We have now come to the end of the days of the naval wars of
old time. The subsequent period has been illustrated repeatedly
by manifestations of sea-power, often of great interest and
importance, though rarely understood or even discerned by the
nations which they more particularly concerned. The British
sea-power, notwithstanding the first year of the war of 1812,
had come out of the great European conflict unshaken and indeed
more preeminent than ever. The words used, half a century before
by a writer in the great French 'Encyclopédie,' seemed more exact
than when first written. '_L'empire_des_mers_,' he says, is,
'le plus avantageux de tous les empires; les Phoeniciens le
possédoient autre fois et c'est aux Anglois que cette gloire
appartient aujourd'hui sur toutes les puissances maritimes.'[47]
Vast out-lying territories had been acquired or were more firmly
held, and the communications of all the over-sea dominions of the
British Crown were secured against all possibility of serious
menace for many years to come. Our sea-power was so ubiquitous
and all-pervading that, like the atmosphere, we rarely thought
of it and rarely remembered its necessity or its existence. It
was not till recently that the greater part of the nation--for
there were many, and still are some exceptions--perceived that
it was the medium apart from which the British Empire could no
more live than it could have grown up. Forty years after the
fall of Napoleon we found ourselves again at war with a great
power. We had as our ally the owner of the greatest navy in the
world except our own. Our foe, as regards his naval forces, came
the next in order. Yet so overwhelming was the strength of Great
Britain and France on the sea that Russia never attempted to
employ her navy against them. Not to mention other expeditions,
considerable enough in themselves, military operations on the
largest scale were undertaken, carried on for many months, and
brought to a successful termination on a scene so remote that
it was two thousand miles from the country of one, and three
thousand from that of the other partner in the alliance. 'The
stream of supplies and reinforcements, which in terms of modern
war is called "communications,", was kept free from even the threat
of molestation, not by visible measures, but by the undisputed
efficacy of a real, though imperceptible sea-power. At the close
of the Russian war we encountered, and unhappily for us in
influential positions, men who, undismayed by the consequences
of mimicking in free England the cast-iron methods of the Great
Frederick, began to measure British requirements by standards
borrowed from abroad and altogether inapplicable to British
conditions. Because other countries wisely abstained from relying
on that which they did not possess, or had only imperfectly and
with elaborate art created, the mistress of the seas was led to
proclaim her disbelief in the very force that had made and kept
her dominion, and urged to defend herself with fortifications by
advisers who, like Charles II and the Duke of York two centuries
before, were 'not ashamed of it.' It was long before the peril
into which this brought the empire was perceived; but at last,
and in no small degree owing to the teachings of Mahan, the people
themselves took the matter in hand and insisted that a great
maritime empire should have adequate means of defending all that
made its existence possible.
[Footnote 47: _Encyclopédie_, 7th Jan. 1765, art. 'Thalassarchie.']
In forms differing in appearance, but identical in essentials, the
efficacy of sea-power was proved again in the American Secession
war. If ever there were hostilities in which, to the unobservant
or short-sighted, naval operations might at first glance seem
destined to count for little, they were these. The sequel, however,
made it clear that they constituted one of the leading factors
of the success of the victorious side. The belligerents, the
Northern or Federal States and the Southern or Confederate States,
had a common land frontier of great length. The capital of each
section was within easy distance of this frontier, and the two
were not far apart. In wealth, population, and resources the
Federals were enormously superior. They alone possessed a navy,
though at first it was a small one. The one advantage on the
Confederate side was the large proportion of military officers
which belonged to it and their fine training as soldiers. In
_physique_ as well as in _morale_ the army of one side differed
little from that of the other; perhaps the Federal army was slightly
superior in the first, and the Confederate, as being recruited
from a dominant white race, in the second. Outnumbered, less well
equipped, and more scantily supplied, the Confederates nevertheless
kept up the war, with many brilliant successes on land, for four
years. Had they been able to maintain their trade with neutral
states they could have carried on the war longer, and--not
improbably--have succeeded in the end. The Federal navy, which was
largely increased, took away all chance of this. It established
effective blockades of the Confederate ports, and severed their
communications with the outside world. Indispensable articles of
equipment could not be obtained, and the armies, consequently,
became less and less able to cope with their abundantly furnished
antagonists. By dominating the rivers the Federals cut the
Confederacy asunder; and by the power they possessed of moving troops
by sea at will, perplexed and harassed the defence, and facilitated
the occupation of important points. Meanwhile the Confederates
could make no reply on the water except by capturing merchant
vessels, by which the contest was embittered, but the course of
the war remained absolutely unaffected. The great numbers of
men under arms on shore, the terrific slaughter in many battles
of a war in which tactical ability, even in a moderate degree,
was notably uncommon on both sides, and the varying fortunes of
the belligerents, made the land campaigns far more interesting
to the ordinary observer than the naval. It is not surprising,
therefore, that peace had been re-established for several years
before the American people could be made to see the great part
taken by the navy in the restoration of the Union; and what the
Americans had not seen was hidden from the sight of other nations.
In several great wars in Europe waged since France and England
made peace with Russia sea-power manifested itself but little.
In the Russo-Turkish war the great naval superiority of the Turks
in the Black Sea, where the Russians at the time had no fleet,
governed the plans, if not the course, of the campaigns. The
water being denied to them, the Russians were compelled to execute
their plan of invading Turkey by land. An advance to the Bosphorus
through the northern part of Asia Minor was impracticable without
help from a navy on the right flank. Consequently the only route
was a land one across the Danube and the Balkans. The advantages,
though not fully utilised, which the enforcement of this line of
advance put into the hands of the Turks, and the difficulties
and losses which it caused the Russians, exhibited in a striking
manner what sea-power can effect even when its operation is scarcely
observable.
