_June, 1897._
The importance, absolute and relative, of portions of the earth's
surface, and their consequent interest to mankind, vary from time to
time. The Mediterranean was for many ages the centre round which
gathered all the influences and developments of those earlier
civilizations from which our own, mediately or immediately, derives.
During the chaotic period of struggle that intervened between their
fall and the dawn of our modern conditions, the Inland Sea, through
its hold upon the traditions and culture of antiquity, still retained
a general ascendency, although at length its political predominance
was challenged, and finally overcome, by the younger, more virile, and
more warlike nationalities that had been forming gradually beyond the
Alps, and on the shores of the Atlantic and Northern oceans. It was,
until the close of the Middle Ages, the one route by which the East
and the West maintained commercial relations; for, although the trade
eastward from the Levant was by long and painful land journeys, over
mountain range and desert plain, water communication, in part and up
to that point, was afforded by the Mediterranean, and by it alone.
With the discovery of the passage by the Cape of Good Hope this
advantage departed, while at the same instant the discovery of a New
World opened out to the Old new elements of luxury and a new sphere of
ambition. Then the Mediterranean, thrown upon its own productive
resources alone, swayed in the East by the hopeless barbarism of the
Turk, in the West by the decadent despotism of Spain, and, between the
two, divided among a number of petty states, incapable of united and
consequently of potent action, sank into a factor of relatively small
consequence to the onward progress of the world. During the wars of
the French Revolution, when the life of Great Britain, and
consequently the issue of the strife, depended upon the vigor of
British commerce, British merchant shipping was nearly driven from
that sea; and but two per cent of a trade that was increasing mightily
all the time was thence derived. How the Suez Canal and the growth of
the Eastern Question, in its modern form, have changed all that, it is
needless to say. Yet, through all the period of relative
insignificance, the relations of the Mediterranean to the East and to
the West, in the broad sense of those expressions, preserved to it a
political importance to the world at large which rendered it
continuously a scene of great political ambitions and military
enterprise. Since Great Britain first actively intervened in those
waters, two centuries ago, she at no time has surrendered willingly
her pretensions to be a leading Mediterranean Power, although her
possessions there are of purely military, or rather naval, value.
The Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico, taken together, form an
inland sea and an archipelago. They too have known those mutabilities
of fortune which receive illustration alike in the history of
countries and in the lives of individuals. The first scene of
discovery and of conquest in the New World, these twin sheets of
water, with their islands and their mainlands, became for many
generations, and nearly to our own time, a veritable El Dorado,--a
land where the least of labor, on the part of its new possessors,
rendered the largest and richest returns. The bounty of nature, and
the ease with which climatic conditions, aided by the unwarlike
character of most of the natives, adapted themselves to the
institution of slavery, insured the cheap and abundant production of
articles which, when once enjoyed, men found indispensable, as they
already had the silks and spices of the East. In Mexico and in Peru
were realized also, in degree, the actual gold-mine sought by the
avarice of the earlier Spanish explorers; while a short though
difficult tropical journey brought the treasures of the west coast
across the Isthmus to the shores of the broad ocean, nature's great
highway, which washed at once the shores of Old and of New Spain. From
the Caribbean, Great Britain, although her rivals had anticipated her
in the possession of the largest and richest districts, derived nearly
twenty-five per cent of her commerce, during the strenuous period when
the Mediterranean contributed but two per cent.
But over these fair regions too passed the blight, not of despotism
merely, for despotism was characteristic of the times, but of a
despotism which found no counteractive, no element of future
deliverance, in the temperament or in the political capacities of the
people over whom it ruled. Elizabeth, as far as she dared, was a
despot; Philip II. was a despot; but there was already manifest in her
subjects, while there was not in his, a will and a power not merely to
resist oppression, but to organize freedom. This will and this power,
after gaining many partial victories by the way, culminated once for
all in the American Revolution. Great Britain has never forgotten the
lesson then taught; for it was one she herself had been teaching for
centuries, and her people and statesmen were therefore easy learners.
A century and a quarter has passed since that warning was given, not
to Great Britain only, but to the world; and we to-day see, in the
contrasted colonial systems of the two states, the results, on the one
hand of political aptitude, on the other of political obtuseness and
backwardness, which cannot struggle from the past into the present
until the present in turn has become the past--irreclaimable.
