the fact
that for her offense and defense meet and are fulfilled in one factor,
the command of the sea. History has conclusively demonstrated the
inability of a state with even a single continental frontier to compete
in naval development with one that is insular, although of smaller
population and resources. A coalition of Powers may indeed affect the
balance. As a rule, however, a single state against a coalition holds
the interior position, the concentrated force; and while calculation
should rightly take account of possibilities, it should beware of
permitting imagination too free sway in presenting its pictures. Were
the eastern Powers to combine they might prevent Great Britain’s use of
the North Sea for the safe passage of her merchant shipping; but even so
she would but lose commercially the whole of a trade, the greater part
of which disappears by the mere fact of war. Invasion is not possible,
unless her fleet can be wholly disabled from appearing in that sea. From
her geographical position, she still holds her gates open to the outer
world, which maintains three fourths of her commerce in peace.
37. BEARING OF POLITICAL DEVELOPMENTS ON NAVAL POLICY AND STRATEGY[115]
The external activities of Europe, noted a dozen years ago and before,
have now to a certain extent been again superseded by rivalries within
Europe itself. Those rivalries, however, are the result of their
previous external activities, and in the last analysis they depend upon
German commercial development. This has stimulated the German Empire to
a prodigious naval programme, which affects the whole of Europe and may
affect the United States. In 1897 I summed up two conspicuous European
conditions as being the equilibrium then existing between France and
Germany, with their respective allies, and the withdrawal of Great
Britain from active association with the affairs of the Continent. At
that date the Triple Alliance, Austria, Germany, Italy, stood against
the Dual Alliance, France and Russia; Great Britain apart from both, but
with elements of antagonism against Russia and France, and not against
the German monarchies or Italy. These antagonisms arose wholly from
conditions external to Europe,—in India against Russia, and in Africa
against France. Later, the paralysis of Russia, through her defeat by
Japan, and through her internal troubles, left France alone for a time;
during which Germany, thus assured against land attack, was better able
to devote much money to the fleet, as the protector of her growing
commerce. The results have been a projected huge German navy, and a
German altercation with France relative to Moroccan affairs; incidents
which have aroused Great Britain to a sense of naval danger, and have
propelled her to the understandings—whatever they amount to—with France
and Russia, which we now know as the Triple _Entente_. In short, Great
Britain has abandoned the isolation of twenty years ago, stands joined
to the Dual Alliance, and it becomes a Triple _Entente_.
To the United States this means that Great Britain, once our chief
opponent in matters covered by the Monroe Doctrine, but later by the
logic of events drawn to recede from that opposition, so that she
practically backed us against Europe in 1898, and subsequently conceded
the Panama arrangement known as the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty, cannot at
present count for as much as she did in naval questions throughout the
world. It means to the United States and to Japan that Great Britain has
too much at stake at home to side with the one or the other, granting
she so wished, except as bound by treaty, which implies reciprocal
obligations. Between her and Japan such specific obligations exist. They
do not in the case of the United States; and the question whether the
two countries are disposed to support one another, and, if so, to what
extent, or what the attitude of Great Britain would be in case of
difficulty between Japan and the United States, are questions directly
affecting naval strategy.[116]
Great Britain does indeed for the moment hold Germany so far in check
that the German Empire also can do no more than look after its European
interests; but should a naval disaster befall Great Britain, leaving
Germany master of the naval situation, the world would see again a
predominant fleet backed by a predominant army, and that in the hands,
not of a state satiated with colonial possessions, as Great Britain is,
but of one whose late entry into world conditions leaves her without any
such possessions at all of any great value. The habit of mind is narrow
which fails to see that a navy such as Germany is now building will be
efficacious for other ends than those immediately proposed. The
existence of such a fleet is a constant factor in contemporary politics;
the part which it shall play depending upon circumstances not always to
be foreseen. Although the colonial ambitions of Germany are held in
abeyance for the moment, the wish cannot but exist to expand her
territory by foreign acquisitions, to establish external bases for the
support of commercial or political interests, to build up such kindred
communities as now help to constitute the British Empire, homes for
emigrants, markets for industries, sources of supplies of raw materials,
needed by those industries.
All such conditions and ambitions are incidents with which Strategy,
comprehensively considered, has to deal. By the successive enunciations
of the Monroe Doctrine the United States stands committed to the
position that no particle of American soil shall pass into the hands of
a non-American State other than the present possessor. No successful war
between foreign states, no purchase, no exchange, no merger, such as the
not impossible one of Holland with Germany, is allowed as valid cause
for such transfer. This is a very large contract; the only guarantee of
which is an adequate navy, however the term “adequate” be defined.
Adequacy often depends not only upon existing balances of power, such,
for instance, as that by which the British and German navies now affect
one another, which for the moment secures the observance of the
Doctrine. Account must be taken also of evident policies which threaten
to disturb such balances, such as the official announcement by Germany
of her purpose to create a “fleet of such strength that, even for the
mightiest naval power, a war with Germany would involve such risks as to
jeopardize its own supremacy.” This means, at least, that Great Britain
hereafter shall not venture, as in 1898, to back the United States
against European interference; nor to support France in Morocco; nor to
carry out as against Germany her alliance with Japan. It is a matter of
very distinct consequence in naval strategy that Great Britain, after
years of contention with the United States, essentially opposed to the
claims of the Monroe Doctrine, should at last have come to substantial
coincidence with the American point of view, even though she is not
committed to a formal announcement to that effect.[117] Such relations
between states are primarily the concern of the statesman, a matter of
international policies; but they are also among the data which the
strategist, naval as well as land, has to consider, because they are
among the elements which determine the constitution and size of the
national fleet.
I here quote with approval a statement of the French Captain Darrieus:
“Among the complex problems to which the idea of strategy gives rise
there is none more important than that of the constitution of the fleet;
and every project which takes no account of the foreign relations of a
great nation, nor of the material limit fixed by its resources, rests
upon a weak and unstable base.”
I repeat also the quotation from Von der Goltz: “We must have a
_national_ strategy, a _national_ tactics.” I cannot too entirely
repudiate any casual word of mine, reflecting the tone which once was so
traditional in the navy that it might be called professional,—that
“political questions belong rather to the statesman than to the military
man.” I find these words in my old lectures, but I very soon learned
better, from my best military friend, Jomini; and I believe that no
printed book of mine endorses the opinion that external politics are of
no professional concern to military men.
