THE INFLUENCE OF HISTORY ON MAHAN

Edited by

John B. Hattendorf

Ernest J. King Professor of Maritime History

Naval War College
Naval War College

Historical Monograph Series

No. 9

The Historical Monograph Series are book-length studies of the history

of naval warfare based, wholly or in part, on source materials in the college's

Naval Historical Collection. Financial support for research projects and for

printing is provided by the Naval War College Foundation.

Other monograph in the Series are:

No. 1. The Writings of Stephen B. Luce, edited by John D. Hayes and John B.

Hattendorf (1975).

No. 2. Charleston Blockade: The Journals ofJohn B. Marchand, U.S. Navy, 1861-1862,

edited by Craig L. Symonds (1976).

No. 3. The Naval War College and the Development of the Naval Profession, by Ronald

Spector (1977).

No. 4. The Blue Sword: The Naval War College and the American Mission, 1919-1941,

by Michael Vlahos (1980).

No. 5. On His Majesty's Service: Observations of the British Home Fleet from the Diary,

Reports, and Letters ofJoseph H. Wellings, Assistant U.S. Naval Attache, London, 1940-41,

edited by John B. Hattendorf (1983).

No. 6. Angel on the Yardarm: The Beginnings of Fleet Radar Defense and the Kamikaze

Threat, by John Monsarrat (1985).

No. 7. A Bibliography of the Works of Alfred Thayer Mahan, compiled by John B.

Hattendorf and Lynn C. Hattendorf (1986).

No. 8. The Fraternity of the Blue Uniform: Admiral Richard G. Colbert, U.S. Navy, and

Allied Naval Cooperation, by Joel J. Sokolsky (1991).
THE INFLUENCE OF HISTORY ON MAHAN:

The Proceedings of a Conference

Marking the Centenary of

Alfred Thayer Mahan's

The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783
ATTENDEES AT THE MAHAN CENTENNIAL CONFERENCE

NAVAL WAR COLLEGE NEWPORT, RHODE ISLAND

29 APRIL - 1 MAY 1990

ATTENDEES AT THE MAHAN CENTENNIAL CONFERENCE

NAVAL WAR COLLEGE NEWPORT, RHODE ISLAND

29 APRIL - 1 MAY 1990

1. Dr. Marc Milner 2. Prof. Philip A. Crowl 3. Dr. Andrew L. Ross 4. RADM J.C. Wylie, USN (ret.) 5. CAPT G. Montenegro, ARN 6. Prof. Barry Hunt 7. Dr. Robert L. Scheina 8. Dr. Malcolm H. Murfett

9. Prof. Gerald Wheeler 10. Prof. John B. Hattendorf 11. Prof. Paul Halpern 12. Dr. Robert S. Wood

13. Prof. Daniel A. Baugh 14. Dr. Dean C. Allard 15. Dr. William J. Morgan 16. Dr. Jon T. Sumida

17. Dr. Nicholas Tracy 18. Prof. William Braisted 19. Dr. William S. Dudley 20. Dr. John Maurer

21. Mr. Frank Uhlig 22. Dr. David Trask 23. Prof. George Baer 24. Dr. W.A.B. Douglas

25. CAPT Dr. Werner Rahn, FGN 26. CAPT Wayne P. Hughes, Jr., USN (ret.) 27. Prof. James A. Field 28. Prof. Donald M. Schurman 29. Prof. Roger Dingman 30. LCDR Reo Leslie, CHC, USN

31. Dr. Norman Friedman 32. Prof. Kenneth Hagan 33. Dr. Sari Hornstein 34. Prof. William Still 35. Prof. Holger Herwig 36. Prof. Richard Turk 37. CAPT Timothy Somes, USN (ret.) 38. Prof. Raymond G. O'Connor 39. Prof. Barry Gough 40. CAPT James A. Barber, USN (ret.) 41. Prof. George C. Quester 42. Dr. Christopher C. Harmon 43. Dr. Mark R. Peattie

44. Prof. Robert Seager II 45. Dr. J. Kenneth McDonald 46. Dr. Lawrence Allin

47. Prof. Clark G. Reynolds 48. Prof. Richard Megargee
THE INFLUENCE OF HISTORY ON MAHAN

The Proceedings of a Conference

Marking the Centenary of

Alfred Thayer Mahan's

The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783

Edited by

John B. Hattendorf

Ernest J. King Professor of Mantime History

Naval War College

NAVAL WAR COLLEGE PRESS

Newport, Rhode Island

1991
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

The influence of history on Mahan: the proceedings of a conference, marking the centenary of Alfred Thayer

Mahan's The Influcence of sea power upon history, 1660-1783 / edited by John B. Hattendorf with

John C. Benigno.

p. cm. — (U.S. Naval War College historical monograph senes : no. 9) Includes bibliographical references.

1. Sea-power1—Congresses. 2. Mahan, A. T. (Alfred Thayer), 1840-1914—Congresses. I. Hattendorf, John B. II. Benigno, John C. III. Mahan, A. T. (Alfred Thayer), 1840-1914. Influence of sea power upon history, 1660-1783. IV. Series. V25.I54 1991 91-33383

909'.6—dc20 CIP
CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

PARTI: THEN AND NOW 1

1. Opening Remarks 3

Rear Admiral Ronald J. Kurth, U.S. Navy

President, Naval War College

2. The Influence of History On Mahan 7

Professor Barry M. Gough

Department of History, Wilfred Laurier University

3. Mahan, Tactics and Principles of Strategy 25

Captain Wayne P. Hughes, Jr., U.S. Navy (Ret.)

Department of Operations Research, Naval Postgraduate School

4. Mahan: Then and Now 37

Rear Admiral J. C. Wylie, U.S. Navy (Ret.)

PART II: THE INFLUENCE 47

5. Japan and Mahan 49

Professor Roger Dingman

Department of History, University of Southern California

6. The Influence of A. T. Mahan Upon German Sea Power 67

Professor Holger H. Herwig

Department of History, University of Calgary

7. 140 Years of German Navies: Their Defeat and Rebirth - 81

From Confrontation to Co-operation

Captain Dr. Werner Rahn, Federal German Navy

Senior Naval Historian, German Armed Forces Military History Research Office

8. The Character and Extent of Mahan 's Influence in Latin America 87

Captain Guillermo J. Montenegro, Argentine Navy (Ret.)

Argentine Naval War College

9. Low Intensity Conflict in Latin America: Does Mahan have a Place? 99

Dr. Robert L. Scheina
vi Contents

PART III: THE MAN AND HISTORIAN 107

10. Recollections of My Parents: Rear Admiral and 109

Mrs Alfred Thayer Mahan

Lyle Evans Mahan

Edited and annotated by

Professor John B. Hattendorf

Ernest J. King Professor of Maritime History, Naval War College

11. Christianity and Sea Power: The Religion of 127

Alfred Thayer Mahan

Lieutenant Commander Reo N. Leslie, Jr. Chaplain Corps, U.S. Navy

12. Mahan on the War of 1812 141

Dr. William S. Dudley

Senior Historian, Naval Historical Center

PART IV: ON REFLECTION 155

13. Mahan, World Politics and Naval Rivalries, 1904 - 1914 157

Associate Professor John H. Maurer

Strategy Department, Naval War College

14. Mahan and American Naval Thought Since 1914 177

Professor George H. Quester

Department of Political Science, University of Maryland,

15. Mahan, Russia, and the Next 100 Years 197

Professor Clark G. Reynolds

History Department, College of Charleston

16. Under the Influence: A Hundred Years and Around 203

the World. Conference Summary and Comment

Professor George W. Baer

Alfred Thayer Mahan Professor of Maritime Strategy, Naval War College
VII ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Many people contributed to the Mahan Centennial Conference which was

held at the Naval War College, 30 April and 1 May 1990. Professor George

Baer was the first to suggest such a conference, chairing a session on the

subject at the American Historical Association's annual meeting in San

Francisco in December 1988. In parallel, Dr. William Dudley suggested that

the U.S. Navy should officially mark the occasion with a scholarly gathering

and promoted the idea of a joint enterprise by the Naval Historical Center

and the Naval War College. With the approval of Rear Admiral Ronald J. Kurth, President of the Naval War College, Dr. Robert S. Wood, Dean of

the Center for Naval Warfare Studies, enthusiastically agreed to sponsor the

joint conference as part of the work of the Center.

Many contributed to the administrative support for the conference which

was effectively managed by Lieutenant Commander Chris Benigno, U. S. Navy, with the assistance of Ensign Lindsey Mohle, U.S. Naval Reserve. Mrs

Barbara Prisk took great initiative in timely preparation of all the papers for

the conference as well undertaking a full range of other activities from travel

arrangements, contract preparation and transcription. Tony Nicolosi and Bob

Cembrola at the Naval War College Museum prepared the exhibition on

Mahan, parts of which are illustrated in this volume. At their request,

numerous institutions around the country lent items for the exhibit which

remained in place for several months. The staff of the Commissioned Officers

Mess (Open) assisted with arrangements for lunch and the final social hour

of the conference. Beyond the shores of Coasters Harbor Island, The

Treadway Inn, The Viking Hotel and the Newport Historical Society made

major contributions to the conference. The Naval War College Foundation

generously contributed to both the conference and to the publication of this

volume.

John B. Hattendorf

Conference Director

PART L THEN AND NOW
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Oiiapier 1

Opening Remarks

Rear Admiral Ronald J. Kurth, U.S. Navy

It is a great pleasure for me to welcome you here to the Mahan Centennial

Conference which we are sponsoring in co-operation with the Naval

Historical Center in Washington. I am particularly pleased that our two

institutions have worked together so successfully for this occasion, and I want

to thank Dr. Dean Allard, the Director of Naval History, for his fine cooperation. Working together, we have planned a conference that is the U.S.

Navy's official, centenary commemoration marking the publication of Alfred

Thayer Mahan 's most famous book, The Influence of Sea Power Upon History,

1660-1783.

One hundred years ago this week, Mahan received the advance copies of

the book and it began its literary life as one of the most influential American

books of the 19th century. It is appropriate that this meeting today is held

at the Naval War College, for the book began as Mahan's classroom lectures

here and it is appropriate that this group today is a group of historians, naval

thinkers and naval strategists. For Mahan was the first in the U.S. Navy to

combine all three of those attributes and to reach the pinnacle of fame.

Mahan is no forgotten figure in the U.S. Navy. We have named three ships

for him, as well as several buildings, including the one we are now in. Thus,

our purpose today is not to commemorate someone who might otherwise have

been forgotten. Perhaps, the situation is the reverse and we deal here with

a man whose name everyone in the Navy has heard, but very few have fully

understood. With this in mind, those outside the Navy still allude, with

damning effect, to Secretary of War Stimson's remark about "the peculiar

psychology of the Navy Department, which frequently seemed to retire from

the realm of logic into a dim religious world in which Neptune was God,

Mahan his prophet, and the United States Navy the only true church." If

that attitude exists, or has ever existed in the navy, (John Hattendorf would

now have me go on to say) it is time to dispel it; there is no better place or time to do it than here and now.
4 Ronald J. Kurth

It's funny as I say these words to you I reflect on my experience with talking

to Admiral Gorshkov in Moscow about his book, Morskaya Moshch Gosudarstva

[ The Sea Power of the State], in which I told him that he sounded very Mahanian.

And he said, "And why not? The man was eminently sensible."

Many of you here have already made substantial contributions in this field

and these will stand as the foundation stones of our discussions here this week.

Yet, I sense that the subject of Mahan and his work has much of value that

still needs to be explored. As we have made progress in our understanding

of naval power and come to see it, not just as an isolated factor, but as a complementary one within a wide spectrum of national power, we can begin

to identify more clearly the extent and nature of Mahan's contribution to

thinking about defense issues. With the span of a century behind us, we can

see trends in ideas developing and maturing across a substantial period of time.