Causes superficially very diverse but essentially the same, in that
they arose from and still depend upon a lack of local political
capacity, have brought the Mediterranean and the Caribbean, in our own
time, to similar conditions, regarded as quantities of interest in the
sphere of international relations. Whatever the intrinsic value of the
two bodies of water, in themselves or in their surroundings, whatever
their present contributions to the prosperity or to the culture of
mankind, their conspicuous characteristics now are their political and
military importance, in the broadest sense, as concerning not only the
countries that border them, but the world at large. Both are land-girt
seas; both are links in a chain of communication between an East and a
West; in both the chain is broken by an isthmus; both are of
contracted extent when compared with great oceans, and, in consequence
of these common features, both present in an intensified form the
advantages and the limitations, political and military, which
condition the influence of sea power. This conclusion is notably true
of the Mediterranean, as is shown by its history. It is even more
forcibly true of the Caribbean, partly because the contour of its
shores does not, as in the Mediterranean peninsulas, thrust the power
of the land so far and so sustainedly into the sea; partly because,
from historical antecedents already alluded to, in the character of
the first colonists, and from the shortness of the time the ground has
been in civilized occupation, there does not exist in the Caribbean or
in the Gulf of Mexico--apart from the United States--any land power at
all comparable with those great Continental states of Europe whose
strength lies in their armies far more than in their navies. So far as
national inclinations, as distinct from the cautious actions of
statesmen, can be discerned, in the Mediterranean at present the Sea
Powers, Great Britain, France, and Italy, are opposed to the Land
Powers, Germany, Austria, and Russia; and the latter dominate action.
It cannot be so, in any near future, in the Caribbean. As affirmed in
a previous paper, the Caribbean is pre-eminently the domain of sea
power. It is in this point of view--the military or naval--that it is
now to be considered. Its political importance will be assumed, as
recognized by our forefathers, and enforced upon our own attention by
the sudden apprehensions awakened within the last two years.
It may be well, though possibly needless, to ask readers to keep
clearly in mind that the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico, while
knit together like the Siamese twins, are distinct geographical
entities. A leading British periodical once accused the writer of
calling the Gulf of Mexico the Caribbean Sea, because of his
unwillingness to admit the name of any other state in connection with
a body of water over which his own country claimed predominance. The
Gulf of Mexico is very clearly defined by the projection, from the
north, of the peninsula of Florida, and from the south, of that of
Yucatan. Between the two the island of Cuba interposes for a distance
of two hundred miles, leaving on one side a passage of nearly a
hundred miles wide--the Strait of Florida--into the Atlantic, while on
the other, the Yucatan Channel, somewhat broader, leads into the
Caribbean Sea. It may be mentioned here, as an important military
consideration, that from the mouth of the Mississippi westward to Cape
Catoche--the tip of the Yucatan Peninsula--there is no harbor that can
be considered at all satisfactory for ships of war of the larger
classes. The existence of many such harbors in other parts of the
regions now under consideration practically eliminates this long
stretch of coast, regarded as a factor of military importance in the
problem before us.
In each of these sheets of water, the Gulf of Mexico and the
Caribbean, there is one position of pre-eminent commercial importance.
In the Gulf the mouth of the Mississippi is the point where meet all
the exports and imports, by water, of the Mississippi Valley. However
diverse the directions from which they come, or the destinations to
which they proceed, all come together here as at a great crossroads,
or as the highways of an empire converge on the metropolis. Whatever
value the Mississippi and the myriad miles of its subsidiary
water-courses represent to the United States, as a facile means of
communication from the remote interior to the ocean highways of the
world, all centres here at the mouth of the river. The existence of
the smaller though important cities of the Gulf coast--Mobile,
Galveston, or the Mexican ports--does not diminish, but rather
emphasizes by contrast, the importance of the Mississippi entrance.
They all share its fortunes, in that all alike communicate with the
outside world through the Strait of Florida or the Yucatan Channel.
In the Caribbean, likewise, the existence of numerous important ports,
and a busy traffic in tropical produce grown within the region itself,
do but make more striking the predominance in interest of that one
position known comprehensively, but up to the present somewhat
indeterminately, as the Isthmus. Here again the element of decisive
value is the crossing of the roads, the meeting of the ways, which,
whether imposed by nature itself, as in the cases before us, or
induced, as sometimes happens, in a less degree, by simple human
dispositions, are prime factors in mercantile or strategic
consequence. For these reasons the Isthmus, even under the
disadvantages of land carriage and transshipment of goods, has ever
been an important link in the communications from East to West, from
the days of the first discoverers and throughout all subsequent
centuries, though fluctuating in degree from age to age; but when it
shall be pierced by a canal, it will present a maritime centre
analogous to the mouth of the Mississippi. They will differ in this,
that in the latter case the converging water routes on one side are
interior to a great state whose resources they bear, whereas the roads
which on either side converge upon the Isthmus lie wholly upon the
ocean, the common possession of all nations. Control of the latter,
therefore, rests either upon local control of the Isthmus itself, or,
indirectly, upon control of its approaches, or upon a distinctly
preponderant navy. In naval questions the latter is always the
dominant factor, exactly as on land the mobile army--the army in the
field--must dominate the question of fortresses, unless war is to be
impotent.
We have thus the two centres round which revolve all the military study
of the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico. The two sheets of water,
taken together, control or affect the approaches on one side to these
two supreme centres of commercial, and therefore of political and
military, interest. The approaches on the other side--the interior
communications of the Mississippi, that is, or the maritime routes
in the Pacific converging upon the Isthmus--do not here concern us.