This was more conspicuous in a later series of hostilities. The
civil war in Chili between Congressists and Balmacedists is specially
interesting, because it throws into sharp relief the predominant
influence, when a non-maritime enemy is to be attacked, of a navy
followed up by an adequate land-force. At the beginning of the
dispute the Balmacedists, or President's party, had practically
all the army, and the Congressists, or Opposition party, nearly
all the Chilian navy. Unable to remain in the principal province
of the republic, and expelled from the waters of Valparaiso by the
Balmacedist garrisons of the forts--the only and doubtful service
which those works rendered to their own side--the Congressists
went off with the ships to the northern provinces, where they
counted many adherents. There they formed an army, and having
money at command, and open sea communications, they were able
to import equipment from abroad, and eventually to transport
their land-force, secured from molestation on the voyage by the
sea-power at their disposal, to the neighbourhood of Valparaiso,
where it was landed and triumphantly ended the campaign.
It will have been noticed that, in its main outlines, this story
repeated that of many earlier campaigns. It was itself repeated,
as regards its general features, by the story of the war between
China and Japan in 1894-95. 'Every aspect of the war,' says Colomb,
'is interesting to this country, as Japan is to China in a position
similar to that which the British Islands occupy to the European
continent.'[48] It was additionally interesting because the sea-power
of Japan was a novelty. Though a novelty, it was well known by
English naval men to be superior in all essentials to that of
China, a novelty itself. As is the rule when two belligerents
are contending for something beyond a purely maritime object,
the final decision was to be on land. Korea was the principal
theatre of the land war; and, as far as access to it by sea was
concerned, the chief bases of the two sides were about the same
distance from it. It was possible for the Chinese to march there
by land. The Japanese, coming from an island state, were obliged
to cross the water. It will be seen at once that not only the
success of the Japanese in the struggle, but also the possibility
of its being carried on by them at all, depended on sea-power.
The Japanese proved themselves decisively superior at sea. Their
navy effectually cleared the way for one army which was landed in
Korea, and for another which was landed in the Chinese province
of Shantung. The Chinese land-forces were defeated. The navy of
japan, being superior on the sea, was able to keep its sister
service supplied or reinforced as required. It was, however, not
the navy, but the army, which finally frustrated the Chinese
efforts at defence, and really terminated the war. What the navy
did was what, in accordance with the limitations of sea-power,
may be expected of a navy. It made the transport of the army
across the sea possible; and enabled it to do what of itself
the army could not have done, viz. overcome the last resistance
of the enemy.
[Footnote 48: _Naval_Warfare_, 3rd ed. p. 436.]
The issue of the Spanish-American war, at least as regards the mere
defeat of Spain, was, perhaps, a foregone conclusion. That Spain,
even without a serious insurrection on her hands, was unequal to
the task of meeting so powerful an antagonist as the United States
must have been evident even to Spaniards. Be that as it may, an
early collapse of the Spanish defence was not anticipated, and
however one-sided the war may have been seen to be, it furnished
examples illustrating rules as old as naval warfare. Mahan says of
it that, 'while possessing, as every war does, characteristics of
its own differentiating it from others, nevertheless in its broad
analogies it falls into line with its predecessors, evidencing that
unity of teaching which pervades the art from its beginnings unto
this day.'[49] The Spaniards were defeated by the superiority
of the American sea-power. 'A million of the best soldiers,' says
Mahan, 'would have been powerless in face of hostile control of
the sea.' That control was obtained and kept by the United States
navy, thus permitting the unobstructed despatch of troops--and
their subsequent reinforcement and supply--to Spanish territory,
which was finally conquered, not by the navy, but by the army
on shore. That it was the navy which made this final conquest
possible happened, in this case, to be made specially evident
by the action of the United States Government, which stopped a
military expedition on the point of starting for Cuba until the
sea was cleared of all Spanish naval force worth attention.
[Footnote 49: _Lessons_of_the_War_with_Spain_, p. 16.]
The events of the long period which we have been considering
will have shown how sea-power operates, and what it effects.
What is in it will have appeared from this narrative more clearly
than would have been possible from any mere definition. Like
many other things, sea-power is composed of several elements. To
reach the highest degree of efficacy it should be based upon a
population naturally maritime, and on an ocean commerce naturally
developed rather than artificially enticed to extend itself. Its
outward and visible sign is a navy, strong in the discipline,
skill, and courage of a numerous _personnel_ habituated to the
sea, in the number and quality of its ships, in the excellence
of its _matériel_, and in the efficiency, scale, security, and
geographical position of its arsenals and bases. History has
demonstrated that sea-power thus conditioned can gain any purely
maritime object, can protect the trade and the communications of a
widely extended empire, and whilst so doing can ward off from its
shores a formidable invader. There are, however, limitations to be
noted. Left to itself its operation is confined to the water, or at
any rate to the inner edge of a narrow zone of coast. It prepares
the way for the advance of an army, the work of which it is not
intended, and is unable to perform. Behind it, in the territory
of which it guards the shores, there must be a land-force adjusted
in organisation, equipment, and numbers to the circumstances
of the country. The possession of a navy does not permit a
sea-surrounded state to dispense with all fixed defences or
fortification; but it does render it unnecessary and indeed absurd
that they should be abundant or gigantic. The danger which always
impends over the sea-power of any country is that, after being
long unused, it may lose touch of the sea. The revolution in
the constructive arts during the last half-century, which has
also been a period of but little-interrupted naval peace, and
the universal adoption of mechanical appliances, both for
ship-propulsion and for many minor services--mere _matériel_
being thereby raised in the general estimation far above really
more important matters--makes the danger mentioned more menacing
in the present age than it has ever been before.