From our vantage point, we can see the various intellectual forces and

practical experiences which had an impact on Mahan's thought. We can come

to appreciate fully the extent of his contribution and we can begin to discern,

too, how his ideas have operated within the context of differing national

institutions and national cultures. Since much recent progress has been made

in understanding the historical events which Mahan studied, we can judge

more accurately how valid his conclusions were. We may well judge some

of them wrong by modern standards, and thus we need to correct some of

our own theoretical understanding. At the same time, even while we may

find them wrong in the light of modern understanding, we can still come

to appreciate why his logic and his interpretations of history on those very

same points might have been powerful factors to others before our time.

Today, however, we seem to have entered a new phase in history; the context

of international relations in our time is rapidly changing. As we move

forward, we need to think clearly about our intellectual origins and to

understand their strengths and their limitations. It is no easy task. It involves

being critical about one's own assumptions and one's own traditions, but it

is a task that needs to be done. We may even prove Mr. Stimson wrong.

All of you are widely recognized students of naval history and naval affairs

who know Mahan's work and of what he wrote. I can think of no better

group to deal with this issue. I am particularly pleased to welcome back so many distinguished scholars who have at one time or another been members

of our faculty here and I am particularly pleased to have so many distinguished

scholars join us from other countries. It is particularly good to have so large

a delegation from Canada; you who share our Anglo-American heritage can

help us to understand it better with the insight from your own national

perspective. And it is a special pleasure to welcome Captain Dr. Rahn of

Germany and Captain Montenegro of Argentina. Your views, from outside

the English language context of the subject, will make an especially valuable

contribution to the deliberations of this conference.
Opening Remarks 5

By tomorrow afternoon, when Professor George Baer (our newly

appointed Mahan Professor of Strategy) summarizes the papers and discussions

of this conference, I hope that you may have found a new consensus about

Admiral Mahan's contribution. The time has come to see Mahan, anew, in

the context of his own time, in comparison and in contrast to other thinkers,

and to define his contribution and his place in the evolution of naval thinking.

With such an improved historical understanding among historians and

strategists, we, in the Navy, can proceed more effectively. Mahan's work

forms an important part of our intellectual heritage. That alone justifies our

consideration of it. Yet today, in the context of a changing world, we need

more than ever to evaluate correctly to what degree our heritage can guide

us in the future. For those reasons, your discussions here are valuable and

important. The proceedings of this conference, with the range and nature

o( your discussions about Mahan and his ideas, may well have an important

impact on the way in which the U.S. Navy of the future looks at its own

intellectual heritage. This is a task of great intellectual responsibility; let it begin now.
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Ckapter 2

The Influence of History on Mahan

Barry M. Gough

All too rarely comes the opportunity, one of a lifetime, for an historian

to celebrate the centenary of a remarkable genius in a field of mutual

endeavor. Many have gone before in assessing the work and influence of

Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan, U.S. Navy, and many will follow, for his

influence transcends time. But new perspectives, even a new look at old

evidence, are welcome, and they can provide fresh insights into the man, his

thought, and his influence. More, they can provide new viewpoints for

modern strategic thinkers, who, pondering as they must the roles of force

in peace as in war, are obliged to consider past practices in present

circumstances and how, in turn, present circumstances may shape future

developments.

The year 1990 marks the hundredth anniversary of the appearance in print

of Mahan 's Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783, the first of a series

of published Naval War College lectures. This constitutes one of the most

remarkable books in the annals of human progress, a distinguished

contribution to letters, and arguably the most seminal work in the naval and

strategic thought of modern history. True it is that Mahan has come in for

some close and valid criticism in recent years, and many persons would say

deservedly so. 1 However, like the greats of the profession before him,

including Thucydides, Herodotus, Michelet, Carlyle, Parkman and Prescott,

he has acquired an indelible place on the pages of human activity over time.

As with his fellow-countrymen Frederick Jackson Turner and Charles Beard

he has been much challenged, but he is never ignored, or if so, at peril. Mahan

is etched in time. He was the principal philosopher of sea power of the late

nineteenth century, a naval Mohammed. He was a journeyman historian in

1 For a survey of these, see Barry M. Gough, "Maritime Strategy: The Legacies of Mahan and Corbett

as Philospohers of Sea Power," The Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies Journal, Winter 1988,

pp. 55-57. See also, John B. Hattendorf, "Alfred Thayer Mahan and his Strategic Thought," and Donald

M. Schurman, "Mahan Revisited," [1982], in Hattendorf and Robert S. Jordan, eds. Maritime Strategy and

the Balance of Power: Britain and America in The Twentieth Century (New York, 1989), pp. 83-94 and 95-109

respectively.
8 Barry M. Gough

research and writing skills, besides being a capable synthesist of secondary

historical works, who conceived of a series of books explaining the role that

naval affairs at sea had played in the shaping of the world to his time of

writing. Besides these capabilities, which are significant in themselves, he

was imaginative enough to write persuasively, or more correctly publicly and

popularly, so that statesmen and boards of admiralty would endeavor to seize

the moment, and to try to grasp the Trident of Neptune, or at least give their

own particular nation cause to believe that they, too, shared the powerful

purpose of those who could contest the sovereignty of the seas and the might

of the main.

For many years Mahan bestrode the naval-strategic world like a colossus,

writing a phenomenal body of literature constituting a sum total of 20 books

and 160 articles, besides numerous academic and public literary contributions

of a comparatively minor sort. 2 His work was published by the leading English

and American houses, and his key books were translated into French, German,

Russian, Japanese and other languages. Just as a publishing phenomenon

Mahan was remarkable. He was on call to the leading statesmen of his time.

The naval arms race leading up to August 1914 may partly be attributed to

him: he accentuated or at least was contemporaneous with numerous naval

bills of his own government, and of all the key naval states besides. The

diplomatic historian Sir Charles Webster used to tell his students that Mahan

was one of the causes of the First World War.3 Certainly President Woodrow

Wilson blamed "navalism" for causing the war, and he sought to eradicate

it in his Points of Peace. How much he would put the blame on his fellowcountrymen is not known but the connection is certainly suggestive even so, the Great War did not harm Mahan's shining armor; indeed it may have

polished it. As the United States became a world naval power in the later

years of that war, and throughout the interwar period, the legacy of Mahan's

2 See the most recent list of Mahan's publications, including translations: John B. Hattendorf and Lynn

C. Hattendorf, compilers, A Bibliography of the Works ofAlfred Thayer Mahan (Newport, Rhode Island: Naval

War College Press, Naval War College Historical Monograph Series No. 7, 1986).

3

I owe this observation to my mentor Gerald S. Graham. See his Politics of Naval Supremacy: Studies in British Maritime Ascendancy (Cambridge, 1965), p. 5. Graham's discussion of Mahan comes under the heading

of "command of the sea." To my knowledge Graham never wrote specifically on Mahan, though he used

to say "Mahan is dead." What he meant by that is, that Mahan was premature in his conclusions about

maritime power, or the role that sea power played in history, for he never considered the economic

foundations of imperial and maritime influence (which was Graham's forte), nor did he address himself

to the diplomatic aspects of employing naval power to fulfill national objectives including the pursuit

of peace, another (though lesser initially) of Graham's themes.. Some of these arguments may be traced

in Ibid., pp. 4-6, but see also his discussion of Mahan in Clark G. Reynolds and William J. McAndrew,

eds., University of Maine at Orono 1911 Seminar in Maritime and Regional Studies (Orono, Maine, 1972), pp.

86-90. As to whether or not "navalism" was a cause of the war, I am of the opinion that it was not

a cause but a representation of the political circumstances that led to that war. On this point, see Michael Howard,

The Causes of Wars and Other Essays (Cambridge, Mass., 1983), pp. 18-19.
Influence of History on Mahan 9

thought grew, and so the legend itself was lengthened.4 America's rise to world

power was a destiny in need of a supporting cast of heroes, and in these

circumstances Mahan took on an added persona of one who truly understood

the role that the seas could play in human history.

At this time we rightly celebrate the totality of his achievement, mindful

as we are of his frailties and his misconceptions. We take it as axiomatic that

a great theorist is open to critique. He must survive all sorts of cross examination. He must suffer abuse from those who know him not, and the scorn of those who dismiss him unthinkingly. Here, it is a special mission,

indeed a unique obligation, to treat this particular subject with a cautious

reverence combined with an academic objectivity. This is no enviable task.

But it is one required in any composite assessment of Mahan, such as this

occasion demands. It is, besides, a window of opportunity through which to

view the larger changes of the writing of naval history over several centuries

and Mahan's well earned position as the principal philosopher of sea power

in modern times. 5

I would hazard a guess that the great men who were influenced by the

reading of Mahan's 1890 work confined their attention almost solely to three

parts: the Preface, the Introductory, and the opening chapter entitled

"Discussion of the Elements of Sea Power." Apart from the last several

paragraphs of the last chapter, "Critical Discussion of the Maritime War of

1778", there is little comment given to the general strategic conditions and

objectives of a maritime war; rather, the whole is given over the details of

waging a war at sea. In short, the theoretical issues must have attracted the

armchair strategist, not the nuts and bolts.

In and of itself, this section, which may be classified as preliminary to the

book, and, more, to the trilogy that took his narrative from 1660 to 1815,

constitutes a strategic analysis or proscription of naval warfare. And inasmuch

as this is the focus of sustained interest it is here treated in considerable detail,

to the necessary exclusion of discussion of other books and essays of Mahan.

"The definitive object proposed in this work," Mahan explained in his

Preface, "is an examination of the general history of Europe and America

with particular reference to the effect of sea power upon the course of that

4 The high point was reached by Margaret Sprout in her "Mahan: Evangelist of Sea Power," in Edward

M. Earle, Makers of Modern Strategy: Military Thought from Machiavelli to Hitler (Princeton, 1943), pp. 415-

45. See also Harold and Margaret Sprout, The Rise of American Naval Power (rev. ed., Princeton, 1942) and

Margaret Sprout, Toward a New Order of Sea Power: American Naval Policy and the World Scene, 1918-1922

(1943, reprint, New York, 1969), pp. 1-34 for the influence of Mahan on American naval history.

5 The critiques of Mahan continue to be prodigious. A highly recommended introduction to this subject

to the eve of the centenary of Mahan's principal work is Philip A. Crowl, "Alfred Thayer Mahan: The

Naval Historian," in Peter Paret with Gordon A. Craig and Felix Gilbert, Makers of Modem Strategy: Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age (Princeton, 1986), pp. 444-77 and 904-905.
10 Barry M. Gough

history."6 Thus did Mahan launch his enterprise. "Historians generally have

been unfamiliar with the conditions of the sea, having as to it neither special

interest nor special knowledge, and the profound determining influence of

maritime strength upon great issues has consequently been overlooked. This

is even more true of particular occasions than of the general tendency of sea power." Now he warmed to his theme: "It is easy to say in a general way,

that the use and control of the sea is and has been a great factor in the history

of the world; it is more troublesome to seek out and show its exact bearing

at a particular juncture." Then he terminated his opening paragraph by

remarking, in his time-honored warning: "Yet, unless this be done, the

acknowledgement of general importance remains vague and unsubstantial,

not resting, as it should, upon a collection of special instances in which the

precise effect has been made clear, by an analysis of the conditions at the

given moments." By this is meant that unless history be viewed in the

particular the whole makes little sense, and that it is equally necessary to

look at the causes as much as the developments.