It was in accordance with this changed opinion that in 1895, and again
in 1897, I summed up European conditions as I conceived them to be;
pointing out that the distinguishing feature at that time was
substantial equilibrium on the Continent, constituting what is called
the Balance of Power; and, in connection with the calm thus resulting,
an immense colonizing movement, in which substantially all the great
Powers were concerned. This I indicated as worthy of the notice of naval
strategists, because there were parts of the American continents which
for various reasons might attract upon themselves this movement, in
disregard of the Monroe Doctrine.
Since then the scene has shifted greatly, the distinctive feature of the
change being the growth of Germany in industrial, commercial, and naval
power,—all three; while at the same time maintaining her military
pre-eminence, although that has been somewhat qualified by the
improvement of the French army, just as the growth of the German navy
has qualified British superiority at sea. Coincident with this German
development has been the decline of Russia, owing to causes generally
understood; the stationariness of France in population, while Germany
has increased fifty per cent; and the very close drawing together of
Germany and Austria, for reasons of much more controlling power than the
mere treaty which binds them. The result is that to-day central Europe,
that is, Austria and Germany, form a substantially united body,
extending from water to water, from North Sea to Adriatic, wielding a
military power against which, on the land, no combination in Europe can
stand. The Balance of Power no longer exists; that is, if my estimate is
correct of the conditions and dispersion which characterize the other
nations relatively to this central mass.
This situation, coinciding with British trade jealousies of the new
German industries, and with the German naval programme, have forced
Great Britain out of the isolation which the Balance of Power permitted
her. Her _ententes_ are an attempt to correct the disturbance of the
balance; but, while they tend in that direction, they are not adequate
to the full result desired. The balance remains uneven; and consequently
European attention is concentrated upon European conditions, instead of
upon the colonizing movements of twenty years ago. Germany even has
formally disavowed such colonizing ambitions, by the mouth of her
ambassador to the United States, confirmed by her minister of foreign
affairs, although a dozen years ago they were conspicuous. Concerning
these colonizing movements, indeed, it might be said that they have
reached a moment of quiet, of equilibrium, while internally Europe is
essentially disquieted, as various incidents have shown.
The important point to us here is the growing power of the German
Empire, in which the efficiency of the State as an organic body is so
greatly superior to that of Great Britain, and may prove to be to that
of the United States. The two English-speaking countries have wealth
vastly superior, each separately, to that of Germany; much more if
acting together. But in neither is the efficiency of the Government for
handling the resources comparable to that of Germany; and there is no
apparent chance or recognized inducement for them to work together, as
Germany and Austria now work in Europe. The consequence is that Germany
may deal with each in succession much more effectively than either is
now willing to consider; Europe being powerless to affect the issue so
long as Austria stands by Germany, as she thoroughly understands that
she has every motive to do.
It is this line of reasoning which shows the power of the German navy to
be a matter of prime importance to the United States. The power to
control Germany does not exist in Europe, except in the British navy;
and if social and political conditions in Great Britain develop as they
now promise, the British navy will probably decline in relative
strength, so that it will not venture to withstand the German on any
broad lines of policy, but only in the narrowest sense of immediate
British interests. Even this condition may disappear, for it seems as if
the national life of Great Britain were waning at the same time that
that of Germany is waxing. The truth is, Germany, by traditions of two
centuries, inherits now a system of state control, not only highly
developed but with a people accustomed to it,—a great element of force;
and this at the time when control of the individual by the
community—that is, by the state—is increasingly the note of the times.
Germany has in this matter a large start. Japan has much the same.
When it is remembered that the United States, like Great Britain and
like Japan, can be approached only by sea, we can scarcely fail to see
that upon the sea primarily must be found our power to secure our own
borders and to sustain our external policy, of which at the present
moment there are two principal elements; namely, the Monroe Doctrine and
the Open Door. Of the Monroe Doctrine President Taft, in his first
message to Congress, has said that it has advanced sensibly towards
general acceptance; and that maintenance of its positions in the future
need cause less anxiety than it has in the past. Admitting this, and
disregarding the fact that the respect conceded to it by Europe depends
in part at least upon European rivalries modifying European ability to
intervene,—a condition which may change as suddenly as has the power of
Russia within the decade,—it remains obvious that the policy of the Open
Door requires naval power quite as really and little less directly than
the Monroe Doctrine. For the scene of the Open Door contention is the
Pacific; the gateway to the Pacific for the United States is the
Isthmus; the communications to the Isthmus are by way of the Gulf of
Mexico and the Caribbean Sea. The interest of that maritime region
therefore is even greater now than it was when I first undertook the
strategic study of it, over twenty years ago. Its importance to the
Monroe Doctrine and to general commercial interests remains, even if
modified.
At the date of my first attempt to make this study of the Caribbean, and
to formulate certain principles relative to Naval Strategy, there
scarcely could be said to exist any defined public consciousness of
European and American interest in sea power, and in the methods of its
application which form the study of Strategy. The most striking
illustration of this insensibility to the sea was to be found in
Bismarck, who in a constructive sense was the greatest European
statesman of that day. After the war with France and the acquisition of
Alsace and Lorraine, he spoke of Germany as a state satiated with
territorial expansion. In the matter of external policy she had reached
the limits of his ambitions for her; and his mind thenceforth was set on
internal development, which should harmonize the body politic and ensure
Germany the unity and power which he had won for her. His scheme of
external relations did not stretch beyond Europe. He was then too old to
change to different conceptions, although he did not neglect to follow
the demand of the people as their industry and commerce developed.
The contrast between the condition of indifference to the sea which he
illustrated and that which now exists is striking; and the German
Empire, which owes to him above all men its modern greatness, offers the
most conspicuous illustration of the change. The new great navies of the
world since 1887 are the German, the Japanese, and the American. Every
state in Europe is now awake to the fact that the immediate coming
interests of the world, which are therefore its own national interest,
must be in the other continents. Europe in its relatively settled
conditions offers really the base of operations for enterprises and
decisive events, the scene of which will be in countries where political
or economical backwardness must give place to advances which will be
almost revolutionary in kind. This can scarcely be accomplished without
unsettlements, the composing of which will depend upon force. Such force
by a European state—with the single exception of Russia, and possibly,
in a less degree, of Austria—can be exerted only through a navy.
