PART II

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THE NAVY AS A FIGHTING MACHINE

by

REAR ADMIRAL BRADLEY A. FISKE

U. S. Navy

Former Aid for Operations of the Fleet; President of the U. S.

Naval Institute; Gold Medallist of the U. S. Naval Institute and

The Franklin Institute of Pennsylvania

Author of "Electricity in Theory and Practice," "War Time in Manila,"

Etc.

With Map

PREFACE

What is the navy for?

Of what parts should it be composed?

What principles should be followed in designing, preparing, and

operating it in order to get the maximum return for the money expended?

To answer these questions clearly and without technical language

is the object of the book.

BRADLEY A. FISKE.

U. S. NAVAL WAR COLLEGE,

NEWPORT, R. I., September 3, 1916.

CONTENTS

PART I

GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS

CHAPTER

I. WAR AND THE NATIONS

II. NAVAL A, B, C

III. NAVAL POWER

IV. NAVAL PREPAREDNESS

V. NAVAL DEFENSE

VI. NAVAL POLICY

PART II

NAVAL STRATEGY

VII. GENERAL PRINCIPLES

VIII. DESIGNING THE MACHINE

IX. PREPARING THE ACTIVE FLEET

X. RESERVES AND SHORE STATIONS

XI. NAVAL BASES

XII. OPERATING THE MACHINE

STRATEGIC MAP OF THE ATLANTIC AND PACIFIC OCEANS

*** Chapters III and VII were published originally in _The U. S.

Naval Institute_; chapters I, II, IV, V, and VII in _The North

American Review_.

PART I

GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS

CHAPTER I

WAR AND THE NATIONS

Because the question is widely discussed, whether peace throughout

the world may be attained by the friendly co-operation of many

nations, and because a nation's attitude toward this question may

determine its future prosperity or ruin, it may be well to note

what has been the trend of the nations hitherto, and whether any

forces exist that may reasonably be expected to change that trend.

We may then be able to induce from facts the law which that trend

obeys, and make a reasonable deduction as to whether or not the

world is moving toward peace. If we do this we shall follow the

inductive method of modern science, and avoid the error (with its

perilous results) of first assuming the law and then deducing

conclusions from it.

Men have always been divided into organizations, the first organization

being the family. As time went on families were formed into tribes,

for self-protection. The underlying cause for the organization was

always a desire for strength; sometimes for defense, sometimes

for offense, usually for both.

At times tribes joined in alliance with other tribes to attain a

common end, the alliance being brought about by peaceful agreement,

and usually ceasing after the end had been attained, or missed, or

when tribal jealousies forbade further common effort. Sometimes

tribes joined to form one larger tribe; the union being either

forced on a weaker by a stronger tribe, or caused by a desire to

secure a strength greater and more lasting than mere alliance can

insure.

In the same way, and apparently according to similar laws, sovereign

states or nations were formed from tribes; and in later years, by

the union of separate states. The states or nations have become

larger and larger as time has gone on; greater numbers, not only

of people but of peoples, living in the same general localities

and having hereditary ties, joining to form a nation.

Though the forms of government of these states or nations are numerous,

and though the conceptions of people as to the purposes and functions

of the state vary greatly, we find that one characteristic of a

state has always prevailed among all the states and nations of the

world--the existence of an armed military force, placed under the

control of its government; the purpose of this armed force being

to enable the government not only to carry on its administration

of internal matters, but also to exert itself externally against

the armed force of another state.

This armed force has been a prominent factor in the life of every

sovereign state and independent tribe, from history's beginning,

and is no less a factor now. No instance can be found of a sovereign

state without its appropriate armed force, to guard its sovereignty,

and preserve that freedom from external control, without which

freedom it ceases to exist as a sovereign state.

The armed force has always been a matter of very great expense. It

has always required the anxious care of the government and the people.

The men comprising it have always been subjected to restraint and

discipline, compelled to undergo hardships and dangers greater than

those of civil life, and developed by a training highly specialized

and exacting.

The armed force in every state has had not only continuous existence

always, but continuous, potential readiness, if not continuous

employment; and the greatest changes in the mutual relations of

nations have been brought about by the victory of the armed force

of one state over the armed force of another state. This does not

mean that the fundamental causes of the changes have been physical,

for they have been psychological, and have been so profound and so

complex as to defy analysis; but it does mean that the actual and

immediate instrument producing the changes has been physical force;

that physical force and physical courage acting in conjunction,

of which conjunction war is the ultimate expression, have always

been the most potent instruments in the dealings of nations with

each other.

Is there any change toward peaceful methods now?

No, on the contrary; war is recognized as the most potent method

still; the prominence of military matters is greater than ever

before; at no time in the past has interest in war been so keen

as at the present, or the expenditure of blood and money been so

prodigal; at no time before has war so thoroughly engaged the intellect

and energy of mankind.

In other words, the trend of the nations has been toward a clearer

recognition of the efficacy of military power, and an increasing

use of the instrumentality of war.

This does not mean that the trend of the nations has been regular;

for, on the contrary, it has been spasmodic. If one hundred photographs

of the map of Europe could be taken, each photograph representing

in colors the various countries as they appeared upon the map at

one hundred different times, and if those hundred photographs could

be put on films and shown as a moving-picture on a screen, the

result would resemble the shifting colored pieces in a kaleidoscope.

Boundaries advanced and receded, then advanced again; tribes and

nations moved their homes from place to place; empires, kingdoms,

principalities, duchies, and republics flourished brilliantly for a

while, and then went out; many peoples struggled for an autonomous

existence, but hardly a dozen acquired enough territory or mustered

a sufficiently numerous population to warrant their being called

"great nations." Of those that were great nations, only three have

endured as great nations for eight hundred years; and the three

that have so endured are the three greatest in Europe now--the

French, the British, and the German.

Some of the ancient empires continued for long periods. The history

of practical, laborious, and patient China is fairly complete and

clear for more than two thousand years before our era; and of dreamy,

philosophic India for almost as long, though in far less authentic

form. Egypt existed as a nation, highly military, artistic, and

industrious, as her monuments show, for perhaps four thousand years;

when she was forced by the barbarians of Persia into a condition

of dependence, from which she has never yet emerged. The time of

her greatness in the arts and sciences of peace was the time of her

greatest military power; and her decline in the arts and sciences

of peace accompanied her decline in those of war. Assyria, with

her two capitals, Babylon and Nineveh, flourished splendidly for

about six centuries, and was then subdued by the Persians under

Cyrus, after the usual decline. The little kingdom of the Hebrews,

hardy and warlike under Saul and David, luxurious and effeminate

under Solomon, lasted but little more than a hundred years. Persia,

rising rapidly by military means from the barbarian state, lived

a brilliant life of conquest, cultivated but little those arts of

peace that hold in check the passions of a successful military

nation, yielded rapidly to the seductions of luxury, and fell abruptly

before the Macedonian Alexander, lasting less than two hundred

and fifty years. Macedonia, trained under Philip, rose to great

military power under Alexander, conquered in twelve years the ten

most wealthy and populous countries of the world--nearly the whole

known world; but fell to pieces almost instantly when Alexander

died. The cities of Greece enjoyed a rare pre-eminence both in

the arts and sciences of peace and in military power, but only

for about one hundred and fifty years: falling at last before the

superior military force of Macedon, after neglecting the practice

of the military arts, and devoting themselves to art, learning,

and philosophy. Rome as a great nation lasted about five hundred

years; and the last three centuries of her life after the death

of Commodus, about 192 A. D., illustrate curiously the fact that,

even if a people be immoral, cruel, and base in many ways, their

existence as an independent state may be continued long, if military

requirements be understood, and if the military forces be preserved

from the influence of the effeminacy of the nation as a whole. In

Rome, the army was able to maintain a condition of considerable

manliness, relatively to the people at large, and thus preserve

internal order and keep the barbarians at bay for nearly three

hundred years; and at the same time exert a powerful and frequently

deciding influence in the government. But the effeminacy of the

people, especially of those in the higher ranks, made them the

creatures of the army that protected them. In some cases, the Emperor

himself was selected by the army, or by the Pretorian Guard in Rome;

and sometimes the guard removed an Emperor of whom it disapproved

by the simple expedient of killing him.

After the fall of the Western Empire in 476, when Rome was taken by

Odoacer, a condition of confusion, approaching anarchy, prevailed

throughout Europe, until Charlemagne founded his empire, about 800

A. D., except that Constantinople was able to stand up against all

outside assaults and hold the Eastern Empire together. Charlemagne's

empire united under one government nearly all of what is now France,

Germany, Austria, Italy, Belgium, and Holland. The means employed by

Charlemagne to found his empire were wholly military, though means

other than military were instituted to preserve it. He endeavored

by just government, wise laws, and the encouragement of religion

and of education of all kinds to form a united people. The time

was not ripe, however; and Charlemagne's empire fell apart soon

after Charlemagne expired.

The rapid rise and spread of the Mohammedan religion was made possible

by the enthusiasm with which Mahomet imbued his followers, but the

actual founding of the Arabian Empire was due wholly to military

conquest, achieved by the fanatic Mussulmans who lived after him.

After a little more than a hundred years, the empire was divided

into two caliphates. Brilliant and luxurious courts were thereafter

held by caliphs at Bagdad and Cordova, with results similar to

those in Egypt, Persia, Assyria, and Rome; the people becoming

effeminate, employed warriors to protect them, and the warriors

became their masters. Then, effeminacy spreading even to the warriors,

strength to resist internal disorders as well as external assaults

gradually faded, and both caliphates fell.

From the death of Charlemagne until the fall of Constantinople, in

1453, the three principal nations of Europe were those of France,

Germany, and England. Until that time, and dating from a time shortly

before the fall of Rome, Europe was in perpetual turmoil--owing

not only to conflicts between nations, but to conflicts between

the Church of Rome and the civil power of the Kings and Emperors,

to conflicts among the feudal lords, and to conflicts between the

sovereigns and the feudal lords. The power of the Roman Church was

beneficent in checking a too arrogant and military tendency, and

was the main factor in preventing an utter lapse back to barbarism.

The end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of what are usually

called "Modern Times" found only four great countries in the

world--France, Germany, Spain, and England. Of these Spain dropped

out in the latter part of the sixteenth century. The other three

countries still stand, though none of them lies within exactly

the same boundaries as when modern times began; and Austria, which

was a part of Germany then, is now--with Hungary--a separate state

and nation.

This very brief survey of history shows that every great nation

has started from a small beginning and risen sometimes gradually,

sometimes rapidly to greatness; and then fallen, sometimes gradually,

sometimes rapidly, to mediocrity, dependence, or extinction; that

the instrument which has effected the rise has always been military

power, usually exerted by armies on the land, sometimes by navies

on the sea; and that the instrument which has effected the actual

fall has always been the military power of an adversary. In other

words, _the immediate instrument that has decided the rise and

the fall of nations has been military power_.

That this should have been so need not surprise us, since nations

have always been composed of human beings, influenced by the same

hopes and fears and governed by the same laws of human nature. And

as the most potent influence that could be brought to bear upon

a man was a threat against his life, and as it was the province of

military power to threaten life, it was unavoidable that military

power should be the most potent influence that could be brought

to bear upon a nation.

The history of the world has been in the main a history of war

and a narrative of wars. No matter how far back we go, the same

horrible but stimulating story meets our eyes. In ancient days,

when every weapon was rude, and manipulated by one man only, the

injury a single weapon could do was small, the time required for

preparation was but brief, and the time required for recuperation

after war was also brief. At that time, military power was almost

the sole element in the longevity of a tribe, or clan, or nation;

and the warriors were the most important men among the people.

But as civilization increased, the life not only of individuals

but of nations became more complex, and warriors had to dispute

with statesmen, diplomatists, poets, historians, and artists of

various types, the title to pre-eminence. Yet even in savage tribes

and even in the conduct of savage wars, the value of wisdom and

cunning was perceived, and the stimulating aid of the poet and

the orator was secured. The relative value of men of war and men

of peace depended during each period on the conditions prevailing

then--in war, warriors held the stage; in peace, statesmen and

artists had their day.

Naturally, during periods when war was the normal condition, the

warrior was the normal pillar of the state. In how great a proportion

of the time that history describes, war was the normal condition

and peace the abnormal, few realize now in our country, because

of the aloofness of the present generation from even the memory

of war. Our last great war ended in 1865; and since then only the

light and transient touch of the Spanish War has been laid upon

us. Even that war ended seventeen years ago and since then only

the distant rumblings of battles in foreign lands have been borne

across the ocean to our ears.

These rumblings have disturbed us very little. Feeling secure behind

the 3,000-mile barrier of the ocean, we have lent an almost incredulous

ear to the story that they tell and the menace that they bear;

though the story of the influence of successful and unsuccessful

wars upon the rise and fall of nations is told so harshly and so

loudly that, in order not to hear it, one must tightly stop his

ears.

That war has not been the only factor, however, in the longevity of

nations is obviously true; and it is also true that nations which

have developed the warlike arts alone have never even approximated

greatness. In all complex matters, in all processes of nature and

human nature, many elements are present, and many factors combine

to produce a given result. Man is a very complex individual, and

the more highly he is developed the more complex he becomes. A

savage is mainly an animal; but the civilized and highly educated

man is an animal on whose elemental nature have been superposed

very highly organized mental, moral, and spiritual natures. Yet

even a savage of the most primitive or warlike character has an

instinctive desire for rest and softness and beauty, and loves

a primitive music; and even the most highly refined and educated

gentleman raises his head a little higher, and draws his breath a

little deeper, when war draws near. Thus in the breast of every man

are two opposing forces; one urging him to the action and excitement

of war, the other to the comparative inaction and tranquillity of

peace. On the side that urges war, we see hate, ambition, courage,

energy, and strength; on the side that urges peace we see love,

contentment, cowardice, indolence, and weakness. We see arrayed for

war the forceful faults and virtues; for peace the gentle faults

and virtues. Both the forceful and the gentle qualities tend to

longevity in certain ways and tend to its prevention in other ways;

but history clearly shows that the _forceful qualities have tended

more to the longevity of nations than the gentle_. If ever two

nations, or two tribes, have found themselves contiguous, one forceful

and the other not, the forceful one has usually, if not always,

obtained the mastery over the other, and therefore has outlived

it. If any cow and any lion have found themselves alone together,

the lion has outlived the cow.

It is true that the mere fact of being a lion has not insured long

life, and that the mere fact of being a cow has not precluded it;

and some warlike tribes and nations have not lived so long as tribes

and nations of softer fibre. This seems to have been due, however,

either to the environments in which the two have lived, or to the

fact that the softer nation has had available some forces that

the other did not have. The native Indians of North America were

more warlike than the colonists from Europe that landed on their

shores; but the Indians were armed with spears and arrows, and

the colonists with guns.

Now, those guns were the product of the arts of peace; no nation

that had pursued a warlike life exclusively could have produced them

or invented the powder that discharged them. This fact indicates what

a thousand other facts of history also indicate, that civilization

and the peaceful arts contribute to the longevity of nations--not only

by promoting personal comfort, and by removing causes of internal

strife, and thus enabling large bodies of people to dwell together

happily, but also by increasing their military power. Every nation

which has achieved greatness has cultivated assiduously both the

arts of peace and the arts of war. Every nation which has long

maintained that greatness has done so by maintaining the policy

by which she acquired it. _Every nation that has attained and then

lost greatness, has lost it by losing the proper balance between the

military and the peaceful arts; never by exalting unduly the military,

but always by neglecting them, and thereby becoming vulnerable to

attack_.

In other words, the history of every great nation that has declined

shows three periods, the rise, the table-land of greatness, and

the decline. During the rise, the military arts hold sway; on the

table-land, the arts of peace and war are fairly balanced; during

the decline the peaceful arts hold sway. _Facilis descensus Averni_.

The rise is accomplished by expending energy, for which accomplishment

the possession of energy is the first necessity; the height of

the table-land attained represents the amount of energy expended;

the length of time that the nation maintains itself upon this

table-land, before starting on the inevitable descent therefrom,

represents her staying power and constitutes her longevity as a

great nation.

How long shall any nation stay upon the table-land? As long as

she continues to adapt her life wisely to her environment; as long

as she continues to be as wise as she was while climbing up; for

while climbing, she had not only to exert force, she had also to

guide the force with wisdom. So we see that, in the ascent, a nation

has to use both force and wisdom; on the table-land, wisdom; in

the decline, neither. Among the nations of antiquity one might

suppose that, because of the slowness of transportation and

communication, and the feebleness of weapons compared with those

of modern days, much longer periods of time would be required for

the rise of any nation, and also a longer period before her descent

began. Yet the vast empire of Alexander lasted hardly a day after

he expired, and the Grecian cities maintained their greatness but

a century and a half; while Great Britain, France, and Germany

have been great nations for nearly a thousand years.

Why have they endured longer than the others?

The answer is hard to find; because many causes, and some of them

obscure, have contributed to the result. But, as we observe the

kind of constitution and the mode of life of long-lived people,

in order to ascertain what kind of constitution and mode of life

conduce to longevity in people, so perhaps we may logically do

the same with nations.

Observing the constitution and mode of life of the British, French,

and German nations, we are struck at once with the fact that those

peoples have been by constitution active, ambitious, intelligent,

and brave; and that they have observed in their national life a

skilfully balanced relation between the arts of peace and the arts

of war; neglecting neither and allowing neither to wax great at the

expense of the other. In all those countries the _first_ aim has

been protection from both external attack and internal disorder.

Protection from external attack has been gained by military force

and highly trained diplomacy; protection from internal disorder

has been gained _first_ by military force, and _second_ by wise

laws, just courts, and the encouragement of religion and of those

arts and sciences that lead to comfort and happiness in living.

China may attract the attention of some as an instance of longevity;

but is China a nation in the usual meaning of the word? Certainly,

she is not a great nation. It is true that no other nation has

actually conquered her of late; but this has been largely by reason

of her remoteness from the active world, and because other nations

imposed their will upon her, without meeting any resistance that

required the use of war to overcome. And even China has not lived

a wholly peaceful life, despite the non-military character of her

people. Her whole history was one of wars, like that of other nations,

until the middle of the fourteenth century of our era. Since then,

she has had four wars, in all of which she has been whipped: one in

the seventeenth century when the country was successfully invaded,

and the native dynasty was overthrown by the Tartars of Manchuria;

one in 1840, when Great Britain compelled her to cede Hong-Kong

and to open five ports to foreign commerce, through which ports

opium could be introduced; one in 1860, with Great Britain and

France, that resulted in the capture of Pekin; and one with Japan

in 1894. Since that time (as well as before) China has been the

scene of revolutions and wide-spread disturbances, so that, even

though a peace-loving and non-resisting nation, peace has not reigned

within her borders. The last dynasty was overthrown in 1912. Since

then a feeble republic has dragged on a precarious existence,

interrupted by the very short reign of Yuan Shih K'ai.

This brief consideration of the trend of people up to the present

time seems to show that, owing to the nature of man himself, especially

to the nature of large "crowds" of men, the direction in which

nations have been moving hitherto has not been toward increasing

the prevalence of peace, but rather toward increasing the methods,

instruments, and areas of war; furthermore, that this direction of

movement has been necessary, in order to achieve and to maintain

prosperity in any nation.

This being the case, what forces exist that may reasonably be expected

to change that trend?

Three main forces are usually mentioned: Civilization, Commerce,

Christianity.

Before considering these it may be well to note Newton's first law

of motion, that every body will continue in a state of rest or of

uniform motion in a straight line unless acted on by some external

force; for though this law was affirmed of material bodies, yet its

applicability to large groups of men is striking and suggestive.