These approaches, in terms of military art, are known as the
"communications." Communications are probably the most vital and
determining element in strategy, military or naval. They are literally
the most radical; for all military operations depend upon communications,
as the fruit of a plant depends upon communication with its root. We
draw therefore upon the map the chief lines by which communication
exists between these two centres and the outside world. Such lines
represent the mutual dependence of the centres and the exterior, by
which each ministers to the others, and by severance of which either
becomes useless to the others. It is from their potential effect upon
these lines of communication that all positions in the Gulf or the
Caribbean derive their military value, or want of value.
It is impossible to precede or to accompany a discussion of this sort
with a technical exposition of naval strategy. Such definitions of the
art as may be needed must be given _in loco_, cursorily and
dogmatically. Therefore it will be said here briefly that the
strategic value of any position, be it body of land large or small, or
a seaport, or a strait, depends, 1, upon situation (with reference
chiefly to communications), 2, upon its strength (inherent or
acquired), and, 3, upon its resources (natural or stored). As strength
and resources are matters which man can accumulate where suitable
situation offers, whereas he cannot change the location of a place in
itself otherwise advantageous, it is upon situation that attention
must primarily be fixed. Strength and resources may be artificially
supplied or increased, but it passes the power of man to move a port
which lies outside the limits of strategic effect. Gibraltar in
mid-ocean might have fourfold its present power, yet would be
valueless in a military sense.
The positions which are indicated on the map by the dark squares have
been selected, therefore, upon these considerations, after a careful
study of the inherent advantages of the various ports and coast-lines
of the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf. It is by no means meant that there
are not others which possess merits of various kinds; or that those
indicated, and to be named, exhaust the strategic possibilities of the
region under examination. But there are qualifying circumstances of
degree in particular cases; and a certain regard must be had to
political conditions, which may be said to a great extent to
neutralize some positions. Some, too, are excluded because
overshadowed by others so near and so strong as practically to embrace
them, when under the same political tenure. Moreover, it is a
commonplace of strategy that passive positions, fortified places,
however strong, although indispensable as supports to military
operations, should not be held in great number. To do so wastes force.
Similarly, in the study of a field of maritime operations, the number
of available positions, whose relative and combined influence upon the
whole is to be considered, should be narrowed, by a process of gradual
elimination, to those clearly essential and representative. To embrace
more confuses the attention, wastes mental force, and is a hindrance
to correct appreciation. The rejection of details, where permissible,
and understandingly done, facilitates comprehension, which is baffled
by a multiplication of minutiae, just as the impression of a work of
art, or of a story, is lost amid a multiplicity of figures or of
actors. The investigation precedent to formulation of ideas must be
close and minute, but that done, the unbiassed selection of the most
important, expressed graphically by a few lines and a few dots, leads
most certainly to the comprehension of decisive relations in a
military field of action.
In the United States, Pensacola and the Mississippi River have been
rivals for the possession of a navy-yard. The recent decision of a
specially appointed board in favor of the latter, while it commands
the full assent of the writer, by no means eliminates the usefulness
of the former. Taken together, they fulfil a fair requirement of
strategy, sea and land, that operations based upon a national
frontier, which a coast-line is, should not depend upon a single place
only. They are closer together than ideal perfection would wish; too
easily, therefore, to be watched by an enemy without great dispersal
of his force, which Norfolk and New York, for instance, are not; but
still, conjointly, they are the best we can do on that line, having
regard to the draught of water for heavy ships. Key West, an island
lying off the end of the Florida Peninsula, has long been recognized
as the chief, and almost the only, good and defensible anchorage upon
the Strait of Florida, reasonable control of which is indispensable to
water communication between our Atlantic and Gulf seaboards in time of
war. In case of war in the direction of the Caribbean, Key West is the
extreme point now in our possession upon which, granting adequate
fortification, our fleets could rely; and, so used, it would
effectually divert an enemy's force from Pensacola and the
Mississippi. It can never be the ultimate base of operations, as
Pensacola or New Orleans can, because it is an island, a small island,
and has no resources--not even water; but for the daily needs of a
fleet--coal, ammunition, etc.--it can be made most effective. Sixty
miles west of it stands an antiquated fortress on the Dry Tortugas.
These are capable of being made a useful adjunct to Key West, but at
present they scarcely can be so considered. Key West is 550 miles
distant from the mouth of the Mississippi, and 1200 from the Isthmus.
The islands of Santa Lucia and of Martinique have been selected
because they represent the chief positions of, respectively, Great
Britain and France on the outer limits of the general field under
consideration. For the reasons already stated, Grenada, Barbadoes,
Dominica, and the other near British islands are not taken into
account, or rather are considered to be embraced in Santa Lucia, which
adequately represents them. If a secondary position on that line were
required, it would be at Antigua, which would play to Santa Lucia the
part which Pensacola does to the Mississippi. In like manner the
French Guadeloupe merges in Martinique. The intrinsic importance of
these positions consists in the fact that, being otherwise suitable
and properly defended, they are the nearest to the mother-countries,
between whom and themselves there lies no point of danger near which
it is necessary to pass. They have the disadvantage of being very
small islands, consequently without adequate natural resources, and
easy to be blockaded on all sides. They are therefore essentially
dependent for their usefulness in war upon control of the sea, which
neither Pensacola nor New Orleans is, having the continent at their
backs.