38. SEIZURE OF PRIVATE PROPERTY AT SEA[118]
The essence of the question involved in the seizure of “private
property” at sea is transportation; and with three such conspicuous
instances[119] within a century its effectiveness is historically
demonstrated. The belligerent state, in the exercise of a right as yet
conceded by international law, says in substance to its adversary, “I
forbid your citizens the maritime transportation of their commercial
property. Articles of whatever character, including the vessels which
carry them, violating this lawful order will be seized and condemned.”
Seizure is made contingent upon movement; otherwise the property is
merely bidden to stay at home, where it will be safe. All this is in
strict conformity with the execution of law under common conditions; and
the practice is now regulated with a precision and system consonant to
other legal adjudication, the growth of centuries of jurisprudence
directed to this particular subject. Its general tendency I have
indicated by certain specific instances. It is efficient to the ends of
war, more or less, according to circumstances; and by distributing the
burden over the whole community affected it tends to peace, as exemption
from capture could not do. If the suffering of war could be made to fall
only on the combatants actually in the field, the rest of the nation
being protected from harm and loss by the assured ability to pursue
their usual avocations undisturbed, the selfishness of men would more
readily resort to violence to carry their ends.
In support of the widespread effects of interruption to transportation,
I gladly quote one of the recent contendents for immunity of “private
property” from maritime capture. Having on one page maintained the
ineffectiveness of the seizure, because individual losses never force a
nation to make peace, he concludes his article by saying:
“The question interests directly and vitally thousands of people in
every country. It is of vital importance to those who go down to the sea
in ships, and those who occupy their business in great waters. It
appeals not only to every shipowner, but also to every merchant whose
goods are shipped upon the sea, to every farmer whose grain is sent
abroad, to every manufacturer who sells to a foreign market, and to
every banker who is dependent upon the prosperity of his countrymen.”
I can do little to enhance this vivid presentation by an opponent; yet
if we add to his list the butchers, the bakers, the tailors, shoemakers,
grocers, whose customers economize; the men who drive drays to and from
shipping, and find their occupation gone; the railroads, as the great
common carriers, whose freights fall off; the stockholders whose
dividends shrink; we shall by no means have exhausted the far-reaching
influence of this intermeddling with transportation. It is a belligerent
measure which touches every member of the hostile community, and, by
thus distributing the evils of war, as insurance distributes the burden
of other losses, it brings them home to every man, fostering in each a
disposition to peace.
It doubtless will not have escaped readers familiar with the subject of
maritime prize that so far I have not distinguished between the
interruption of transportation by blockade and that by seizure on the
high seas. The first, it may be said, is not yet in question; the second
only is challenged. My reason has been that the underlying military
principle—and, as I claim, justification—is the same in both; and, as we
are dealing with a question of war, the military principle is of equal
consideration with any other, if not superior. The effect produced is in
character the same in both. In efficacy, they differ, and their
comparative values in this respect are a legitimate subject for
discussion. In principle and method, however, they are identical; both
aim at the stoppage of transportation, as a means of destroying the
resources of the enemy, and both are enforced by the seizure and
condemnation of “private property” transgressing the orders.
This community of operation is so evident that, historically, the
advocates of exemption of private property from confiscation in the one
case have demanded, or at the least suggested, that blockade as a
military measure cannot be instituted against commerce—that it can be
resorted to only as against contraband, or where a port is “invested” by
land as well as by sea. This was Napoleon’s contention in the Berlin
Decree; and it is worthy of grave attention that, under the pressure of
momentary expediency, the United States more than once, between 1800 and
1812, advanced the same view. This I have shown in my history of the War
of 1812.[120] Had this opinion then prevailed, the grinding blockade of
the War of Secession could not have been applied. If we may imagine the
United States and the Confederate States parties to a Hague Conference,
we can conceive the impassioned advocacy of restricted blockade by the
one, and the stubborn refusal of the other. This carries a grave warning
to test seeming expediency in retaining or yielding a prescriptive
right. There is no moral issue, if my previous argument is correct;
unless it be moral, and I think it is, to resort to pecuniary pressure
rather than to bloodshed to enforce a belligerent contention. As regards
expediency, however, each nation should carefully weigh the effects upon
itself, upon its rivals, and upon the general future of the community of
states, before abandoning a principle of far-reaching consequence, and
in operation often beneficent in restraining or shortening war.
It has been urged that conditions have so changed, through the numerous
alternatives to sea transport now available, that the former efficacy
can no longer be predicted. There might be occasional local suffering,
but for communities at large the streams of supply are so many that the
particular result of general popular distress will not be attained to
any decisive degree. Has this argument really been well weighed? None,
of course, will dispute that certain conditions have been much modified,
and for the better. Steam not only has increased rapidity of land
transit for persons and goods; it has induced the multiplication of
roads, and enforced the maintenance of them in good condition. Thanks to
such maintenance, we are vastly less at the mercy of the seasons than we
once were, and communities now have several lines of communication open
where formerly they were dependent upon one. Nevertheless, for obvious
reasons of cheapness and of facility, water transport sustains its
ascendancy. It may carry somewhat less proportionately than in old
times; but, unless we succeed in exploiting the air, water remains, and
always must remain, the great medium of transportation. The open sea is
a road which needs neither building nor repairs. Compared with its
boundless expanse, two lines of rails afford small accommodation—a
circumstance which narrowly limits their capacity for freight.
[It is shown that water transportation still plays an immense part in
commerce, even in the case of inland watercourses in competition with
railroads, and that any interruption of commerce throws a heavy burden
on the nation involved.—EDITOR.]
Such derangement of an established system of sea transportation is more
searching, as well as more easy, when the shipping involved has to pass
close by an enemy’s shores; and still more if the ports of possible
arrival are few. This is conspicuously the case of Germany and the
Baltic States relatively to Great Britain, and would be of Great Britain
were Ireland independent and hostile. The striking development of German
mercantile tonnage is significant of the growing grandeur, influence,
and ambitions of the empire. Its exposure, in case of war with Great
Britain, and only in less degree with France, would account, were other
reasons wanting, for the importunate demand for naval expansion. Other
reasons are not wanting; but in the development of her merchant shipping
Germany, to use a threadbare phrase, has given a hostage to Fortune.