Not only do human beings have the physical attributes of weight and

inertia like other material bodies, but their mental organism,

while of a higher order than the physical, is as powerfully affected

by external forces. And though it is true that psychology has not

yet secured her Newton, and that no one has yet formulated a law

that expresses exactly the action of the minds and spirits of men

under the influence of certain mental and moral stimuli or forces,

yet we know that our minds and spirits are influenced by fear,

hope, ambition, hate, and so forth, in ways that are fairly well

understood and toward results that often can be predicted in advance.

Our whole theory of government and our laws of business and every-day

life are founded on the belief that men are the same to-day as

they were yesterday, and that they will be the same to-morrow. The

whole science of psychology is based on the observed and recorded

actions of the human organism under the influence of certain external

stimuli or forces, and starts from the assumption that this organism

has definite and permanent characteristics. If this is not so--if

the behavior of men in the past has not been governed by actual

laws which will also govern their behavior in the future--then

our laws of government are built on error, and the teachings of

psychology are foolish.

This does not mean that any man will necessarily act in the same

way to-morrow as he did yesterday, when subjected to the influence

of the same threat, inducement, or temptation; because, without

grappling the thorny question of free will, we realize that a man's

action is never the result of only one stimulus and motive, but

is the resultant of many; and we have no reason to expect that

he will act in the same way when subjected to the same stimulus,

unless we know that the internal and external conditions pertaining

to him are also the same. Furthermore, even if we cannot predict what

a certain individual will do, when exposed to a certain external

influence, because of some differences in his mental and physical

condition, on one occasion in comparison with another, yet when we

consider large groups of men, we know that individual peculiarities,

permanent and temporary, balance each other in great measure; that

the average condition of a group of men is less changeable than

that of one man, and that the degree of permanency of condition

increases with the number of men in the group. From this we may

reasonably conclude that, if we know the character of a man--or a

group of men--and if we know also the line of action which he--or

they-have followed in the past, we shall be able to predict his--or

their--line of action in the future with considerable accuracy;

and that the accuracy will increase with the number of men in the

group, and the length of time during which they have followed the

known line of action. Le Bon says: "Every race carries in its mental

constitution the laws of its destiny."

Therefore, the line of action that the entire human race has followed

during the centuries of the past is a good index--or at least the

best index that we have--to its line of action during the centuries

of the future.

Now, men have been on this earth for many years; and history and

psychology teach us that in their intercourse with each other,

their conduct has been caused by a combination of many forces,

among which are certain powerful forces that tend to create strife.

The strongest by far of these forces is the _ego_ in man himself,

a quality divinely implanted which makes a man in a measure

self-protecting. This ego prompts a man not only to seek pleasure

and avoid trouble for himself, but also to gain superiority, and,

if possible, the mastery over his fellow men. Men being placed in

life in close juxtaposition to each other, the struggles of each

man to advance his own interests produce rivalries, jealousies,

and conflicts.

Similarly with nations. Nations have been composed for the most

part of people having an heredity more or less common to them all,

so that they are bound together as great clans. From this it has

resulted that nations have been jealous of each other and have

combated each other. They have been doing this since history began,

and are doing it as much as ever now.

In fact, mankind have been in existence for so many centuries,

and their physical, moral, mental, and spiritual characteristics

were so evidently implanted in them by the Almighty, that it seems

difficult to see how any one, except the Almighty himself, can

change these characteristics and their resulting conduct. It is

a common saying that a man cannot lift himself over the fence by

his boot straps, though he can jump over the fence, if it is not

too high. This saying recognizes the fact that "a material system

can do no work on itself"; but needs external aid. When a man pulls

upward on his boot straps, the upward force that he exerts is exactly

balanced by the downward reaction exerted by his boot straps; but

when he jumps, the downward thrust of his legs causes an equal

reaction of the earth, which exerts a direct force upward upon

the man; and it is this external force that moves him over the

fence. It is this external force, the reaction of the earth or

air or water, which moves every animal that walks, or bird that

flies, or fish that swims. It is the will of the Almighty, acting

through the various stimuli of nature, that causes the desire to

walk, and all the emotions and actions of men. If He shall cause

any new force to act on men, their line of conduct will surely

change. But if He does not--how can it change, or be changed; how

can the human race turn about, by means of its own power only, and

move in a direction the reverse from that in which it has been

moving throughout all the centuries of the past?

These considerations seem to indicate that nations, regarded in

their relation toward each other, will go on in the direction in

which they have been going unless acted upon by some external force.

Will civilization, commerce, or Christianity impart that force?

Inasmuch as civilization is merely a condition in which men live, and

an expression of their history, character and aims, it is difficult

to see how it could of itself act as an external force, or cause an

external force to act. "Institutions and laws," says Le Bon, again,

"are the outward manifestation of our character, the expression of

its needs. Being its outcome, institutions and laws cannot change

this character."

Even if the civilization of a given nation may have been brought

about in some degree by forces external to that nation, yet it is

clear that we must regard that civilization rather as the result of

those forces than as a force itself. Besides, civilization has never

yet made the relations of nations with each other more unselfish,

civilized nations now and in the past, despite their veneer of

courtesy, being fully as jealous of each other as the most savage

tribes. That this should be so seems natural; because civilization

has resulted mainly from the attempts of individuals and groups to

enhance the pleasures and diminish the ills of life, and therefore

cannot tend to unselfishness in either individuals or nations.

Civilization in the past has not operated to soften the relations

of nations with each other, so why should it do so now? Is not

modern civilization, with its attendant complexities, rivalries,

and jealousies, provocative of quarrels rather than the reverse? In

what respect is modern civilization better than past civilization,

except in material conveniences due to material improvements in the

mechanic arts? Are we any more artistic, strong, or beautiful than

the Greeks in their palmy days? Are we braver than the Spartans,

more honest than the Chinese, more spiritual than the Hindoos,

more religious than the Puritans? Is not the superior civilization

of the present day a mechanical civilization pure and simple? And

has not the invention of electrical and mechanical appliances,

with the resulting insuring of communication and transportation,

and the improvements in instruments of destruction, advantaged

the great nations more than the weaker ones, and increased the

temptation to great nations to use force rather than decreased

it? Do not civilization's improvements in weapons of destruction

augment the effectiveness of warlike methods, as compared with

the peaceful methods of argument and persuasion?

Diplomacy is an agency of civilization that was invented to avoid

war, to enable nations to accommodate themselves to each other

without going to war; but, practically, diplomacy seems to have

caused almost as many wars as it has averted. And even if it be

granted that the influence of diplomacy has been in the main for

peace rather than for war, we know that diplomacy has been in use

for centuries, that its resources are well understood, and that

they have all been tried out many times; and therefore we ought

to realize clearly that diplomacy cannot introduce any new force

into international politics now, or exert, an influence for peace

that will be more potent in the future than the influence that

it has exerted in the past.

These considerations seem to show that we cannot reasonably expect

civilization to divert nations from the path they have followed

hitherto.

Can commerce impart the external force necessary to divert nations

from that path?

Since commerce bears exactly the same relation to nations now as

in times past, and since it is an agency within mankind itself, it

is difficult to see how it can act as an external force, or cause

an external force to be applied. Of course, commercial interests

are often opposed to national interests, and improvements in speed

and sureness of communication and transportation increase the size

and power of commercial organizations. But the same factors increase

the power of governments and the solidarity of nations. At no time

in the past has there been more national feeling in nations than

now. Even the loosely held provinces of China are forming a Chinese

nation. Despite the fundamental commercialism of the age, national

spirit is growing more intense, the present war being the main

intensifying cause. It is true that the interests of commerce are

in many ways antagonistic to those of war. But, on the other hand,

of all the causes that occasion war the economic causes are the

greatest. For no thing will men fight more savagely than for money;

for no thing have men fought more savagely than for money; and the

greater the rivalry, the more the man's life becomes devoted to

it, and the more fiercely he will fight to get or keep it. Surely

of all the means by which we hope to avoid war, the most hopeless

by far is commerce.

The greatest of all hopes is in Christianity, because of its inculcation

of love and kindliness, its obvious influence on the individual

in cultivating unselfishness and other peaceful virtues, and the

fact that it is an inspiration from on high, and therefore a force

external to mankind. But let us look the facts solemnly in the

face that the Christian religion has now been in effect for nearly

two thousand years; that the nations now warring are Christian

nations, in the very foremost rank of Christendom; that never in

history has there been so much bloodshed in such wide-spread areas

and so much hate, and that we see no signs that Christianity is

employing any influence that she has not been employing for nearly

two thousand years.

If we look for the influence of Christianity, we can find it in

the daily lives of people, in the family, in business, in politics,

and in military bodies; everywhere, in fact, in Christian countries,

so long as we keep inside of any organization the members of which

feel bound together. This we must all admit, even the heathen know

it; but where do we see any evidence of the sweetening effect of

Christianity in the dealings of one organization with another with

which it has no special bonds of friendship? Christianity is invoked

in every warring nation now to stimulate the patriotic spirit of

the nation and intensify the hate of the crowd against the enemy;

and even if we think that such invoking is a perversion of religious

influence to unrighteous ends, we must admit the fact that the

Christian religion itself is at this moment being made to exert

a powerful influence--not toward peace but toward war! And this

should not amaze us; for where does the Bible say or intimate that

love among nations will ever be brought about? The Saviour said:

"I bring not peace but a sword." So what reasonable hope does even

Christianity give us that war between nations will cease? And even if

it did give reasonable hope, let us realize that between reasonable

hope and reasonable expectation there is a great gulf fixed.

Therefore, we seem forced to the conclusion that the world will move

in the future in the same direction as in the past; that nations

will become larger and larger and fewer and fewer, the immediate

instrument of international changes being war; and that certain

nations will become very powerful and nearly dominate the earth

in turn, as Persia, Greece, Rome, Spain, France, and Great Britain

have done--and as some other country soon may do.

Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, a certain law of decadence

seems to have prevailed, because of which every nation, after acquiring

great power, has in turn succumbed to the enervating effects which

seem inseparable from it, and become the victim of some newer nation

that has made strenuous preparations for long years, in secret,

and finally pounced upon her as a lion on its prey.

Were it not for this tendency to decadence, we should expect that

the nations of the earth would ultimately be divided into two great

nations, and that these would contend for the mastery in a world-wide

struggle.

But if the present rate of invention and development continues,

improvements in the mechanic arts will probably cause such increase

in the power of weapons of destruction, and in the swiftness and

sureness of transportation and communication, that some _monster

of efficiency_ will have time to acquire world mastery before her

period of decadence sets in.

In this event, wars will be of a magnitude besides which the present

struggle will seem pygmy; and will rage over the surface of the

earth, for the gaining and retaining of the mastery of the world.

CHAPTER II

NAVAL A, B, C

In order to realize what principles govern the use of navies, let

us first consider what navies have to do and get history's data

as to what navies in the past have done. It would obviously be

impossible to recount here all the doings of navies. But neither

is it necessary; for the reason that, throughout the long periods

of time in which history records them, their activities have nearly

always been the same.

In all cases in which navies have been used for war there was the

preliminary dispute, often long-continued, between two peoples or

their rulers, and at last the decision of the dispute by force. In

all cases the decision went to the side that could exert the most

force at the critical times and places. The fact that the causes

of war have been civil, and not military, demands consideration, for

the reason that some people, confusing cause and effect, incline

to the belief that armies and navies are the cause of war, and that

they are to be blamed for its horrors. History clearly declares

the contrary, and shows that the only rôle of armies and navies

has been to wage wars, and, by waging, to finish them.

It may be well here, in order to clear away a possible preconception

by the reader, to try and dispel the illusion that army and navy

officers are eager for war, in order that they may get promotion.

This idea has been exploited by people opposed to the development

of the army and navy, and has been received with so much credulity

that it seriously handicaps the endeavors of officers to get an

unbiassed hearing. But surely the foolishness of such an idea would

promptly disappear from the brain of any one if he would remind

himself that simply because a man joins the army or navy he does

not cease to be a human being, with the same emotions of fear as

other men, the same sensitiveness to pain, the same dread of death,

and the same horror of leaving his family unsupported after his

death. It is true that men in armies and navies are educated to

dare death if need be; but the present writer has been through

two wars, has been well acquainted with army and navy officers for

forty-five years, and knows positively that, barring exceptions,

they do not desire war at all.

Without going into an obviously impossible discussion of all naval

wars, it may be instructive to consider briefly the four naval

wars in which the United States has engaged.

The first was the War of the American Revolution. This war is

instructive to those who contend that the United States is so far

from Europe as to be safe from attack by a European fleet; because

the intervening distance was frequently traversed then by British

and French fleets of frail, slow, sailing ships, which were vital

factors in the war. Without the British war-ships, the British

could not have landed and supported their troops. Without the French

war-ships the French could not have landed and supported their

troops, who, under Rochambeau, were also under Washington, and

gave him the assistance that he wofully needed, to achieve by arms

our independence.

The War of 1812 is instructive from the fact that, though the actions

of our naval ships produced little material effect, the skill,

daring, and success with which they were fought convinced Europeans

of the high character and consequent noble destiny of the American

people. The British were so superior in sea strength, however,

that they were able to send their fleet across the ocean and land

a force on the shores of Chesapeake Bay. This force marched to

Washington, attacked the city, and burned the Capitol and other

public buildings, with little inconvenience to itself.

The War of the Rebellion is instructive because it shows how two

earnest peoples, each believing themselves right, can be forced,

by the very sincerity of their convictions, to wage war against

each other; and because it shows how unpreparedness for war, with

its accompanying ignorance of the best way in which to wage it,

causes undue duration of a war and therefore needless suffering.

If the North had not closed its eyes so resolutely to the fact

of the coming struggle, it would have noted beforehand that the

main weakness of the Confederacy lay in its dependence on revenue

from cotton and its inability to provide a navy that could prevent

a blockade of its coasts; and the North would have early instituted

a blockade so tight that the Confederacy would have been forced

to yield much sooner than it did. The North would have made naval

operations the main effort, instead of the auxiliary effort; and

would have substituted for much of the protracted and bloody warfare

of the land the quickly decisive and comparatively merciful warfare

of the sea.

In the Spanish War the friction between the United States and Spain

was altogether about Cuba. No serious thought of the invasion of

either country was entertained, no invasion was attempted, and

the only land engagements were some minor engagements in Cuba and

the Philippines. The critical operations were purely naval. In the

first of these, Commodore Dewey's squadron destroyed the entire

Far Eastern squadron of the Spanish in Manila Bay; in the second,

Admiral Sampson's squadron destroyed the entire Atlantic squadron of

the Spanish near Santiago de Cuba. The two naval victories compelled

Spain to make terms of peace practically as the United States wished.

Attention is invited to the fact that this war was not a war of

conquest, was not a war of aggression, was not a war of invasion,

was not a war carried on by either side for any base purpose; but

was in its intention and its results for the benefit of mankind.

The Russo-Japanese War was due to conflicting national policies.

While each side accused the other of selfish ends, it is not apparent

to a disinterested observer that either was unduly selfish in its

policy, or was doing more than every country ought to advance the

interests and promote the welfare of its people. Russia naturally

had a great deal of interest in Manchuria, and felt that she had

a right to expand through the uncivilized regions of Manchuria,

especially since she needed a satisfactory outlet to the sea. In

other words, the interests of Russia were in the line of its expanding

to the eastward. But Japan's interests were precisely the reverse of

Russia's--that is, Japan's interests demanded that Russia should not

do those things that Russia wanted to do. Japan felt that Russia's

movement toward the East was bringing her entirely too close to

Japan. Russia was too powerful a country, and too aggressive, to

be trusted so close. Japan had the same feeling toward Russia that

any man might have on seeing another man, heavily armed, gradually

coming closer to him in the night. Japan especially wished that

Russia should have no foothold in Corea, feeling, as she expressed

it, that the point of Corea under Russian power would be a dagger

directed at the heart of Japan. This feeling about Corea was the

same feeling that every country has about land near her; it has

a marked resemblance to the feeling that the United States has

embodied in Monroe Doctrine.

After several years of negotiation in which Japan and Russia endeavored

to secure their respective aims by diplomacy, diplomacy was finally

abandoned and the sword taken up instead. Japan, _because of the

superior foresight of her statesmen_, was the first to realize

that diplomacy must fail, was the first to realize that she must

prepare for war, was the first to begin adequate preparation for

war, was the first to complete preparation for war, was the first

to strike, and in consequence was the victor. Yet Russia was a

very much larger, richer, more populous country than Japan.

Russia sent large forces of soldiers to Manchuria by the trans-Siberian

railroad, and Japan sent large forces there by transports across the

Sea of Japan. Japan could not prevent the passage of soldiers by

the railroad, but Russia could prevent the passage of transports

across the Japan Sea, provided her fleet could overcome the Japanese

fleet and get command of the sea. Russia had a considerable fleet

in the Far East; but she had so underestimated the naval ability

of the Japanese, that the Russian fleet proved unequal to the task;

and the Japanese gradually reduced it to almost nothing, with very

little loss to themselves.

Russia then sent out another fleet. The Japanese met this fleet on

the 27th of May, 1904, near the Island of Tsushima, between Corea

and Japan. The battle was decided in about an hour. The Japanese

sank practically all the Russian ships before the battle was entirely

finished, with comparatively small loss to Japan. This battle was

carried on 12,000 miles by sea route from Saint Petersburg. No

invasion of Russia or Japan was contemplated, or attempted, and

yet the naval battle decided the issue of the war completely, and

was followed by a treaty of peace very shortly afterward.

These wars show us, as do all wars in which navies have engaged,

that the function of a navy is not only to defend the coast in

the sense of preventing an enemy from landing on it, but also to

exert force far distant from the coast. The study of war has taught

its students for many centuries that a merely passive defense will

finally be broken down, and that the most effective defense is

the "offensive-defensive."

Perhaps the clearest case of a correct offensive-defensive is Nelson's

defense of England, which he carried on in the Mediterranean, in

the West Indies, and wherever the enemy fleet might be, finally

defeating Napoleon's plan for invading England--not by waiting off

the coast of England, but by attacking and crippling Napoleon's

fleet off the Spanish coast near Trafalgar.

The idea held by many people that the defense of a country can

be effected by simply preventing the invasion of its coasts, is a

little like the notion of uneducated people that a disease can be

cured by suppressing its symptoms. For even a successful defense

of a coast against invasion by a hostile force cannot remove the

inimical influence to a country's commerce and welfare which that

hostile force exerts, any more than palliatives can cure dyspepsia.

Every intelligent physician knows that the only way to cure a disease

is to remove its cause; and every intelligent military or naval man

knows that history teaches that the only way in which a country

can defend itself successfully against an enemy is to defeat the

armed force of that enemy--be it a force of soldiers on the land, or

a force of war-ships on the sea. In naval parlance, "our objective

is the enemy's fleet."

If the duty of a navy be merely to prevent the actual invasion

of its country's coasts, a great mistake has been made by Great

Britain, France, and other countries in spending so much money

on their navies, and in giving so much attention to the education

and training of their officers and enlisted men. To prevent actual

invasion would be comparatively an easy task, one that could be

performed by rows of forts along the coast, supplemented by mines

and submarines. If that is the only kind of defense required, navies

are hardly needed. The army in each country could man the forts

and operate the mines, and a special corps of the army could even

operate the submarines, which (if their only office is to prevent

actual invasion) need hardly leave the "three-mile limit" that

skirts the coasts. If the people of any country do not care to have

dealings outside; if the nation is willing to be in the position

of a man who is safe so long as he stays in the house, but is afraid

to go outdoors, the problem of national defense is easy.

But if the people desire to prevent interference with what our

Constitution calls "the general welfare," the problem becomes

exceedingly complex and exceedingly grave--more complex and grave

than any other problem that they have. If they desire that their

ships shall be free to sail the seas, and their citizens to carry

on business and to travel in other lands; and if they desire that

their merchants shall be able to export their wares and their farmers

their grain, also that the people shall be able to import the things

they wish from foreign countries, then they must be able to exert

actual physical force on the ocean at any point where vessels carrying

their exports and imports may be threatened. Naval ships are the

only means for doing this.