It is in this respect that the pre-eminent intrinsic advantages of
Cuba, or rather of Spain in Cuba, are to be seen; and also, but in
much less degree, those of Great Britain in Jamaica. Cuba, though
narrow throughout, is over six hundred miles long, from Cape San
Antonio to Cape Maysi. It is, in short, not so much an island as a
continent, susceptible, under proper development, of great
resources--of self-sufficingness. In area it is half as large again as
Ireland, but, owing to its peculiar form, is much more than twice as
long. Marine distances, therefore, are drawn out to an extreme degree.
Its many natural harbors concentrate themselves, to a military
examination, into three principal groups, whose representatives are,
in the west, Havana; in the east, Santiago; while near midway of the
southern shore lies Cienfuegos. The shortest water distance separating
any two of these is 335 miles, from Santiago to Cienfuegos. To get
from Cienfuegos to Havana 450 miles of water must be traversed and the
western point of the island doubled; yet the two ports are distant by
land only a little more than a hundred miles of fairly easy country.
Regarded, therefore, as a base of naval operations, as a source of
supplies to a fleet, Cuba presents a condition wholly unique among the
islands of the Caribbean and of the Gulf of Mexico; to both which it,
and it alone of all the archipelago, belongs. It is unique in its
size, which should render it largely self-supporting, either by its
own products, or by the accumulation of foreign necessaries which
naturally obtains in a large and prosperous maritime community; and it
is unique in that such supplies can be conveyed from one point to the
other, according to the needs of a fleet, by interior lines, not
exposed to risks of maritime capture. The extent of the coast-line,
the numerous harbors, and the many directions from which approach can
be made, minimize the dangers of total blockade, to which all islands
are subject. Such conditions are in themselves advantageous, but they
are especially so to a navy inferior to its adversary, for they convey
the power--subject, of course, to conditions of skill--of shifting
operations from side to side, and finding refuge and supplies in
either direction.
Jamaica, being but one-tenth the size of Cuba, and one-fifth of its
length, does not present the intrinsic advantages of the latter
island, regarded either as a source of supplies or as a centre from
which to direct effort; but when in the hands of a power supreme at
sea, as at the present Great Britain is, the questions of supplies, of
blockade, and of facility in direction of effort diminish in
importance. That which in the one case is a matter of life and death,
becomes now only an embarrassing problem, necessitating watchfulness
and precaution, but by no means insoluble. No advantages of position
can counterbalance, in the long-run, decisive inferiority in organized
mobile force,--inferiority in troops in the field, and yet much more
in ships on the sea. If Spain should become involved in war with Great
Britain, as she so often before has been, the advantage she would have
in Cuba as against Jamaica would be that her communications with the
United States, especially with the Gulf ports, would be well under
cover. By this is not meant that vessels bound to Cuba by such routes
would be in unassailable security; no communications, maritime or
terrestrial, can be so against raiding. What is meant is that they can
be protected with much less effort than they can be attacked; that the
raiders--the offence--must be much more numerous and active than the
defence, because much farther from their base; and that the question
of such raiding would depend consequently upon the force Great Britain
could spare from other scenes of war, for it is not likely that Spain
would fight her single-handed. It is quite possible that under such
conditions advantage of position would more than counterbalance a
_small_ disadvantage in local force. "War," said Napoleon, "is a
business of positions;" by which that master of lightning-like
rapidity of movement assuredly did not mean that it was a business of
getting into a position and sticking there. It is in the utilization
of position by mobile force that war is determined, just as the effect
of a chessman depends upon both its individual value _and_ its
relative position. While, therefore, in the combination of the two
factors, force and position, force is intrinsically the more valuable,
it is always possible that great advantage of position may outweigh
small advantage of force, as 1 + 5 is greater than 2 + 3. The
positional value of Cuba is extremely great.
Regarded solely as a naval position, without reference to the force
thereon based, Jamaica is greatly inferior to Cuba in a question of
general war, notwithstanding the fact that in Kingston it possesses an
excellent harbor and naval station. It is only with direct reference
to the Isthmus, and therefore to the local question of the Caribbean
as the main scene of hostilities, that it possesses a certain
superiority which will be touched on later. It is advisable first to
complete the list, and so far as necessary to account for the
selection, of the other points indicated by the squares.