Except by the measure advocated, and here opposed, of exempting from
capture merchant vessels of a belligerent, with their cargoes, as being
“private property,” Germany is bound over to keep the peace, unless
occasion of national safety—vital interests—or honor drive her, or
unless she equip a navy adequate to so great a task as protecting fully
the carrying-trade she has laboriously created. The exposure of this
trade is not merely a matter of German interest, nor yet of British. It
is of international concern, a circumstance making for peace.
The retort is foreseen: How stands a nation to which the native
mercantile shipping, carrying-trade, is a distinctly minor interest, and
therefore does not largely affect the question of transportation? This
being maintained by neutrals, the accretion of national wealth by
circulation may go on little impaired by hostilities. The first most
obvious reply is that such is a distinctly specialized case in a general
problem, and that its occurrence and continuance are dependent upon
circumstances which frequently vary. It lacks the elements of
permanence, and its present must therefore be regarded with an eye to
the past and future. A half-century ago the mercantile marine of the
United States was, and for nearly a century before had been, a close
second to that of Great Britain; to-day it is practically non-existent,
except for coasting-trade. On the other hand, during the earlier period
the thriving Hanse towns were nearly the sole representatives of German
shipping, which now, issuing from the same harbors, on a strip of coast
still narrow, is pressing rapidly forward under the flag of the empire
to take the place vacated by the Americans.
With such a reversal of conditions in two prominent examples, the
problem of to-day in any one case is not that of yesterday, and may very
well not be that of to-morrow. From decade to decade experience shifts
like a weather-cock; the statesman mounted upon it becomes a Mr.
Facing-Bothways. The denial of commercial blockade, the American
national expediency of 1800, suggested by such eminent jurists as John
Marshall and James Madison, would have been ruinous manacles to the
nation of 1861–65. A government weighing its policy with reference to
the future, having regard to possible as well as actual conditions,
would do well before surrendering existing powers—the bird in the
hand—to consider rather the geographical position of the country, its
relation to maritime routes—the strategy, so to say, of the general
permanent situation—and the military principles upon which maritime
capture rests. In that light a more accurate estimate will be made of
temporary tactical circumstances, to-day’s conditions—such, for
instance, as set forth by the present Lord Chancellor of Great
Britain.[121] In his letter, favoring immunity from capture for “private
property,” disproportionate stress is laid upon the dangers of Great
Britain, the points which make against her; a serious tactical error.
The argument from exposure is so highly developed, that the possible
enemies whose co-operation is needed to secure the desired immunity for
“private” property might well regard the request to assist as spreading
the net in the sight of the bird; a vanity which needs not a wise man to
detect. On the other hand, the offensive advantage of capture to Great
Britain, owing to her situation, is, in my judgment, inadequately
appreciated.
The writer has fallen into the mistake which our General Sherman
characterized as undue imagination concerning what “the man on the other
side of the hill” might do; a quaint version of the first Napoleon’s
warning against “making a picture to yourself.” The picture of Great
Britain’s dangers is overdrawn; that to her enemies—“the full measure of
the mischief we could do to a Continental nation”—is underdrawn. It
would seem as if, in his apprehension, “the disastrous consequences[122]
which would flow from even slight depredations by commerce destroyers on
British shipping” could find no parallel in the results to a Continental
trade from British cruisers. France or Germany, for example, shut off
from the sea, can be supplied by rail from, say, Antwerp or Rotterdam;
but it is apparently inconceivable that, in the contingency of a
protracted naval war, the same ports might equally supply Great Britain
by neutral ships. Alternate sea routes close, apparently automatically;
only alternate land routes stay open. Thus undue weight is laid upon
defensive motives, where the offensive requires the greater emphasis.
The larger merchant tonnage of Great Britain involves a greater
defensive element, yes; but are not defensive conditions favorably
modified by her greater navy, and by her situation, with all her western
ports open to the Atlantic, from Glasgow to Bristol and round to
Southampton? And is not the station for such defense identical with the
best for offense by maritime capture? The British vessels there occupy
also a superior position for coal renewal; the difficulty of which for
an enemy, threatening the Atlantic approaches to Great Britain, seems
too largely discounted by imaginations preoccupied with hostile commerce
destroyers.
The concluding sentence of Lord Loreburn’s letter contains a warning
familiar to military thought. “Great Britain will gain much from a
change long and eagerly _desired_ by the great majority of other
Powers.” The wish of a possible enemy is the beacon which suggests the
shoal. The truth is, if the British Navy maintains superiority, it is to
the interest of her enemies to have immunity from capture for “private
property;” if it falls, it is to their interest to be able to capture.
The inference is safe that probable enemies, if such there be, and if
they entertain the wish asserted, do not expect shortly to destroy the
British Navy.
While unconvinced by the reasoning, it is refreshing to recognize in
this letter a clear practical enunciation which sweeps away much
sentimental rhetoric. “I urge [immunity for private property] not upon
any ground of sentiment or humanity (indeed, no operation of war
inflicts less suffering than the capturing of unarmed vessels at sea),
but upon the ground that on the balance of argument, coolly weighed, the
interests of Great Britain will gain much from the change.” I more than
doubt the conclusion; but its sobriety contrasts pleasantly with the
exuberances, “noble and enlightened action,” “crown of glory,” and the
like, with which it pleases certain of our American advocates to
enwreathe this prosaic utilitarian proposition.
A possibility which affects the general question much more seriously
than others so far considered, is that of neutral carriers taking the
place of a national shipping exposed to capture under present law. This
is one phase of a change which has come over the general conditions of
carrying-trade since the United States became a nation, and since Great
Britain, three quarters of a century afterwards, formally repealed her
Navigation Acts. The discussion preceding this repeal, together with the
coincident Free Trade movement, preceded by but a few years the Treaty
of Paris in 1856, and gave an impulse which doubtless facilitated the
renouncement in that treaty by Great Britain of the right to capture
enemy’s property under a neutral flag. The concession was in the air, as
we say; which proves only that it was contagious, not that it was wise.
Like many hasty steps, however, once taken it probably is irreversible.