The possibility that an armed force sent to a given point at sea

might have to fight an enemy force, brought about first the sending of

more than one vessel, and later--as the mechanic arts progressed--the

increasing of the size of individual vessels, and later still the

development of novel types.

There are two main reasons for building a small number of large

ships rather than a large number of small ships. The first reason

is that large ships are much more steady, reliable, safe, and fast

than small ships. The second reason is that, when designed for

any given speed, the large ships have more space available for

whatever is to be carried; one 15-knot ship of 20,000 tons normal

displacement, for instance, has about one and a half times as much

space available for cargo, guns, and what-not, as four 15-knot

ships of 5,000 tons each. These two reasons apply to merchant ships

as well as naval ships. A third reason applies to naval vessels

only, and is that a few large ships can be handled much better

together than a large number of small ships, and embody that

"concentration of force" which it is the endeavor of strategy and

tactics to secure. A fourth reason is the obvious one that large

ships can carry larger guns than small ships.

The distinctly military (naval) purpose for which a war-ship is

designed necessitates, first, that in addition to her ability to

go rapidly and surely from place to place, she be able to exert

physical force against an enemy ship or fort, and, second, that

she have protection against the fire of guns and torpedoes from

enemy ships and forts, against bombs dropped from aircraft, and

against mines.

This means that a man-of-war, intended to exert the maximum of

physical force against an enemy and to be able to withstand the

maximum of punishment, must have guns and torpedoes for offense,

and must have armor and cellular division of the hull for defense;

the armor to keep out the enemy's shells, and the cellular division

of the hull to prevent the admission of more water than can fill

one water-tight compartment in case the ship is hit.

It must be admitted here that, at the present moment, torpedoes

hold such large charges of explosive that the cellular division of

ships does not adequately protect them. This means that a contest

has been going on between torpedo-makers and naval constructors like

the contest between armor-makers and gunmakers, and that just now the

torpedo-makers are in the lead. For this reason a battleship needs

other protection than that imparted by its cellular subdivision.

This is given by its "torpedo defense battery" of minor guns of

about 5-inch calibre.

By reason of the great vulnerability of all ships to attack below

the water-line, the torpedo was invented and developed. In its

original form, the torpedo was motionless in the water, either

anchored to the ground, or floating on the surface, and was in

fact what now is called a "mine." But forty-eight years ago an

Englishman named Whitehead invented the automobile, auto-steering,

torpedo, which still bears his name. This torpedo is used in all

the navies, and is launched on its mission from battleships, battle

cruisers, destroyers, submarines, and other craft of various kinds.

Most torpedoes are to be found in destroyers--long, fast, frail

vessels, averaging about 700 tons displacement, that are intended to

dash at enemy ships at night, or under other favorable conditions,

launch their torpedoes, and hurry away. The torpedo is "a weapon

of opportunity." It has had a long, slow fight for its existence;

but its success during the present war has established it firmly

in naval warfare.

The submarine has followed the destroyer, and some people think

will supplant it; though its relatively slow speed prevents those

dashes that are the destroyer's rôle. The submarine is, however,

a kind of destroyer that is submersible, in which the necessities

of submersibility preclude great speed. The submarine was designed

to accomplish a clear and definite purpose--a secret under-water

attack on an enemy's ship in the vicinity. It has succeeded so well

in its limited mission that some intelligent people declare that

we need submarines only--ignoring the fact that, even if submarines

could successfully prevent actual invasion, they could not carry

on operations at a distance from their base of supplies. It is

true that submarines may be made so large that they can steam at

great speed from place to place, as capital ships steam now, carry

large supplies of fuel and food, house their crews hygienically,

and need no "mother ship" or tender. But if submarines achieve

such size, they will be more expensive to build and run than

battleships--and will be, in fact, submersible battleships. In

other words, the submarine cannot displace the battleship, but may

be developed and evolved into a new and highly specialized type

of battleship.

The necessity for operating at long distances from a base carries

with it the necessity for supplying more fuel than even a battleship

can carry; and this means that colliers must be provided. In most

countries, the merchant service is so large that colliers can be

taken from it, but in the United States no adequate merchant marine

exists, and so it is found necessary to build navy colliers and

have them in the fleet. The necessity for continuously supplying

food and ammunition to the fleet necessitates supply ships and

ammunition ships; but the problem of supplying food and ammunition

is not so difficult as that of supplying fuel, for the reason that

they are consumed more slowly.

In order to take care of the sick and wounded, and prevent them from

hampering the activities of the well, hospital ships are needed.

Hospital ships should, of course, be designed for that purpose

before being constructed; but usually hospital ships were originally

passenger ships, and were adapted to hospital uses later.

The menace of the destroyer--owing to the sea-worthiness which this

type has now achieved, and to the great range which the torpedo

has acquired--has brought about the necessity of providing external

protection to the battleships; and this is supplied by a "screen"

of cruisers and destroyers, whose duty is to keep enemy destroyers

and (so far as is practicable) the submarines at a safe distance.

We now see why a fleet must be composed of various types of vessels.

At the present moment, the battleship is the primary, or paramount

type, the others secondary, because the battleship is the type

that can exert the most force, stand the hardest punishment, steam

the farthest in all kinds of weather, and in general, serve her

country the best.

Of course, "battleship" is merely a name, and some think not a

very good name, to indicate a ship that can take the part in battle

that used to be taken by the "ship of the line." The reason for

its primacy is fundamental: its displacement or total weight--the

same reason that assured the primacy of the ship of the line. For

displacement rules the waves; if "Britannia rules the waves," it

is simply because Britannia has more displacement than any other

Power.

The fleet needs to have a means of knowing where the enemy is, how

many ships he has, what is their character, the direction in which

they are steaming, and their speed. To accomplish this purpose,

"scouts" are needed--fast ships, that can steam far in all kinds

of weather and send wireless messages across great distances. So

far as their scout duties go, such vessels need no guns whatever,

and no torpedoes; but because the enemy will see the scout as soon

as the scout sees the enemy, and because the enemy will try to

drive away the scout by gun and torpedo fire, the scouts must be

armed. And this necessity is reinforced by the necessity of driving

off an enemy's scouts.

In foreign navies the need for getting information in defiance

of an enemy's attempts to prevent it, and to drive off the armed

scouts of an enemy, has been one of the prime reasons for developing

"battle cruisers," that combine the speed of the destroyer with

the long steaming radius of the battleship, a battery almost as

strong, and a very considerable protection by armor.

The aeroplane and the air-ship are recent accessions to the list of

fighting craft. Their rôle in naval warfare cannot yet be defined,

because the machines themselves have not yet reached an advanced

stage of development, and their probable performance cannot be

forecast. There is no doubt, however, in the minds of naval men

that the rôle of aircraft is to be important and distinguished.

CHAPTER III

NAVAL POWER

Mahan proved that sea power has exercised a determining influence on

history. He proved that sea power has been necessary for commercial

success in peace and military success in war. He proved that, while

many wars have culminated with the victory of some army, the victory

of some navy had been the previous essential. He proved that the

immediate cause of success had often resulted inevitably from another

cause, less apparent because more profound; that the operations of

the navy had previously brought affairs up to the "mate in four

moves," and that the final victory of the army was the resulting

"checkmate."

Before Mahan proved his doctrine, it was felt in a general way

that sea power was necessary to the prosperity and security of

a nation. Mahan was not the first to have this idea, for it had

been in the minds of some men, and in the policy of one nation,

for more than a century. Neither was Mahan the first to put forth

the idea in writing; but he was the first to make an absolute

demonstration of the truth. Newton was not the first man to know,

or to say, that things near the earth tend to fall to the earth; but

he was the first to formulate and prove the doctrine of universal

gravitation. In the same way, all through history, we find that

a few master minds have been able to group what had theretofore

seemed unrelated phenomena, and deduce from them certain laws.

In this way they substituted reasoning for speculation, fact for

fancy, wisdom for opportunism, and became the guides of the human

race.

The effect of the acceptance of Mahan's doctrine was felt at once.

Realizing that the influence of sea power was a fact, comprehending

Great Britain's secret, after Mahan had disclosed it, certain other

great nations of the world, especially Germany, immediately started

with confidence and vigor upon the increase of their own sea power,

and pushed it to a degree before unparalleled; with a result that

must have been amazing to the man who, more than any other, was

responsible for it.

Since the words "sea power," or their translation, is a recognized

phrase the world over, and since the power of sea power is greater

than ever before, and is still increasing, it may be profitable

to consider sea power as an entity, and to inquire what are its

leading characteristics, and in what it mainly consists.

There is no trouble in defining what the sea is, but there is a

good deal of trouble in defining what power is. If we look in a

dictionary, we shall find a good many definitions of power; so

many as to show that there are many different kinds of power, and

that when we read of "power," it is necessary to know what kind of

power is meant. Clearly "sea power" means power on the sea. But

what kind of power? There are two large classes into which power

may be divided, passive and active. Certainly we seem justified,

at the start, in declaring that the power meant by Mahan was not

passive, but active. Should this be granted, we cannot be far from

right if we go a step further, and declare that sea power means

ability to do something on the sea.

If we ask what the something is that sea power has ability to do,

we at once perceive that sea power may be divided into two parts,

commercial power and naval power.

The power exerted by commercial sea power is clearly that exerted by

the merchant service, and is mainly the power of acquiring money. It

is true that the merchant service has the power of rendering certain

services in war, especially the power of providing auxiliary vessels,

and of furnishing men accustomed to the sea; but as time goes on the

power contributable by the merchant service must steadily decrease,

because of the relatively increasing power of the naval service, and

the rapidly increasing difference between the characteristics of

ships and men suitable for the merchant service and those suitable

for the naval service.

But even in the past, while the importance of the merchant service was

considerable in the ways just outlined, it may perhaps be questioned

whether it formed an element of _sea power_, in the sense in which

Mahan discussed sea power. The power of every country depends on all

the sources of its wealth: on its agriculture, on its manufacturing

activities, and even more directly on the money derived from exports.

But these sources of wealth and all sources of wealth, including

the merchant service, can hardly be said to be elements of power

themselves, but rather to be elements for whose protection power

is required.

In fact, apart from its usefulness in furnishing auxiliaries, it

seems certain that the merchant service has been an element of

_weakness_. The need for navies arose from the weakness of merchant

ships and the corresponding necessity for assuring them safe voyages

and proper treatment even in time of peace; while in time of war

they have always been an anxious care, and have needed and received

the protection of fighting ships that have been taken away from

the fleet to act as convoys.

If commercial sea power was not the power meant by Mahan, then he

must have meant naval power. And if one reads the pages of history

with patient discrimination, the conviction must grow on him that

what really constituted the sea power which had so great an influence

on history, was _naval_ power; not the power of simply ships upon

the sea, but the power of a navy composed of ships able to fight,

manned by men trained to fight, under the command of captains skilled

to fight, and led by admirals determined to fight. Trafalgar was

not won by the merchant service; nor Mobile, Manila, or Tsushima.

If sea power be essentially naval power, it may be interesting to

inquire: In what does naval power consist and what are its principal

characteristics?

If one looks at a fleet of war-ships on the sea, he will be impressed

consciously or unconsciously with the idea of power. If he is impressed

consciously, he will see that the fleet represents power in the

broadest sense--power active and power passive; power to do and

power to endure; power to exert force and power to resist it.

If he goes further and analyzes the reasons for this impression

of power, he will see that it is not merely a mental suggestion,

but a realization of the actual existence of tremendous mechanical

power, under complete direction and control.

In mechanics we get a definition of power, which, like all definitions

in mechanics, is clear, definite, and correct. In mechanics, power

is the rate at which mechanical work is performed. It is ability

to do something in a certain definite time.

Now this definition gives us a clear idea of the way in which a

navy directly represents power, because the power which a navy

exerts is, primarily, mechanical; and any other power which it

exerts is secondary and derived wholly from its mechanical power.

The power of a gun is due wholly to the mechanical energy of its

projectile, which enables it to penetrate a resisting body; and

the power of a moving ship is due wholly to the mechanical energy

of the burning coal within its furnaces.

It may be objected that it is not reasonable to consider a ship's

energy of motion as an element of naval power, in the mechanical

sense in which we have been using the word "power," for the reason

that it could be exerted only by the use of her ram, an infrequent

use. To this it may be answered that energy is energy, no matter

to what purpose it is applied; that a given projectile going at

a given speed has a certain energy, whether it strikes its target

or misses it; and that a battleship going at a certain speed must

necessarily have a certain definite energy, no matter whether it

is devoted to ramming another ship or to carrying itself and its

contents from one place to another.

Besides the mechanical power exerted by the mere motion of the

ship, and often superior to it, there is the power of her guns and

torpedoes.

Perhaps the most important single invention ever made was the invention

of gunpowder. Why? Because it put into the hands of man a tremendous

force, compressed into a very small volume, which he could use

instantaneously or refrain from using at his will. Its first use

was in war; and in war has been its main employment ever since.

War gives the best field for the activity of gunpowder, because

in war, we always wish to exert a great force at a definite point

at a given instant; usually in order to _penetrate_ the bodies of

men, or some defensive work that protects them. Gunpowder is the

principal agent used in war up to the present date. It is used

by both armies and navies, but navies use it in larger masses,

fired in more powerful guns.

Of course this does not mean that it would be impossible to send

a lot of powder to a fort, more than a fleet could carry, and fire

it; but it does mean that history shows that forts have rarely

been called upon to fire much powder, that their lives have been

serene, and that most of the powder fired on shore has been fired

by infantry using muskets--though a good deal has been fired by

field and siege artillery.

Leaving forts out of consideration and searching for something

else in which to use gunpowder on a large scale, we come to

siege-pieces, field-pieces, and muskets. Disregarding siege-pieces

and field-pieces, for the reason that the great variety of types

makes it difficult to compare them with navy guns, we come to muskets.

Now the musket is an extremely formidable weapon, and has, perhaps,

been the greatest single contributor to the victory of civilization

over barbarism, and order over anarchy, that has ever existed up to

the present time. But the enormous advances in engineering, including

ordnance, during the last fifty years, have reduced enormously the

relative value of the musket. Remembering that energy, or the ability

to do work, is expressed by the formula: E=1/2 MV^2, remembering

that the projectile of the modern 12-inch gun starts at about 2,900

f. s. velocity and weighs 867 pounds, while the bullet of a musket

weighs only 150 grains and starts with a velocity of 2,700 feet

per second, we see that the energy of the 12-inch projectile is

about 47,000 times that of the bullet on leaving the muzzle. But

after the bullet has gone, say 5,000 yards, its energy has fallen

to zero, while the energy of the 12-inch projectile is nearly the

same as when it started.

While it would be truthful, therefore, to say that the energy of

the 12-inch gun within 5,000 yards is greater than that of 47,000

muskets, it would also be truthful to say that outside of 5,000

yards, millions of muskets would not be equal to one 12-inch gun.

Not only is the 12-inch gun a weapon incomparably great, compared

with the musket, but when placed in a naval ship, it possesses a

portability which, while not an attribute of the gun itself, is

an attribute of the combination of gun and ship, and a distinct

attribute of naval power. A 12-inch gun placed in a fort may be

just as good as a like gun placed in a ship, but it has no power

to exert its power usefully unless some enemy comes where the gun

can hit it. And when one searches the annals of history for the

records of whatever fighting forts have done, he finds that they

have been able to do very little. But a 12-inch gun placed in a

man-of-war can be taken where it is needed, and recent history

shows that naval 12-inch guns, modern though they are, have already

done effective work in war.

Not only are 12-inch guns powerful and portable, but modern mechanical

science has succeeded in so placing them in our ships that they can

be handled with a precision, quickness, and delicacy that have

no superior in any other branch of engineering. While granting

the difficulty of an exact comparison, I feel no hesitation in

affirming that the greatest triumph of the engineering art in handling

heavy masses is to be found in the turret of a battleship. Here

again, and even inside of 5,000 yards, we find the superiority

of the great gun over the musket, as evidenced by its accuracy in

use. No soldier can fire his musket, even on a steady platform,

himself and target stationary, and the range known perfectly, as

accurately as a gun-pointer can fire a 12-inch gun; and if gun

and target be moving, and the wind be blowing, and the range only

approximately known, as is always the case in practice, the advantage

of the big gun in accuracy becomes incomparable.

But it is not only the big projectile itself which has energy, for

this projectile carries a large charge of high explosive, which

exploding some miles away from where it started, exerts a power

inherent in itself, that was exhibited with frightful effect at

the battles of Tsushima and the Skagerak.

This brings us to the auto-torpedo, a weapon recently perfected;

in fact not perfected yet. Here is another power that science has

put into the hands of naval men in addition to those she had already

put there. The auto-torpedo, launched in security from below the

water-line of the battleship, or from a destroyer or submarine,

can be directed in a straight line over a distance and with a speed

that are constantly increasing with the improvement of the weapon.

At the present moment, a speed of 27 knots over 10,000 yards can

be depended on, with a probability that on striking an enemy's

ship below the water-line it will disable that ship, if not sink

her. There seems no doubt that, in a very few years, the systematic

experiments now being applied to the development of the torpedo

will result in a weapon which can hardly be called inferior to

the 12-inch or even 16-inch gun and will probably surpass it.

_Controllability_.--If one watches a fleet of ships moving on the

sea, he gets an impression of tremendous power. But if he watches

Niagara, or a thunder-storm, he also gets an impression of tremendous

power. But the tremendous power of Niagara, or the thunder-storm,

is a power that belongs to Niagara or the thunder-storm, and not to

man. Man cannot control the power of Niagara or the thunder-storm;

but he can control the power of a fleet.

Speaking, then, from the standpoint of the human being, one may say

that the fleet has the element of controllability, while Niagara

and the thunder-storm have not. One man can make the fleet go faster

or slower or stop; he can increase its power of motion or decrease

it at his will; he can reduce it to zero. He cannot do so with

the forces of nature.

_Directability_.--Not only can one man control the power of the

fleet, he can also direct it; that is, can turn it to the right

or the left as much as he wishes. But one man cannot change the

direction of motion of Niagara or the lightning-bolt.

_Power, Controllability, and Directability_.--We may say, then,

that a fleet combines the three elements of mechanical power,

controllability, and directability.

_The Unit of Military Power_.--This is an enormous power that has

come into the hands of the naval nations; but it has come so newly

that we do not appreciate it yet. One reason why we do not and cannot

appreciate it correctly is that no units have been established by

which to measure it.

To supply this deficiency, the author begs leave to point out that,

since the military power of every nation has until recently been

its army, of which the unit has been the soldier, whose power has

rested wholly in his musket, the musket has actually been the unit

of military power. In all history, the statement of the number of

men in each army has been put forward by historians as giving the

most accurate idea of their fighting value; and in modern times,

nearly all of these men have been armed with muskets only.

It has been said already that the main reason why the invention

of gunpowder was so important was that it put into the hands of

man a tremendous mechanical power compressed into a very small

space, which man could use or not use at his will. This idea may

be expressed by saying that gunpowder combines power and great

controllability. But it was soon discovered that this gunpowder,

put into a tube with a bullet in front of it, could discharge that

bullet in any given direction. A musket was the result, and it

combined the three requisites of a weapon--mechanical power,

controllability, and directability.

While the loaded gun is perhaps the clearest example of the combination

of the three factors we are speaking of, the moving ship supplies

the next best example. It has very much greater mechanical power;

and in proportion to its mass, almost as much controllability and

directability.