Of these, three are so nearly together at the Isthmus that, according
to the rule before adopted, they might be reduced very properly to a
single representative position. Being, however, so close to the great
centre of interest in the Caribbean, and having different specific
reasons constituting their importance, it is essential to a full
statement of strategic conditions in that sea to mention briefly each
and all. They are, the harbor and town of Colon, sometimes called
Aspinwall; the harbor and city of Cartagena, 300 miles to the eastward
of Colon; and the Chiriqui Lagoon, 150 miles west of Colon, a vast
enclosed bay with many islands, giving excellent and diversified
anchorage, the shores of which are nearly uninhabited. Colon is the
Caribbean terminus of the Panama Railroad, and is also that of the
canal projected, and partly dug, under the De Lesseps scheme. The
harbor being good, though open to some winds, it is naturally
indicated as a point where Isthmian transit may begin or end. As there
is no intention of entering into the controversy about the relative
merits of the Panama and Nicaragua canal schemes, it will be
sufficient here to say that, if the former be carried through, Colon
is its inevitable issue on one side. The city of Cartagena is the
largest and most flourishing in the neighborhood of the Isthmus, and
has a good harbor. With these conditions obtaining, its advantage
rests upon the axiomatic principle that, other things being nearly
equal, a place where commerce centres is a better strategic position
than one which it neglects. The latter is the condition of the
Chiriqui Lagoon. This truly noble sheet of water, which was visited by
Columbus himself, and bears record of the fact in the name of one of
its basins,--the Bay of the Admiral,--has every natural adaptation for
a purely naval base, but has not drawn to itself the operations of
commerce. Everything would need there to be created, and to be
maintained continuously. It lies midway between Colon and the mouth of
the river San Juan, where is Greytown, which has been selected as the
issue of the projected Nicaragua Canal; and therefore, in a peculiar
way, Chiriqui symbolizes the present indeterminate phase of the
Isthmian problem. With all its latent possibilities, however, little
can be said now of Chiriqui, except that a rough appreciation of its
existence and character is essential to an adequate understanding of
Isthmian conditions.
The Dutch island of Curaçao has been marked, chiefly because, with its
natural characteristics, it cannot be passed over; but it now is, and
it may be hoped will remain indefinitely, among the positions of which
it has been said that they are neutralized by political circumstances.
Curaçao possesses a fine harbor, which may be made impregnable, and it
lies unavoidably near the route of any vessel bound to the Isthmus and
passing eastward of Jamaica. Such conditions constitute undeniable
military importance; but Holland is a small state, unlikely to join
again in a general war. There is, indeed, a floating apprehension that
the German Empire, in its present desires of colonial extension, may
be willing to absorb Holland, for the sake of her still extensive
colonial possessions. Improbable as this may seem, it is scarcely more
incomprehensible than the recent mysterious movements upon the
European chess-board, attributed by common rumor to the dominating
influence of the Emperor of Germany, which we puzzled Americans for
months past have sought in vain to understand.
The same probable neutrality must be admitted for the remaining
positions that have been distinguished: Mujeres Island, Samana Bay,
and the island of St. Thomas. The first of these, at the extremity of
the Yucatan Peninsula, belongs to Mexico, a country whose interest in
the Isthmian question is very real; for, like the United States, she
has an extensive seaboard both upon the Pacific and--in the Gulf of
Mexico--upon the Atlantic Ocean. Mujeres Island, however, has nothing
to offer but situation, being upon the Yucatan Passage, the one road
from all the Gulf ports to the Caribbean and the Isthmus. The
anchorage is barely tolerable, the resources _nil_, and defensive
strength could be imparted only by an expense quite disproportionate
to the result obtained. The consideration of the island as a possible
military situation does but emphasize the fact, salient to the most
superficial glance, that, so far as position goes, Cuba has no
possible rival in her command of the Yucatan Passage, just as she has
no competitor, in point of natural strength and resources, for the
control of the Florida Strait, which connects the Gulf of Mexico with
the Atlantic.
Samana Bay, at the northeast corner of Santo Domingo, is but one of
several fine anchorages in that great island, whose territory is now
divided between two negro republics--French and Spanish in tongue. Its
selection to figure in our study, to the exclusion of the others, is
determined by its situation, and by the fact that we are seeking to
take a comprehensive glance of the Caribbean as a whole, and not
merely of particular districts. For instance, it might be urged
forcibly, in view of the existence of two great naval ports like
Santiago de Cuba and Port Royal in Jamaica, close to the Windward
Passage, through which lies the direct route from the Atlantic
seaboard to the Isthmus, that St. Nicholas Mole, immediately on the
Passage, offers the natural position for checking the others in case
of need. The reply is that we are not seeking to check anything or
anybody, but simply examining in the large the natural strategic
features, and incidentally thereto noting the political conditions, of
a maritime region in which the United States is particularly
interested; political conditions, as has been remarked, having an
unavoidable effect upon military values.
The inquiry being thus broad, Samana Bay and the island of St. Thomas
are entitled to the pre-eminence here given to them, because they
represent, efficiently and better than any other positions, the
control of two principal passages into the Caribbean Sea from the
Atlantic. The Mona Passage, on which Samana lies, between Santo
Domingo and Puerto Rico, is particularly suited to sailing-vessels
from the northward, because free from dangers to navigation. This, of
course, in these days of steam, is a small matter militarily; in the
latter sense the Mona Passage is valuable because it is an alternative
to the Windward Passage, or to those to the eastward, in case of
hostile predominance in one quarter or the other. St. Thomas is on the
Anegada Passage, actually much used, and which better than any other
represents the course from Europe to the Isthmus, just as the Windward
Passage does that from the North American Atlantic ports. Neither of
these places can boast of great natural strength nor of resources; St.