Also in his Preface Mahan attacked the tendency of historians to slight the

maritime aspects of human endeavors when writing the annals of nations and

of mankind. This was notoriously so in England where national greatness

rested on the use and control of the sea. Citing historians Arnold and Creasy

as to how success in arms on land had brought ascendancy, Mahan complained

that in neither of these episodes—that is, Hannibal striving against Rome or Napoleon against England—did historians note that "the mastery of the sea rested with the victor." In fact, wrote Mahan, Roman sea power obliged

Hannibal to undertake a perilous march through Gaul thereby wasting half

his veterans, and enabled the elder Scipio to intercept Hannibal's

communications, and to return to wage a war on land. Meanwhile, legions

passed to and fro by water between Italy and Spain unmolested, unwearied,

while Roman sea power sealed off the enemy's approaches by salt water,

obliging them to come by land. Thus divided, the two Carthaginian armies

were separated, and one was destroyed by the combined actions of the Roman

generals. Also in preface Mahan took up the challenge of a self-styled reformer

of naval historiography and method, for he chided naval historians for

troubling themselves so little regarding the connection between their own

particular or special topic and general history. He objected to naval historians

acting as mere chroniclers, and he put the blame more squarely on the English

than the French, the latter 's genius and training making them more careful

in their inquiries into causation and relationships. Last of all in his prefatory

6 Alfred Thayer Mahan, The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 (Boston and London, 1890). All quotations of Mahan 's 1660-1783 book are from my paperback edition, published in New York by

Hill and Wang, 1957. Inasmuch as numerous editions of this work exist, and the excerpts cited are readily

found in the Preface, Introductory and First Chapter of the book I have not provided page numbers and

notes for the same.
Influence of History on Mahan 1

1

remarks Mahan stated that to his knowledge no other author had sought to

evaluate "the effect of sea power upon the course of history and the prosperity

of nations. As other histories deal with the wars, politics, social and

economical conditions of countries, touching upon maritime matters only

incidentally and generally sympathetically, so the present work aims at

putting maritime interests in the foreground, without divorcing them,

however, from their surroundings of cause and effect in general history, but

seeking to show how they modified the latter, and were modified by them."

He closed with a most cursory explanation as to why he chose the period

1660 to 1783 by stating that he intended a clear and accurate outline of

successive events, adding "Writing as a naval officer in full sympathy with

his profession, the author has not hesitated to digress freely on questions of

naval policy, strategy, and tactics, but as a technical language has been

avoided, it is hoped that these matters, simply presented, will be found of

interest to the unprofessional reader."

At the outset of his Introductory, Mahan discloses his own purpose without

bias. He makes his intention abundantly clear. "The history of Sea Power

is largely, though by no means solely, a narrative of contests between nations,

of mutual rivalries, of violence frequently culminating in war." To this he

added, "The profound influence of sea commerce upon the wealth and

strength of countries was clearly seen long before the true principles which

governed its growth and prosperity were detected." Then, in appreciation

of a mercantilist rhetoric which had long been discarded in England, he noted:

"To secure to one's own people a disproportionate share of such benefits,

every effort was made to exclude others, either by the peaceful legislative

methods of monopoly or prohibitory regulations, or, when these failed, by

direct violence. The clash of interests, the angry feelings roused by conflicting

attempts thus to appropriate the larger share, if not the whole, of the

advantages of commerce, and of distant unsettled commercial regions, led

to wars." As to the conduct of these maritime wars, he wrote: "On the other

hand, wars arising from other causes have been greatly modified in their

conduct and issue by the control of the sea. Therefore the history of seapower,

while embracing in its broad sweep all that tends to make a people great

upon the sea or by the sea, is largely a military history; and it is in this aspect

that it will be mainly, though not exclusively, regarded in the following

pages."

A section of the Introductory is given over to a discussion the second Punic

War and some references to English naval policy and actions in the late

eighteenth century, and it is tempting for the reader to pass over easily the

strategic dimension of this chapter that is so central to Mahan's historical

explanation of naval science. Writing in an age when steam propulsion was

fast displacing wind as a motive force, Mahan was intrigued by the similarities

between galleys and steam ships, but mindful of the lessons to be learned from
12 Barry M.Gough

the history of sailing ships. The precedents were not to be more significant

than the principles, he argued: "War has such principles; their existence is detected by the study of the past, which reveals them in successes and in

failures, the same from age to age. Conditions and weapons change, but to

cope with the one or successfully wield the others, respect must be had to

these constant teachings of history in the tactics of the battlefield, or in those

wider operations of war which are comprised under the name of strategy."

No matter how wide the operations, the size of contending armies, and the

scope of the necessary movements, the principles of war remained. The place

for the necessary concentration of force, the logistics of deployment, the

disposition of the enemy forces—all remained the same, though the march

on foot gave way to travel in coaches and then railroads. The same was

analogous in naval war, from the galley to the sailing ship to the steamer,

and the scope and rapidity o£ naval operations were increased without

necessarily changing the principles directing them. The whole plan of naval

war, he stressed, depended on fulfilling the function of a navy: its true

objective, the point or points of concentration, the place of supply of coal

and supplies, the maintenance of communications between these depots and

home base, the utility of commerce-destroying, or guerre de course, as a decisive or a secondary operation of war, and how this mode of war should be

prosecuted, whether by scattered cruisers or control of vital centers of

passage, sealanes—"All these are strategic questions, and upon all these

history has a great deal to say."

He had come to his main point. In his words, "It is then particularly in

the field of naval strategy that the teachings of the past have a value which

is in no degree lessened. They are there useful not only as illustrative of

principles, but also as precedents, owing to the comparative permanence of

the conditions." The conditions of war would vary from age to age, he

contended, and would do so with the change of weapons. Even so, the

teachings of the school of history remain constant, and as being universal in

application can be ranked as general principles. For this reason, then, the study

of the sea history of the past provides instruction in the form of examples

of the general principles of maritime war. The successful conduct of war was

thus based on strategic principles, and tactical ones, too, that were rooted

in the "essential nature of things."

Here then, in its raw simplicity, was the Mahan view that history was

scientific, that is, that it had principles. Thus he who could understand the

principles could develop a strategy and deploy the weapons of a naval war

by certain tactics. Here then was the "influence of sea power upon history".

How had Mahan come to this conclusion that past practices could lead to

the discovery of principles and that the knowledge of these could provide

the clues to the waging of a successful war at sea? A few postulations are

in order here.
Influence of History on Mahan 13

It seems rather clear from the letters and other papers of Mahan's that have

survived, that he came to this perspective by himself. 7 There were professional

influences upon him, as will be explained presently, but his theory of history

seems to have been his own. The personal details of his life germane to this

branch of the explanation are that he was born at West Point, the son of

a professor in the Academy well versed in fortifications and in the thinking

of the Swiss strategist Antonie-Henri Jomini. Although the relationship of

his father's appreciation of Jomini 's thought to the wide acceptance that

Alfred held is suggestive rather than conclusive, there can be no doubt but

that the naval historian was convinced of the applicability of Jomini 's principles of strategy and tactics to fleet deployments and actions at sea. Yet

another significant influence on Mahan was that of Stephen B. Luce, the first

President of the Naval War College, likewise a careful student of Jomini 's thought. Luce's letters to Mahan during the initiatory stage of the founding

of the College, and also during Mahan's assumption and preparation of his

lectureship there, suggest that Luce may even have provided the theoretical

model for the principles of waging a maritime war according to history. As

Robert Seager II has explained, there is a great similarity between Luce's

concept and Mahan's theory as put forward in his Introductory. 8 Indeed, more

than Luce's suggested line of reasoning was embraced by Mahan. The first

chapter of Mahan's Influence of Sea Power Upon History, entitled "Discussion

of the Elements of Sea Power," owes not a little to a prize-winning essay

written by Ensign David in 1882, as Seager suggests.9 To whom else was Mahan dependent for his ideas? I think we can conclude

that apart from some personal experiences and predispositions, important in

themselves, most of his thought was derived from historical perceptions and

writings rather than from contemporary points of view. The personal aspects

of Mahan at this stage of this life are illuminating. We know that he was

bright, extraordinarily vain, though he tried to hide it, and personally

attractive, or at least he thought so. He was unpopular and isolated at the

Naval Academy because of his rigid belief in discipline. He admired the Royal

Navy, and sought to emulate its discipline in the United States Navy. He

was socially awkward with women, and apparently as isolated from them

as he was from the men of the navy. His love of the sea was not strong, and

if his biographers are to be believed, he hated ship-board life. Somehow in

Stephen B. Luce he found a patron, and had he not done so he would never

have been afforded the opportunity to lecture, and had he not had that

opportunity it seems probable that he would not have taken to the task of

becoming a first rate historian. Certainly his The Gulf and Inland Waters,

7 See Robert Seager II and Doris D. Maguire, eds., Letters and Papers ofAlfred Thayer Mahan (3 vols. Annapolis,

1975).

8 Robert Seager II, Alfred Thayer Mahan: The Man and His Letters (Annapolis, 1977), p. 169 and elsewhere.

9 Ibid., p. 209.
14 Barry M. Gough

published in 1883 as Volume 3 of Scribner's "The Navy in the Civil War"

series, an excellent survey of the subject, shows no theoretical framework

and no flash of brilliance. Written in a hurry, it was undertaken in part to

take the pressure off Mahan's bank account balance. 10 What should be noted here is that Mahan's magnum opus was written at a time when many persons in numerous branches of intellectual inquiry were

seeking scientific explanations of human behavior. The British historian

Henry Thomas Buckle was laying down the universal principles of the

scientific explanation of history and convinced Luce of the operative rules

of progress. Charles Darwin, who wrote the other major profoundly

influential book of the late nineteenth century, Origin of Species, was seeking

a more general theory of mutation and evolution. This was an era of

extraordinary historical theorizing, as Clark Reynolds has stated in putting

Mahan in context. 11 Important theories were being expounded concerning

historical development and philosophical understanding, by Burkhardt,

Nietzsche, Seeley and Bury. It was an age for "the cohesion of history," to use Page Smith's explanation. 12 The "Social Darwinists," as they are called,

played a very strong role in the shaping of American and British political

thought. The belief that England and America were bound together by means

of a racial identity, and with a date with destiny, was something that Mahan

shared, as did Charles Beresford and Winston Churchill to cite two English

examples. Seen in this light, Mahan's anglophilia may have been more widely

agreeable to the reading public than more nationalistically minded and

xenophobic critics may like to believe.

Besides this, there is the fact that Mahan believed that the United States

Navy suffered from a decline in professionalism, and this coupled with

dramatically changing international circumstances meant, that as far as he

was concerned, the American navy was not prepared for a war at sea. He

was appalled by the unseaworthyness, armament and limited cruising range

under steam of his last command, the Wachusett. On the various duties of

showing the Stars and Stripes in protection of national interests in the Gulf

of Panama, Commander Mahan came to realize that United States, imperial

obligations were enlarging and changing in scope. More coaling stations were

needed here and elsewhere. Gradually he became an imperialist, and he shared

this with his distinguished contemporary, Rear Admiral Robert W. Shufeldt,

whose biography in the capable hands of Frederick C. Drake has demonstrated

so markedly the fact that the seaborne empire of the United States was well

10 Ibid., p. 135.

11 Clark G. Reynolds, "The Thalassocratic Determinism of Captain Mahan," in Reynolds and McAndrew,

1971 Seminar, p. 77. This work is reproduced in Clark Reynolds, History and the Sea; Essays on Maritime

Strategies (Columbia, S.C., 1989), ch. 3. Others included in Reynolds' list are Dilthey, Spengler, Henry

Adams, F.J. Turner and Charles Beard.

12 pag

e Smith, The Historians and History (New York, 1964), p. 56; quoted, ibid.
Influence of History on Mahan 15

advanced before the Spanish American War,13 a fact that any student of British

naval and imperial affairs would long ago have descried. To Mahan's way

of thinking, the United States Navy had to ready itself for meeting its national

obligations, and that necessitated the building of a state-of-the-art, highly

mobile, and well gunned and armored fleet. By the time The Influence of Sea

Power Upon History appeared, the United States government was well on the

way to the sort of professional changes and fleet construction that Mahan

would have applauded, and his concepts were vital in providing the

intellectual fabric that government leaders could accept and promote.