The control and direction of a moving ship are very wonderful things;

but the very ease with which they are exercised makes us overlook

the magnitude of the achievement and the perfection of the means

employed. It may seem absurd to speak of one man controlling and

directing a great ship, but that is pretty nearly what happens

sometimes; for sometimes the man at the wheel is the only man on

board doing anything at all; and he is absolutely directing the

entire ship. At such times (doubtless they are rare and short)

the man at the wheel on board, say the _Vaterland_, is directing

unassisted by any human being a mass of 65,000 tons, which is going

through the water at a speed of 24 knots, or 27 miles, an hour,

nearly as fast as the average passenger-train. In fact, it would

be very easy to arrange on board the _Vaterland_ that this should

actually happen; that everybody should take a rest for a few minutes,

coal-passers, water-tenders, oilers, engineers, and the people

on deck. And while such an act might have no particular value,

_per se_, and prove nothing important, yet, nevertheless, a brief

reflection on the possibility may be interesting, and lead us to

see clearly into the essential nature of what is here called

"directability." The man at the wheel on board the _Vaterland_,

so long as the fires burn and the oil continues to lubricate the

engines, has a power in his hands that is almost inconceivable.

The ship that he is handling weighs more than the 870,000 men that

comprise the standing army of Germany.

Now can anybody imagine the entire standing army of Germany being

carried along at 27 miles an hour and turned almost instantly to the

right or left by one man? The standing army of Germany is supposed

to be the most directable organization in the world; but could

the Emperor of Germany move that army at a speed of 27 miles an

hour and turn it as a whole (not its separate units) through 90

degrees in three minutes?

The _Vaterland_ being a merchant ship and not fully representing naval

power, perhaps it might be better to take, say, the _Pennsylvania_.

The weight is about half that of the _Vaterland_, that is, it is

nearly twice the weight of the men of the British standing army;

and the usual speed is about, say, 15 knots. But in addition to

all the power of the ship, as a ship, or an energy greater than

that of 275,000 muskets, she has the power of all the guns, twelve

14-inch guns, and twenty-two 5-inch guns, whose projectiles, not

including the torpedoes fired from four torpedo-tubes, have an

energy at the muzzle equal to 750,000 muskets, seven-eighths of

all the muskets in the German standing army. Now any one who has

seen a battleship at battle practice knows that all the various

tremendous forces are under excellent direction and control. And

while it cannot be strictly said that they are absolutely under

the direction and control of the captain, while it must be admitted

that no one man can really direct so many rapidly moving things,

yet it is certainly well within the truth to say that the ship

and all it contains are very much more under the control of her

captain than the German standing army is under the control of the

Kaiser. The captain, acting through the helmsman, chief engineer,

gunnery officer, and executive officer, can get very excellent

information as to what is going on, and can have his orders carried

out with very little delay; but the mere space occupied by an army

of 870,000 men, and the unavoidable dispersion of its units prevent

any such exact control.

In other words, the captain of the _Pennsylvania_ wields a weapon

more mechanically powerful than all the muskets of the German standing

army: and his control of it is more absolute than is the Kaiser's

control of that army.

_Mechanism vs. Men_.--Now what is the essential reason for the

efficient direction exercised by the helmsman of the _Pennsylvania_,

and the relative impotency of generals? Is it not that the helmsman

acts through the medium of mechanism, while the generals act through

the medium of men? A ship is not only made of rigid metal, but all

her parts are fastened together with the utmost rigidity; while

the parts of an army are men, who are held together by no means

whatever except that which discipline gives, and the men themselves

are far from rigid. In the nature of things it is impossible that

an army should be directed as perfectly as a ship. The rudder of a

ship is a mechanical appliance that can be depended upon to control

the direction of the ship absolutely, while an army has no such

a thing as a rudder, or anything to take its place. Again, the

rudder is only a few hundred feet from the helmsman, and the

communication between them, including the steering-engine itself,

is a strong reliable mechanism that has no counterpart in the army.

The control of the main engines of a ship is almost as absolute

as the control of the rudder; and the main engines are not only

much more powerful than the legs of soldiers, but they act together

in much greater harmony.

_Inherent Power of a Battleship_.--Possibly the declaration may be

accepted now that a battleship of 30,000 tons, such as the navies

are building now, with, say, twelve 14-inch guns is a greater example

of power, under the absolute direction and control than anything

else existing; and that the main reason is the concentration of

a tremendous amount of mechanical energy in a very small space,

all made available by certain properties of water. Nothing like

a ship can be made to run on shore; but if an automobile could

be constructed, carrying twelve 14-inch guns, twenty-two 5-inch

guns, and four torpedo-tubes, of the size of the _Pennsylvania_,

and with her armor, able to run over the land in any direction at

20 knots, propelled by engines of 31,000 horse-power, it could

whip an army of a million men just as quickly as it could get hold

of its component parts. Such a machine could start at one end of

an army and go through to the other like a mowing-machine through

a field of wheat; and knock down all the buildings in New York

afterward, smash all the cars, break down all the bridges, and sink

all the shipping.

_Inherent Power of a Fleet_.--An idea of the power exertable by a

fleet of modern ships may be derived from the following comparison.

When Sherman made his wonderful march to the sea from Atlanta to

Savannah, he made a march whose details are historically known,

which was unopposed, which was over a flat country, in good weather,

and without the aid of railroad-trains. It was a march, pure and

simple; and inasmuch as men are the same now as they were then, it

gives excellent data of the way in which purely military or army

power can move from one place to another, _while still preserving

its character and exercising its functions_. Similarly, when Admiral

Schroeder, in November, 1910, went from the east coast of the United

States to the English Channel, his march was unopposed, its details

are known, and it gave an excellent illustration of how naval power

can move from one place to another, _while still preserving its

character and exercising its functions_.

Now General Sherman was a man of world-wide fame, and so were some

of his generals, and Sherman's fame will last for centuries. Compared

with Sherman, Admiral Schroeder was obscure; and compared with

Sherman's officers, Admiral Schroeder's were obscure. Sherman's

soldiers, privates and all, were made glorious for the rest of

their lives by having been in Sherman's march to the sea, while

Admiral Schroeder's sailors achieved no glory at all. So, the next

paragraph is not intended to detract in the slightest from Sherman

and his army, but simply to point out the change in conditions

that mechanical progress has brought about.

The statement of comparison is simply that when General Sherman

marched from Atlanta to the sea his army composed 62,000 men, and

it took him twenty-five days to go about 230 land miles or 200 sea

miles; and when Admiral Schroeder went from our coast to Europe he

had 16 ships, and he made the trip of more than 3,000 sea miles in

less than fourteen days. Disregarding twenty-eight 5-inch guns, two

hundred and fifty-two 3-inch guns, and a lot of smaller guns, and

disregarding all the torpedoes, Admiral Schroeder took eighty-four

12-inch guns, ninety-six 8-inch guns, eighty-eight 7-inch guns,

and forty-eight 6-inch guns, _all mounted and available_; which,

assuming the power of the modern musket as a unit, equalled more

than 5,000,000 modern muskets.

Such an enormous transfer of absolute, definite, available power

would be impossible on land, simply because no means has been devised

to accomplish it. Such a transfer on land would be the transfer

of ninety times as many soldiers as Sherman had (even supposing

they had modern muskets) over fifteen times the distance and at

thirty times the speed; and as the work done in going from one

place to another varies practically as the square of the speed, a

transfer on land equivalent in magnitude and speed to Schroeder's

would be a performance 90 x 15 x 30^2= 1,215,000 times as great

as Sherman's.

This may seem absurd, and perhaps it is; but why? The comparison

is not between the qualities of the men or between the results

achieved. Great results often are brought about by very small forces,

as when some state of equilibrium is disturbed, and vice versa. The

comparison attempted is simply between the _power_ of a certain

army and the power of a certain fleet. And while it is true that,

for some purposes, such as overcoming small resistance, great power

may not be as efficacious as feeble power or even gentleness, yet,

nevertheless, it must be clear that, for the overcoming of _great_

resistance quickly great power must be applied.

The existence of a certain power is quite independent of the

desirability of using it. The existence of the power is all the

writer wishes to insist upon at present; the question of its employment

will be considered later.

Not only is the power of a fleet immeasurably greater than that of

an army, but it must always be so, from the very nature of things.

The speed of an army, _while exercising the functions of an army_,

and the power of a musket, while exercising its functions as a

weapon of one soldier, cannot change much from what they were when

Sherman went marching through Georgia. But, thanks to mechanical

science, there is no limit in sight to the power to which a fleet

may attain.

The power of a navy is of recent growth, but it is increasing and

is going to continue to increase. Every advance of civilization will

advance the navy. Every new discovery and invention will directly

or indirectly serve it. The navy, more than any other thing, will

give opportunity for mechanism and to mechanism. Far beyond any

possible imagination of to-day, it will become the highest expression

of the Genius of Mechanism, and the embodiment of its spirit.

The amount of money now being spent by the United States on its

navy is so great that the expenditure can be justified only on

the basis that great naval power is essential to the country.

Is it essential, and if so, why?

_Primary Use for a Navy_.--To answer this wisely, it may be well

to remind ourselves that the principal object of all the vocations

of men is directly or indirectly the acquiring of money. Money, of

course, is not wealth; but it is a thing which can be so easily

exchanged for wealth, that it is the thing which most people work

for. Of course, at bottom, the most important work is the getting

of food out of the ground; but inasmuch as people like to congregate

together in cities, the thing taken out of the ground in one place

must be transported to other places; and inasmuch as every person

wants every kind of thing that he can get, a tremendous system of

interchange, through the medium of money, has been brought about,

which is called "trade." For the protection of property and life, and

in order that trade may exist at all, an enormous amount of human

machinery is employed which we call "government." This government

is based on innumerable laws, but these laws would be of no avail

unless they were carried out; and every nation in the world has

found that employment of a great deal of force is necessary in

order that they shall be carried out. This force is mainly exercised

by the police of the cities; but many instances have occurred in

the history of every country where the authority of the police

has had to be supported by the army of the national government.

There is no nation in the world, and there never has been one,

in which the enforcement of the necessary laws for the protection

of the lives, property, and trade of the people has not depended

ultimately on the army; and the reason why the army could enforce

the laws was simply the fact that the army had the power to inflict

suffering and death.

As long as a maritime country carried on trade within its own borders

exclusively, as long as it lived within itself, so long as its

people did not go to countries oversea, a navy was not necessary.

But when a maritime country is not contented to live within its

own borders, then a navy becomes essential to guard its people

and their possessions on the highways of the sea; to enforce, not

municipal or national law, as an army does, but international law.

Now the desire of the people of a country to extend their trade

beyond the seas seems in some ways not always a conscious desire,

not a deliberate intent, but to be an effort of self-protection,

or largely an effort of expansion; for getting room or employment.

As the people of a country become civilized, labor-saving devices

multiply; and where one man by means of a machine can do the work

of a hundred, ninety-nine men may be thrown out of employment; out

of a hundred men who till the soil, only one man may be selected

and ninety-nine men have to seek other employment. Where shall it

be gotten? Evidently it must be gotten in some employment which

may be called "artificial," such as working in a shop of some kind,

or doing some manufacturing work. But so long as a people live

unto themselves only, each nation can practically make and use all

the machinery needed within its borders, and still not employ all

the idle hands; and when the population becomes dense, employment

must be sought in making goods to sell beyond the sea. The return

comes back, sometimes in money, sometimes in the products of the

soil and the mine and the manufactures of foreign lands.

In this way every nation becomes like a great business firm. It

exports (that is, sells,) certain things, and it imports (that

is, buys,) certain things; and if it sells more than it buys it is

making money; if it buys more than it sells it is spending money.

This is usually expressed by saying that the "balance of trade"

is in its favor or against it.

In a country like the United States, or any other great nation, the

amount of exporting and importing, of buying and selling almost every

conceivable article under the sun, is carried on in the millions and

millions of dollars; and so perfect has the organization for doing

this business become in every great country, that the products of

the most distant countries can be bought in almost every village;

and any important event in any country produces a perceptible effect

wherever the mail and telegraph go.

The organization for effecting this in every country is so excellent

and so wonderful, that it is like a machine.

In fact, it is a machine, and with all the faults of a machine.

Now one of the faults of a machine, a fault which increases in

importance with the complexity of the machine, is the enormous

disturbance which may be produced by a cause seemingly trivial.

That such is the case with the machine which the commerce of every

great nation comprises, every-day experience confirms. So long

as the steamers come and go with scheduled regularity, so long

will the money come in at the proper intervals and be distributed

through the various channels; so long will the people live the

lives to which they are habituated; so long will order reign.

But suppose the coming and going of all the steamers were suddenly

stopped by a blockade. While it may be true that, in a country like

the United States, no foreign trade is really necessary; while it

may be true that the people of the United States would be just as

happy, though not so rich, if they had no foreign trade--yet the

sudden stoppage of foreign trade would not bring about a condition

such as would have existed if we had never had any foreign trade,

but would bring about a chaotic condition which cannot fitly be

described by a feebler word than "horrible." The whole machinery of

every-day life would be disabled. Hundreds of thousands of people

would be thrown out of employment, and the whole momentum of the

rapidly moving enormous mass of American daily life would receive

a violent shock which would strain to its elastic limit every part

of the entire machine.

It would take a large book to describe what would ensue from the

sudden stoppage of the trade of the United States with countries

over the sea. Such a book would besides be largely imaginative;

because in our history such a condition has never yet arisen. Although

wars have happened in the past in which there has been a blockade

of our coast more or less complete, peace has been declared before

the suffering produced had become very acute; and furthermore the

conditions of furious trade which now exist have never existed

before. Disasters would ensue, apart from the actual loss of money,

owing simply to the sudden change. In a railroad-train standing

still or moving at a uniform speed, the passengers are comfortable;

but if that same train is suddenly brought to rest when going at a

high speed, say by collision, the consequences are horrible in the

extreme, and the horror is caused _simply by the suddenness of the

change_. The same is true all through nature and human nature. Any

sudden change in the velocity of any mass has its exact counterpart

in any sudden change in the conditions of living of any man or

woman, or any sudden change in the conditions under which any

organization must carry on its business. The difficulty is not with

individuals only, or with the organizations themselves, and does

not rest solely on the personal inability of people to accommodate

themselves to the losing of certain conveniences or luxuries; but it

is an inertia which resists even the strenuous efforts of individuals

and organizations to meet new situations promptly, and to grapple

effectively with new problems.

Every organization, no matter how small, is conducted according

to some system, and that system is based upon certain more or less

permanent conditions, which, if suddenly changed, make the system

inapplicable. The larger the organization and the more complex it

is, the more will it be deranged by any change of external conditions

and the longer time will it take to adapt itself to them.

The sudden stoppage of our sea trade, including our coasting trade,

by even a partial blockade of our ports, would change practically

all the conditions under which we live. There is hardly a single

organization in the country which would not be affected by it.

And, as every organization would know that every other organization

would be affected, but to a degree which could not possibly be

determined, because there would be no precedent, it cannot be an

exaggeration to declare that the blockading of our principal ports

would, entirely apart from direct loss of money and other commodities,

produce a state of confusion, out of which order could not possibly

be evolved except by the raising of the blockade.

In addition to the confusion brought about, there would, of course,

be the direct loss of money and non-receipt of imported things;

but what would probably be the very worst thing of all would be

the numbers of men thrown out of employment by the loss of foreign

markets. _So long as a country can keep its people in employment,

so long the people will live in comparative order_. But when there

are many unemployed men in a country, not only do their families

lose the means of subsistence, but the very fact of the men being

unemployed leads them into mischief. Should the ports of any great

commercial nation be suddenly closed, the greatest danger to the

country would not be from the enemy outside, but from the unemployed

people inside, unless the government gave them employment, by enlisting

them in an enormous, improvised army.

It will be seen, therefore, that the blockading of the principal

ports of any purely commercial country would be a disaster so great

that there could not be a greater one except actual invasion. Another

disaster might be the total destruction of its fleet by the enemy's

fleet; but the only _direct_ result of this would be that the people

of the country would have fewer ships to support and fewer men

to pay. The loss of the fleet and the men would not _per se_ be

any loss whatever to the country, but rather a gain. The loss of

the fleet, however, would make it possible for the enemy's fleet

to blockade our ports later, and thus bring about the horrors of

which we have spoken.

While it is true that an absolute blockade of any port might be

practically impossible at the present day, while it is true that

submarines and torpedo-boats might compel blockading ships to keep

at such distance from ports that many loopholes of escape would be

open to blockade runners, yet it may be pointed out that even a

partial blockade, even a blockade that made it risky for vessels

to try to break it, would have a very deleterious effect upon the

prosperity of the country and of every man, woman, and child within

it. A blockade like this was that maintained during the greater

part of the Civil War by the Northern States against the Southern

States. This blockade, while not perfect, while it was such as to

permit many vessels to pass both ways, was nevertheless so effective

that it made it impossible for the Southern States to be prosperous,

or to have any reasonable hope of ever being prosperous. And while

it would be an exaggeration to state that the navy itself, unaided

by the army, could have brought the South to terms; while it would

be an exaggeration to state that all the land battles fought in the

Civil War were unnecessary, that all the bloodshed and all the ruin

of harvests and of homesteads were unnecessary, nevertheless it does

seem that so long as the navy maintained the blockade which it did

maintain, the people of the South would have been prevented from

achieving enough prosperity to carry on an independent government;

so that their revolt would have failed. The South, not being able

to raise the blockade by means of their navy, might have tried to

do so by sending an army into the Northern States, to whip the

Northerners on their own ground; but this would clearly have been

impossible.

The sentences above are not written with the intention of minimizing

the services rendered by the army in the Civil War, or of detracting

from the glory of the gallant officers and men who composed it, or

of subtracting one jot or tittle from a grateful appreciation of

their hardships and bloodshed; neither do they dare to question

the wisdom of the statesmen who directed that the war should be

fought mainly by the army. Their sole intention is to point out

that, if a meagre naval force could produce so great an effect

against a country _mainly agricultural_, a very powerful naval

force, blockading effectively the principal ports of a _manufacturing

country_, would have an effect so great that it can hardly be estimated.

It is plainly to be seen that the effect of a blockade against a

purely commercial country by a modern navy would be incomparably

greater now than it was fifty years ago, for two very important

reasons. One reason is that the progress of modern engineering

has made navies very much more powerful than they were fifty years

ago; and the other reason is that the same cause has made countries

very much more vulnerable to blockade, because it has made so many

millions of people dependent upon manufacturing industries and the

export of manufactured things, and forced them to live an artificial

life. While the United States, for instance, does not depend for

its daily bread on the regular coming of wheat from over the sea,

yet millions of its people do depend, though indirectly, upon the

money from the export of manufactured things; for with countries,

as with people, habits are formed both of system and of mode of

life, which it is dangerous suddenly to break; so that a country

soon becomes as dependent upon outside commerce as a man does upon

outside air, and a people suddenly deprived of a vigorous outside

commerce would seem to be smothered almost like a man deprived

of outside air.

A rough idea of the possible effect of a blockade of our coast may

be gathered from the fact that our exports last year were valued

at more than $2,000,000,000; which means that goods to this amount

were sold, for which a return was received, either in money or

its equivalent, most of it, ultimately, as wages for labor. Of

course no blockade could stop all of this; but it does not seem

impossible that it could stop half of it, if our fleet were destroyed

by the enemy. Supposing that this half were divided equally among

all the people in the United States, it would mean that each man,

woman, and child would lose about $10 in one year. If the loss

could be so divided up, perhaps no very great calamity would ensue.

But, of course, no such division could be made, with the result

that a great many people, especially poor people, earning wages

by the day, would lose more than they could stand. Suppose, for

instance, that a number of people earning about $900 a year, by

employment in export enterprises, were the people upon whom the

actual loss eventually fell by their being thrown out of employment.