The effect of this concession has been to legalize, among the several
great states signatory to the treaty, the carriage of belligerent
property by neutral ships, in which previously it had been liable to
seizure. In its later operation, the condemnation of the enemy’s
property had not involved the neutral carrier further than by the delays
necessary to take her into port, adjudicate the question of ownership,
and remove the property, if found to be belligerent. Such detention,
however, was a strong deterrent, and acted as an impediment to the
circulation of belligerent wealth by neutral means. It tended to
embarrass and impoverish the belligerent; hence the removal of it is a
modification of much importance. Neutral shipping thus is now free to
take a part in hostilities, which formerly it could only do at the risk
of loss, more or less serious. To carry belligerent property, which
under its own flag would be open to seizure, is to aid the belligerent;
is to take part in the war.
In considering such an amelioration, if it be so regarded, it is
possible to exaggerate its degree. If a nation cherishes its
carrying-trade, does a large part of its transportation in its own
vessels, and is unable in war to protect them, the benefit of the
innovation will be but partial. Its own shipping, driven from the sea,
is an important element in the total navigation of the world, and the
means to replace it will not be at once at hand. Neutrals have their own
commerce to maintain, as well as that of the weaker belligerent. They
would not undertake the whole of the latter, if they could; and, if they
would, they will not at once have the means. Steamships driven off the
sea, and for the moment lost to navigation, cannot be replaced as
rapidly as the old sailing-vessels. Moreover, neutral merchants have to
weigh the chances of hostilities being short, and that the banished
shipping of the belligerent may return in its might to the seas with the
dawn of peace, making their own a drug on the market. In short, while
the belligerent profits from a change which gives him free use of
neutral ships, whereas he formerly had only a limited use, a
considerable embarrassment remains. The effect is identical in principle
and operation with that before indicated, as resulting from blockading a
few chief harbors. A certain large fraction of transportation is
paralyzed, and the work done by it is thrown upon ports and roads which
have not the necessary facilities. It is as though a main trunk line of
railroad were seized and held. The general system is deranged, prices
rise, embarrassment results, and is propagated throughout the business
community. This affects the nation by the suffering of thousands of
individuals, and by the consequent reduction of revenue.
It would seem, therefore, that even under modern conditions maritime
capture—of “private” property—is a means of importance to the ends of
war; that it acts directly upon the individual citizens and upon the
financial power of the belligerent, the effect being intensified by
indirect influence upon the fears of the sensitive business world. These
political and financial consequences bring the practice into exact line
with military principle; for, being directed against the resources of
the enemy, by interrupting his communications with the outer world, it
becomes strictly analogous to operations against the communications of
an army with its base—one of the chief objects of strategy. Upon the
maintenance of communications the life of an army depends, upon the
maintenance of commerce the vitality of a state. Money, credit, is the
life of war. Lessen it, and vigor flags; destroy it, and resistance
dies. Accepting these conclusions, each state has to weigh the probable
bearing upon its own fortunes of the continuance or discontinuance of
the practice. From the military point of view the question is not
merely, nor chiefly, “What shall our people escape by the abandonment of
this time-sanctioned method?” but, “What power to overcome the enemy
shall we thereby surrender?” It is a question of balance, between
offense and defense. As Jefferson said, when threatened with a failure
of negotiations, “We shall have to begin the irrational process of
trying which can do the other most harm.” As a summary of war, the
sentence is a caricature; but it incidentally embodies Farragut’s
aphorism, “The best defense is a rapid fire from our own guns.” For the
success of war, offense is better than defense; and in contemplating
this or any other military measure, let there be dismissed at once, as
preposterous, the hope that war can be carried on without some one or
something being hurt; that the accounts should show credit only and no
debit.
For the community of states a broader view should be taken, from the
standpoint that whatever tends to make war more effective tends to
shorten it and to prevent it.
39. THE MORAL ASPECT OF WAR[123]
The poet’s words, “The Parliament of man, the federation of the world,”
were much in men’s mouths this past summer. There is no denying the
beauty of the ideal, but there was apparent also a disposition, in
contemplating it, to contemn the slow processes of evolution by which
Nature commonly attains her ends, and to impose at once, by convention,
the methods that commended themselves to the sanguine. Fruit is not best
ripened by premature plucking, nor can the goal be reached by such short
cuts. Step by step, in the past, man has ascended by means of the sword,
and his more recent gains, as well as present conditions, show that the
time has not yet come to kick down the ladder which has so far served
him. Three hundred years ago, the people of the land in which the
Conference was assembled wrenched with the sword civil and religious
peace, and national independence, from the tyranny of Spain. Then began
the disintegration of her empire, and the deliverance of peoples from
her oppression; but this was completed only last year, and then again by
the sword—of the United States.
In the centuries which have since intervened, what has not “justice,
with valor armed,” when confronted by evil in high places, found itself
compelled to effect by resort to the sword? To it was due the birth of
the United States, not least among the benefits of which was the stern
experience that has made Great Britain no longer the mistress, but the
mother, of her dependencies. The control, to good from evil, of the
devastating fire of the French Revolution, and of Napoleon, was due to
the sword. The long line of illustrious names and deeds, of those who
bore it not in vain, has in our times culminated—if indeed the end is
even yet nearly reached—in the new birth of the United States by the
extirpation of human slavery, and in the downfall, but yesterday, of a
colonial empire identified with tyranny. What the sword, and it
supremely, tempered only by the stern demands of justice and of
conscience, and the loving voice of charity, has done for India and for
Egypt, is a tale at once too long and too well known for repetition
here. Peace, indeed, is not adequate to all progress; there are
resistances that can be overcome only by explosion. What means less
violent than war would in a half-year have solved the Caribbean problem,
shattered national ideas deep rooted in the prepossessions of a century,
and planted the United States in Asia, face to face with the great world
problem of the immediate future? What but the War of 1898 rent the veil
which prevented the English-speaking communities from seeing eye to eye,
and revealed to each the face of a brother? Little wonder that a war
which, with comparatively little bloodshed, brought such consequences,
was followed by the call for a Peace Conference!
