The high antiquity of decisive naval campaigns is amongst the most
interesting features of international conflicts. Notwithstanding
the much greater frequency of land wars, the course of history
has been profoundly changed more often by contests on the water.
That this has not received the notice it deserved is true, and
Mahan tells us why. 'Historians generally,' he says, 'have been
unfamiliar with the conditions of the sea, having as to it neither
special interest nor special knowledge; and the profound determining
influence of maritime strength on great issues has consequently been
overlooked.' Moralising on that which might have been is admittedly
a sterile process; but it is sometimes necessary to point, if
only by way of illustration, to a possible alternative. As in
modern times the fate of India and the fate of North America were
determined by sea-power, so also at a very remote epoch sea-power
decided whether or not Hellenic colonisation was to take root in,
and Hellenic culture to dominate, Central and Northern Italy as
it dominated Southern Italy, where traces of it are extant to this
day. A moment's consideration will enable us to see how different
the history of the world would have been had a Hellenised city
grown and prospered on the Seven Hills. Before the Tarquins were
driven out of Rome a Phocoean fleet was encountered (537 B.C.) off
Corsica by a combined force of Etruscans and Phoenicians, and
was so handled that the Phocoeans abandoned the island and settled
on the coast of Lucania.[14] The enterprise of their navigators
had built up for the Phoenician cities and their great off-shoot
Carthage, a sea-power which enabled them to gain the practical
sovereignty of the sea to the west of Sardinia and Sicily. The
control of these waters was the object of prolonged and memorable
struggles, for on it--as the result showed--depended the empire of
the world. From very remote times the consolidation and expansion,
from within outwards, of great continental states have had serious
consequences for mankind when they were accompanied by the
acquisition of a coast-line and the absorption of a maritime
population. We shall find that the process loses none of its
importance in recent years. 'The ancient empires,' says the historian
of Greece, Ernst Curtius, 'as long as no foreign elements had
intruded into them, had an invincible horror of the water.' When
the condition, which Curtius notices in parenthesis, arose, the
'horror' disappeared. There is something highly significant in
the uniformity of the efforts of Assyria, Egypt, Babylon, and
Persia to get possession of the maritime resources of Phoenicia.
Our own immediate posterity will, perhaps, have to reckon with
the results of similar efforts in our own day. It is this which
gives a living interest to even the very ancient history of
sea-power, and makes the study of it of great practical importance
to us now. We shall see, as we go on, how the phenomena connected
with it reappear with striking regularity in successive periods.
Looked at in this light, the great conflicts of former ages are
full of useful, indeed necessary, instruction.
[Footnote 14: Mommsen, _Hist._Rome_, English trans., i. p. 153.]
In the first and greatest of the contests waged by the nations
of the East against Europe--the Persian wars--sea-power was the
governing factor. Until Persia had expanded to the shores of the
Levant the European Greeks had little to fear from the ambition
of the great king. The conquest of Egypt by Cambyses had shown how
formidable that ambition could be when supported by an efficient
navy. With the aid of the naval forces of the Phoenician cities
the Persian invasion of Greece was rendered comparatively easy.
It was the naval contingents from Phoenicia which crushed the
Ionian revolt. The expedition of Mardonius, and still more that
of Datis and Artaphernes, had indicated the danger threatening
Greece when the master of a great army was likewise the master
of a great navy. Their defeat at Marathon was not likely to,
and as a matter of fact did not, discourage the Persians from
further attempts at aggression. As the advance of Cambyses into
Egypt had been flanked by a fleet, so also was that of Xerxes
into Greece. By the good fortune sometimes vouch-safed to a people
which, owing to its obstinate opposition to, or neglect of, a
wise policy, scarcely deserves it, there appeared at Athens an
influential citizen who understood all that was meant by the
term sea-power. Themistocles saw more clearly than any of his
contemporaries that, to enable Athens to play a leading part in
the Hellenic world, she needed above all things a strong navy.