This would mean that more than a million people--men, women, and

children--would be actually deprived of the means of living. It

seems clear that such a thing would be a national disaster, for

any loss of money to one man always means a loss of money or its

equivalent to other men besides. For instance: suppose A owes $20

to B, B owes $20 to C, C owes $20 to D, D owes $20 to E, E owes

$20 to F, F owes $20 to G, G owes $20 to H, H owes $20 to I, and

I to J. If A is able to pay B, and does so, then B pays C, and so

on, and everybody is happy. But suppose that A for some reason,

say a blockade, fails to receive some money that he expected; then

A cannot pay B, B cannot pay C, and so on; with the result, that

not only does J lose his $20, but nine men are put in debt $20

which they cannot pay; with the further result that A is dunned by

H, B is dunned by C, and so on, producing a condition of distress

which would seem to be out of all proportion to a mere lack of $20,

but which would, nevertheless, be the actual result. So in this

country of 100,000,000 people, the sudden loss of $1,000,000,000

a year would produce a distress seemingly out of all proportion

to that sum of money, because the individual loss of every loser

would be felt by everybody else.

Since to a great manufacturing nation, like ours, the greatest

danger from outside (except actual invasion) would seem to be the

sudden stoppage of her oversea trade by blockade, we seem warranted

in concluding that, since _the only possible means of preventing

a blockade is a navy_, the primary use for our navy is to prevent

blockade.

This does not mean that a fleet's place is on its own coast, because

a blockade might be better prevented by having the fleet elsewhere;

in fact it is quite certain that its place is not on the coast as

a rule, but at whatever point is the best with relation to the

enemy's fleet, until the enemy's fleet is destroyed. In fact, since

the defensive and the offensive are so inseparably connected that

it is hard sometimes to tell where one begins and the other ends,

the best position for our fleet might be on the enemy's coast. It

may be objected that the coast of the United States is so long

that it would be impossible to blockade it. Perhaps, but that is

not necessary: it would suffice to blockade Boston, Newport, New

York, the Delaware, the Chesapeake, and the Gulf, say with forty

ships. And we must remember that blockade running would be much more

difficult now than in the Civil War, because of the increased power

and accuracy of modern gunnery and the advent of the search-light,

wireless telegraph, and aeroplane.

It may also be objected that the blockading of even a defenseless

coast would cost the blockading country a good deal of money, by

reason of the loss of trade with that country. True; but war is

always expensive, and the blockade would be very much more expensive

to the blockaded country; and though it might hold out a long while,

it would be compelled to yield in the end, not only because of the

blockade itself but because of the pressure of neutral countries;

and the longer it held out, the greater the indemnity it would

have to pay. The expense of blockading would therefore be merely

a profitable investment.

The author is aware that actual invasion of a country from the

sea would be a greater disaster than blockade, and that defense

against invasion has often been urged in Great Britain as a reason

for a great navy; so that the primary reason for a navy might be

said to be defense against invasion. But why should an enemy take

the trouble to invade us? Blockade is easier and cheaper, and can

accomplish almost everything that an enemy desires, especially

if it be enlivened by the occasional dropping of thousand-pound

shells into Wall Street and the navy-yard.

While, however, the _primary_ use of naval power seems to be to

prevent blockade, a navy, like any other weapon, may be put to

any other uses which circumstances indicate. For instance, the

Northerners in the Civil War used the navy not to prevent blockade,

but to make blockade; the Japanese used the navy to cover the

transportation of their armies to Manchuria and Corea; and Great

Britain has always used her navy to protect her trade routes.

A general statement of the various uses of a navy has been put into

the phrase "command of the sea."

Of course, the probability of getting "command of the sea," or

of desiring to get it is dependent on the existence of a state

of war, and there are some who believe that the probability of

our becoming involved in a war with a great naval nation is too

slight to warrant the expense of money and labor needed to prepare

the necessary naval power. So it may be well to consider what is

the degree of probability.

This degree of probability cannot be determined as accurately as

the probabilities of fire, death, or other things against which

insurance companies insure us; for the reason that wars have been

much less frequent than fires, deaths, etc., while the causes that

make and prevent them are much more numerous and obscure. It seems

clear, however, that, as between two countries of equal wealth,

the probability of war varies with the disparity between their

navies, and unless other nations are involved, is practically zero,

when their navies are equal in power; and that, other factors being

equal, the _greatest probability of war is between two countries,

of which one is the more wealthy and the other the more powerful_.

In reckoning the probability of war, we must realize that _the most

pregnant cause of war is the combination of conflicting interests

with disparity in power_. And we must also realize that it is not

enough to consider the situation as it is now: that it is necessary

to look at least ten years ahead, because it would take the United

States that length of time to prepare a navy powerful enough to

fight our possible foes with reasonable assurance of success.

Ten years, however, is not really far enough ahead to look, for

the simple reason that, while we could get a great many ships ready

in ten years, we could not get the entire navy ready as will be

explained later. If, for instance, some change in policies or in

interests should make war with Great Britain probable within ten

years, we could not possibly build a navy that could prevent our

being beaten, and blockaded, and forced to pay an enormous indemnity.

Is there _no_ probability of this? Perhaps there is no great

probability; but there certainly is a possibility. In fact, it

might be a very wise act for Great Britain, seeing us gradually

surpassing her, to go to war with us before it is too late, and

crush us. It has often been said that Great Britain could not afford

to go to war with us, because so many of her commercial interests

would suffer. Of course, they would suffer for a while; but so do

the commercial interests of competing railroads when they begin

to cut rates. Cutting rates is war--commercial war: but it is often

carried on, nevertheless, and at tremendous cost.

Just now, Great Britain does not wish to crush us; but it is certain

that she can. It is certain that the richest country in the world

lies defenseless against the most powerful; and that we could not

alter this condition in ten years, even if we started to build

an adequate navy now.

Yet even if the degree of probability of war with Great Britain,

within say ten years, seems so small that we need not consider her,

are there no other great Powers with whom the degree of probability

of war is great enough to make it wise for us to consider them?

Before answering this question, let us realize clearly that one

of the strongest reasons that leads a country to abstain from war,

even to seek relief from wrongs, actual or imagined, is a doubt

of success; and that that reason disappears if another country,

sufficiently powerful to assure success, is ready to help her,

either by joining openly with her, or by seeking war herself at

the same time with the same country. As we all know, cases like

this have happened in the past. Great Britain knows it; and the

main secret of her wealth is that she has always been strong enough

to fight any two countries.

It is plain that a coalition of two countries against us is possible

now. The United States is regarded with feelings of extreme irritation

by the two most warlike nations in the world, one on our eastern side

and the other on the western. War with either one would call for

all the energies of the country, and the issue would be doubtful.

But if either country should consider itself compelled to declare

war, the other, if free at the time, might see her opportunity to

declare war simultaneously. The result would be the same as if

we fought Great Britain, except that our Pacific coast would be

blockaded besides the Atlantic, and we should have to pay indemnity

to two countries instead of to one country.

A coalition between these two countries would be an ideal arrangement,

because it would enable each country to force us to grant the conditions

it desires, and secure a large indemnity besides.

Would Great Britain interfere in our behalf? This can be answered

by the man so wise that he knows what the international situation

and the commercial situation will be ten years hence. Let him speak.

WILL THE IMPORTANCE OF NAVAL POWER INCREASE OR DECREASE?

It is clear that the importance to a country of a navy varies with

two things--the value of that country's foreign trade and the

probability of war.

It is also clear that, other things being equal, the probability

of a country becoming involved in war varies as the value of her

foreign trade; because the causes of friction and the money at

stake vary in that proportion.

Therefore, _the importance to a country of her navy varies as the

square of the value of her foreign trade_.

In order to answer the question, therefore, we must first consider

whether foreign trade--sea trade--is going to increase or decrease.

As to the United States alone, the value of our exports is about

ten times what it was fifty years ago, and it promises to increase.

But the United States is only one country, and perhaps her increase

in foreign trade has been due to conditions past or passing. So

what is the outlook for the future, both for the United States

and other countries? Will other countries seek foreign trade?

Yes. The recent commercial progress of Germany, Argentina, and

Japan, shows the growing recognition by civilized and enterprising

countries of the benefits of foreign trade, and of the facilities

for attaining it which are now given by the advent of large, swift,

modern steamers; steamers which are becoming larger and swifter

and safer every year, more and more adapted for ocean trade. For

not only have the writings of Mahan brought about an increase in

the sea power of every great country; but this increase has so

aroused the attention of the engineering professions that the

improvement of ships, engines, and other sea material has gone ahead

faster than all the other engineering arts.

The reason why the engineering arts that are connected with the

sea have gone ahead more rapidly than any other arts is simply

that they are given wider opportunity and a greater scope. It is

inherent in the very nature of things that it is easier to transport

things by water than by land; that water transportation lends itself

in a higher degree to the exercise of engineering skill, to the

attainment of great results.

The underlying reason for this difference seems to be that it is

not possible to make any vehicle to travel on land appreciably

larger than the present automobile, unless it run on rails; whereas

the floating power of water is such that vehicles can be made, and

are made, as large as 65,000 tons. The _Mauretania_, of 45,000

tons displacement, has been running for eight years, larger vessels

are even now running and vessels larger still will undoubtedly

be run; for the larger the ships, the less they cost per ton of

carrying power, the faster they go, and the safer they are.

Sea commerce thus gives to engineers, scientists, and inventors,

as well as to commercial men, that gift of the gods--opportunity.

The number of ships that now traverse the ocean and the larger

bodies of water communicating with it aggregate millions of tons,

and their number and individual tonnage are constantly increasing.

These vessels cruise among all the important seaports of the world,

and form a system of intercommunication almost as complete as the

system of railroads in the United States. They bring distant ports

of the world very close together, and make possible that ready

interchange of material products, and that facility of personal

intercourse which it is one of the aims of civilization to bring

about. From a commercial point of view, London is nearer to New

York than San Francisco, and more intimately allied with her.

The evident result of all this is to make the people of the world

one large community, in which, though many nationalities are numbered,

many tongues are spoken, many degrees of civilization and wealth

are found, yet, of all, the main instincts are the same: the same

passions, the same appetites, the same desire for personal advantage.

Not only does this admirable system of intercommunication bring all

parts of the world very closely together, but it tends to produce

in all a certain similarity in those characteristics and habits

of thought that pertain to the material things of life. We are

all imitative, and therefore we tend to imitate each other; but

the inferior is more apt to imitate the superior than vice versa.

Particularly are we prone to imitate those actions and qualities

by which others have attained material success. So it is to be

expected, it is already a fact, that the methods whereby a few

great nations attained success are already being imitated by other

nations. Japan has imitated so well that in some ways she has already

surpassed her models.

With such an example before her, should we be surprised that China

has also become inoculated with the virus of commercial and political

ambitions? It cannot be many years before she will be in the running

with the rest of us, with 400,000,000 of people to do the work;

people of intelligence, patience, endurance, and docility; people

with everything to gain and nothing to lose; with the secret of

how to succeed already taught by other nations, which she can learn

from an open book.

If Japan has learned our secret and mastered it in fifty years,

will China not be able to do it in less than fifty years?

Before we answer this question, let us realize clearly that China

is much nearer to us in civilization than Japan was fifty years

ago; that China has Japan's example to guide her, and also that

any degree of civilization which was acquired by us in say one

hundred years will not require half that time for another nation

merely to learn. The same is true of all branches of knowledge; the

knowledge of the laws of nature which it took Newton many years to

acquire may now be mastered by any college student in two months.

And let us not forget, besides, that almost the only difficult

element of civilization which other people need to acquire, in order

to enter into that world-wide competition which is characteristic of

the time we live in, is "engineering" broadly considered. Doubtless

there are other things to learn besides; but it is not apparent

that any other things have contributed largely to the so-called

new civilization of Japan. Perhaps Japan has advanced enough in

Christianity to account for her advance in material power, but

if so she keeps very quiet about it. It may be, also, that the

relations of the government to the governed people of Japan are

on a higher plane than they used to be, but on a plane not yet so

high as in our own country; but has any one ever seen this claimed

or even stated? It may be that the people of Japan are more kindly,

brave, courteous, and patriotic than they were, and that their

improvement has been due to their imitating us in these matters;

but this is not the belief of many who have been in Japan. One

thing, however, is absolutely sure; and that is that Japan's advance

has been simultaneous with her acquirement of the engineering arts,

especially as applied to military and naval matters and the merchant

marine.

But even supposing that China does not take part in the world-wide

race for wealth, we cannot shut our eyes to the fact that Great

Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Japan, Argentina, and the United

States, besides others like Sweden, Norway, Belgium, Holland, Spain,

and Portugal, are in the race already; and that several in South

America bid fair to enter soon. Not only do we see many contestants,

whose numbers and ardor are increasing, but we see, also, the cause

of this increasing. The cause is not only a clearer appreciation

of the benefits to be derived from commerce across the water under

conditions that exist now; it is also a growing appreciation of the

possibilities of commerce under conditions that will exist later

with countries whose resources are almost entirely undeveloped. For

four hundred years, we of the United States, have been developing

the land within our borders, and the task has been enormous. At

one time it promised to be the work of centuries; and with the

mechanical appliances of even one hundred years ago, it would have

taken a thousand years to do what we have already done. Mechanical

appliances of all kinds, especially of transportation and agriculture,

have made possible what would, otherwise, have been impossible;

and mechanical appliances will do the same things in Tierra del

Fuego and Zululand.

Mechanism, working on land and sea, is opening up the resources

of the world. And now, another allied art, that of chemistry, more

especially biology, is in process of removing one of the remaining

obstacles to full development, by making active life possible, and

even pleasant, in the tropics. It is predicted by some enthusiasts

that, in the near future, it will be healthier and pleasanter to live

in the tropics, and even do hard work there, than in the temperate

zone. When this day comes, and it may be soon, the development of

the riches of lands within the tropics will begin in earnest, and

wealth undreamed of now be realized.

The opening of the undeveloped countries means a continuing increase

of wealth to the nations that take advantage of the opportunity,

and a corresponding backsliding to those nations that fail. It

means over all the ocean an increasing number of steamers. It means

the continuing increase of manufacturing in manufacturing countries,

and the increasing enjoyment in them of the good things of all the

world. It means in the undeveloped countries an increasing use

of the conveniences and luxuries of civilization and an increasing

possession of money or its equivalent. It means, throughout all

the world, an increase of what we call "Wealth."

In discussing a subject so great as sea trade, while it may be

considered presumptuous to look fifty years ahead, it can hardly

be denied that we ought at least to try to look that far ahead.

To look fifty years ahead, is, after all, not taking in a greater

interval of time than fifty years back; and it certainly seems

reasonable to conclude that, if a certain line of progress has

been going on for fifty years in a perfectly straight line, and

with a vigor which is increasing very fast and shows no sign of

change, the same general line of progress will probably keep up

for another fifty years. If we try to realize what this means, we

shall probably fail completely and become dazed by the prospect.

We cannot possibly picture accurately or even clearly to ourselves

any definite conditions of fifty years hence; but we certainly are

warranted in concluding that by the end of fifty years, practically

all of the countries of the world, including Africa, will be open

to trade from one end to the other; that the volume of trade will

be at least ten times as great as it is now; that the means of

communication over the water and through the air will be very much

better than now; and that there will be scores of appliances, methods,

and processes in general use of which we have, as yet, no inkling,

and cannot even imagine.

Now let us call to mind the accepted proverb that "Competition is

the life of trade," and this will make us see that, accompanying

this stupendous trade, extending over, and into, every corner of

the world, there will be stupendous competition, involving in a

vast and complicated net, every red-blooded nation of the earth.

We seem safe in concluding, therefore, that the importance of naval

power will increase.

A great deal is said and written nowadays about the ability of

arbitration to make wars unnecessary, and a good deal also about

the possibility of an agreement among the nations, whereby armaments

may be limited to forces adequate to insure that every nation shall

be compelled to abide by the decision of the others in any disputed

case.

In view of the number, the earnestness, and the prominence of many

of the men interested in this cause; in view of the number of

arbitration treaties that have been already signed; in view of the

fact that arbitration among nations will simply establish a law

among them like the law in any civilized country; in view of the

fact that individuals in their dealings with each other sometimes

surrender certain of their claims, and even rights, for the common

good; in view of the fact that nations, like all business firms,

like to cut down expenses, and in further view of the fact that

a navy is not directly, but only indirectly, a contributor to a

nation's prosperity, it seems probable that arbitration will be

more and more used among the nations, and that armaments may be

limited by agreement. It is clear, however, that the practical

difficulties in the way of making the absolute agreement required

are enormous, and that the most enthusiastic advocates of the plan

do not expect that the actual limitation of armaments will become

a fact for many years.

After the necessary preliminaries shall have been arranged, and

the conference takes place which shall settle what armament each

nation may have, it is plain that it will be to the interest of

each nation to keep down the armament of every other nation, and to

be allowed as much as possible itself. In this way, the operation

of making the agreement will be somewhat like the forming of a

trust among several companies, and the advantage will lie with that

nation which is the most powerful.

For this reason it would seem a part of wisdom for each country

to enter the conference with as large a navy as possible.

Therefore, the probability of an approaching agreement among the

nations as to limitation of armaments, instead of being a reason

for abating our exertions toward establishing a powerful navy,

is really a conclusive reason for redoubling them.

This brings us to the important question, "how powerful should our

navy be?"

This may seem a question impossible to answer. Of course it is

impossible to answer it in terms of ships and guns; but an approximate

estimate may be reached by considering the case of a man playing

poker who holds a royal straight flush. Such a man would be a fool

if he did not back his hand to the limit and get all the benefit

possible from it. So will the United States, if she fails to back

her hand to the limit, recognizing the fact that in the grand game

now going on for the stakes of the commercial supremacy of the world,

she holds the best hand. She has the largest and most numerous

seaports, the most enterprising and inventive people, and the most

wealth with which to force to success all the various necessary

undertakings.

This does not mean that the United States ought, as a matter either

of ethics or of policy, to build a great navy in order to take

unjust advantage of weaker nations; but it does mean that she ought

to build a navy great enough to save her from being shorn of her

wealth and glory by simple force, as France was shorn in 1871.

It is often said that the reason for Great Britain's having so

powerful a navy is that she is so situated geographically that,

without a powerful navy to protect her trade, the people would

starve.

While this statement may be true, the inference usually drawn is

fallacious: the inference that if Great Britain were not so situated,

she would not have so great a navy.

Why would she not? It is certain that that "tight little island"

has attained a world-wide power, and a wealth per capita greater

than those of any other country; that her power and wealth, as

compared with her home area, are so much greater than those of

any other country as to stagger the understanding; that she could

not have done what she has done without her navy; that she has

never hesitated to use her navy to assist her trade, and yet that

she has never used her navy to keep her people from starving.

In fact, the insistence on the anti-starvation theory is absurd.

Has any country ever fought until the people as a mass were starving?

Has starving anything to do with the matter? Does not a nation

give up fighting just as soon as it sees that further fighting

would do more harm than good? A general or an admiral, in charge

of a detached force, must fight sometimes even at tremendous loss

and after all hope of local success has fled, in order to hold a

position, the long holding of which is essential to the success

of the whole strategic plan; but what country keeps up a war until

its people are about to starve? Did Spain do so in our last war? Did

Russia fear that Japan would force the people of her vast territory

into starvation?

No--starvation has nothing to do with the case. If some discovery

were made by which Great Britain could grow enough to support all

her people, she would keep her great navy nevertheless--simply

because she has found it to be a good investment.

The anti-starvation theory--the theory that one does things simply

to keep from starving--does apply to some tropical savages, but

not to the Anglo-Saxon. Long after starvation has been provided

against, long after wealth has been secured, we still toil on. What

are we toiling for? The same thing that Great Britain maintains

her navy for--wealth and power.

The real reason for Great Britain's having a powerful navy applies

with exact equality to the United States. Now that Great Britain

has proved how great a navy is best for her, we can see at once

how great a navy is best for us. That is--since Great Britain and

the United States are the wealthiest countries in the world, and

since the probability of war between any two countries is least

when their navies are equal in power--the maximum good would be

attained by making the United States navy exactly equal to the

British navy.