Digressing for the moment on the subject of history as science, it may be

observed that Mahan was not the first to view naval history through the

telescope of science. His English contemporary John Laughton was first off

the mark in this line of inquiry. In fact, sixteen years before the appearance

of Mahan's opus, Laughton, sometime professor of history at Kings College

London, a lecturer at the naval college at Greenwich, and the founder of the

Navy Records Society, had delivered a lecture to the learned Royal United

Services Institute in Whitehall under the heading "The Scientific Study of

Naval History."14 That paper was published in the Journal of that institution,

where some time later it was read by Mahan, who according to his own

admission had not previously thought much about the discipline of history.

Yet another English contemporary who sought scientific explanations of

history was Sir John Seeley, Regius Professor of Modern History at

Cambridge, who on the very eve of Mahan's completion of the manuscript

of his book, then in the hands of his publisher, had printed the text of a talk

he had given to a military club in Aldershot entitled "War and the British

Empire," that appeared in the September 1889 issue of the RUSI Journals

Mahan was not only put into a state of terror, thinking that he had been

"scooped," as it were; he must have been gratified to think that he, too, was

on the scent of a compelling, significant theme. Seeley 's paper was "such an

epitome of the scheme of my book," Mahan confided to Luce, that he sent

it to Little, Brown, his publisher, fearing a rejection on the grounds of possible

duplication. 16 Little, Brown evidently concluded that Mahan was on to a good

thing and proceeded apace. Laughton and Seeley were ploughing the same

furough; what makes them important to the current discussion is that they

were two historians interested in strategic questions who took the long view

of history. Unlike Mahan who was brought to history by strategic needs and

13 Frederick C. Drake, The Empire of the Seas: A Biography of Rear Admiral Robert Wilson Shufeldt, USN

(Honolulu, 1984).

14 John K. Laughton, "The Scientific Study of Naval History," Royal United Services Institute Journal, 1874,

pp. 1-18. Despite the title, Laughton was never a formulator of rules. For a discussion of this, see Donald

M. Schurman, The Education ofa Navy: The Development of British Naval Strategic Thought, 1867-1914 (Chicago,

1965), pp. 85-89.

15 John R. Seeley, "War and the British Empire," Journal of the Royal United Services Institution, September

1889, pp. 488-500.
16 Barry M. Gough

professional opportunity, Seeley and Laughton came to strategy from the

historical perspective. All the same, the three had in common the fact that

they were seeking an ordered explanation of human progression.

This Victorian world that had given rise to the thinking of Laughton and

Seeley was vitally concerned with the history of the ancient world. The

Victorians were deeply influenced by the study of Greek and Roman history,

and the great civilizations of the Mediterranean in times past placed a decided

stamp on the architecture of the British Isles, on the great public buildings

and private clubs, and on the character of education. In these circumstances

it was no wonder that the British as rulers of the waves were entirely in

sympathy with the aims and objectives of the Pax Romana, to which the

architects of the Pax Britannica owed much. The fight against piracy on the

seas, against the seaborne slave trade, and in support of legal commerce and

economic expansion on and over the seas—these constituted the holy trinity

of the British pax. Enforcing these obligations resulted in a growing degree

of imperial duty. 17 In the free trade era, in which Mahan was writing, British

policy aimed at peace for the purpose of profit. Throughout much of that

century empire in and of itself was much despised by British policymakers

themselves, who though much imbued with the idea that they should liquidate

their empire, or otherwise diminish their obligations by withdrawing their

garrisons or letting their colonists live in happier harmony with their

neighbours, never actually adopted an anti-colonial mind, and never put in

place a system of liquidating the red spots on the map of the world. Rather

the reverse, for defending the ocean routes of the world for strategic

advantage or trade protection required augmenting the number of bases overseas—Aden, the Falklands, and Esquimalt being but three added to the

nineteenth century, though not always exclusively for naval or strategic

purposes. This was an era of gunboat diplomacy, when the mere display of

the White Ensign on some distant coastline where British interests were in

need of succor was sufficient to make the point that Britannia ruled the waves,

and could wave the rules if circumstances warranted.

Yet the imperial obligations of playing the role of amphibious policeman

was not only confined to the British. The French and Americans were

similarly involved, and Mahan knew this.

It was on his gunboat duties where he was learning that peace had to be

won by force. He yearned for home, more specifically the society of New

York, and of his family. He saw sea life as a mode of exile, and yet he was

able to continue his endless politicking as well from the quarterdeck as from

the hearth. Once he learned from Luce that he was to be assigned to the Naval

War College, he took up the reading of history with a passion, and out of

17 Barry M. Gough, "Pax Britannica: Peace, Force and World Power," The Round Table, April 1990, pp. 167-88.
Influence of History on Mahan 17

necessity. He was in Lima, Peru, in November 1884, fetched up in the English

Club, where he read the celebrated work of the Berlin historian and

archaeologist Theodor Mommsen, The History of Rome (1854-56). In reading

Roman history Mahan was struck by the non-recognition of sea power's vital

influence upon Hannibal's career. 18 As he explained to a publisher some years

later, "The incident is to myself interesting because I attribute any success not to any breadth or thoroughness of historical knowledge but a certain

aptitude to seize upon salient features of an era—salient either by action or

non-action, by presence or absence." Here is a frank and sober reminder;

in Lima Mahan undertook what we would now call a "quick study" on

historical fact and perhaps on interpretation.

He grasped the single insight that so revolutionized the study of naval

history, and he held that that insight came from within. It was, as he put

it, "the suggestion that control of the sea was an historical factor which had

never been systematically appreciated and expanded. For me . . . the light

dawned first on my inner consciousness; I owed it to no other man."19 But

Mommsen had pointed the way. His debt to Mommsen he acknowledges in

several letters, and fleetingly in his Introductory, but is otherwise

conspicuously missing from his book. Once back in New York, enroute to

Newport, he attacked the holdings of the Astor Library and the New York

Lyceum, working up his two sets of lectures. He worked first on his "Fleet

Battle Tactics," and then on those that became his book The Influence of Sea

Power Upon History. Probably the first was the easiest, and in any event a breadand-butter proposition so to speak, necessary as it was to instruct students

in this particular, specific branch of naval science. Harder it was to master

the English, Dutch and French texts (the Spanish sources are absent) that were

to form the basis for his Influence. He read, or re-read Jomini's Critical and

Military History of the Campaign of the Revolution from 1192 to 1801 (1820) and

his Summary of the Art of War (1836). He read, too, La Peyrouse Bonfils' History

ofthe French Navy and Henri Martin's Popular History ofFrance. He read a number

of other contemporary strategists. The footnotes of his masterpiece, as noted

by diligent, even envious English critics, were all too sparing: they tell us

all too little about the sources he used. Even so, we can note his obligation

to the French tactician Morogues who a century and a quarter before Mahan

on the enduring principles of naval war wrote: "Naval tactics are based upon

conditions the chief causes of which, namely the arms, may change; which

in turn causes necessarily a change in the construction of ships, in the manner

of handling them, and so finally in the disposition and handling of fleets."20

18 Mahan to Roy B. Marston, "Captain Mahan and Our Navy," The Sphere, 17 (June 11, 1905), p. 250. He put it this way in his autobiography: "It suddenly struck me, whether by some chance phrase of the author I do not know, how different things might have been should Hannibal have invaded Italy by sea." From Sail to Steam (New York 1907), p. 277.

19 Seager, Mahan, p. 145.

20 Mahan, Influence, Introductory.
18 Barry M. Gough

Doubtless Mahan had all the details of the battle of Navarino at his fingertips,

and those of the naval battles of the Crimea and Lissa as well. He was fully

familiar with the naval actions of the Civil War, and he had read widely

the works of Sir John Barrow, many of them biographies of Howe, Rodney,

Jervis and Nelson. His reading in tactics provided the historical examples upon

which his principles rested; in addition, his reading in tactics helped sharpen

his perspectives in the writing of his own analysis of history. He knew that

the object of navies was to bring a concentration of firepower to bear against

the enemy in superior degree, and this concept, derived essentially from

Jomini, he applied to his two sets of lectures.

Gradually his massive notes were beginning to take on the center of gravity

that is so desperately needed in original research, where a real thesis, original

and magisterial, is to be the outcome. At this juncture on 22 January 1886

he wrote to Luce,

Now I believe myself to have a good working knowledge of most, of all the important,

naval campaigns of the years 1660-1815, and the tactics of the various battles. Of course

the question thrusts itself forward: under all the changed conditions of naval warfare of what

use is the knowledge of these bygone days? Here I am frankly still a little at sea how to point

my moral . . . For instance strategy, as distinguished from tactics, will have plenty o{

illustration; the advantages and disadvantages of the possession of sea power and its effects upon specific campaigns must always possess useful lessons. Ships will no longer

tack nor wear; but they must turn round sometimes; and I fancy that some thought

expended upon the difficulties and confusion that may be thrown into an enemy's line or other order by forcing them to a change of order in action will have some fruit in the consideration of naval tactics in action; and I believe that knowledge of the great

battles between sailing fleets will help in the solution of the problem. There will too always remain the great naval lessons ... of the preponderance gained by activity,

promptness, watchfulness, care, foresight and attention to details . . . I think [these are]

most true relatively to an army, land force. The admiral will not, nearly as far, make

or mar as the general. By February 1st I expect to begin with Jomini, etc. and, having

naval conditions constantly before my mind, I shall hope to detect analogies.21 His reading of past naval history with the general theory of war went hand

in hand. To Luce he wrote again on 22 January 1886:

With regard to my own course of lectures my ideas have not yet attained the precision

which I would like to throw into any reply to you. In a general way they are these:

I think to begin with a general consideration of the sea, its uses to mankind and to nations,

the effect which the control of it or the reverse has [had] upon their peaceful development

and upon their military strength. This will naturally lead to ... a consideration of the sources of Sea Power, whether commercial or military, depending upon the position of

the particular country - the character of its coast, its harbors, the character and pursuits

of its people, its possession of military posts in various parts of the world, its colonies,

etc. - its resources, in the length and breadth of the word. After such a general statement

of the various elements of the problem, illustrated of course by specific examples - the

path would be cleared for naval history. There are a good many phases of naval history.

21 Quoted in Seager, Mahan, pp. 169-70. My italics.
Influence of History on Mahan 19

I have been led, and I think upon the whole happily led, to take up that period succeeding

the peace of Westphalia, 1648, when the nations of Europe began clearly to enter on

and occupy their modern positions, struggling for existence and preponderance. I have

carefully followed up this period both in respect of naval history and the general struggles

of Europe; for it has seemed to me . . . that the attempt to violently separate the naval

history from that context will be something like . . . Hamlet with all but the part of

Hamlet left out. I have nearly finished, within a week's work, this general consideration

down to 1783. . . . Whether I can accomplish anything more, in the matter of naval

history of other epochs, this year, I cannot say ... I am working to my full capacity

- have to feel that that is less than it was. ... I would like this letter, however, to be

confidential - in case any of my thunder should turn out real thunder.22 Once completed, Mahan's Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783

constituted a deliberate attempt to define the principles of sea power in an

age of technological transition. This work set forth three considerations on

which maritime dominance could rest: instruments of war (including bases),

seaborne commerce, and colonies. These three, what we might call the three

inter-circling rings, gave Britain pre-eminence, argued Mahan. Not only did

Britain possess weapons of war, including overseas bases and a controlling

geographical position athwart the portals of the European continent, she also

possessed the near monopoly of the carrying trades of the ocean and a host

of colonies overseas from which to draw resources, material, supplies, food,

and manpower. National prosperity, founded upon a program of mercantile

regulation and support, also gave Britain her greatness. From this, Britain

possessed a theory or rationale of naval strategy and defense. Without a profitable seaborne carrying trade, without colonies, and without trained

seamen and ships, Britain was powerless. Thus, by extension of the argument,

any nation aspiring to greatness must maintain the instruments of war, the

means of its overseas trade, and the mechanisms of colonial influence.