'He had already in his eye the battle-field of the future.' He
felt sure that the Persians would come back, and come with such
forces that resistance in the open field would be out of the
question. One scene of action remained--the sea. Persuaded by him
the Athenians increased their navy, so that of the 271 vessels
comprising the Greek fleet at Artemisium, 147 had been provided
by Athens, which also sent a large reinforcement after the first
action. Though no one has ever surpassed Themistocles in the
faculty of correctly estimating the importance of sea-power,
it was understood by Xerxes as clearly as by him that the issue
of the war depended upon naval operations. The arrangements made
under the Persian monarch's direction, and his very personal
movements, show that this was his view. He felt, and probably
expressed the feeling, exactly as--in the war of Arnerican
Independence--Washington did in the words, 'whatever efforts are
made by the land armies, the navy must have the casting vote in
the present contest.' The decisive event was the naval action of
Salamis. To have made certain of success, the Persians should have
first obtained a command of the Ægean, as complete for all practical
purposes as the French and English had of the sea generally in
the war against Russia of 1854-56. The Persian sea-power was not
equal to the task. The fleet of the great king was numerically
stronger than that of the Greek allies; but it has been proved
many times that naval efficiency does not depend on numerical
superiority alone. The choice sections of the Persian fleet were
the contingents of the Ionians and Phoenicians. The former were
half-hearted or disaffected; whilst the latter were, at best, not
superior in skill, experience, and valour to the Greek sailors. At
Salamis Greece was saved not only from the ambition and vengeance
of Xerxes, but also and for many centuries from oppression by an
Oriental conqueror. Persia did not succeed against the Greeks,
not because she had no sea-power, but because her sea-power,
artificially built up, was inferior to that which was a natural
element of the vitality of her foes. Ionia was lost and Greece
in the end enslaved, because the quarrels of Greeks with Greeks
led to the ruin of their naval states.
The Peloponnesian was largely a naval war. The confidence of
the Athenians in their sea-power had a great deal to do with its
outbreak. The immediate occasion of the hostilities, which in
time involved so many states, was the opportunity offered by the
conflict between Corinth and Corcyra of increasing the sea-power of
Athens. Hitherto the Athenian naval predominance had been virtually
confined to the Ægean Sea. The Corcyræan envoy, who pleaded for
help at Athens, dwelt upon the advantage to be derived by the
Athenians from alliance with a naval state occupying an important
situation 'with respect to the western regions towards which the
views of the Athenians had for some time been directed.'[15]
It was the 'weapon of her sea-power,' to adopt Mahan's phrase,
that enabled Athens to maintain the great conflict in which she
was engaged. Repeated invasions of her territory, the ravages
of disease amongst her people, and the rising disaffection of
her allies had been more than made up for by her predominance
on the water. The scale of the subsequent Syracusan expedition
showed how vigorous Athens still was down to the interruption
of the war by the peace of Nicias. The great expedition just
mentioned over-taxed her strength. Its failure brought about
the ruin of the state. It was held by contemporaries, and has
been held in our own day, that the Athenian defeat at Syracuse
was due to the omission of the government at home to keep the
force in Sicily properly supplied and reinforced. This explanation
of failure is given in all ages, and should always be suspected.
The friends of unsuccessful generals and admirals always offer
it, being sure of the support of the political opponents of the
administration. After the despatch of the supporting expedition
under Demosthenes and Eurymedon, no further great reinforcement,
as Nicias admitted, was possible. The weakness of Athens was in
the character of the men who swayed the popular assemblies and
held high commands. A people which remembered the administration of
a Pericles, and yet allowed a Cleon or an Alcibiades to direct its
naval and military policy, courted defeat. Nicias, notwithstanding
the possession of high qualities, lacked the supreme virtue of
a commander--firm resolution. He dared not face the obloquy
consequent on withdrawal from an enterprise on which the popular
hopes had been fixed; and therefore he allowed a reverse to be
converted into an overwhelming disaster. 'The complete ruin of
Athens had appeared, both to her enemies and to herself, impending
and irreparable. But so astonishing, so rapid, and so energetic
had been her rally, that [a year after Syracuse] she was found
again carrying on a terrible struggle.'[16] Nevertheless her
sea-power had indeed been ruined at Syracuse. Now she could wage
war only 'with impaired resources and on a purely defensive system.'
Even before Arginusæ it was seen that 'superiority of nautical
skill had passed to the Peloponnesians and their allies.'[17]
[Footnote 15: Thirwall, _Hist._Greece_, iii. p. 96.]
[Footnote 16: Grote, _Hist._Greece_, v. p. 354.]
[Footnote 17: _Ibid._ p. 503.]
