[Footnote 1: Written in 1899. (_Encyclopoedia_Britannica_.)]
Sea-power is a term used to indicate two distinct, though cognate
things. The affinity of these two and the indiscriminate manner
in which the term has been applied to each have tended to obscure
its real significance. The obscurity has been deepened by the
frequency with which the term has been confounded with the old
phrase, 'Sovereignty of the sea,' and the still current expression,
'Command of the sea.' A discussion--etymological, or even
archæological in character--of the term must be undertaken as
an introduction to the explanation of its now generally accepted
meaning. It is one of those compound words in which a Teutonic
and a Latin (or Romance) element are combined, and which are
easily formed and become widely current when the sea is concerned.
Of such are 'sea-coast,' 'sea-forces' (the 'land- and sea-forces'
used to be a common designation of what we now call the 'Army
and Navy'), 'sea-service,' 'sea-serpent,' and 'sea-officer' (now
superseded by 'naval officer'). The term in one form is as old
as the fifteenth century. Edward III, in commemoration of the
naval victory of Sluys, coined gold 'nobles' which bore on one
side his effigy 'crowned, standing in a large ship, holding in
one hand a sword and in the other a shield.' An anonymous poet,
who wrote in the reign of Henry VI, says of this coin:
For four things our noble showeth to me,
King, ship, and sword, and _power_of_the_sea_.
Even in its present form the term is not of very recent date.
Grote [2] speaks of 'the conversion of Athens from a land-power
into a sea-power.' In a lecture published in 1883, but probably
delivered earlier, the late Sir J. R. Seeley says that 'commerce
was swept out of the Mediterranean by the besom of the Turkish
sea-power.'[3] The term also occurs in vol. xviii. of the
'Encyclopædia Britannica,' published in 1885. At p. 574 of that
volume (art. Persia) we are told that Themistocles was 'the founder
of the Attic sea-power.' The sense in which the term is used differs
in these extracts. In the first it means what we generally call
a 'naval power'--that is to say, a state having a considerable
navy in contradistinction to a 'military power,' a state with a
considerable army but only a relatively small navy. In the last
two extracts it means all the elements of the naval strength
of the state referred to; and this is the meaning that is now
generally, and is likely to be exclusively, attached to the term
owing to the brilliant way in which it has been elucidated by
Captain A. T. Mahan of the United States Navy in a series of
remarkable works.[4] The double use of the term is common in
German, though in that language both parts of the compound now
in use are Teutonic. One instance out of many may be cited from
the historian Adolf Holm.[5] He says[6] that Athens, being in
possession of a good naval port, could become '_eine_bedeutende_
_Seemacht_,' i.e. an important naval power. He also says[7] that
Gelon of Syracuse, besides a large army (_Heer_), had '_eine_
_bedeutende_Seemacht_,' meaning a considerable navy. The term,
in the first of the two senses, is old in German, as appears
from the following, extracted from Zedler's 'Grosses Universal
Lexicon,' vol. xxxvi:[8] 'Seemachten, Seepotenzen, Latin. _summae_
_potestates_mari_potentes_.' 'Seepotenzen' is probably quite
obsolete now. It is interesting as showing that German no more
abhors Teuto-Latin or Teuto-Romance compounds than English. We may
note, as a proof of the indeterminate meaning of the expression
until his own epoch-making works had appeared, that Mahan himself
in his earliest book used it in both senses. He says,[9] 'The
Spanish Netherlands ceased to be a sea-power.' He alludes[10]
to the development of a nation as a 'sea-power,' and[11] to the
inferiority of the Confederate States 'as a sea-power.' Also,[12]
he remarks of the war of the Spanish Succession that 'before
it England was one of the sea-powers, after it she was _the_
sea-power without any second.' In all these passages, as appears
from the use of the indefinite article, what is meant is a naval
power, or a state in possession of a strong navy. The other meaning
of the term forms the general subject of his writings above
enumerated. In his earlier works Mahan writes 'sea power' as
two words; but in a published letter of the 19th February 1897,
he joins them with a hyphen, and defends this formation of the
term and the sense in which he uses it. We may regard him as
the virtual inventor of the term in its more diffused meaning,
for--even if it had been employed by earlier writers in that
sense--it is he beyond all question who has given it general
currency. He has made it impossible for anyone to treat of sea-power
without frequent reference to his writings and conclusions.