The fallacies of Mahan's theoretical perspective are three in number.

Firstly, Mahan believed that a concentration of battle units was essential for

the nation-state, and that concentration, and that concentration only, could

win a sea war. In itself, coastal defense was of minimal value. Moreover,

cruiser warfare - that is, discursive naval action such as the raiding of enemy

ports or the sinking of merchant ships far away from the likely main center

of battle - did not really count for much. The big blow, the decisive battle

- that was the key. Secondly, as regards the value of seaborne commerce,

Mahan believed that the merchant marine formed a certain shield of defensive

power, an auxiliary force behind which a people in time of difficulty could

gather strength. The merchant marine as a reserve force may have utility

in a sea war, but as a backbone of naval power it was readily understood

by the British in the mercantilist age, though rejected in the nineteenth

century by Nelson's successors with no real loss to British naval preeminence.

22 Ibid., pp. 174-75.
20 Barry M. Gough

After all, navies are artificial creations of states. They do not grow from the

ports or the fishing folk of great lakes and sea waters. As the third

consideration, colonies, here Mahan was weakest. He assumed that Britain

was great because of her colonies, colonies won at the expense of Spain,

Holland and France. In fact, Britain was great because of the succuss of her

Acts of Trade and Navigation, a policy that coupled defense with opulence;

a nation does not have to possess colonies to have naval power and greatness

and can have instead many forms of informal control equally as valuable as formal possession. Mahan led European states into a trap. Not only did Mahan

influence governments to build battleships and establish bases, but he induced

them to annex territories overseas that would afford them new keys of control

as the routes of oceanic commerce or warship passage.

However, on purely strategic considerations, Mahan deserves a more

sustained investigation. He argued that the past demonstrated that sooner or

later command at sea - that is, acquisition and control of the ocean's

communications - could only be obtained by a great battle or a series of battles

ending in a decisive and clearly established outcome. Naval strategy, Mahan

wrote, was based on some immutable, fundamental truths derived from

historical example. Only by scientific development and technological

innovation, he reasoned, would the immutable strategic laws be modified

though not fundamentally altered. In consequence, readers of his work and

listeners to his lectures were led to believe that the great battle at sea was

the principal thing and all others were ancillary thereunto. They were also

convinced that cruiser warfare and technological innovation - torpedoes,

mines, cruiser warfare, submarines, submarine communications - were all of

secondary merit.

In many of these things Mahan was not alone, either in America or England.

More and more we are beginning to realize that even the greatest of

intellectual evangelists do not stand in isolation, and that many of the great

achievements of thought are derivative. This does not detract from the genius

of the person; rather it heightens their conceptualization of the matter before

them. In the United States, Ensign David, Stephen Luce, and Robert Shufeldt

shared Mahan's concept. In England, Admiral Philip Colomb, whose Naval

Warfare was published almost concurrently with Mahan's 1890 book,

endeavored to derive rules of naval warfare from the examples, and made

an important contribution to the development of "blue water" naval thought.

His work has come back into print after many years.23 Laughton and Seeley,

already mentioned, were bringing popular attention to the role of force in

human affairs, and they were the precursors of vitally important concepts

of naval strategy as given in the writings of Sir Julian Corbett, Sir Herbert

23 See my Introduction to the new edition of Vice Admiral P.H. Colomb, Naval Warfare: Its Ruling Principles and Practice Historically Treated (Annapolis, 1990: new printing of the 3rd edition, 1899).
Influence of History on Mahan 21

Richmond and the Thursfields, father and son.24 In short, Mahan was part of

a larger process. Just as he accelerated the naval armaments race so, too, did

he give added fuel to the historical profession.

However, his greatest success lay in moving politicians to action. Mahan

awakened political heads of various nations to the reality of naval warfare

by great ships. He also, after nearly a century of gunboat influence, restored

to pre-eminence the vitality and utility of the great fleet and the strategy

and tactics of using the fleet to obtain command of the sea, by means of which

a war could be won. He was misguided in believing that colonies were a necessary foundation of a great nation and fleet. Similarly he convinced many

of the necessity of a merchant navy ancillary to a fighting navy. Lastly, he

generated a "big ship" mentality and a belief in the necessity of a concentration of force which was strategically acceptable in one way, for

such a force was necessary, but then in another, denied the principle of sea war which he had in fact described in his books: viz., that in a sea war,

discursive action will occur: the weaker power will employ cruiser warfare,

or commerce raiding, against its more powerful adversary and will do so rather than risk engagement with the units of the enemy. And again, Mahan

failed to appreciate fully the central role of convoys in a protracted war and

the profound effect that submarines, torpedoes and mines would play in a future naval war. In any case, it does not affect his authority on matters as they were in his own era. In short, Mahan deserves to be evaluated in the

context of the times in which he was writing which were those of profound

technological change during which the principles of maritime strategy were

changing.

It may also be observed that Mahan, though confessing an attraction to

the economic realities of naval power, tended to ignore them almost

completely. Even though environmental circumstances shaded the nature of

his thinking he was not geopolitically oriented in a way that would give his

concepts breadth and depth. He had not read much English history before

embarking on his historical enterprise; otherwise he would have realized that

the famous acts ofnavigation and trade were phased out in the early nineteenth

century as part of the free trade movement. To contrast Mahan to Sir Halford

Mackinder, as has so often been done, by Paul Kennedy and Chester Starr

to cite a couple of recent examples,25 is fair in the sense of contemporary

strategic analysis. But maritime dominance vs. continental dominance has

always seemed such a shallow discussion to me, for strategy is much more

complicated than that, as history shows. I am all too uncomfortable with the

24 Other notable historian-commentators were Cyprian Bridge and Reginald Custance.

25 For instance, Paul Kennedy, "Mahan versus Mackinder, Two Interpretations of British Sea Power,"

in his Strategy and Diplomacy, 1870-1945 (London, 1983), ch. 3. Chester Starr, The Influence of Sea Power on Ancient History (New York, 1989), pp. 83-84.
22 Barry M. Gough

thallasocratic view of history or any other monocausal explanation of human

progression.26 The study of Mahan's Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 - and

of the larger corpus ofhis writings - is of enduring value. This is so not because

he was right, for he was not always so, and it is useful because he was

sometimes wrong.27 He is the touchstone. He enlarges our world. He is a prism

through which we view the changing colors of a much larger spectrum than

he could ever perceive from his limited vantage point in the late 1880s and

after. He was aware of the need for highly educated, disciplined, and

strategically-oriented naval officers. He was mindful, too, of the momentous

changes that were occurring in naval technology, in weapons and propulsion

especially. He was mindful, moreover, of the growing role that the United

States was making playing in world affairs, and he became an imperialist.

He was ofcourse part of a much larger conversion ofhumanity in that personal

change, for who was not among the informed individuals of the late nineteenth

and early twentieth century an imperialist in one sort or another?

This brings us to a number of matters that need further exploration. Mahan

was a publicist of naval matters, and the world had never seen one who was

so effective in that realm. Not the first naval historian, he was the first to

conceptualize the role of sea power in the human affairs of his time, rescuing

from the forgotten historical record the relevant details of how victory at sea was arrived at and what benefits devolved to the victor at sea. It was

in the popularization of these affairs that war became more certain, so Sir

John Seeley attested, arguing as he did that as the public became more aware

of the possibilities of arms so, too, did they more demand their use.28 Besides this theme for future examination is another. Nations in the era of Mahan's glory were concerned with their rise and fall, an enduring state

of affairs, if the reception accorded Paul Kennedy's 1988 work is indicative.

Mahan, it seems, wrote his book of essays for his students at the Naval War

College, but he also had the wider world in mind when he added his Preface,

his Introductory and his first chapter, that on the Elements of Sea Power.

It was this popularization that was the key, as he himself knew. Those of

us who toil in the archives have much to learn from Mahan in this regard.

We have to broadcast our larger findings, and to reach out to a much larger

audience than our students and our fellow scholars. The success accorded

26 Great modern naval theorists employing historical examples can be counted on the fingers of one hand,

in my opinion. They are Mahan, Colomb, Corbett, Wegener and Reynolds (on the latter, see sources given in n. 11 above).

27 Gough, "Maritime Strategy," pp. 55-57.

28 Seeley, op. cit. On the theme of popular politics and the use of naval force, see the discussions of

"Navalism" in the British and international contexts in, respectively, Arthur J. Marder, Anatomy of British Sea Power: A History of British Naval Policy in the Pre- Dreadnought Era, 1880-1905 (New York, 1940), and W.J.

Langer, The Diplomacy of Imperialism, 1890-1902 (2nd ed., New York, 1965), ch. 13. Incidentally, I do not

subscribe to Seeley 's argument that the availability of arms necessarily invites their use. The largest standing

armies in history, 1945-1989, did not engage in war in Europe.
Influence of History on Mahan 23

Mahan and Kennedy were naturally derivative of their abilities to see the

larger issues of their subjects.29 Not all scholars are able to do this, and few

have the power to grow wings and take to the skies in a larger view of an

enlarging world lying below them. But Mahan challenges us to do that, and

for that reason alone, besides his many other contributions, we are in his debt.

29 Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000

(London, 1988). See also his The Rise and Fall of British Naval Mastery (2nd ed., London, 1983).
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25

Oliapter 5

Mahan, Tactics and

Principles of Strategy

Captain Wayne P. Hughes, Jr., U.S. Navy (Ret.)

I hope you have noticed that my title is asymmetrical. We cannot discuss

Alfred Thayer Mahan's tactical principles, because he neither sought nor

found them. Some of what I have to say is along lines that this is regrettable.

The title also serves as the apology of a speaker who is not an historian, here

delivering a paper to the eminent historians of naval affairs. I do have three

points I hope are worthy of your attention. They may even be jarring, so

I will work up to them carefully.

After he became celebrated, Mahan felt free to express himself about tactics

and naval combat, but he never regarded himself as a tactician nor believed

that his expertise lay there. Still, Mahan's reputation must live with an

analytical but artificial distinction between tactics and strategy that he helped

foster. In rereading Colomb's Naval Warfare for the Naval Institute Press's

new series, Classics of Sea Power, I was struck by the fact that in it there

was a refreshing absence of differentiation between policy, strategy,

operations, tactics, and technology. With Colomb all were a seamless blend.

Mahan, who had well defined and distinguished strategy and tactics, could

not help but be swept back into the world of tactics, and (remember that

at the beginning of this century the characteristics of warships were regarded

by all tacticians as their domain) the technology that was creating a tactical

revolution.

Here is an example of Mahan's vulnerability. In June, 1906 at the height

of his international reputation, he ventured to write an article for the Naval

Institute Proceedings with lessons learned from the Battle of Tsushima, called

"Reflections, Historical and Other, Suggested by the Battle of the Japanese

Sea." These were wholly tactical with a heavy emphasis on the design of

future warships. He concluded in favor of (1) armament and armor over speed

(about which I will say more later), (2) a main battery of mixed calibers,

and (3) numbers over size of capital ships. In the next issue of the Proceedings
26 Wayne P. Hughes, Jr. appeared a scathing rejoinder. It was a mere Lieutenant Commander taking

on a Captain of great renown, but the Lieutenant Commander's name was

William S. Sims, and he was then President Theodore Roosevelt's own

Inspector of Target Practice. As his title, "The Inherent Tactical Qualities

of the All-Big-Gun, One-Caliber Battleship of High Speed, Large

Displacement and Gunpower," made clear he would, Sims attacked Mahan

on all three points. Mahan had the misfortune of facing the Navy's ex officio gunnery expert, who was also an advocate of the "high mix" school of the

day: when it came to battleships, nothing was too good for the Boys in Blue.