The great, occasionally interrupted, and prolonged contest between
Rome and Carthage was a sustained effort on the part of one to
gain and of the other to keep the control of the Western
Mediterranean. So completely had that control been exercised
by Carthage, that she had anticipated the Spanish commercial
policy in America. The Romans were precluded by treaties from
trading with the Carthaginian territories in Hispania, Africa,
and Sardinia. Rome, as Mommsen tells us, 'was from the first a
maritime city and, in the period of its vigour, never was so
foolish or so untrue to its ancient traditions as wholly to neglect
its war marine and to desire to be a mere continental power.' It
may be that it was lust of wealth rather than lust of dominion
that first prompted a trial of strength with Carthage. The vision
of universal empire could hardly as yet have formed itself in the
imagination of a single Roman. The area of Phoenician maritime
commerce was vast enough both to excite jealousy and to offer
vulnerable points to the cupidity of rivals. It is probable that
the modern estimate of the sea-power of Carthage is much exaggerated.
It was great by comparison, and of course overwhelmingly great
when there were none but insignificant competitors to challenge
it. Mommsen holds that, in the fourth and fifth centuries after
the foundation of Rome, 'the two main competitors for the dominion
of the Western waters' were Carthage and Syracuse. 'Carthage,'
he says, 'had the preponderance, and Syracuse sank more and more
into a second-rate naval power. The maritime importance of the
Etruscans was wholly gone.... Rome itself was not exempt from
the same fate; its own waters were likewise commanded by foreign
fleets.' The Romans were for a long time too much occupied at
home to take much interest in Mediterranean matters. The position
of the Carthaginians in the western basin of the Mediterranean
was very like that of the Portuguese long afterwards in India.
The latter kept within reach of the sea; 'nor did their rule ever
extend a day's march from their ships.'[18] 'The Carthaginians
in Spain,' says Mommsen, 'made no effort to acquire the interior
from the warlike native nations; they were content with the
possession of the mines and of stations for traffic and for shell
and other fisheries.' Allowance being made for the numbers of the
classes engaged in administration, commerce, and supervision,
it is nearly certain that Carthage could not furnish the crews
required by both a great war-navy and a great mercantile marine.
No one is surprised on finding that the land-forces of Carthage
were composed largely of alien mercenaries. We have several examples
from which we can infer a parallel, if not an identical, condition
of her maritime resources. How, then, was the great Carthaginian
carrying-trade provided for? The experience of more than one
country will enable us to answer this question. The ocean trade
of those off-shoots or dependencies of the United Kingdom, viz.
the United States, Australasia, and India, is largely or chiefly
conducted by shipping of the old country. So that of Carthage was
largely conducted by old Phoenicians. These may have obtained a
'Carthaginian Register,' or the contemporary equivalent; but they
could not all have been purely Carthaginian or Liby-Phoenician.
This must have been the case even more with the war-navy. British
India for a considerable time possessed a real and indeed highly
efficient navy; but it was officered entirely and manned almost
entirely by men from the 'old country.' Moreover, it was small. The
wealth of India would have sufficed to furnish a larger material
element; but, as the country could not supply the _personnel_,
it would have been absurd to speak of the sea-power of India
apart from that of England. As soon as the Romans chose to make
the most of their natural resources the maritime predominance
of Carthage was doomed. The artificial basis of the latter's
sea-power would not enable it to hold out against serious and
persistent assaults. Unless this is perceived it is impossible to
understand the story of the Punic wars. Judged by every visible
sign of strength, Carthage, the richer, the more enterprising,
ethnically the more predominant amongst her neighbours, and
apparently the more nautical, seemed sure to win in the great
struggle with Rome which, by the conditions of the case, was to be
waged largely on the water. Yet those who had watched the struggles
of the Punic city with the Sicilian Greeks, and especially that
with Agathocles, must have seen reason to cherish doubts concerning
her naval strength. It was an anticipation of the case of Spain in
the age of Philip II. As the great Elizabethan seamen discerned
the defects of the Spanish naval establishment, so men at Rome
discerned those of the Carthaginian. Dates in connection with
this are of great significance. A comprehensive measure, with the
object of 'rescuing their marine from its condition of impotence,'
was taken by the Romans in the year 267 B.C. Four _quoestores_