[Footnote 2: _Hist._of_Greece_, v. p. 67, published in 1849, but
with preface dated 1848.]
[Footnote 3: _Expansion_of_England_, p. 89.]
[Footnote 4: _Influence_of_Sea-power_on_History_, published 1890;
_Influence_of_Sea-power_on_the_French_Revolution_and_Empire_,
2 vols. 1892; _Nelson:_the_Embodiment_of_the_Sea-power_of_Great_
_Britain_, 2 vols. 1897.]
[Footnote 5: _Griechische_Geschichte_. Berlin, 1889.]
[Footnote 6: _Ibid_. ii. p. 37.]
[Footnote 7: _Ibid_. ii. p. 91.]
[Footnote 8: Leipzig und Halle, 1743.]
[Footnote 9: _Influence_of_Sea-power_on_History_, p. 35.]
[Footnote 10: _Ibid_. p. 42.]
[Footnote 11: _Ibid_. p. 43.]
[Footnote 12: _Ibid_. p. 225.]
There is something more than mere literary interest in the fact that
the term in another language was used more than two thousand years
ago. Before Mahan no historian--not even one of those who specially
devoted themselves to the narration of naval occurrences--had
evinced a more correct appreciation of the general principles
of naval warfare than Thucydides. He alludes several times to
the importance of getting command of the sea. This country would
have been saved some disasters and been less often in peril had
British writers--taken as guides by the public--possessed the same
grasp of the true principles of defence as Thucydides exhibited.
One passage in his history is worth quoting. Brief as it is, it
shows that on the subject of sea-power he was a predecessor of
Mahan. In a speech in favour of prosecuting the war, which he
puts into the mouth of Pericles, these words occur:-- _oi_meu_
_gar_ouch_exousiu_allaeu_autilabeiu_amachei_aemiu_de_esti_
_gae_pollae_kai_eu_uaesois_kai_kat_aepeirou_mega_gar_
_to_tes_thalassaes_kratos_. The last part of this extract,
though often translated 'command of the sea,' or 'dominion of
the sea,' really has the wider meaning of sea-power, the 'power
of the sea' of the old English poet above quoted. This wider
meaning should be attached to certain passages in Herodotus,[13]
which have been generally interpreted 'commanding the sea,' or
by the mere titular and honorific 'having the dominion of the
sea.' One editor of Herodotus, Ch. F. Baehr, did, however, see
exactly what was meant, for, with reference to the allusion to
Polycrates, he says, _classe_maximum_valuit_. This is perhaps as
exact a definition of sea-power as could be given in a sentence.
[Footnote 13: _Herodotus_, iii. 122 in two places; v.83.]
It is, however, impossible to give a definition which would be at
the same time succinct and satisfactory. To say that 'sea-power'
means the sum-total of the various elements that go to make up
the naval strength of a state would be in reality to beg the
question. Mahan lays down the 'principal conditions affecting
the sea-power of nations,' but he does not attempt to give a
concise definition of it. Yet no one who has studied his works
will find it difficult to understand what it indicates.
Our present task is to put readers in possession of the means
of doing this. The best, indeed--as Mahan has made us see--the
only effective way of attaining this object is to treat the matter
historically. Whatever date we may agree to assign to the formation
of the term itself, the idea--as we have seen--is as old as history.
It is not intended to give a condensed history of sea-power, but
rather an analysis of the idea and what it contains, illustrating
this analysis with examples from history ancient and modern. It
is important to know that it is not something which originated
in the middle of the seventeenth century, and having seriously
affected history in the eighteenth, ceased to have weight till
Captain Mahan appeared to comment on it in the last decade of
the nineteenth. With a few masterly touches Mahan, in his brief
allusion to the second Punic war, has illustrated its importance
in the struggle between Rome and Carthage. What has to be shown
is that the principles which he has laid down in that case, and
in cases much more modern, are true and have been true always and
everywhere. Until this is perceived there is much history which
cannot be understood, and yet it is essential to our welfare as a
maritime people that we should understand it thoroughly. Our
failure to understand it has more than once brought us, if not
to the verge of destruction, at any rate within a short distance
of serious disaster.