Sims intended to destroy Mahan's case, which was along lines similar to Soviet

Admiral Gorshkov's more recent expression, the best is enemy of good

enough. HMS Dreadnought was then under construction amidst great debate,

as were other all big gun prototypes for the navies of the United States and

Japan. The advocates were not going to accept any contrary views even from

a world-famous maritime strategist.

Sims' attack led from his strength. "Captain Mahan is greatly in error in

saying that if we determine the number of shots fired by each caliber we

may assume a 'probability of a proportionate number of hits.' [He] draws

his conclusions from the Volume of fire' of different calibers instead of the

volume of hitting or 'rapidity of hitting,' which is the only true standard of

efficiency. " Sims goes on to exploit his authority as the Navy's gunnery expert

to contend that at effective battle range the "danger space" (hitting area)

of 12-inch gun will be almost twice that of a 6-inch gun, because of the lower

trajectory of the larger projectile. 1 Mahan had the misfortune of having written before many reports of the

battle were in. Specifically, in the same June issue of the Proceedings appeared

a detailed narrative of it by an American observer, Lieutenant R. D. White,

which Sims drew from with devestating effect. Mahan, who had lost touch

with current technology and who was in any case overreaching in his use of history to draw his lessons, did not have the facts to rebut Sims. Somewhere

in the Proceedings I have seen a generous acquiescence to Sims by Mahan but

at the moment cannot find it. But Sims was disingenuous in places. To further undergird the point above,

he wrote that Mahan "also assumed that the Japanese rapidity of 6-inch fire

was about four times as great as that of the 12-inch fire, when as a matter

of fact, it was probably not much more than twice as great . . . we know

12-inch guns can fire two shots a minute and that 6-inch controlled firing

is at a rate of four shots per minute." In contrast, another giant of navy fire

control, Bradley A. Fiske, had written only a year earlier, ". . . the energy

of projectiles thrown by a big gun is about equal to the aggregate energies

1 Lieutenant Commander William S. Sims, "The Inherent Tactical Qualities of All-Big-Gun, One-Caliber

Battleships of High Speed, Large Displacement and Gunpower," U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, (Sept.

1906), p. 1346.
Tactics and Principles of Strategy 27

of the projectiles thrown by smaller guns of equal aggregate weight, and the

smaller guns can be fired more often. A 12-inch gun, for instance, weighs

about as much as eight 6-inch guns [note the parallel choice of caliber for

comparison with Sims] and a 12-inch projectile has about as much energy

as eight 6-inch projectiles; but a 6-inch gun can fire projectiles about eight

times as often, so that in a minute 6-inch guns can fire projectiles having eight

times as much energy as an equal weight of 12-inch guns. They also expend

eight times as much ammunition [the emphasis is Fiske's]."2 Now, Fiske was of course describing schematically—he was a brilliant

mathematical modeler—but his expertise stands in stark contrast with Sims'.

For one thing, it is dubious that a 12" gun of the day could be fired twice

a minute. Since Fiske was the technical expert who made possible the

ambitions of Sims for centralized fire control and continuous aim fire, Sims

either was or ought to have been aware of Fiske's position. The technical

debate was crucial in the final decision to adopt the all big gun ship. Fiske

himself soon was converted, doubtless influenced by his last, underlined,

statement. But Mahan was not well enough informed tactically and

technologically to deal with gunnery issues. We will see that his views were

hardier vis-a-vis Sims when it came to the issue of speed.

When one compartmentalizes strategy and tactics he is led into a chicken

or egg problem as regards which is paramount. This leads to the first point

I have to make to a body who may regard strategy as both the more interesting

and preeminent. It is a commonplace, true as far as it goes, that strategy must

direct operations and choose the scenes of action, else battle becomes

purposeless and a thing unto itself. It is also true that when the goal is the

establishment of future force requirements to execute a desirable military

strategy, a top down approach is always impeccable.

But pause a minute and listen to Clausewitz. I have quoted him at length

elsewhere3 lest someone suspect that I am using him out of the whole context

of On War. "The latter [strategic planning] therefore, can never be considered

as something independent," wrote Clausewitz, "it can only become valid when

one has reason to be confident of tactical success ... it is useful to emphasize

that all strategic planning rests on tactical success alone, and that—whether

the solution is arrived at in battle or not—this is in all cases the actual

fundamental basis for the decision."4 Tactics determine the efficacy of forces;

it is the correlation of two forces that reveals what strategy is supportable;

and it is a supportable military strategy that limits national aims and ambitions.

Here is a little example.

2 Commander Bradley A. Fiske, "American Naval Policy," U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, (Jan. 1905), pp. 24-25.

3 W.P. Hughes, Jr., Fleet Tactics: Theory and Practice (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1986), p. 219; and

Hughes, "Naval Tactics and Their Influence on Strategy," Naval War College Review, (Jan-Feb 1986), p.

2.

4 Carl von Clausewitz, On War, trans, by Howard and Paret,
28 Wayne P. Hughes, Jr. Both Mahan and Corbett knew the British Admiralty regarded one threedecker as the equal of two two-deckers. With that calculus the Admiralty

strove to blockade with firepower equivalent to that of the French ships in a port. Equivalence sufficed because of the Royal Navy's ship-for-ship

superiority in combat potential. 5 Tactical success without strategy is a meandering river; strategy without tactical success is a dream that becomes

a nightmare.

As for the second element of the strategist's proposition, that strategy

guides future requirements, it is equally true that the capabilities of existing

forces must govern present planning, in peace and war. This seems a point

to make at present, when a drawdown of national capability is under way.

It is too easy to slash away at the United States Navy without realigning

the strategy and deployments that the lower force levels can support.

I do not want to make much of this except to note that strategy and tactics are bound together. Mahan was continually drawn into questions of tactics

and technology, and in practice no one thought much of the distinction. One

of my favorite quotations from Mahan is "The true speed of war is not

headlong precipitancy, but the unremitting energy which wastes no time."

The intimacy of the bond between strategy and tactics leaps at us when we

see the rest of the passage. "The great end of a war fleet ... is not to chase,

nor to fly, but to control the seas . . . Not speed, but power of offensive

action, is the dominant factor in war .... Force does not exist for mobility,

but mobility for force. It is of no use to get there first unless, when the enemy

in turn arrives, you also have the most men, the greater force."6 The speed

of the battle fleet was much at issue then. Sims and many other officers

notwithstanding, there was a serious tradeoff between armament, armor, and

speed. Mahan was forcefully for guns and armor, and ultimately that was

what the U. S. Navy chose: the slowest battle line of the world's navies, right

up to World War II, and a disposition away from the fast battleships and

battlecruisers of Great Britain and Japan. This is not the place to develop

who was right and why, but if asked I will argue that Mahan and the U.

S. Navy have the better case. The second and far more serious mischief Mahan created is traceable

directly to the book we are honoring here today. Everyone will recognize

the passage: "from time to time the structure of tactics has to be wholly torn

down, but the foundations of strategy so far remain, as though laid upon a rock." Mahan believed the principles of strategy were easier to discern than

those of tactics, because the latter "using as its instruments the weapons made

5 Presumably the Admiralty's basis was purely empirical. The argument can also be made mathematically.

A three-decker will be computed to be worth slightly more than two two-deckers. For its firepower

a frigate did not count at all; but frigates were vital as scouts. See Hughes, Fleet Tactics, p. 43.

6 A.T. Mahan, Lessons of the War With Spain, (Boston, 1899), pp. 82-84.
Tactics and Principles of Strategy 29

by man, shares in the change and progress of the race."7 As far as I know

(I am tentative only because Mahan was so prolific) the only tactical principle

he enunciated was in support of concentration. Concentration of force, either

strategic or tactical, may or may not be the most important principle of war

but either way it the most obvious and least exciting, the sort of thing that

school boys find out the first time two gang up on one. It can also be expressed

in a corruption of an old aphorism, which may be rephrased for military

purposes, "Never pick on somebody your own size." I thought of this when

I heard some people say we were behaving like bullies when we went into

Grenada a few years back.

Whatever you may think of Mahan's circumscribed view of the robustness

only o£ strategic principles, I can tell you that I was a faithful disciple until

1982, and there were generations of naval officers who subscribed to it. But

Mahan was wrong. As I have written elsewhere:

Tactics change, but that does not preclude the search for tactical principles, and if there

are strategic principles, that does not mean that strategies do not change. Strategies

as well as tactics are influenced by "weapons made by man." We may forgive Mahan

for not foreseeing how weapons of the future would influence strategy, but there was

evidence of change even as he wrote. All the strategic effects of blockading were

modified by the transition from sail to steam. Sailing ships that stayed on station for

months were being replaced by ships that lacked endurance and depended on coaling

stations, the competition for which itself had a profound influence on strategy.8 The very term for an intercontinental ballistic missile, "a strategic

weapon," and the Polaris and Trident strategic submarines which carry them,

belie that strategic concepts are etched in stone. Mahan said the scales fell

from his eyes when he speculated as to the consequences if Hannibal had

attacked Rome from the sea. We need only to give Hannibal the means to

deliver one Hiroshima-sized atomic bomb to see all the strategy of Carthage

and Rome overturned.

A case study of Mahan's faith in his tenet of strategic constancy is the way

he deals with blockade. In it is all the false dichotomy of strategy and tactics.

In 1895 Mahan was asked by the Royal United Services Institute whether new

technology had so altered tactics that a blockade would no longer be effective.

It was clear that steam, steel, mines, and torpedoes were affecting the way

ships would fight. Mahan clung to his faith in historical precedent and strategic

principles and reaffirmed the blockade as a tool of strategy. Later, after

assimilating the lessons of the Russo-Japanese and Spanish-American Wars,

7 A.T. Mahan, The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783, (Boston, 1890), p. 88. Mahan did not

reject tactical principles entirely, but he said they were transitory. See his Introduction, pages 7-11. One

gets the impression that Mahan was making a concession to the large body of opinion among naval officers that believed technology affected naval warfare to the extent that study of history had no value; that he was willing to concede on tactics to make his case for strategy.

8 Hughes, Fleet Tactics, pp. 140-141.
30 Wayne P. Hughes, Jr. he repeated his stand in Naval Strategy. 9 Mahan referred to two cases. The

first was offensive and interdiction of trade; it was illustrated by the North's

blockade of the South in the Civil War. The second was defensive; it was

illustrated by the Royal Navy's containment of French and Spanish fleets in

the Napoleonic wars. Mahan largely set aside the former and concentrated

on the latter, and it is here as well as anywhere that we observe Mahan's

focus on command of the sea and fleet actions: the object of blockade was

a fleet. With that perspective, he showed that distant blockade was nothing

new. Nelson, he pointed out, was happy to stand back because he wanted his

enemy to come out.

Mahan stressed that a blockade was not an absolute thing. With a defensive

blockade the question was "Does this impose upon him such risks as to give

a considerable chance of either stopping or crippling him? And not only is this chance in your favor to be considered at the immediate locality, but also

as to its deterrent effect upon the enemy.