CHAPTER IV

NAVAL PREPAREDNESS

In a preceding chapter I endeavored to show why it is that the

necessities of the naval defense of a country have caused the gradual

development of different types of vessels, each having its distinctive

work. If those different types operated in separate localities they

would lose that mutual support which it is the aim of organization

to secure, and each separate group could be destroyed in turn by

the combined groups of an enemy. For this reason, the types or

groups are combined in one large fleet, and an admiral is placed

in command.

The command of a fleet is the highest effort of the naval art. Its

success in time of war demands in the admiral himself a high order

of mind and nerve and body; and it demands in all the personnel,

from the highest to the lowest, such a measure of trained ability

and character that each shall be able to discharge with skill and

courage the duties of his station.

In order that the material fleet shall be efficient as a whole,

each material unit must be efficient as a unit. Each ship must

be materially sound; each pump, valve, cylinder, gun, carriage,

torpedo, and individual appliance, no matter how small, must be

in condition to perform its expected task. The complexity of a

fleet baffles any mental effort, by even those most familiar with

it, to grasp it fully. Each dreadnaught, battle cruiser, destroyer,

submarine, collier, tender, hospital ship, scout, supply ship, and

what-not, is a machine in itself, and is filled with scores--in

some cases, hundreds--of highly specialized machines, operated

by steam, oil, air, electricity, and water. A superdreadnaught

is a machine which, including the machines inside of her, costs

$15,000,000; a battle cruiser more.

The personnel is nearly as complicated as the material. Not only

are there all the various ranks of commissioned officers in the

line, medical corps, pay corps, marine corps, etc., but there are

ten kinds of warrant officers besides; while in the enlisted personnel

there are ninety-one different "ratings" in the navy, and thirteen

in the marine corps, besides temporary ratings, such as gun-pointer,

gun-trainer, gun-captain, etc. Each rank and rating carries its

rigidly prescribed duties, as well as its distinctive uniform and

pay. That such a multitudinous host of types and individuals, both

material and personnel, can be actually combined in one unit fleet,

and that fleet operated as a mobile directable organism by its

admiral, is a high achievement of the human intellect.

How is it done?

By discipline, by training, by knowledge, by energy, by devotion,

by will; by the exercise of those mental, moral, and spiritual

faculties that may be grouped under the one term "mind": the same

power that co-ordinates and controls a still more complex machine,

the organism of the human body.

Despite its relative crudeness, a fleet possesses, more fully than

any other fruit of man's endeavor, the characteristics of an organism,

defined by Webster as "an individual constituted to carry on the

activities of life by means of parts or organs more or less separate

in function, but mutually dependent." And though it must be true

that no fleet can approximate the perfection of nature's organisms,

nevertheless there is an analogy which may help us to see how a

complex fleet of complex vessels has been slowly evolved from the

simple galley fleets of earlier days; how its various parts may

be mutually dependent yet severally independent; and how all must

be made to work as one vast unit, and directed as one vast unit

by the controlling mind toward "the end in view."

The common idea is that an army consists of a number of soldiers,

and a navy of a number of ships. This idea is due to a failure

to realize that soldiers and ships are merely instruments, and

that they are useless instruments unless directed by a trained

intelligence: that the first essential in an army and the first

essential in a navy is mind, which first correctly estimates the

situation, then makes wise plans to meet it, then carries out those

plans; which organizes the men and designs the ships, and then

directs the physical power exertable by the men and the ships toward

"the end in view."

Owing to the enormous mechanical power made available in ships

by the floating properties of water, machinery is more used by

navies than by armies; but this does not mean that machinery can

take the place of men more successfully in navies than in armies,

except in the sense that navies can use more mechanical power.

The abundant use of machines and instruments in navies does not

mean that machinery and instruments can take the place of trained

intelligence--but exactly the reverse. Under the guidance of trained

intelligence, a machine or instrument can perform wonders. But

it is not the machinery that does the wonders; it is the trained

intelligence that devised the instrument or machine, and the trained

intelligence that operates it. Let the trained intelligence err,

or sleep, and note the results that follow. The _Titanic_, a mass

of 40,000 tons, moving through the water at 20 knots an hour, a

marvel of the science and skill of man, crashes into an iceberg,

because the trained intelligence directing her errs--and is reduced

at once to an inert mass of iron and brass. The mighty fleet of

Russia meets the Japanese fleet in Tsushima Straits; and because

the trained intelligence that directed its movements seriously

erred, in an engagement decided in less than an hour, is stripped of

its power and glory, and transformed into a disorganized aggregation

of separate ships--some sunk, some sinking, some in flight. The

Japanese fleet, on the other hand, because it is directed with

an intelligence more highly trained than that which directs the

Russian fleet, and because, in consequence, the officers and enlisted

men perform their various duties not only in the actual battle,

but in preparation for it, with a skill greater than that used in

the Russian fleet, suffers but little damage in the fight--though

the advantage in number and size of ships is slightly with the

Russians. As a consequence of that battle, the war between Russia

and Japan was decided in favor of Japan, and terms of peace were

soon agreed upon. Russia lost practically all the ships that took

part in the battle, and several thousand of her officers and

sailors--and _she lost the whole object for which she went to war_.

The difference between the Russian and Japanese fleets that gave

the victory to the Japanese was a difference in trained intelligence

and in the relative degrees of preparedness which that difference

caused.

During the actual battle, the intelligence was that of the officers

and men in the respective fleets, in managing the two fleets, the

ships themselves, and the guns, engines, and machines of all kinds that

those ships contained. It is this factor--trained intelligence--that

has decided most of the battles of history, and the course that

nations thereafter followed. Battles have usually been fought between

forces not very different in point of numbers and material, for the

reason that a force which knew itself to be weaker than another

would not fight unless compelled to fight; and in cases where two

forces of widely differing strength have fought, the situation has

usually been brought about directly by a superior intelligence. In

fact, one of the most frequent and important endeavors of strategy

and tactics--used triumphantly by Napoleon--has always been such

a handling of one's forces as to be superior to the enemy at the

point of contact--to "get the mostest men there the firstest," as

General Forrest is said to have expressed it.

The effect of superior-trained intelligence is greatest "at the top,"

but it can accomplish little unless a fine intelligence permeates the

whole. A fine intelligence at the top will so direct the men below,

will so select men for the various posts, and will so co-ordinate

their efforts, that the organization will resemble a veritable

organism: all the various organs fulfilling separately yet accurately

their allotted functions; all the fire-control parties, all the

gun crews, all the torpedo crews, all the engineer forces properly

organized and drilled; all the hulls of the vessels, all the guns,

all the torpedoes, all the multifarious engines, machines, and

instruments in good material condition and correctly adjusted for

use.

But it is not only in the actual battle that fine intelligence is

required; it is required long before the battle and far distant

from the scene--in the "admiralty" at home. The Japanese fleet set

out fully manned with a highly trained, enthusiastic, and confident

personnel; the Russian fleet set out manned with a poorly trained

and discouraged personnel, only too well aware of their defects.

The issue at Tsushima was decided before the respective fleets

left their respective homes--though that issue was not then known

to mortals. The battle emphasized, but did not prove, what had

been proved a hundred times before: the paramount importance of

preparedness; that _when two forces fight--the actual battle merely

secures the decision as to the relative values of two completed

machines, and their degrees of preparedness for use_.

Preparedness of material is not, of course, so important as preparedness

of personnel, because if the personnel is prepared, they will inevitably

prepare the material. And the preparedness must pervade all grades:

for while it is true that the preparedness of those in high command

is more important than the preparedness of those in minor posts,

yet there is no post so lowly that its good or its ill performance

will not be a factor in the net result. An unskilful oiler may

cause a hot bearing that will slow down a battleship, and put out

of order the column of a squadron; a signalman's mistake may throw

a fleet into confusion.

Perfect preparedness of personnel and material is essential because

events follow each other so rapidly in war that no preparation can

be made after it has begun. To fight is the most intense work a

man can do; and a war is nothing but a fight. No matter how great

or how small a war may be, no war can lose the essential qualities

of a fight, or (save in the treatment of prisoners) be more brutal or

less brutal when fought between two little savage tribes, than when

fought between two colossal groups of Christian nations, civilized to

the highest point. War is the acme of the endeavor of man. Each side

determines that it will win at all costs and at all hazards; that

nobody's comfort, happiness, or safety shall receive the slightest

consideration; that everybody's strength and courage must be worked

to the limit by night as well as by day, and that there must be

no rest and no yielding to any softening influence whatever; that

the whole strength and mind of the nation, and of every individual

in it, must be devoted, and must be sacrificed, if need be, to

the cause at stake.

In war, a navy's primary duty has usually been to protect the coast

and trade routes of its country; and in order to do this, it has had

to be able to oppose to an attacking fleet a defending fleet more

militarily effective. If it were less effective, even if no invasion

were attempted, the attacking fleet could cripple or destroy the

defending fleet and then institute a blockade. In modern times an

effective blockade, or at least a hostile patrol of trade routes,

could be held hundreds of miles from the coast, where the menace

of submarines would be negligible; and this blockade would stop

practically all import and export trade. This would compel the

country to live exclusively on its own resources, and renounce

intercourse with the outside world. Some countries could exist

a long time under these conditions. But they would exist merely,

and the condition of mere existence would never end until they

sued for peace; because, even if new warships were constructed

with which to beat off the enemy, each new and untrained ship would

be sunk or captured shortly after putting out to sea as, on June

1, 1813, in Massachusetts Bay, the American frigate _Chesapeake_

was captured and nearly half her crew were killed and wounded in

fifteen minutes by a ship almost identical in the material qualities

of size and armament--the better-trained British frigate _Shannon_.

For these reasons, every nation that has acquired and has long

retained prosperity, has realized that every country liable to

be attacked by any navy must either be defended by some powerful

country, or else must keep a navy ready to repel the attack

successfully. To do this, the defending navy must be ready when the

attack comes; because if not ready then, it will never have time

to get ready. In regard to our own country, much stress is laid by

some intelligent people--who forget the _Chesapeake_ and _Shannon_--on

the 3,000 miles of water stretching between the United States and

Europe. This 3,000 miles is, of course, a factor of importance,

but it is not a prohibition, because it can be traversed with great

surety and quickness--with much greater surety and quickness, for

instance, than the 12,000 miles traversed by the Russian fleet,

in 1904, in steaming from Russia to Japan.

The 3,000 miles that separate the United States from Europe can

be traversed by a fleet more powerful than ours in from two to

three weeks; and the fleet would probably arrive on our shores in

good condition, and manned by full crews of well-trained officers

and men, habituated to their duties by recent practice and thoroughly

ready to fight, as the _Shannon_ was. We could not meet this fleet

successfully unless we met it with a fleet more militarily effective;

and we could not do this unless we had in the regular service and

the reserve a personnel of officers and men sufficiently numerous

to man immediately all the vessels that would be needed, and to

man in addition all the shore stations, which would have to be

expanded to a war basis. The officers and enlisted men, of course,

would have to be at least as well trained as the corresponding

personnel in the attacking fleet, and have as recent and thorough

practice in their respective duties; for otherwise, no matter how

brave and devoted they might be, the fate of the American fleet

would be the fate of the _Chesapeake_.

In order to be ready when war breaks, the first essential is a

plan for preparation. Preparation is divided naturally into two

parts: first, preparation of sufficient material and personnel;

second, preparation of plans for the conduct of the war after it has

begun. These two parts are both considered in what are technically

called "War Plans."

Preparation for war has always been known to be essential. Lack

of preparation has never been due to lack of knowledge, but always

to neglect. The difference between the wise and the foolish virgins

was not a difference in knowledge but a difference in character.

The difference between Alexander's little army and the tremendous

army of Darius was not so much in numbers as in preparedness. Trained

under Philip of Macedon for many years, organized for conquest

and aggression, prepared to meet any situation that might arise,

Philip's army carried Philip's son from victory to victory, and

made him the master of the world. Cæsar was great in peace as well

as war, but it was by Cæsar's army that Cæsar's greatness was

established; and it was a thoroughness of preparation unknown before

that made Cæsar's army great. Napoleon's successes were built on

the splendid preparation of a mind transcendently fitted to grasp

both principles and details, and on the comparatively unprepared

state of his opponents.

The Great Elector began in 1640 a course of laborious and scientific

preparation which committed all Prussia, as well as the army, to

acquiring what now we call "efficiency." As this plan developed,

especially under the Elector's grandson King Frederick William,

the next King found himself, as Alexander had done, the chief of

an army more highly prepared for war than any other. By means of

that army he made himself Frederick the Great, and raised Prussia

from a minor position to the first rank of European Powers. Pursuing

Frederick William's system of progressive preparation, Prussia

continued her prosperous course till William I defeated Austria,

then France, and founded the German Empire. This does not mean that

the only result of developing national efficiency to its highest

point is to secure success in war--in fact, we know that it is not.

But it does mean that the same quality--efficiency--which tends

to prosperity in peace tends also to victory in war.

Preparing for war was a simple thing in the olden days compared

with preparing now, for the reason that the implements of war are

much more numerous and complicated than they used to be, especially

in navies. A navy is not ready unless all preparations and plans

have been made, tested, and kept up to date, to insure that all

of the vessels of every kind and all the shore stations will be

in material condition, fully equipped and manned by a sufficient

and efficient personnel of officers and crews, in time to meet

the enemy on advantageous terms, and unless the central authority

has already decided what it will do, when any probable emergency

shall arise. This was the condition of the German army in 1870.

This was also the condition of the British navy, when war broke

out in August, 1914; the British navy was ready; and therefore it

was able to assume command of the sea at once, drive its enemy's

commerce from the ocean, and imprison its fleets in sheltered ports.

In all countries the peace establishment of the army and navy is

smaller than the war establishment, for reasons of economy, upon

the assumption that there will be enough time after war is declared

to get on a war basis before the enemy can strike. But since 1870,

all the military nations have realized that the vital struggle of

a war takes place _before_ a shot is fired; that _the factors that

decide which nation shall be the victor and which the vanquished are

determined before the war begins_; that they are simply "functions"

of preparedness. Germany was ready not only for war but for victory,

because her troops were so much better trained, organized, and equipped

than those of France, and her war plans so much more complete,

that she was able to lay France prostrate, before the enormous

resources of that country in men and material could rally in her

defense.

The relative conditions in which two opposing forces will enter a

war, and their relative performances afterward, will depend upon

the relative excellence of the war plans made for them, and the

thoroughness with which the plans are tested before war breaks. So

it is not difficult to see why all the great armies have patterned

after Germany, and organized special bodies of officers for the

preparation and execution of War plans; and why it is that they

endeavor to secure for that peculiar duty the most thorough and

industrious of their officers. Owing to the nature of war itself,

the principles of warfare apply in their essentials to navies as well

as to armies; and so the navies have patterned after the armies and

made plans whereby they can get ready to fight in fleet organization

on the ocean with the greatest possible effectiveness in the shortest

possible time.

During peace times every navy is maintained on a "peace basis";

only such ships and other material being kept in full commission,

and only such a number of officers and enlisted men being actively

employed, as the appropriations allotted by the government permit.

Those ships and other material that are not actually in commission

are maintained in reserve, a condition of partial readiness, of

which several degrees are recognized, in which a reduced number of

officers and men are kept on board, and the various structures and

apparatus are kept in as high a degree of readiness as circumstances

will permit. In order to man in time of war these vessels in reserve,

and insure a sufficient personnel in the active fleet, a "naval

reserve" is organized in each country, composed of officers and men

who have had experience in the regular navy. They are compelled to

undergo a specific amount of training each year, to keep themselves

in readiness at all times to answer the call for active service on

short notice, and to maintain such communication with the government

as will make it easy to locate any man at any moment.

The act of getting ready, the passing from a state of peace to

a state of readiness for fighting, is called "mobilization."

Mobilization plans are an important element in war plans, but the

details of any mobilization plan are of such a confidential nature

that it would not be proper to discuss them in public print. There

can be no impropriety, however, in making the general statement

that in all navies the endeavor is made to keep the mobilization

plans continually up to date, and to have them prepared in such

detail that every officer and enlisted man in active service, the

retired list, the naval reserve, and the naval militia, will become

instantly available for a predetermined duty, and that every shore

station and every necessary vessel will be ready to take part. The

plans prescribe methods in very great detail whereby the ships

and other vessels in reserve can be quickly put into commission

with full crews of officers and men, all their various equipments,

fuel, and ammunition put on board, and the vessels themselves sent

out to sea to join the fleet. In addition, plans are made whereby

certain auxiliaries can be fitted out at once and put into

commission--such as supply ships, ammunition ships, transports,

colliers, mine ships, hospital ships, etc. The mass of detailed

plans, orders, and instructions is stupendous and bewildering.

Years of study, trial, and rectification are required to get them

into such condition that the plans can be put into immediate and

effective use when war breaks out. The work must be done, however,

and with the utmost thoroughness, _before_ war breaks out; otherwise

it will never be done, if an active enemy is about, because he

will strike at once--and then it will be too late.

In most of the great naval countries the work of mobilizing the

fleet is comparatively easy, for the reason that the coast-line

is short and is not far from any part of the interior, enabling

reserves to live in fairly close touch with the coast and with

naval affairs, and so near the coast that they can get quickly to

any port. But the conditions in the United States are more difficult

than those in any other country, because of the enormous stretch of

our coast, the great average distance from any place in our country

to the coast, the difficulty of getting a naval reserve that could

be of practical use (owing to the ease with which young men can

make a comfortable living on land), and the perilous slowness of the

nation as a whole to realize the necessity for preparedness.

As an offset to this, we have the 3,000 miles of ocean between

us and Europe, and the 5,000 miles between us and Asia; and on

account of this we may to a certain extent discount the danger of

attack and the preparedness required to meet it. But our discount

should be reasonable and reasoned out, and certainly not excessive.

Fortunately the problem of how much time we should allow for mobilizing

and joining the fleet is easy, as a moment's thought will show us

that it must be simply the two weeks needed for a fleet to come

from Europe to America; for we must realize that the report of the

sailing of the hostile fleet would be the first news we should

get of any hostile preparation or intent.

The general situation in which every isolated naval nation stands

regarding other nations is not complicated, but very plain. Each

nation has, as possible opponents in its policy, certain countries.

The naval forces of those countries and the time in which they can

be made ready are known with sufficient accuracy for practical

purposes. If any isolated naval nation wishes to carry out a policy

which any of those countries will forcibly oppose she must either

build a navy equal to that of the other country, or else be prepared

to abandon any attempt to force her policies. Stating the question

in another way, she can carry out only such policies as do not

require for their enforcement a navy stronger than she has.

It is true that diplomacy and the jealousies of foreign powers

unite to make possible the averting of war during long periods of

time. Diplomacy averted war with Germany for forty-three years, but

it could not continue to avert war eternally. War finally broke out

with a violence unparalleled in history, and possessing a magnitude

proportional to the duration of the preceding peace. "Long coming long

last, short notice soon past" is a sailor's maxim about storms; and

it seems not inapplicable to wars. Certain it is that the frequent

wars of savage tribes are far less terrible than the infrequent

wars of enlightened powers.

This indicates that, even though a nation may be able to avert

war for a long time, war will come some day, in a form which the

present war foreshadows; and it suggests the possibility that the

longer the war is averted, the more tremendous it will be, the

greater the relative unpreparedness of a slothful nation, and the

sharper her punishment when war finally breaks upon her.

CHAPTER V

NAVAL DEFENSE

There has never been a time since Cain slew Abel when men have

not been compelled to devote a considerable part of their energies

to self-defense. In the early ages, before large organizations

existed or the mechanic arts had made much progress, defense was

mostly defense of life itself. As time went on, and people amassed

goods and chattels, and organized in groups and tribes, it came

to include the defense of property--not only the property of

individuals, but also of the tribe and the land it occupied. Still

later, defense carne to include good name or reputation, when it

was realized that the reputation, even of an organization, could

not be destroyed without doing it an injury.