Thomas, because it is a small island with the inherent weaknesses
attending all such, which have been mentioned; Samana Bay, because,
although the island on which it is is large and productive, it has not
now, and gives no hope of having, that political stability and
commercial prosperity which bring resources and power in their train.
Both places would need also considerable development of defensive
works to meet the requirements of a naval port. Despite these defects,
their situations on the passages named entitle them to paramount
consideration in a general study of the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of
Mexico. Potentially, though not actually, they lend control of the
Mona and Anegada Passages, exactly as Kingston and Santiago do of the
Windward.
For, granting that the Isthmus is in the Caribbean the predominant
interest, commercial, and therefore concerning the whole world, but
also military, and so far possessing peculiar concern for those
nations whose territories lie on both oceans, which it now severs and
will one day unite--of which nations the United States is the most
prominent--granting this, and it follows that entrance to the
Caribbean, and transit across the Caribbean to the Isthmus, are two
prime essentials to the enjoyment of the advantages of the latter.
Therefore, in case of war, control of these two things becomes a
military object not second to the Isthmus itself, access to which
depends upon them; and in their bearing upon these two things the
various positions that are passed under consideration must be
viewed--individually first, and afterwards collectively.
The first process of individual consideration the writer has asked the
reader to take on faith; neither time nor space permits its
elaboration here; but the reasons for choosing those that have been
named have been given as briefly as possible. Let us now look at the
map, and regard as a collective whole the picture there graphically
presented.
Putting to one side, for the moment at least, the Isthmian points, as
indicating the end rather than the precedent means, we see at the
present time that the positions at the extremes of the field under
examination are held by Powers of the first rank,--Martinique and
Santa Lucia by France and Great Britain, Pensacola and the Mississippi
by the United States.
Further, there are held by these same states of the first order two
advanced positions, widely separated from the first bases of their
power; namely, Key West, which is 460 miles from Pensacola, and
Jamaica, which is 930 miles from Santa Lucia. From the Isthmus, Key
West is distant 1200 miles; Jamaica, 500 miles.
Between and separating these two groups, of primary bases and advanced
posts, extends the chain of positions from Yucatan to St. Thomas. As
far as is possible to position, apart from mobile force, these
represent control over the northern entrances--the most important
entrances--into the Caribbean Sea. No one of this chain belongs to any
of the Powers commonly reckoned as being of the first order of
strength.
The entrances on the north of the sea, as far as, but not including,
the Anegada Passage, are called the most important, because they are
so few in number,--a circumstance which always increases value;
because they are so much nearer to the Isthmus; and, very especially
to the United States, because they are the ones by which, and by which
alone,--except at the cost of a wide circuit,--she communicates with
the Isthmus, and, generally, with all the region lying within the
borders of the Caribbean.
In a very literal sense the Caribbean is a mediterranean sea; but
the adjective must be qualified when comparison is made with the
Mediterranean of the Old World or with the Gulf of Mexico. The
last-named bodies of water communicate with the outer oceans by passages
so contracted as to be easily watched from near-by positions, and for
both there exist such positions of exceptional strength,--Gibraltar
and some others in the former case, Havana and no other in the latter.
The Caribbean, on the contrary, is enclosed on its eastern side by
a chain of small islands, the passages between which, although
practically not wider than the Strait of Gibraltar, are so numerous
that entrance to the sea on that side may be said correctly to extend
over a stretch of near 400 miles. The islands, it is true, are so many
positions, some better, some worse, from which military effort to
control entrance can be exerted; but their number prevents that
concentration and that certainty of effect which are possible to
adequate force resting upon Gibraltar or Havana.
On the northern side of the sea the case is quite different. From the
western end of Cuba to the eastern end of Puerto Rico extends a
barrier of land for 1200 miles--as against 400 on the east--broken
only by two straits, each fifty miles wide, from side to side of which
a steamer of but moderate power can pass in three or four hours. These
natural conditions, governing the approach to the Isthmus, reproduce
as nearly as possible the strategic effect of Ireland upon Great
Britain. There a land barrier of 300 miles, midway between the
Pentland Firth and the English Channel--centrally situated, that is,
with reference to all the Atlantic approaches to Great Britain--gives
to an adequate navy a unique power to flank and harass either the one
or the other, or both. Existing political conditions and other
circumstances unquestionably modify the importance of these two
barriers, relatively to the countries affected by them. Open
communication with the Atlantic is vital to Great Britain, which the
Isthmus, up to the present time, is not to the United States. There
are, however, varying degrees of importance below that which is vital.