"

10 Mahan had a fine sense of scouting.

Success is, he said, "a matter of look-out, instituted and sustained, and of

inter-communications between vessels of the blockading force . . . this is the

crux of the matter." Mahan concluded, ". . . the old question and the new

alike is not 'Can the enemy be prevented from coming out' but 'If he does,

can touch with him be gained and preserved?' Steam, in my opinion, has simply

widened the question, not changed its nature. I believe that provision can

be made which will give [blockade] a high probability of success, but I do

not believe in certainties in war."11 The above is Mahan at his best. We find him adapting his vast reservoir

ofhistory and extending it to the present. Indeed, he had flawlessly anticipated

the Royal Navy's constraint of the German High Seas fleet from out of Scapa

Flow in World War I. We must concede to him that execution is a matter

of tactical detail, whether with sail or steam. But the events of World War

I also illustrate the limits of Mahan's perspective, and it was very much a shortcoming of strategic vision. Blockade of the High Seas Fleet was necessary

but not sufficient. There was to be the rest of the German Navy, what Sir

Julian Corbett called "the cruisers" now manifested as U-boats, that would

threaten the lifeblood of Britain. Offensive, not defensive, blockade would

eventually hold the key to the war at sea. We may even say that the blockaders

became themselves the blockaded, once we adopt Mahan's own relaxation

of the distance from the ports at which it is imposed.

Though Corbett expressed his role of cruisers with clarity in how they

played for and against the interdiction of trade, he himself did not foresee

the efficacy of the U-boat and the scale of merchant shipping protection it

9 A.T. Mahan, Naval Strategy, (Boston, 1911), p. 2 ff.

10 A.T. Mahan, "Blockade in Relation to Naval Strategy," U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, (Nov. 1895),

p. 862.

11 Op. cit., p. 866
Tactics and Principles of Strategy 31

would require. Nevertheless, Corbett best established the business of navies.

He did so very much against the preponderant attitude of naval officers who

embraced Mahan and his words, "the proper main objective of the navy is the enemy's navy."12 Whatever provisos Mahan applied, his followers too

eagerly accepted the big battle as the be-all of a fleet. Corbett starts with

"The object of naval warfare must always be directly or indirectly either

to secure the command of the sea or to prevent the enemy from securing

it."13 Already Corbett confronts Mahan who disparaged guerre de course, or any

other form of sea denial as a proper role of a fleet. But Corbett's opening

salvo is merely warming his Mahan-oriented readers to the subject. He reaches

the kernel of his position four pages later with: "Command of the sea, therefore, means nothing but the control of maritime communications,

whether for commercial or military purposes." Lest the reader fail to

appreciate the sharp distinction between operations on land and sea, as at

least one recent writer has done,14 Corbett follows immediately with "The

object of naval warfare is the control of communications, and not, as in land

warfare, the conquest o( territory. The difference is fundamental .. . [Communications ashore] refers to the communications of the army

alone, and not to the wider communications which are part of the life of

the nation."15 By passing too quickly from the denial of movement of goods

and services (offensive blockade) to the containment of the enemy fleet

(defensive blockade), Mahan helped make his case that the strategy of

blockade was as robust as ever, but begged the equally important question

of blockade of communications and commerce.

And more: here are the delicious words of a great Russian leader, Admiral

S. O. Makarov, on the subject:

Up to the present this [command of the sea] has been understood to mean that the fleet commanding the sea openly plies upon it and the beaten antagonist does not dare to leave his ports. Would this be so today? Instructions bearing on the subject counsel the

victor to avoid night attack from the torpedo-boats of his antagonist . . . If the matter were represented to a stranger he would be astonished. He would probably ask whether

he properly understood that a victorious fleet should protect itself from the remnant

of a vanquished enemy.16

12 Mahan, Naval Strategy, p. 199.

13 Julian S. Corbett, Some Principles of Maritime Strategy, (Annapolis, 1988), p. 91. Originally published

London, 1911.

14 Thomas R. Pollack, "The Historical Elements of Mahanian Doctrine," in Chapter 5, Military Strategy: Theory and Application, (Carlisle, Pa.: Army War College). Reprinted from Naval War College Review, (JulyAugust 1982), pp. 44-49. Pollack attempts to show that "Mahan 's genius may not be in his theories of

naval strategy but rather in his insight into the similarities between the principles ofwarfare ashore [adapted

from Jomini] and that at sea. He redefined, rather than initiated, strategy in terms of naval warfare."

The burden of proof on Pollack is a heavy one, especially for five pages. Soviet military science is the most stubborn in clinging to universal laws of war.

15 Corbett, p. 94.

16 Vice Admiral S.O. Makarov, Discussions of Questions in Naval Tactics, trans. Lt. J.B. Bernadou,

(Washington: ONI, 1898), p. 26. Reprinted in Classics of Sea Power Series, (Annapolis: Naval Institute

Press, 1990), with an introduction by Robert Bathurst.
32 Wayne P. Hughes, Jr. Mahan was blind to the extent that mines, torpedo boats, submarines, in due

course land based aircraft, and in the present day land launched missiles, would

add new constraints on the ability of a modern fleet to assert sea control

against an inferior enemy who wished to dispute it. We have two modern

examples of nations whose navies were utterly swept from the seas that still created the greatest difficulties for their opponents. One is Japan off Okinawa

in 1945, whose Kamikazes destroyed ships of the U. S. Navy at the rate of

one a day. The other is Argentina, which though isolated from the Falklands

by sea, posed a frightening threat of air, missile, and even submarine attack

(with an effective order of battle of one submarine!) throughout the war.

Now I turn to a matter of taste or preference and offer it for your

consideration. Thus far I have asserted that there probably are as many durable

principles of tactics as of strategy. But I prefer to refer to constants instead

of principles, so that I may draw a distinction between them and trends, the

things wrought by "the change and progress of the race." I am glad to have

an opportunity to express this point of view to historians, however tenuous

is the connection with Alfred Thayer Mahan and his penchant for principles,

because there is much in it for you to ponder.

Before getting to the underappreciated significance of trends, it is well

first to distinguish their companion, constants, from principles. A principle

is a guide to action. A constant is an assertion about unchanging truth. I must

be careful here. The dictionary definitions of principle are sufficiently

encompassing that the user may make about what he wishes of them: rule,

code, law, doctrine, assumption, guide, fundamental, comprehensive, a law

or fact of nature, are all terms one finds associated with a principle. I think

Mahan himself thought of principles as what may more precisely be termed

constants. The six great properties or factors he labeled elements of sea power

in Chapter One of The Influence of Sea Power are descriptive, not prescriptive.

One thing is clear: whether the element is a principle or a constant, whether

it is prescriptive or descriptive, Mahan's interest is with immutability.

Now, the usual principles of war have no such ambiguity. They are

prescriptive: they say "do this to succeed." In contrast a constant says "this

is so, now apply the knowledge wisely." A principle from the Army's FM

100-5 is "Direct every military operation towards a clearly defined, decisive,

and attainable objective."17 A tactical constant, taken from Fleet Tactics: Theory

and Practice and chosen because it is attention-getting and perhaps a bit of a

surprise, reads thus: "The pace at which control of a fleet can be exercised

has not changed much through history. Planning, doctrine, and training as well as combat experience help reduce the possibility of a commander and

his fleet being overwhelmed by the tempo of battle."18

17 Department of the Army, Operations FM 100-5, (May 1986), p. 173.

18 Hughes, Fleet Tactics, p. 199.
Tactics and Principles of Strategy 33

There was a time—I think it is passing now—when students of military

history sought principles of war. We know Mahan espoused them, as did his

inspiration, Jomini. Corbett for navies and Fuller for armies were supreme

in organizing and structuring the lessons of history, with as much emphasis

on constants as principles. Historians qua historians eschew the function of

structuring, but few resist drawing lessons, and in fact we all know that an

historian without premises will describe chaos, apotpouri, or something worse.

Since that is so, I want to urge on you my perspective. It is that the

establishment of trends is every bit as worth your while as the establishment

of principles or constants. At the tactical level, which is the one I have studied,

trends are probably more important. Obviously Mahan thought so: "tactics . . . shares in the change and progress of the race." But then he

ignored the implication, which was to study the changes. Here are some

examples of trends, taken from Fleet Tactics: 19 • Speed in the platform has become subordinate to speed of weapon delivery. Speed

of delivery is governed by scouting and command and control processes as well as the

sheer velocity of weapons.

• Scouting systems have had to race to keep up with weapon range . . . The effects of air, surface, and subsurface scouts are increasingly interrelated because more new

weapons cross the boundaries of the three domains.

• Tactical commanders have had to devote more of their attention to scouting and

less to delivery of firepower.

The importance of establishing trends has to do with helping military men

avoid fighting the last war. Their dilemma is this. The experience of the older

generation, who are the leaders directing preparations for the next one, is going to be dated. Presently the dating is since 1945, if we are talking about

a war which threatens the national jugular vein. Subsequent experience with

the likes of Korea, Vietnam, Grenada, Lebanon, and the Persian Gulf, colors

their thinking. Insofar as the combat in those small wars and big crises is concerned, the difference between them and World War II is the difference

between penny ante poker and a game for table stakes. Consider this. Admiral

Kelso's standard of performance for his strike aircraft in the attacks against

Libya was a no-loss criterion: not one prisoner to be marched around Tripoli.

In Korea and Vietnam losses of 2% per sortie were thought to be serious,

5% unsustainable. But in the five big force-on-force carrier duels in the Pacific

during World War II (Coral Sea, Midway, Eastern Solomons, Santa Cruz

Islands, and Philippine Sea) the average aircraft losses per battle were 40% for

the Americans and 60% for the Japanese. We don't think that way anymore,

but if there are enough chips in the pot we will see such losses again.

19 Op. Qt., pp. 196 and 198.
34 Wayne P. Hughes, Jr. Happily because of the turmoil taking place in the Soviet Union, little wars

are now more likely to continue, to be at the core of relevance. Nevertheless,

we are as dated in understanding the nature of real naval combat as were

the tacticians who struggled to sort out the effects of new technology—steam,

rifled guns, armor and steel hulls, fire control and electricity—during the

period from the end of the Napoleonic Wars to the beginning of World War

I, a period when there were very few data from combat at sea. To most

military men the study of history is restricted to study of the last war. If

they have time or inclination to probe history at all, it is usually as much

for inspiration as for analysis. Small wonder that we officers are accused of

preparing to fight the last war.

If historians are going to help military men to fight in the future, then

a search for constants, or principles as Mahan called them, is not enough:

it is necessary, but not sufficient. To see from the last war to the next, however

dimly, the key is the study of trends. In order to see trends, one must grasp

the sweep of history, and know what transpired looking back from the last

war to the next-to-last, to the next-to-next-to-last. Few men in uniform have

time to do that and fewer still believe the rewards are worth the time. But

it is very important. When I wrote Fleet Tactics and saw that trends were

at the heart of understanding, I had to incorporate some naval history; there

was no evading it. Not very much—only four chapters—but nothing I did

was more valuable in gaining perspective about naval tactics in the future.

I commend to you that trends are the neglected aspect of military history.

I have never seen a military historian make that point, unless it is Trevor

Dupuy.

There is one last self-appointed duty to perform, and it is a pleasant one. Seeing now that the study of history at the tactical level is for more than

entertainment, we should all want to know how good were Alfred Thayer

Mahan 's descriptions of naval tactics. Does Mahan help us discern the trends

when we look for them? Well, not directly, because at the tactical level that

was never his object, but the raw material is all there. Now, I cannot critique

his research nor would you want me to try. But I can talk about his insight

into naval operations, battle tactics, and naval leadership, and it is a great

strength. I think he is at his best in his first book, The Gulf and Inland Waters,

before he became captivated by strategic constants. Strange to say, clear

narrative that holds the reader's attention, engagement after engagement, is not easy to write. For example, the renowned Civil War historian, Bruce

Catton, fails. With him your mind wanders. Catton has so many personal

anecdotes of the everyday man—it is like the fetish of modern journalism

and its face-to-face interviews—that one loses sight of the battle. I know

Catton wants to put us there, to smell the gunpowder and fear, but that won't

do for my stated purpose. A military historian who does both is John Keegan,

not in The Price of Admiralty because the sea is not Keegan 's realm, but in The
Tactics and Principles of Strategy 35

Face of Battle. Keegan has the knack of giving you the forest and the trees:

both the tactical and the personal truth of combat.