Power, force, is a faculty of national life; one of the talents
committed to nations by God. Like every other endowment of a complex
organization, it must be held under control of the enlightened intellect
and of the upright heart; but no more than any other can it be
carelessly or lightly abjured, without incurring the responsibility of
one who buries in the earth that which was entrusted to him for use. And
this obligation to maintain right, by force if need be, while common to
all states, rests peculiarly upon the greater, in proportion to their
means. Much is required of those to whom much is given. So viewed, the
ability speedily to put forth the nation’s power, by adequate
organization and other necessary preparation, according to the
reasonable demands of the nation’s intrinsic strength and of its
position in the world, is one of the clear duties involved in the
Christian word “watchfulness,”—readiness for the call that may come,
whether expectedly or not. Until it is demonstrable that no evil exists,
or threatens the world, which cannot be obviated without recourse to
force, the obligation to readiness must remain; and, where evil is
mighty and defiant, the obligation to use force—that is, war—arises. Nor
is it possible, antecedently, to bring these conditions and obligations
under the letter of precise and codified law, to be administered by a
tribunal. The spirit of legalism is marked by blemishes as real as those
commonly attributed to “militarism,” and not more elevated. The
considerations which determine good and evil, right and wrong, in crises
of national life, or of the world’s history, are questions of equity
often too complicated for decision upon mere rules, or even upon
principles, of law, international or other. The instances of Bulgaria,
of Armenia, and of Cuba, are entirely in point; and it is most probable
that the contentions about the future of China will afford further
illustration. Even in matters where the interest of nations is
concerned, the moral element enters; because each generation in its day
is the guardian of those which shall follow it. Like all guardians,
therefore, while it has the power to act according to its best judgment,
it has no right, for the mere sake of peace, to permit known injustice
to be done to its wards.
The present strong feeling in favor of arbitration, throughout the
nations of the world, is in itself a subject for congratulation almost
unalloyed. It carries indeed a promise, to the certainty of which no
paper covenants can pretend; for it influences the conscience by inward
conviction, not by external fetter. But it must be remembered that such
sentiments, from their very universality and evident laudableness, need
correctives, for they bear in themselves a great danger of excess or of
precipitancy. Excess is seen in the disposition, far too prevalent, to
look upon war not only as an evil, but as an evil unmixed, unnecessary,
and therefore always unjustifiable; while precipitancy, to reach results
considered desirable, is evidenced by the wish to _impose_ arbitration,
to prevent recourse to war, by a general pledge previously made. Both
frames of mind receive expression in the words of speakers among whom a
leading characteristic is lack of measuredness and of proportion. Thus
an eminent citizen is reported to have said: “There is no more occasion
for two nations to go to war than for two men to settle their
difficulties with clubs.” Singularly enough, this point of view assumes
to represent peculiarly Christian teaching. In so doing, it willfully
ignores the truth that Christianity, while it will not force the
conscience by other than spiritual arguments, as “compulsory”
arbitration might, distinctly recognizes the sword as the resister and
remedier of evil in the sphere “of this world.”
Arbitration’s great opportunity has come in the advancing moral
standards of states, whereby the disposition to deliberate wrong-doing
has diminished; consequently, the occasions for redressing wrong by
force are less frequent to arise. In view of recent events, however, and
very especially of notorious, high-handed oppression, initiated since
the calling of the Peace Conference,[124] and resolutely continued
during its sessions in defiance of the public opinion of the world at
large, it is premature to assume that such occasions belong wholly to
the past. Much less can it be assumed that there will be no further
instances of a community believing, conscientiously and entirely, that
honor and duty require of it a certain course, which another community
with equal integrity may hold to be inconsistent with the rights and
obligations of its own members. It is, for instance, quite possible,
especially to one who has recently visited Holland, to conceive that
Great Britain and the Boers are alike satisfied of the substantial
justice of their respective claims. It is permissible most earnestly to
hope that, in disputes between sovereign states, arbitration may find a
way to reconcile peace with fidelity to conscience, in the case of both;
but if the conviction of conscience remains unshaken, war is better than
disobedience,—better than acquiescence in recognized wrong. The great
danger of undiscriminating advocacy of arbitration, which threatens even
the cause it seeks to maintain, is that it may lead men to tamper with
equity, to compromise with unrighteousness, soothing their conscience
with the belief that war is so entirely wrong that beside it no other
tolerated evil is wrong. Witness Armenia, and witness Crete. War has
been avoided; but what of the national consciences that beheld such
iniquity and withheld the hand?
40. THE PRACTICAL ASPECT OF WAR[125]
If it be true, as I have expressed my own conviction, that moral motives
are gaining in force the world over, we can have hope of the time when
they shall prevail; but it is evident that they must prevail over all
nations equally, or with some approach to equality, or else discussion
between two disputants will not rest on the same plane. In the
difference between the United States and Spain, I suppose the argument
of the United States, the moral justification to itself of its proposed
action, would be that misgovernment of Cuba, and needless Cuban
suffering, had continued so long as to show that Spain was not capable
of giving good government to her distant dependency. There was no
occasion to question her desire to give it, the honesty either of her
assertions or measures to that end; but it was quite apparent that it
was not in her to give effect to her efforts. Now, presuming Spain to
take that view, it is conceivable (to the imagination) that her rulers
might say, “Yes, it is true, we have failed continuously. The Cubans
have a moral right to good government, and as we have not been able to
give it them, it is right that we should step out.” But, assuming Spain
unequal to such sublime moral conviction and self-abnegation, what was
the United States to do, as a practical matter? What she did was
perfectly practical; she used the last argument of nations as
international law stands; but, suppose she had gone to arbitration, upon
what grounds would the Court proceed? What the solid prearranged basis
of its decision, should that be that Spain must evacuate Cuba? Is there
anything in the present accord of states, styled International Law, that
would give such power? And, more pertinent still, are states prepared
now to concede to an arbitral Court the power to order them out of
territory which in its opinion they misgovern, or which in its opinion
they should not retain after conquest? _e. g._, Schleswig Holstein,
Alsace and Lorraine, the Transvaal, Porto Rico and the Philippine
Islands?