_classici_--in modern naval English we may perhaps call them
port-admirals--were nominated, and one was stationed at each
of four ports. The objects of the Roman Senate, so Mommsen tells
us, were very obvious. They were 'to recover their independence
by sea, to cut off the maritime communications of Tarentum, to
close the Adriatic against fleets coming from Epirus, and to
emancipate themselves from Carthaginian supremacy.' Four years
afterwards the first Punic war began. It was, and had to be,
largely a naval contest. The Romans waged it with varying fortune,
but in the end triumphed by means of their sea-power. 'The sea
was the place where all great destinies were decided.'[19] The
victory of Catulus over the Carthaginian fleet off the Ægatian
Islands decided the war and left to the Romans the possession
of Sicily and the power of possessing themselves of Sardinia
and Corsica. It would be an interesting and perhaps not a barren
investigation to inquire to what extent the decline of the mother
states of Phoenicia, consequent on the campaigns of Alexander
the Great, had helped to enfeeble the naval efficiency of the
Carthaginian defences. One thing was certain. Carthage had now
met with a rival endowed with natural maritime resources greater
than her own. That rival also contained citizens who understood
the true importance of sea-power. 'With a statesmanlike sagacity
from which succeeding generations might have drawn a lesson, the
leading men of the Roman Commonwealth perceived that all their
coast-fortifications and coast-garrisons would prove inadequate
unless the war-marine of the state were again placed on a footing
that should command respect.'[20] It is a gloomy reflection that
the leading men of our own great maritime country could not see
this in 1860. A thorough comprehension of the events of the first
Punic war enables us to solve what, until Mahan wrote, had been
one of the standing enigmas of history, viz. Hannibal's invasion
of Italy by land instead of by sea in the second Punic war. Mahan's
masterly examination of this question has set at rest all doubts
as to the reason of Hannibal's action.[21] The naval predominance
in the western basin of the Mediterranean acquired by Rome had
never been lost. Though modern historians, even those belonging
to a maritime country, may have failed to perceive it, the
Carthaginians knew well enough that the Romans were too strong
for them on the sea. Though other forces co-operated to bring
about the defeat of Carthage in the second Punic war, the Roman
navy, as Mahan demonstrates, was the most important. As a navy, he
tells us in words like those already quoted, 'acts on an element
strange to most writers, as its members have been from time
immemorial a strange race apart, without prophets of their own,
neither themselves nor their calling understood, its immense
determining influence on the history of that era, and consequently
upon the history of the world, has been overlooked.'
[Footnote 18: R. S. Whiteway, _Rise_of_the_Portuguese_Power_
_in_India_ p. 12. Westminster, 1899.]
[Footnote 19: J. H. Burton, _Hist._of_Scotland_, 1873, vol. i.
p. 318.]
[Footnote 20: Mommsen, i. p. 427.]
[Footnote 21: _Inf._on_Hist._, pp. 13-21.]
The attainment of all but universal dominion by Rome was now
only a question of time. 'The annihilation of the Carthaginian
fleet had made the Romans masters of the sea.'[22] A lodgment
had already been gained in Illyricum, and countries farther east
were before long to be reduced to submission. A glance at the
map will show that to effect this the command of the eastern
basin of the Mediterranean, like that of the western, must be
secured by the Romans. The old historic navies of the Greek and
Phoenician states had declined. One considerable naval force
there was which, though it could not have prevented, was strong
enough to have delayed the Roman progress eastwards. This force
belonged to Rhodes, which in the years immediately following
the close of the second Punic war reached its highest point as
a naval power.[23] Far from trying to obstruct the advance of
the Romans the Rhodian fleet helped it. Hannibal, in his exile,
saw the necessity of being strong on the sea if the East was to
be saved from the grasp of his hereditary foe; but the resources
of Antiochus, even with the mighty cooperation of Hannibal, were
insufficient. In a later and more often-quoted struggle between
East and West--that which was decided at Actium--sea-power was
again seen to 'have the casting vote.' When the whole of the
Mediterranean coasts became part of a single state the importance
of the navy was naturally diminished; but in the struggles within
the declining empire it rose again at times. The contest of the
Vandal Genseric with Majorian and the African expedition of
Belisarius--not to mention others--were largely influenced by
the naval operations.[24]
[Footnote 22: Schmitz, _Hist._Rome_, p. 256.]
[Footnote 23: C. Torr, _Rhodes_in_Ancient_Times_, p. 40.]
[Footnote 24: Gibbon, _Dec._and_Fall_, chaps. xxxvi. xli]