At the present day, owing to the complexity of nations and other

organizations, and to the long time during which many of them have

existed, the question of defense has become extremely difficult. The

places in which defense has been brought to its highest excellence

are the large cities of the civilized countries; for there we see that

defense of the life, property, and reputation of every individual

has been carefully provided for. This has been made possible by

the intimate intermingling of the people, the absence of racial

rivalries, and the fact that the interests of all are identical

in the matter of defense of life, property, and reputation; since,

no matter how bad any individual may be, he wishes that others

shall be good, in order that he himself may be safe.

The defense of reputation has two aspects: the practical and the

sentimental. The practical aspect regards the defense of that element

of reputation which affects ability to "make a living"; while the

sentimental aspect is concerned with the purely personal reputation

of the individual, or with the reputation of an organization or a

nation. The sentimental aspect is much more important, especially

in enlightened nations, than is realized by some who have not thought

much about it; for there is, fortunately, in every decent man a

craving for the esteem and even the affection of his fellow men;

and a knowledge that, no matter how wealthy or powerful he may

be, he cannot be happy if he knows that he is despised.

The fact that individuals organize to acquire the strength of united

effort brings about, among organizations, a spirit of competition

like that among individuals. It is more intense, however, because

no man alone can get up the enthusiasms that ten men acting together

can get up, and ten men cannot get up as much as a thousand. The

longer any organization is maintained, the sharper this spirit

of rivalry grows to be, owing to the feeling of clanship that

propinquity and material interests evoke. Its acme is found in those

organizations called nations, that have lived together, nourished from

the same soil, for generations; where the same loves and jealousies

and hates that they now feel were felt by their fathers and their

grandfathers and great-grandfathers for centuries back. Among a

people possessing the potentialities of national solidarity and

greatness this feeling waxes, into a self-sacrificing devotion

to the nation and to the land that bore them.

That there should be such a thing is sometimes deplored; because

patriotism, like all human qualities, has its bad side and its

unfortunate effects. If it were not for patriotism there would

probably be no war, and the greatest suffering that the world endures

would thus be obviated. But if it were not for patriotism there

would be no competition among nations; and in any one nation there

would be no national spirit, no endeavor on the part of every man

to do his part toward making her strong, efficient, and of good

repute or toward making the people individually prosperous and

happy. In the same way, on a smaller scale, many people deplore

the necessity of competition among organizations, saying that it

is ruthless and selfish; that it stamps out the individual; that

it makes every man a mere cog in a money-getting machine; that it

brings about strife, hatred, jealousies, and sometimes murders;

that, if it were not for competition, all men would live together

in peace.

This may be so; but if it were not for competition there would

probably be little of that strenuous, endeavor without which no

effective progress in advancing the welfare of men has ever yet

been made. Of course, it may be that what we call "progress" has

really not advanced the welfare of men; that the savage in Samoa is

as happy as the millionaire in New York; that knowledge itself is not

an unmixed benefit; and if we accept this view, we may logically declare

that competition, progress, and patriotism are all disadvantages.

But who will go so far? It seems to be a fact that we cannot get

something for nothing: that every plus has its minus, every joy

its pain; that if men succeed in passing beyond the savage state,

and in overcoming the forces of nature, so that they can live in

houses with every modern luxury and convenience, they must pay for

it by a condition of competition that causes personal jealousies

among individuals, commercial wars among organizations, physical

wars among nations.

Yet the instinctive desire of every one is for peace and comfort,

for the maximum of good with the minimum of exertion; and therefore

the normal person dislikes to see interjected into human life the

abominable confusion of war. From this it comes about that every

nation, even if it consciously brings about a war, always endeavors

to make it appear that the other party is the aggressor. For this

reason in every country the army and navy are said to be for the

"defense" of the country. No nation, no matter how aggressive its

policy may secretly be, openly declares that it intends to provoke

aggression. This does not mean that any nation ever deliberately

raises an army and navy for aggression, and then consciously deceives

the world in regard to its intention; for men are so constituted as

to feel more or less unconsciously that their interests and desires

are proper and those of their opponent wrong; and every nation is

so firmly persuaded of the righteousness of its own policies as

to feel that any country which exhibits antagonism toward these

policies is trying to provoke a fight.

Now these policies, especially after a nation has adhered to them

for long, seem vital in her eyes, and they usually are so. To Great

Britain, whose major policy is that she must be mistress of the

seas, it is vital that she should be. Her people are surrounded

by the ocean, and unless they are willing simply to eke out an

agricultural existence, it is essential that she should be able

to manufacture articles, send them out in ships to all parts of

the world, and receive in return money and the products of other

lands. In order that she may be able to do this, she must feel

sure that no power on earth can restrain the peaceful sailing to

and fro of her exporting and importing ships. This assurance can be

had only through physical force; it can be exerted only by a navy.

Germany has been gradually coming into the same position, and the

same clear comprehension, owing to the increase of her population,

the growth of their desire for wealth, and their realization of

the control by Great Britain and the United States of large areas

of the surface of the earth. Germany's determination to break down,

at least in part, that overpowering command of the sea which Great

Britain wields has been the result. The ensuing rapid growth and

excellence of Germany's navy and merchant marine brought Germany

and England into sharp competition. Military and naval men have

seen for years that these competing nations would have to go to

war some day in "self-defense."

In the minds of some people the idea of what constitutes "defense"

is rather hazy, and "defense" is deemed almost synonymous with

"resistance." Perhaps the clearest idea of what constitutes "defense"

is given in a sentence in Webster's Dictionary, that reads: "The

inmates of a fortress are _defended_ by its guns, _protected_ by

its walls, and _guarded_ against surprise by sentries."

The distinction is important, and the partially aggressive character

of defense it indicates is exemplified in all walks of human and

brute life. Any animal, no matter how peaceably inclined, will

turn on his aggressor--unless, indeed, he runs away. No one ever

saw any brute oppose a merely passive resistance to attack. Every

man recognizes in himself an instinct to hit back if he is hit. If

it be an instinct, it must have been implanted in us for a reason;

and the reason is not hard to find in the universal law of

self-protection, which cannot be satisfied with the ineffectual

method of mere parrying or resisting.

Naval defense, like military defense, therefore, is not passive

defense only, but contains an element of "offense" as well. When

the defense contains in large measure the element of offense, it is

said in military parlance to be "offensive-defensive"; and the most

effective defensive is this offensive-defensive. When a defending

force throws off its defensive attitude entirely and advances boldly

to attack, it is said to have "assumed the offensive"; but even this

assumption, especially if it be temporary--as when a beleaguered

garrison makes a sortie--does not rob the situation of its defensive

character.

For these reasons the dividing line between offense and defense

is very vague; and it is made more vague through a realization by

all military people that the offense has certain decided advantages

over the defense (unless the defense has the advantage of position);

so that when strained relations between two nations come, each

is so fearful that the other will take the offensive first, when

the two nations are near each other, that it is apt to take the

offensive first--in real _self-defense!_ A striking illustration

is the action of certain European Powers in the latter part of

July, 1914.

In addition to the sincere convictions of either party, there is

also apt to be considerable yielding to the temptation to persuade

the world that the other party is the aggressor, merely to get the

sympathy that usually goes to the innocent victim--the support

of what Bismarck called "the imponderables." Few wars have been

frankly "offensive," like the conquests of Alexander, Cæsar, and

Pizarro, at least in modern times; each side has usually claimed

(and often sincerely believed) that its action was demanded in

self-defense and that its cause was just.

To some in the United States naval defense means merely defense

against invasion. This notion is of recent growth, and certainly was

not held by the framers of our Constitution. Section 8 of Article

I defines the powers of Congress; and although eight of the eighteen

paragraphs deal exclusively with measures of defense on sea and land,

only one of those paragraphs (the fifteenth) deals with invasion.

The, first paragraph reads:

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties,

imposts, and excises, _to pay the debts and provide for the common

defense and general welfare of the United States_; but all duties,

imposts, and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States.

The juxtaposition of the words "common defense" and "general welfare"

in this admirably written paragraph could hardly have been accidental,

or have been due to any other cause than a juxtaposition of those

ideas in the minds of the Constitution's framers. And what more

natural connection can there be between any two ideas than between

those of common defense and general welfare, since the general

welfare of no country has ever continued long unless it was defended.

Now the general welfare of every maritime power has always been

intimately concerned with its sea-borne commerce. It is only by

means of sea-borne commerce, for instance, that Americans can live

in the way Americans wish to live. "General welfare" means more

than mere existence. A mere existence is the life a savage lives.

Furthermore, the general welfare of a country requires the safety

of its exported and imported goods while on the sea, and includes

the right of its citizens to travel with safety in every land,

to buy and sell in foreign ports, to feel a proper measure of

self-respect and national respect wherever they may go, and to

command from the people of the lands they visit a proper recognition

of their claims to justice.

Naval defense may, therefore, be said to consist of three parts:

1st--Defense of the coast against bombardment and invasion.

2d--Defense of the trade routes traversed by ships carrying the

exports and imports of the country.

3d--Defense of the national policy, including defense of the nation's

reputation, honor, and prestige.

Of these, defense of the coast against bombardment and invasion is

the easiest, and defense of the national policy the most difficult;

because in preventing bombardment and invasion the defender has the

strategical advantage of being nearer home than the adversary;

while in the defense of a country's policy, a naval force may have

to "assume the offensive," and go even to the far distant coasts

of the enemy--as the Russian fleet went to Tsushima, where it met

its death.

In that part of naval defense which is concerned with trade routes,

the strategical advantage must go, in general, to that side which

is the nearer to the locality where the decisive battle may occur.

In laying down a policy of naval defense, however, it is not necessary

to consider these three parts separately, because no nation can

ever tell whether in the distant future its naval defense will

have to be used directly for any one of the three, or for all.

In general terms, it may be stated that in nearly all naval wars

the fleet has been used more for the defense of the nation's policy

than for the actual defense of the coasts or the trade routes. This

does not mean that there has never been a bombardment or invasion,

or that the defense of trade routes may not have been the cause of

the war itself; but it does mean that in actual wars bombardment

or invasion has been rare, the capture of merchant vessels has

played a minor part, and the deciding events have been battles

between two fleets, that were often far from the land of either.

Owing to the fact that within modern times most of the important

countries of the world have been those of continental Europe, with

frontiers contiguous, and in fact identical, the defense of a country

has been largely committed to the army, and most of the wars have

been on land. The country standing in exception to this has been

Great Britain, whose isolated and insular situation demanded a

defense that was strictly naval. The tremendous advance in recent

times of the engineering arts, by which ships became larger and

faster, and able to carry more powerful and accurate guns than ever

before, has enhanced the value of naval power and enabled Great

Britain to reach all over the surface of the earth, and become more

powerful than any continental nation. Thus she has made out of the

very weakness of her position a paramount tower of strength.

Naval defense was taken up systematically in Great Britain in the

eighth century by King Offa, to whom is credited the maxim, "He

who would be secure on land must be supreme at sea"; but it must

have dropped to a low ebb by 1066, for William of Normandy landed

in England unopposed. Since that time Great Britain's naval defense,

committed to her navy, has increased steadily in effectiveness and

power, keeping pace with the increase in the national interests

it defended, and utilizing all the growing resources of wealth

and science which the world afforded. Until the present crisis,

Great Britain's naval defense did its most important work during

Napoleon's time, when Great Britain's standing, like the standing

of every other European nation, was subjected to a strain that

it could hardly bear. So keenly, however, did the nation and the

nation's great leader, Pitt, realize the situation that the most

strenuous measures were adopted to keep the navy up, press-gangs

even visiting the houses of subjects of the King, taking men out and

putting them by force on board his Majesty's ships. But the British

navy, even more than the British army, brought Great Britain safe

out of the Napoleonic danger, and made the British the paramount

nation of the world.

Since then Great Britain has waxed more and more powerful, her

avowed policy being that her navy should be equal to any other two;

realizing that her aloofness in point of national characteristics

and policy from all other nations made it possible that a coalition

of at least two great nations might be pitted against her at a

time when she could not get an ally. Accompanying the growth of

the British navy has been the establishment of British foreign

trade, British colonies, and British bases from which the navy

could work, and the general making of a network of British commerce

and British power over the surface of the earth. No other nation

has ever dominated so large a part of the surface of the globe as

has Great Britain during the last two centuries; and she has done

it by means of her naval power. This naval power has been, in the

language of Great Britain, for the "imperial defense"; not for coast

defense alone, but for the defense of all the imperial interests,

commercial and political, and even the imperial prestige. And this

defense of prestige, it may here be remarked, is not a vainglorious

defense, not an exhibition of a swaggering, swashbuckling spirit, but

a recognition of the fact that the minds of men are so constituted

that the prestige of an individual, an organization, or a nation

has a practical value and is an actual force. No government that

appreciates its responsibilities will willingly risk the prestige of

the nation which it governs, because it knows that any weakening

of it will be followed by a weakening of influence and a consequent

increase of difficulty in attaining some "end in view."

The greatness of the British navy, compared with that of the British

army and the other elements of Great Britain's government, has taken

on magnified dimensions during the last half century. So long as

war-ships used sails as their principal motive power, so long were

they forced to employ methods of construction and equipment that

forbade the efficient employment of high-power guns, the attainment

of great speed, and the use of instruments of precision; so long,

in other words, was their military effectiveness prevented from

increasing greatly. But when the British navy decided to abandon

sail power altogether and propel their ships by steam, a new phase

was entered upon, in which every resource of the engineering arts

and the physical sciences was called into requisition; and now,

on board a dreadnaught, battle cruiser, destroyer, or submarine,

can be found the highest examples of mechanical and electrical art

and science. Every material resource which the brain and wealth

of man can compass is enlisted in her naval defense; and in order

to take advantage of the rapidity and certainty of movement they

afford for operating fleets and ships, there has been a great advance

in methods of operation, or, in military parlance, "staff work."

To assist this work, the radio, the cable, and even the humble

typewriter have contributed their essential share, with the result

that to Great Britain's naval defense there has been devoted an

extraordinary degree of efficiency, continuous effort, a more varied

activity, and a larger expenditure of money than to any other object

of man's activity.

The United States navy, to which is committed the naval defense

of the United States, has followed the same lines as the British;

and its task, while in some ways easier, is in other ways more

difficult. Perhaps the chief reason why the naval defense of Great

Britain is so difficult is the extreme closeness of her borders

to the borders of her possible foes--for the English Channel is

only twenty-three miles across from Dover to Calais. And yet the

very narrowness of the Channel there lends a certain element of

assistance to the defender of either coast against an enemy like

Germany, because it enables the defender, by simply protecting that

narrow area, to prevent an enemy from passing to the sea or from it,

except by going around the British Isles. But while it is interesting

thus to compare the tasks of two navies by comparing the lengths

of coast line, populations, wealth, and areas of their countries,

or their distances from possible antagonists, such comparisons are

really misleading; for the reason that all nations are on a par

in regard to the paramount element of national defense, which is

defense of national policy. It was as important to Belgium as it

was to Germany to maintain the national policy, and the army of

Belgium was approximately as strong as that of Germany in proportion

to her wealth, area, and population; but nevertheless the Belgium

army was routed, and Belgium was conquered by the German army.

Much has been written to prove that the sole reason for the possession

of the paramount navy by Great Britain is that the soil of Great

Britain cannot support her people. In an essay, entitled "Naval

Power," which I contributed to the _United States Naval Institute_

in 1911, the fallacy of this was shown; and it was pointed out that

even if Great Britain grew more than enough to feed her people,

life could be made unendurable to the 60,000,000 living there (or to

the people in any civilized and isolated country) by an effective

blockading fleet. _The question of how great a navy any country needs

depends, not on the size, but on the policies of that country, and

on the navies of the countries that may oppose those policies_. The

navy that a country needs is a navy that can defend its policies,

both offensively and defensively. If, for instance, the United States

does not wish to enforce any policy that Great Britain would oppose,

or to oppose any policy that Great Britain would enforce, then we

may leave her navy out of consideration. But if we decide that we

must maintain a certain policy which a certain country may oppose,

then we must have a navy at least equal to hers; because we do not

know whether we should have to meet that navy near our coast, or

near hers, or far away from both. For the reason, furthermore, that

a war with a European Power might occur at a period of strained

relations with some Asiatic Power, we must realize the temptation

to that Asiatic Power to seize the opportunity and attack us on

the Pacific side, knowing that we should need all our navy on the

Atlantic side. This seems to mean that in order to have an effective

naval defense (since we are precluded by our policy from having

European allies and no South American country could give us any

effective naval help) we must have on each ocean a fleet as strong

as that of any nation on that ocean against whose wishes we may

have to enforce a policy--or against whose policy we may have to

oppose resistance.

The essential requirement of any defense is that it shall be adequate;

because an inadequate defense will be broken down, while the attack

will retain a large proportion of its original strength. In the

_United States Naval Institute_, in 1905, the present writer showed,

by means of a series of tables, how, when two forces fight, the

force which is originally the more powerful will become gradually

more powerful, relatively to the weaker, as the fight goes on. That,

for instance, if two forces start with the relative powers of 10 and

8, the weaker force will be reduced so much more rapidly than the

stronger that when it has been reduced to zero the stronger force

will have a value of 5.69. The values mentioned indicated the actual

fighting strength--strength made up of all the factors--material,

physical, and psychic--that constituted it. Of course, none of

these factors can ever be accurately compared; but nevertheless

the tables seemed to prove that in a contest between two forces

whose total strengths are as 10 and 8 one force will be reduced

to zero, while the other will be reduced not quite one-half.

One of the lessons drawn was "the folly of ineffectual resistance."

Doubtless a clearer lesson would have been "the folly of ineffectual

preparedness"; because, when the decision as to resistance or

non-resistance is forced upon a nation, the matter is so urgent,

the military, political, and international conditions so complex,

and the excitement probably so intense, that a wise decision is

very difficult to reach; whereas the question of what constitutes

effectual preparedness is simple, and needs merely to be approached

with calm nerves and an open mind.

Inasmuch as the psychic element in defense is the strongest single

element, it is apparent that if the decision is reached to prepare

an effectual defense the nation must be absolutely united, and

must appreciate at its full value the debilitating influence of

opposition to the measure; for, no matter how much money a nation

may expend, no matter how many lives it may sacrifice, its defense

cannot have an efficiency proportional to the effort if a considerable

number of its citizens are permitted to oppose it.

In our own country there has been so much talking and writing recently

about defense, that there is danger of the question coming to be

considered academic; though no question is more practical, no question

is more urgent.

_Defense must defend_.

CHAPTER VI

NAVAL POLICY

Every country that has a satisfactory navy has acquired it as the

result of a far-seeing naval policy, not of opportunism or of chance.

The country has first studied the question thoroughly, then decided

what it ought to do, then decided how to do it.

Naval policy has to deal with three elements: material, personnel,

and operations, which, though separate, are mutually dependent. A

clear comprehension of their actual relations and relative weights

can be obtained only by thorough study; but without that comprehension

no wise naval policy can be formulated, and therefore no satisfactory

navy can be established.

The most obvious thing about a navy is its material: the ponderous

battleships, the picturesque destroyers, the submarines, the intricate

engines of multifarious types, the radio, the signal-flags, the

torpedo that costs $8,000, the gun that can sink a ship 10 miles

away.