Or, take another impending and very momentous instance, one fraught with
immeasurable issues. If I rightly appreciate conditions, there is, among
the English-speaking communities bordering the Pacific, a deep
instinctive popular determination, one of those before which rulers have
to bow, to exclude, from employment in the sparsely settled territories
occupied by them, the concentrated crowded mass of mankind found in
Japan and China. More than anything else this sums up the question of
the Pacific. Two seas of humanity, on very different levels as to
numbers and economical conditions, stand separated only by this
artificial dyke of legislation, barring the one from rushing upon and
flooding the other. I do not criticize an attitude with which, whether I
approve or not, I can sympathize; but as I look at the legislation, and
contrast the material conditions, I wonder at the improvidence of
Australasia in trusting that laws, though breathing the utmost popular
conviction and purpose, can protect their lands from that which
threatens. “Go home,” said Franklin to a fellow colonist in the days of
unrest in America, “and tell them to get children. That will settle all
our difficulties.” Fill up your land with men of your own kind, if you
wish to keep it for yourselves. The Pacific States of North America are
filling up, and, more important, they back solidly upon, and are
politically one with, other great communities into which the human tide
is pouring apace; yet in them, too, labor may inflict upon its own aims
revolutionary defeat, if for supposed local advantage it embarrasses the
immigration of its own kind. It is very different for those who are
severed from their like by sea, and therefore must stand on their own
bottom. All the naval· power of the British Empire cannot suffice
ultimately to save a remote community which neither breeds men in plenty
nor freely imports them.
We speak of these questions now as racial, and the expression is
convenient. It is compact, and represents truly one aspect of such
situations, which, however, are essentially economical and territorial.
In long-settled countries race and territory tend to identity of
meaning, but we need scarce a moment’s recollection to know that race
does not bind as do border lines, nor even they as do economical facts.
Economical facts largely brought about the separation of America from
Great Britain; economical facts brought about the American Union and
continue to bind it. The closer union of the territories which now
constitute the British Empire must be found in economical adjustments;
the fact of common race is not sufficient thereto. Now, economical
influences are of the most purely material order—the order of personal
self-interest; in that form at least they appeal to the great majority,
for the instructed political economists form but a small proportion of
any community. Race, yes; territory—country—yes; the heart thrills, the
eyes fill, self-sacrifice seems natural, the moral motive for the moment
prevails; but in the long run the hard pressure of economical truth
comes down upon these with the tyranny of the despot. There are, indeed,
noble leaders not a few, who see in this crushing burden upon their
fellow millions an enemy to be confronted and vanquished, not by direct
opposition, but by circumvention, relieving his sway by bettering
environment, and so giving play to the loftier sentiments. But that
these men may so work they need to be, as we say, independent, released
from the grip of daily bread; and their very mission, alike in its
success and its failures, testifies to the preponderant weight of
economical conditions in the social world....
If with wealth, numbers and opportunity, a people still cannot so
organize their strength as to hold their own, it is not practical to
expect that those to whom wealth and opportunity are lacking, but who
have organizing faculty and willingness to fight, will not under the
pressure of need enter upon an inheritance which need will persuade
themselves is ethically their due. What, it may be asked, is likely to
be the reasoning of an intelligent Chinese or Japanese workman,
realizing the relative opportunities of his crowded country and those of
Australia and California, and finding himself excluded by force? What
ethical, what moral, value will he find in the contention that his
people should not resort to force to claim a share in the better
conditions from which force bars him? How did the white races respect
the policy of isolation in Japan and China, though it only affected
commercial advantages? I do not in the least pronounce upon the ethical
propriety of exclusion by those in possession—the right of property, now
largely challenged. I merely draw attention to the apparent balance of
ethical argument, with the fact of antagonistic economical conditions;
and I say that for such a situation the only practical arbiter is the
physical force, of which war is merely the occasional political
expression.
In the broad outlook, which embraces not merely armed collision, but the
condition of preparation and attitude of mind that enable a people to
put forth, on demand, the full measure of their physical
strength,—numerical, financial and military,—to repel a threatened
injury or maintain a national right, war is the regulator and adjuster
of those movements of the peoples, which in their tendencies and outcome
constitute history. These are natural forces, which from their origin
and power are self-existent and independent in relation to man. His
provision against them is war; the artificial organization of other
forces, intrinsically less powerful materially, but with the advantage
which intelligent combination and direction confer. By this he can
measurably control, guide, delay, or otherwise beneficially modify,
results which threaten to be disastrous in their extent, tendency, or
suddenness. So regarded war is remedial or preventive.
I apprehend that these two adjectives, drawn from the vocabulary of the
healer, embody both the practical and moral justification of war. An
ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. It will be well that we
invoke moral power to help heal the evils of the world, as the physician
brings it to bear on the ills of the body; but few are prepared to rely
upon it alone. We need material aid as well. The dikes of Holland
withstand by direct opposition the natural mission of the North Sea to
swallow up the land they protect. The levees of the Mississippi restrain
and guide to betterment the course of the mighty current, which but for
them would waste its strength to devastate the shores on either hand.
These two artificial devices represent a vast expenditure of time,
money, and energy; of unproductive labor so-called; but they are cheaper
than a flood. The police of our great cities prevent the outburst of
crime, the fearful possibilities of which manifest themselves on the
happily rare occasions when material prevention has from any cause
lapsed. The police bodies are a great expense; but they cost less than a
few days of anarchy. Let us not deceive ourselves by fancying that the
strong material impulses which drive those masses of men whom we style
nations, or races, are to be checked or guided, unless to the argument
of a reasonable contention there be given the strong support of
organized material power. If the organized disappear, the unorganized
will but come into surer and more dreadful collision.
41. MOTIVES FOR NAVAL POWER[126]
There is one further conclusion to be drawn from the war between Japan
and Russia, which contradicts a previous general impression that I
myself have shared, and possibly in some degree have contributed to
diffuse. That impression is, that navies depend upon maritime commerce
as the cause and justification of their existence. To a certain extent,
of course, this is true; and, just because true to a certain extent, the
conclusion is more misleading. Because partly true, it is accepted as
unqualifiedly true. Russia has little maritime commerce, at least in her
own bottoms; her merchant flag is rarely seen; she has a very defective
sea-coast; can in no sense be called a maritime nation. Yet the Russian
navy had the decisive part to play in the late war; and the war was
unsuccessful, not because the navy was not large enough, but because it
was improperly handled. Probably, it also was intrinsically
insufficient—bad in quality; poor troops as well as poor generalship.
The disastrous result does not contravene the truth that Russia, though
with little maritime shipping, was imperatively in need of a navy.
I am not particularly interested here to define the relations of
commerce to a navy. It seems reasonable to say that, where merchant
shipping exists, it tends logically to develop the form of protection
which is called naval; but it has become perfectly evident, by concrete
examples, that a navy may be necessary where there is no shipping.