Taking into consideration that of the 1200-mile barrier to the
Caribbean 600 miles is solid in Cuba, that after the 50-mile gap of
the Windward Passage there succeeds 300 miles more of Haiti before the
Mona Passage is reached, it is indisputable that a superior navy,
resting on Santiago de Cuba or Jamaica, could very seriously incommode
all access of the United States to the Caribbean mainland, and
especially to the Isthmus.
In connection with this should be considered also the influence upon
our mercantile and naval communication between the Atlantic and the
Gulf coasts exercised by the peninsula of Florida, and by the
narrowness of the channels separating the latter from the Bahama Banks
and from Cuba. The effect of this long and not very broad strip of
land upon our maritime interests can be realized best by imagining it
wholly removed, or else turned into an island by a practicable channel
crossing its neck. In the latter case the two entrances to the channel
would have indeed to be assured; but our shipping would not be forced
to pass through a long, narrow waterway, bordered throughout on one
side by foreign and possibly hostile territories. In case of war with
either Great Britain or Spain, this channel would be likely to be
infested by hostile cruisers, close to their own base, the very best
condition for a commerce-destroying war; and its protection by us
under present circumstances will exact a much greater effort than with
the supposed channel, or than if the Florida Peninsula did not exist.
The effect of the peninsula is to thrust our route from the Atlantic
to the Gulf 300 miles to the southward, and to make imperative a base
for control of the strait; while the case is made worse by an almost
total lack of useful harbors. On the Atlantic, the most exposed side,
there is none; and on the Gulf none nearer to Key West than 175
miles,[2] where we find Tampa Bay. There is, indeed, nothing that can
be said about the interests of the United States in an Isthmian canal
that does not apply now with equal force to the Strait of Florida. The
one links the Atlantic to the Gulf, as the other would the Atlantic to
the Pacific. It may be added here that the phenomenon of the long,
narrow peninsula of Florida, with its strait, is reproduced
successively in Cuba, Haiti, and Puerto Rico, with the passages
dividing them. The whole together forms one long barrier, the
strategic significance of which cannot be overlooked in its effect
upon the Caribbean; while the Gulf of Mexico is assigned to absolute
seclusion by it, if the passages are in hostile control.
[2] There is Charlotte Harbor, at 120 miles, but it can be used
only by medium-sized vessels.
The relations of the island of Jamaica to the great barrier formed by
Cuba, Haiti, and Puerto Rico are such as to constitute it the natural
stepping-stone by which to pass from the consideration of entrance
into the Caribbean, which has been engaging our attention, to that of
the transit across, from entrance to the Isthmus, which we must next
undertake.
In the matters of entrance to the Caribbean, and of general interior
control of that sea, Jamaica has a singularly central position. It is
equidistant (500 miles) from Colon, from the Yucatan Channel, and from
the Mona Passage; it is even closer (450 miles) to the nearest
mainland of South America at Point Gallinas, and of Central America at
Cape Gracias-á-Dios; while it lies so immediately in rear of the
Windward Passage that its command of the latter can scarcely be
considered less than that of Santiago. The analogy of its situation,
as a station for a great fleet, to that for an army covering a
frontier which is passable at but a few points, will scarcely escape a
military reader. A comparatively short chain of swift lookout
steamers, in each direction, can give timely notice of any approach by
either of the three passages named; while, if entrance be gained at
any other point, the arms stretched out towards Gallinas and
Gracias-á-Dios will give warning of transit before the purposes of
such transit can be accomplished undisturbed.
With such advantages of situation, and with a harbor susceptible of
satisfactory development as a naval station for a great fleet, Jamaica
is certainly the most important single position in the Caribbean Sea.
When one recalls that it passed into the hands of Great Britain, in
the days of Cromwell, by accidental conquest, the expedition having
been intended primarily against Santo Domingo; that in the two
centuries and a half which have since intervened it has played no part
adequate to its advantages, such as now looms before it; that, by all
the probabilities, it should have been reconquered and retained by
Spain in the war of the American Revolution; and when, again, it is
recalled that a like accident and a like subsequent uncertainty
attended the conquest and retention of the decisive Mediterranean
positions of Gibraltar and Malta, one marvels whether incidents so
widely separated in time and place, all tending towards one end--the
maritime predominance of Great Britain--can be accidents, or are
simply the exhibition of a Personal Will, acting through all time,
with purpose deliberate and consecutive, to ends not yet discerned.
Nevertheless, when compared to Cuba, Jamaica cannot be considered the
preponderant position of the Caribbean. The military question of
position is quantitative as well as qualitative; and situation,
however excellent, can rarely, by itself alone, make full amends for
defect in the power and resources which are the natural property of
size--of mass. Gibraltar, the synonym of intrinsic strength, is an
illustration in point; its smallness, its isolation, and its
barrenness of resource constitute limits to its offensive power, and
even to its impregnability, which are well understood by military men.