The United States navy ever since its beginning in 1775 has excelled

in its material; the ships have always been good, and in many cases

they have surpassed those of similar kind in other navies. This

has been due to the strong common sense of the American people,

their engineering skill, and their inventive genius. The first

war-ship to move under steam was the American ship _Demologos_,

sometimes called the _Fulton the First_, constructed in 1813; the

first electric torpedoes were American; the first submarine to do

effective work in war was American; the first turret ship, the

_Monitor_, was American; the first warship to use a screw propeller

was the _Princeton_, an American; the naval telescope-sight was

American. American ships now are not only well constructed, but all

their equipments are of the best; and to-day the American battleship

is the finest and most powerful vessel of her class in the world.

Our personnel, too, has always been good. The American seaman has

always excelled, and so has the American gunner. No ships have

ever been better handled than the American ships; no naval battles

in history have been conducted with more skill and daring than

those of American ships; no exploits in history surpass those of

Cushing, Hobson, and Decatur.

In operations, however, in the handling of the navy as a whole,

we have never excelled; though no better individual fleet leaders

shine in the pages of all history than Farragut and Dewey. The

strategical operating of our material and personnel has not been

in accordance with carefully laid plans, but has been left largely

to the inspiration of the commander on the spot, both in peace

and in war. Material has suffered from lack of a naval policy,

but only quantitatively, because material is a subject that the

people understand. Personnel has suffered more, because the people

fail to realize the amount of training needed to make a personnel

competent to perform their tasks successfully, in competition with

the highly trained men of other navies. But operations have suffered

incomparably more than material and personnel; because naturally

the people do not comprehend the supreme importance of being ready,

when war breaks out, to operate the material and personnel skilfully

against an active enemy, in accordance with well-prepared strategic

plans; nor do they realize how difficult and long would be the task

of preparing and testing out those plans. Therefore, they fail to

provide the necessary administrative machinery.[*]

[Footnote *: Since this was written, the Congress has so enlarged

the scope of the Office of Chief of Naval Operations as to make

it a General Staff.]

In fact, the kind and amount of machinery needed to conduct operations

skilfully and quickly cannot be decided wisely until the country

adopts some naval policy; and in naval policy the United States

must be admitted to have lagged behind almost every other civilized

country. Spurred as we were to exertion by the coming of the

Revolutionary War, we constructed hastily, though with skill, the

splendid ships that did service in that war. But after the war,

interest in the navy waned; and if it had not been for the enormous

tribute demanded by the pirates of the Barbary coast from our

government, and a realization of the fact that not only was it

cheaper to build ships and fight the pirates than to pay the tribute,

but paying the tribute was a disgraceful act, our navy would have

run down even more than it did. Yet even with this warning, 1812

found our navy in a desperate condition. Rallying to the emergency,

though too late to accomplish much practical result, we built a number

of excellent ships, against the votes of many highly influential

men in Congress. These ships did gallant service, and redeemed

the reputation of Americans from the oft-repeated charge of being

cowards and merely commercial men, though they were too few to

prevent the blockade which British squadrons maintained on our

Atlantic coast. After the war, the navy was again allowed to

deteriorate; and although our ships were excellent, and the officers

and men were excellent, and although the war with Mexico supplied

some stimulation, the War of the Rebellion caught us in a very

bad predicament. The country rose to this emergency too slowly,

as before; but the enemy were even less prepared than we, so that

during the four years of the Civil War we were able to construct,

man, and buy several hundred ships of various kinds; with the result

that, at the end of the war, our navy, if not quite so powerful as

Great Britain's, was at least very close to it, and with a recent

experience in actual war which the British navy did not possess.

After that war, the same story was repeated. The people convinced

themselves that they would never again be forced to go to war; that

they had seen the folly of it, and the misery of it, and would

devote themselves thereafter to the delightful pursuits of peace.

Gradually the fighting ships of the ironclad class were allowed

to go to pieces; gradually even the larger ships of the wooden

sailing class fell into disrepair; gradually the idea of war faded

from the minds even of naval officers; gradually squadrons and

fleets, as such, were broken up, and our ships were to be found

scattered singly over all the seas, and swinging idly at their

anchors in pleasant ports.

Fortunately, Admiral Luce and a very few other officers had learned

the salient lessons of war during the Rebellion, and sturdily stood up

against the decadent tendency of the times. Against much opposition,

Luce succeeded in founding the Naval War College at Newport, where

the study of war as an art in itself was to be prosecuted, and in

enlisting Captain Mahan in the work. In a few years Mahan gave to

the world that epochal book, "The Influence of Sea Power upon History"

(embodying his lectures before the War College), which stirred the

nations of Europe to such a realization of the significance of

naval history, and such a comprehension of the efficacy of naval

power, that they entered upon a determined competition for acquiring

naval power, which continues to this day.

Meanwhile, a little before 1880, the people became aroused to the

fact that though the country was growing richer, their navy was

becoming weaker, while the navies of certain European countries

were becoming stronger. So they began in 1880 the construction of

what was then called "the new navy." The construction of the new

ships was undertaken upon the lines of the ships then building abroad,

which were in startling contrast with the useless old-fashioned

American ships which then were flying our flag.

The construction of the material of the navy has progressed since

then, but spasmodically. At every session of Congress tremendous

efforts have been made by people desiring an adequate navy, and

tremendous resistance has been made by people who believed that we

required no navy, or at least only a little navy. The country at

large has taken a bystander's interest in the contest, not knowing

much about the pros and cons, but feeling in an indolent fashion

that we needed some navy, though not much. The result has been, not

a reasonable policy, but a succession of unreasonable compromises

between the aims of the extremists on both sides.

Great Britain, on the other hand, has always regarded the navy

question as one of the most difficult and important before the

country, and has adopted, and for centuries has maintained, a definite

naval policy. This does not mean that she has followed a rigid

naval policy; for a naval policy, to be efficient, must be able

to accommodate itself quickly to rapid changes in international

situations, and to meet sudden dangers from even unexpected quarters--as

the comparatively recent experience of Great Britain shows. At the

beginning of this century the British navy was at the height of

its splendor and self-confidence. Britannia ruled the waves, and

Britannia's ships and squadrons enforced Britannia's policies in

every sea. The next most powerful navy was that of France; but

it was not nearly so large, and seemed to be no more efficient,

in proportion to its size. Owing to Britain's wise and continuing

policy, and the excellence of the British sailor and his ships,

the British navy proudly and almost tranquilly held virtual command

of all the seas.

But shortly after this century began, British officers discerned a

new and disturbing element gradually developing on the horizon. The

first thing which roused their attention to it was the unexpected

attack of the Japanese torpedo-boats on the Russian squadron in

Port Arthur. No war had been declared, and the Russian squadron

was riding peacefully at anchor. The suddenness of the attack, and

the distinct though incomplete success which it achieved, startled

the British into a realization of the fact that there had been

introduced into warfare on the sea methods and tactics requiring _a

higher order of preparation_ than had ever before been known; that

the scientific methods which the Germans employed so effectively on

land in 1870 had been adapted by the Japanese to naval warfare, and

would necessitate the introduction into naval policies of _speedier

methods_ than had hitherto been needed.

Another event which had happened shortly before showed that naval

policies would have to be modified, if they were to utilize recent

advances in scientific methods. This event was the unprecedented

success at target practice of H. M. S. _Terrible_, commanded by

Captain Sir Percy Scott, which proved that by a long and strenuous

training and the adoption of instruments of precision, it was possible

to attain a skill in naval gunnery never attained before. Up to this

moment the British navy had almost despised gunnery. Inheriting the

traditions brought down from Howe, Rodney, and Nelson, permeated with

the ideals of the "blue-water school," proud of being British seamen,

proud of the pure white of their ships, enamoured of the stimulating

breeziness of the quarterdeck and bridge, imbued with almost a

contempt for such mathematical sciences as were not directly used

in practical navigation, British naval officers exalted seamanship

as the acme of their art, and took little interest in gunnery.

All the battles of the past had been won by dash and seamanship

and dogged persistence. Ships had always fought close alongside

each other. No science had ever won any naval battle of the past,

so why should they bother with science now--and why should they

bother with target practice, except just enough to insure that the

battery was in order, and that the men were not afraid of their

guns? Besides, target practice dirtied the ship--a sacrilege to

the British naval officer.

But the events of the war between Japan and Russia, especially

the naval battles of Port Arthur, August 10, 1904, and the Sea

of Japan, May 27, 1905, riveted their attention on the fact that

something more than seamanship and navigation and clean ships would

be needed, if the British navy was to maintain its proud supremacy

on the sea; for in these battles, overwhelming victories were won

purely by superior skill in gunnery, strategy, and tactics.

To these causes of awakening was added one still greater, but of

like import--the rapid rise of the German navy from a position

of comparative unimportance to one which threatened the British

navy itself. The fact became gradually evident to British officers

that the German navy was proceeding along the same lines as had

proceeded the German army. Realizing the efficiency of the German

Government, noting the public declarations of the German Emperor,

observing the excellence of the German ships, the skill of the

German naval officers, and the extraordinary energy which the German

people were devoting to the improvement of the German navy--the

British navy took alarm.

So did the other navies.

Beginning about 1904, Great Britain set to work with energy to

reform her naval policy. Roused to action by the sense of coming

danger, she augmented the size and number of vessels of all types;

increased the personnel of all classes, regular and reserve; scrapped

all obsolete craft; built (secretly) the epochal _Dreadnaught_,

and modernized in all particulars the British navy. In every great

movement one man always stands pre-eminent. The man in this case was

Admiral Sir John Fisher, first sea lord of the admiralty, afterward

Lord Fisher. Fisher brought about vital changes in the organization,

methods, and even the spirit of the navy. He depleted the overgrown

foreign squadrons, concentrated the British force in powerful fleets

near home, established the War College, inculcated the study of

strategy and tactics, appointed Sir Percy Scott as inspector of

target practice, put the whole weight of his influence on the side

of gunnery and efficiency, placed officers in high command who had

the military idea as distinguished from the idea of the "blue-water

school," and imbued the entire service with the avowed idea that

they must get ready to fight to the death, not the French navy,

with its easy-going methods, but the German navy, allied perhaps

with some other. At the admiralty he introduced methods analogous to

those of the General Staff, to maintain the navy ready for instant

service at all times, to prepare and keep up to date mobilization

plans in the utmost detail, and to arrange plans for the conduct

of war in such wise that after a war should break out, all the

various probable situations would have been studied out in advance.

The work required at the admiralty, and still more in the fleet--night

and day and in all weathers--taxed mental and physical endurance to

the limit; but the result was complete success; for when war broke

out on the 1st of August, 1914, the British navy was absolutely

ready. Many complaints have appeared in print about the unreadiness

of Great Britain; but no one who knows anything of the facts supposes

that these criticisms include Great Britain's navy.

The United States navy in the early part of this century occupied,

relatively to others, a very ill-defined position; but the increased

interest taken in it by our people after the Spanish War, combined

with the destruction of the flower of the Russian fleet in the

Russo-Japanese War, and the crushing blow inflicted on the French

navy by the maladministration of Camille Pelletan, resulted in

placing our navy, about three years ago, in a position second only

to Great Britain's--a position which it recently has lost. Owing

to a common origin and language, our navy has always followed the

British navy, though at a somewhat respectful distance; and while

it is true that in point of mechanical inventions we are ahead, in

seamanship, navigation, and engineering on a par, and in gunnery

and tactics not far behind, yet we must admit that in policy and

in policy's first cousin, strategy, we are very far in the rear.

There are many reasons why this should be, the first being that

the British navy has nearly always lived under more stimulating

conditions than we, because the probability of war has seemed greater,

and because the United States has underestimated what reasonable

probability there has been, and failed to realize how tremendously

difficult would be the task of getting ready for it. Owing to the

present war, our people have gradually come to see that they must

get more ships and other material; but they realize this as only a

measure of urgency, and not as a matter of policy. If the emergency

passes us by in safety, the people may see in this fact only a

confirmation of their notion that war can be postponed _ad infinitum_,

and may therefore fail to take due precautions for the future. If

so, when we at last become involved in a sudden war, we shall be

as unprepared as now; and, relatively to some aggressive nation

which, foreseeing this, may purposely prepare itself, we shall

be more unprepared.

A curious phase of the navy question in our country is the fact

that very few people, even the most extreme partisans for or against

a large navy, have ever studied it as a problem and endeavored

to arrive at a correct solution. Few have realized that it is a

problem, in the strictest sense of the word; and that unless one

approaches it as such his conclusions cannot be correct except

by accident.

In Germany, on the other hand, and equally in Japan, the question

has been taken up as a concrete problem, just as definite as a

problem in engineering. They have used for solving it the method

called "The Estimate of the Situation," originated by the German

General Staff, which is now adopted in all the armies and navies of

civilized countries for the solution of military problems. Previous

to the adoption of this method the general procedure had been such

as is now common in civil life, when a number of people forming

a group desire to make a decision as to what they will do in any

given contingency. The usual procedure is for some one to suggest

that a certain thing be done, then for somebody else to suggest

that something else be done, and so on; and then finally for the

group to make a decision which is virtually a compromise. This

procedure is faulty, and the decisions resulting are apt to be

unwise; because it is quite possible that some very important factors

may be overlooked, and equally possible that some other factors

be given undue weight. Furthermore, a measure advocated by a man

who has the persuasive and emotional abilities of the orator is

more apt to be favorably considered than a measure advocated by

a man not possessing those abilities.

In the "Estimate of the Situation" method, on the other hand, the

orator has no opportunity, because the procedure is simply an accurate

process of reasoning. It is divided into four parts. The first

part consists of a careful study of the "mission," ending in a

clear determination of what the "mission" really is--that is, _what

is the thing which it is desired to do?_ The second part consists

of a careful study, and eventually a clear comprehension, of the

difficulties in the way; the third part consists of a careful study,

and eventually a clear comprehension, of what facilities are available

with which to overcome the difficulties; the fourth part consists

of a careful study of the mission, difficulties and facilities, in

their mutual relations, and a "decision" as to what should therefore

be done.

Military and naval people are so thoroughly convinced of the value

of this method that they always employ it when making important

decisions, writing down the various factors and the successive

steps in regular order and in complete detail.

In this country, while naval and military people use this method

in their comparatively minor problems, the country at large does

not use it in deciding the major problem--that is, in deciding

how much navy they want, and of what composition. They do not take

even the first step toward formulating a naval policy, because

they do not study the "mission" of the navy--that is, _they do not

study the international and national situations and their bearing

on the need for a navy_. Yet until they do this they will not be

in a sufficiently informed condition of mind to determine what

the "mission" is--that is, what they wish the navy to be able to

do--because, before they can formulate the mission they must resolve

what foreign navy or navies that mission must include. If they

decide that the mission of the navy is to guard our coast and trade

routes against the hostile efforts of Liberia the resulting naval

policy will be simple and inexpensive; while if they conclude that

the mission of our navy is to guard our coast and trade routes

against the hostile acts of _any_ navy the resulting naval policy

will be so difficult and costly as to tax the brain and wealth of

the country to a degree that will depend on _the length of time

that will elapse before the date at which the navy must be ready

to fulfil that mission_.

This factor reminds us of another factor: _the minimum time in which

the navy can get ready to fulfil a given mission_ (for instance,

to protect us against any navy); and we cannot decide the mission

correctly without taking this factor into account. For example,

it would be foolish to decide that the mission of our navy is to

protect us _now_ against any navy, including the greatest, when

it would take us at least twenty years to develop and train a navy

to accomplish that task; and it would be equally foolish to decide

that the mission is to protect us against any navy _except_ the

greatest, because such a decision could rest on no other ground

than present improbability of conflict with the greatest navy,

or improbability for the very few years ahead (say two or three)

which we poor mortals can forecast.

This reasoning seems to indicate that the first step in formulating

a naval policy for the United States is to realize that any conclusion

as to which navies should be included in the mission of our navy

must not exclude any navy about whose peaceful conduct toward us

we can entertain a reasonable doubt, _during the period of time

which we would require to get ready to meet her_. For instance,

inasmuch as it would take us at least twenty years to get ready

to protect ourselves against the hostile efforts of the British

navy, we cannot exclude even that navy from a consideration of the

mission of our own, unless we entertain no doubt of the peaceful

attitude of that navy toward us for at least that twenty years.

Clearly, the problem is not only very important but very

difficult--perhaps the most difficult single problem before the

country; and for this reason, naval officers have long marvelled

that the leading minds of the country do not undertake it. Perhaps

one reason is that they do not know how difficult it is: that they

do not realize the extraordinary complexity of modern ships and

engines, and the trained skill required to handle them; that they

do not realize what Great Britain now realizes, that we must prepare

for one of the most stupendous struggles ever carried on; that we

must have a personnel both of officers and enlisted men trained

to the highest point, because they will have to meet officers and

enlisted men trained to the highest point; that the training must

be such that the skill produced can be exercised by night and day,

in cold and heat, in storm and calm, under circumstances of the

utmost possible difficulty and danger; that, while it takes four

years to build a ship and get her into the fleet as an effective

unit, it takes much longer to train an enlisted petty officer as

he should be trained, and a lifetime to train officers of the upper

grades. Perhaps also our leading minds do not realize the intellectual

requirements of the higher realms of the naval art, or comprehend

what the examples of Alexander, Cæsar, Napoleon, Nelson, and Farragut

prove: that, _in the real crises of a nation's life her most valuable

asset is the trained skill in strategy that directs the movements

of her forces_.

Further than this, they may not realize that the greater the danger

which they must avert, the earlier they must begin to prepare for

it, because the more work in preparation will have to be performed;

and yet realization of this truth is absolutely vital, as is also

realization of the fact that we have no military power as our ally,

and therefore must be ready to meet alone a hostile attack (though

perhaps in the far-distant future) from _any_ foreign power. To

see that this is true it is merely necessary to note the facts of

history, and observe how nations that have long been on terms of

friendship have suddenly found themselves at war with each other;

and how countries which have always been hostile have found themselves

fighting side by side. In the present war, Great Britain is allied

with the two countries toward which, more than toward any other,

she has been hostile; and she is fighting the country to which,

more than any other, she is bound by ties of consanguinity and

common interests. The history of war is so filled with alternations

of peace and war between every pair of contiguous countries as to

suggest the thought that the mere fact of two countries having

interests that are common is a reason why their respective shares

in those interests may conflict; that countries which have no common

interests have nothing to fight about; that it is only for things

in which two nations are interested, and which both desire, that

those two nations fight.

If our estimate of the situation should lead us to the decision

that we must prepare our navy in such a way that, say twenty years

hence, it will be able to protect the country against any enemy,

we shall then instinctively adopt a policy. The fact of having

ahead of us a definite, difficult thing to do, will at once take us

out of the region of guesswork, and force us into logical methods.

We shall realize the problem in its entirety; we shall see the

relation of one part to another, and of all the parts to the whole;

we shall realize that the deepest study of the wisest men must be

devoted to it, as it is in all maritime countries except our own.

The very difficulties of the problem, the very scope and greatness

of it, the fact that national failure or national success will

hinge on the way we solve it, will call into action the profoundest

minds in all the nation. We shall realize that, more than any other

problem before the country, this problem is urgent; because in no

other problem have we so much lost time to make up for, and in

no other work of the government are we so far behind the great

nations that we may have to contend against.

Great Britain was startled into a correct estimate of the situation

ten years ago, and at once directed perhaps the best of her ability

to meet it. Certain it is that no other department of the British

Government is in such good condition as the navy; in no other department

has the problem been so thoroughly understood, and so conscientiously

worked out, or the success been so triumphant.

The underlying reason for this is not so much the individual courage

and ability of the officers and men, or even their skill in handling

their ships and squadrons, as the fact that Great Britain has followed

a definite naval policy; so that the British nation has had a perfectly

clear realization of what it wishes the navy to do, and the navy

has had a perfectly clear realization of how to do it.

The United States has not yet made a correct estimate of the naval

situation; she has not yet reached the point that Great Britain

reached ten years ago. Great Britain apprehended the danger, and

took action before it was too late. Shall the United States take

action now or wait until it is too late?

PART II

NAVAL STRATEGY