Russia and the United States to-day are such instances in point. More
and more it becomes clear, that the functions of navies are distinctly
military and international, whatever their historical origin in
particular cases. The navy of the United States, for example, took its
rise from purely commercial considerations. External interests cannot be
confined to those of commerce. They may be political as well as
commercial; may be political because commercial, like the claim to “the
open door” in China; may be political because military, essential to
national defense, like the Panama Canal and Hawaii; may be political
because of national prepossessions and sympathies, race sympathies, such
as exist in Europe, or traditions like the Monroe Doctrine. The Monroe
Doctrine in its beginnings was partly an expression of commercial
interest, directed against a renewal of Spanish monopoly in the colonial
system; it was partly military, defensive against European aggressions
and dangerous propinquity; partly political, in sympathy with
communities struggling for freedom.
A broad basis of mercantile maritime interests and shipping will
doubtless conduce to naval efficiency, by supplying a reserve of
material and personnel. Also, in representative governments, military
interests cannot without loss dispense with the backing which is
supplied by a widely spread, deeply rooted, civil interest, such as
merchant shipping would afford us.
To prepare for war in time of peace is impracticable to commercial
representative nations, because the people in general will not give
sufficient heed to military necessities, or to international problems,
to feel the pressure which induces readiness. All that naval officers
can do is to realize to themselves vividly, make it a part of their
thought, that a merchant shipping is only one form of the many which the
external relations of a country can assume. We have such external
questions in the Monroe Doctrine, the Panama Canal, the Hawaiian
Islands, the market of China, and, I may add, in the exposure of the
Pacific Coast, with its meagre population, insufficiently developed
resources, and somewhat turbulent attitude towards Asiatics. The United
States, with no aggressive purpose, but merely to sustain avowed
policies, for which her people are ready to fight, although unwilling to
prepare, needs a navy both numerous and efficient, even if no merchant
vessel ever again flies the United States flag. If we hold these truths
clearly and comprehensively, as well as with conviction, we may probably
affect those who affect legislation. At all events, so to hold will do
no harm.
APPENDIX
CHRONOLOGICAL OUTLINE
1840. September 27, Alfred Thayer Mahan born at West Point, New York,
son of Professor Dennis Hart Mahan of the U. S. Military
Academy.
1854–1856. Student at Columbia College in the City of New York.
1856. September 30, entered the third class, U. S. Naval Academy, as
acting midshipman. Appointed from the 10th Congressional
District of New York.
1859. June 9, graduated as midshipman.
1859–1861, Frigate _Congress_, Brazil station.
1861. August 31, promoted to lieutenant. Converted steamer _James
Adger_ for ten days.
1861–1862. Steam corvette _Pocahontas_, in the Potomac flotilla;
capture of Port Royal, November 7, 1861; South Atlantic
Blockading Squadron.
1862–1863. Naval Academy at Newport, Rhode Island. First lieutenant in
the _Macedonian_ during the summer practice cruise to England in
1863.
1863–1864. Steam corvette _Seminole_, West Gulf Blockading Squadron.
1864–1865. _James Adger_; staff of Rear Admiral Dahlgren, South
Atlantic Blockading Squadron; _James Adger_.
1865–1866. Double-ender _Muscoota_.
1865. June 7, promoted to lieutenant commander.
1866. Ordnance duty, Washington Navy Yard.
1867–1869. Steam sloop _Iroquois_, to Asiatic station, via Cape of
Good Hope. Detached in 1869; returned via Rome and Paris.
1869. Commanding gunboat _Aroostook_, Asiatic station.
1870–1871. Navy yard, New York.
1871. _Worcester_, home station.
1872. Promoted to commander. Receiving ship, New York.
1873–1874. Commanding side-wheel steamer _Wasp_ in the Rio de la
Plata.
1875–1876. Navy yard, Boston.
1877–1880. Naval Academy, Annapolis.
1880–1883. Navy yard, New York.
1883–1885. Commanding steam sloop _Wachusett_, South Pacific Squadron.
1885. Assigned to Naval War College, as lecturer on naval history and
strategy.
1886–1889. President of Naval War College.
1889–1892. Special duty, Bureau of Navigation. Member of commission to
choose site for navy yard in Puget Sound.
1892–1893. President of Naval War College.
1893–1895. Commanding cruiser _Chicago_, flagship of Rear Admiral
Erben, European station.
1895–1896. Special duty at the Naval War College.
1896. November 17, retired as captain on his own application after
forty years’ service.
1896–1912. Special duty in connection with Naval War College.
1898. Member of Naval War Board during Spanish War.
1899. Delegate to Hague Peace Conference.
1906. June 29, rear admiral on the retired list.
1914. December 1, died at the Naval Hospital, Washington.
ACADEMIC HONORS
D.C.L., Oxford, 1894; LL.D., Cambridge, 1894; LL.D., Harvard, 1895;
LL.D., Yale, 1897; LL.D., Columbia, 1900; LL.D., Magill, 1909; President
of the American Historical Association, 1902.
PUBLISHED WORKS
1883. “The Gulf and Inland Waters.”
1890. “The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660–1783.”
1892. “The Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution and
Empire, 1793–1812.” Two volumes.
“The Life of Admiral Farragut.”
1897. “The Life of Nelson: the Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great
Britain.” Two volumes.
“The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future.”
1899. “Lessons of the War with Spain.”
1900. “The Problem of Asia, and its Effect upon International
Policies.”
“The Story of the War with South Africa, 1899–1900.”
1901. “Types of Naval Officers, Drawn from the History of the British
Navy.”
1902. “Retrospect and Prospect: Studies in International Relations,
Naval and Political.”
1905. “Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812.” Two volumes.
1907. “Some Neglected Aspects of War.”
“From Sail to Steam: Recollections of a Naval Life.”
1908. “Naval Administration and Warfare.”
1909. “The Harvest Within: Thoughts on the Life of a Christian.”
1910. “The Interest of America in International Conditions.”
1911. “Naval Strategy, Compared and Contrasted with the Principles and
Practice of Military Operations on Land.”
1912. “Armaments and Arbitration: the Place of Force in International
Relations.”
1913. “The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American
Independence.”
UNCOLLECTED ESSAYS