Jamaica, by its situation, flanks the route from Cuba to the Isthmus,
as indeed it does all routes from the Atlantic and the Gulf to that
point; but, as a military entity, it is completely overshadowed by the
larger island, which it so conspicuously confronts. If, as has just
been said, it by situation intercepts the access of Cuba to the
Isthmus, it is itself cut off by its huge neighbor from secure
communication with the North American Continent, now as always the
chief natural source of supplies for the West Indies, which do not
produce the great staples of life. With the United States friendly or
neutral, in a case of war, there can be no comparison between the
advantages of Cuba, conferred by its situation and its size, and those
of Jamaica, which, by these qualities of its rival, is effectually cut
off from that source of supplies. Nor is the disadvantage of Jamaica
less marked with reference to communication with other quarters than
the United States--with Halifax, with Bermuda, with Europe. Its
distance from these points, and from Santa Lucia, where the resources
of Europe may be said to focus for it, makes its situation one of
extreme isolation; a condition emphasized by the fact that both
Bermuda and Santa Lucia are themselves dependent upon outside sources
for anything they may send to Jamaica. At all these points, coal, the
great factor of modern naval war, must be stored and the supply
maintained. They do not produce it. The mere size of Cuba, the amount
of population which it has, or ought to have, the number of its
seaports, the extent of the industries possible to it, tend naturally
to an accumulation of resources such as great mercantile communities
always entail. These, combined with its nearness to the United States,
and its other advantages of situation, make Cuba a position that can
have no military rival among the islands of the world, except Ireland.
With a friendly United States, isolation is impossible to Cuba.
The aim of any discussion such as this should be to narrow down, by a
gradual elimination, the various factors to be considered, in order
that the decisive ones, remaining, may become conspicuously visible.
The trees being thus thinned out, the features of the strategic
landscape can appear. The primary processes in the present case have
been carried out before seeking the attention of the reader, to whom
the first approximations have been presented under three heads. First,
the two decisive centres, the mouth of the Mississippi and the
Isthmus. Second, the four principal routes, connecting these two
points with others, have been specified; these routes being, 1,
between the Isthmus and the Mississippi themselves; 2, from the
Isthmus to the North American coast, by the Windward Passage; 3, from
the Gulf of Mexico to the North American coast, by the Strait of
Florida; and, 4, from the Isthmus to Europe, by the Anegada Passage.
Third, the principal military positions throughout the region in
question have been laid down, and their individual and relative
importance indicated.
From the subsequent discussion it seems evident that, as
"communications" are so leading an element in strategy, the position
or positions which decisively affect the greatest number or extent of
the communications will be the most important, so far as situation
goes. Of the four principal lines named, three pass close to, and are
essentially controlled by, the islands of Cuba and Jamaica, namely,
from the Mississippi to the Isthmus by the Yucatan Channel, from the
Mississippi to the Atlantic coast of America by the Strait of Florida,
and from the Isthmus to the Atlantic coast by the Windward Passage.
The fourth route, which represents those from the Isthmus to Europe,
passes nearer to Jamaica than to Cuba; but those two islands exercise
over it more control than does any other one of the archipelago, for
the reason that any other can be avoided more easily, and by a wider
interval, than either Jamaica or Cuba.
Regarded as positions, therefore, these two islands are the real
rivals for control of the Caribbean and of the Gulf of Mexico; and it
may be added that the strategic centre of interest for both Gulf and
Caribbean is to be found in the Windward Passage, because it furnishes
the ultimate test of the relative power of the two islands to control
the Caribbean. For, as has been said before, and cannot be repeated
too often, it is not position only, nor chiefly, but mobile force,
that is decisive in war. In the combination of these two elements
rests the full statement of any case. The question of position has
been adjudged in favor of Cuba, for reasons which have been given. In
the case of a conflict between the powers holding the two islands, the
question of controlling the Windward Passage would be the test of
relative mobile strength; because that channel is the shortest and
best line of communications for Jamaica with the American coast, with
Halifax, and with Bermuda, and as such it must be kept open. If the
power of Jamaica is not great enough to hold the passage open by
force, she is thrown upon evasion--upon furtive measures--to maintain
essential supplies; for, if she cannot assert her strength so far in
that direction, she cannot, from her nearness, go beyond Cuba's reach
in any direction. Abandonment of the best road in this case means
isolation; and to that condition, if prolonged, there is but one
issue.
The final result, therefore, may be stated in this way: The advantages
of situation, strength, and resources are greatly and decisively in
favor of Cuba. To bring Jamaica to a condition of equality, or
superiority, is needed a mobile force capable of keeping the Windward
Passage continuously open, not only for a moment, nor for any
measurable time, but throughout the war. Under the present conditions
of political tenure, in case of a war involving only the two states
concerned, such a question could admit of no doubt; but in a war at
all general, involving several naval powers, the issue would be less
certain. In the war of 1778 the tenure, not of the Windward Passage
merely, but of Jamaica itself, was looked upon by a large party in
Great Britain as nearly hopeless; and it is true that only a happy
concurrence of blundering and bad luck on the part of its foes then
saved the island. It is conceivable that odds which have happened once
may happen again.