Put Catton aside and compare Mahan with two of the best writers on the

Civil War, Douglas Southall Freeman in, say, Lee's Lieutenants, and U. S. Grant

in his Memoirs. About that war I think Mahan had their clarity and insight.

To another standard, he also had great influence among the naval historians

of later secondary works, like Carrol S. Alden, Allan F. Westcott, William

O. Stevens, Fletcher Pratt and E. B. Potter. Mahan is lucid, objective and

searching. Those who are only acquainted with his ponderous and pedantic

style of later years should be treated to a sample:

It was the daily custom for one of the gunboats to tow down a mortar-boat and place

it just above Craighead's, remaining near by during the twenty-four hours as guard.

The mortar threw its shells across the point into Pillow, and as the fire was harassing

to the enemy, the River Defence Fleet, which was now ready for action, determined

to make a dash at her. Between 4 and 5 A. M. on the morning of the 10th of May [1862],

the day after [Flag Officer] Foote's departure, the Cincinnati placed Mortar No. 16, ActingMaster Gregory, in the usual position, and then made fast herself to a great drift-pile on the same side, with her head up stream; both ends of her lines being kept on board,

to be easily slipped if necessary. The mortar opened fire at five. At six the eight

Confederate rams left their moorings behind the fort and steamed up, the black smoke

from their tall smoke-stacks being seen by the fleet above as they moved rapidly up

river. At 6.30 they came in sight of the vessels at Plum Point. As soon as they were

seen by the Cincinnati she slipped her lines, steamed out into the river, and then rounded

to with her head down stream, presenting her bow-guns, and opening at once upon

the enemy. The latter approached gallantly but irregularly, the lack of the habit of acting

in concert making itself felt, while the fire of the Cincinnati momentarily checked and,

to a certain extent, scattered them. The leading vessel, the General Bragg, was much

in advance of her consorts. She advanced swiftly along the Arkansas shore, passing close

by the mortar-boat and above the Cincinnati; then rounding to she approached the latter

at full speed on the starboard quarter, striking a powerful blow in this weak part of

the gunboat. The two vessels fell alongside, the Cincinnati firing her broadside as they came together; then the ram swinging clear made down stream, and, although the

Confederate commander claims that her tiller ropes alone were out of order, she took no further part in the fray. 20 Sounds like the brown water naval war in Viet Nam? Not quite, but closer

than any alternative you could have named in 1964. Had any of our young

naval officers read it as part of their shift in thinking from blue water

operations to the land-locked guerrilla war they were about to face? Not

very likely.

Mahan moves here and carries you along. His description of the intricate

Vicksburg campaign is vivid and (as far as I can tell) the source of many later

writers' descriptions. It wants only an appreciation of how much Grant's

operations depended on the Mississippi—how essential the rivers were to

everything he accomplished then and before, at Fort Henry and Fort

A.T. Mahan, The Gulf and Inland Waters, (New York, 1883), pp. 43-44.
36 Wayne P. Hughes, Jr. Donelson, and how Grant could be light on his feet because the river craft

were his logistics tail; and even that may be inferred. I had no idea until I read The Gulf and Inland Waters how swiftly the Union Navy swept on up

or down a river, wreaking havoc, once a strong point was breeched. A mere

three days after Fort Henry fell three Union gunboats had penetrated up the

Tennessee River all the way to Florence, in northern Alabama, destroying

bridges, riverboats, and goods along the shore. It would be thus again and

again. The mobility and logistic might of ships at sea is well known; they

were just as remarkable on rivers.

It seems to me the book that Mahan published seven years later and that

we honor today, The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, is also cogent, and

must have been harder to research. I do not say that Mahan was a better,

nor more accurate narrator of naval operations than Colomb or Corbett. And

they all were flowery and lacked crispness, for this was the Victorian age

in all its ostentation. His words are like a many-gabled mansion, bright with

frills, "All tarted up," as grandmother would say. But I like Mahan's elegance

in small doses, and he knows seamanship, and he paints a picture full of truth,

heroic enough but also critical.

I have said four things, and in doing so offered three pieces of advice. The

first is to correct the impression that strategy is somehow "more important."

Strategy is constrained by the capacity to win battles; means must determine

ends, just as much as ends govern means. My advice is to think of them as two sides of a single coin, and if you are enthralled by strategy, remember

to look at the backside of the coin.

The second is that there are principles, or constants, and there are trends, or changes in warfare. This is true of both strategy and tactics, and for that

matter of policy, logistics, and campaigning (or operational art). My advice

is to forget forever the common interpretation of Mahan that he preached

merely a search for principles of strategy. The uses and lessons of history

run much deeper, and are in any case as likely to have tactical as strategic

consequences.

The third is a theorem deriving from the first two. It is that discerning

trends is the special way history can help keep from fighting the last war.

Since tactics are as important in the long run as strategy, and since both

constants and trends of tactics will be manifest to an acute observer, it is important to look for both. My advice to military historians is to help military

men, who seldom know history well enough establish the tactical and

technological trends of the past in order to see the implications for the future.

Fourth and last, I am pleased to help honor Alfred Thayer Mahan. He still enriches our knowledge of naval battles and maritime operations, their ships,

their tactics, and their leaders. That is as important now as is the great

influence he once had in the citadels of power in bygone days.
37

Mahan: Then and Now

Rear Admiral J. C. Wylie, U.S. Navy (Ret.)

If we are going to look at Mahan's work, his perception and analysis of

sea power as it was a hundred years ago, and then look at what it means

today, the first thing to be done is to get a sensing of what that world was

like in 1890. There are several aspects of that world which are pertinent to

our discussion.

And here I should half-apologize, because I am going to list half a dozen

of these without the grace of transitional connecting paragraphs. I am going

to jump from one to the next rather abruptly to save time.

For one, in 1890 it was a Euro-centered and Euro-dominated world. The

United States, while intellectually and socially a part of this, was on the outer

edges of it. The world of western Europe was the center and all else somehow

a lesser fringe.

For a second, within the United States, its interests were largely, though

not entirely, focussed on the enormous westward continental expansion that

followed the Civil War. Along the Atlantic coast there was a surge of

maritime commercialism, the European trade and the China trade. And I doubt that many people noticed that this American maritime commerce was

largely a free ride on the coat-tails of the Pax Britannica, the near dominant

British world-wide naval hegemony. This was not altruism. Britain, for

instance, found it convenient to support the American Monroe Doctrine

because that held in check French or Spanish exploitation of the Americas.

A third aspect of relevance toward the end of the nineteenth century was

that the first phase of the Industrial Revolution was approaching maturity.

The development of steam power was beginning to transform industry and

provide electricity as well as both land and maritime propulsion. A new phase

of industry, commerce and finance had taken root.

Fourth, the great intellectual achievements of the nineteenth century were

found in the concepts of Charles Darwin. These not only signalled the basis

of an alternate to the Biblical origins of the world, but, more importantly,

they opened up a more perceptive study of all the natural and social sciences.
38 J.C. Wylie

At this time, the physical sciences were still plugging along quietly in the

wake of Sir Isaac Newton.

Fifth, the second great age of exploration had penetrated the inner lands

of the continents of Asia, Africa, and the Amazon basin of South America.

Sixth, this land exploration led to an enthusiastic adoption and expansion

of colonialism by the leading nations of Europe. Britain (which already had

a good head start), France, to a lesser extent Germany and Belgium, all assembled their own overseas empires in Africa, the Middle East, Southeast

Asia, and the Pacific Islands.

And for one more illustrative aspect of the nineteenth century I am going

to describe a state of mind. In the early years of the nineteenth century

immediately following the generation of Napoleonic Wars, there had arisen

an interest in how to manage great land wars on the continent of Europe.

Clausewitz, Jomini, and several lesser men had put their minds to this problem.

But by the end of this century, with the whole world opened up, with

colonialism as the wave of the future, and with the great unifying force of

the world's interconnecting maritime communication system open to

everyone's view, the time was ripe for a new concept.

Mahan supplied it: the concept that sea power and national greatness were

closely intertwined. Mahan's great contribution was that he found and

illustrated a quite impressive correlation between national power and

maritime power.

Toward the close o{ the nineteenth century, with the industrial revolution

an established fact, with the expansion of world trade, with the opening of

the non-European continents (particularly Africa), and with the general

acceptance of the concept ofcolonialism, the whole world had become a single

coherent strategic entity. It was an exciting prospect. This was when Mahan's

timely new expositions on the role of maritime power in history came along

to fill a need in the ordering of men's patterns of thought.

The basic vision, the insight, that successfully brought the whole subject

into public view and attention, belongs to Mahan. He had the insight; the

time was ripe; and because of this, to Mahan belongs the credit.

And what was the effect of this at the time?

Others, in this gathering, are discussing what it meant in Germany and

Japan. So I limit my short comment to the effect of Mahan in the United

States and Britain.

In our own country, two men were early and strongly influenced. Theodore

Roosevelt, from the time he was Police Commissioner in New York through

his Presidency, continuously received stimulus from Mahan in their sometimes

heated exchanges. The elder Henry Cabot Lodge, first in the House of

Representatives and then in the Senate, was for three decades a disciple and

supporter of Mahan. These two men, between them, set much of the course of United States policy during the productive years of their lives.
Mahan: Then and Now 39

Rear Admiral J.C. Wylie delivering the after dinner talk, "Mahan: Then and Now" at the Viking Hotel

during the Mahan Centennial Conference.
40 J.C. Wylie

In Britain, Mahan was perhaps even more widely recognized than in the

United States through the governing establishment. But at the same time these

British, in some strange way, accepted Mahan's work as well-earned praise

for past performance without realizing that a good track record does not itself

win races. While recognizing that Mahan (and shortly after him Corbett,

with his perhaps more graceful prose) had perceived a principal basis of the

growth and prosperity of the British Empire, they did not identify and alter

the radical reversal of traditional policy built into General Wilson's army

staff agreements with the French before the 1914 war. The British committed

their troops to the heart of the coming bloody, continental, Clausewitzian,

war.

The great maritime tradition that had been built starting with the Armada

and through the Napoleonic wars had been an oral tradition. During the

century of peace of the Pax Britannica this oral tradition had lapsed. The

thoughts of such men as Anson and the two great Pitts and Barham ashore,

and the intuitive deep understandings of that magnificent string of fighting

sailors at sea, Drake and Hawke and Collingwood and Saumarez and the

incomparable Nelson, those understandings had been forgotten. Their

memories were bright and the pub signs were beyond counting, but their lore

had been lost. These men must all have squirmed in their graves at this

essentially irrevocable reversal of the British maritime policy of centuries.

Sadly leaving behind us this incredibly costly aberration in British thinking

before World War I, let us look at Mahan's sea power in the middle years

of this twentieth century. Let us look at sea power as it was exploited by

the United States, not as a policy but as a basis for policy from which to

project and exploit other elements of national strength: military, political,

economic, financial, and psychological power.

Militarily, and in this case, in close cooperation with Britain, sea power

made it possible for the western allies to furnish the arms that kept the Soviets

fighting and to re-enter and win the European portion of World War II after

they had literally been driven off the continent, much as sea power had

eventually made it possible to dethrone Napoleon a century and a half earlier.

Politically, sea power made possible the critical political victories in Italy

and Greece and Turkey in the first few years after World War II even though

the United States was five thousand miles away and Soviet Communism was

just across the borders. Through sea power, we were closer, for all practical

purposes, to the scenes of action than was the Soviet Union.

Economically, sea power is even more subtle. A major corporation, some

decades ago, built a large mill on the Delaware River to process Venezuelan

ore. Behind that action was the firm and probably unrecognized assumption

of sea power and maritime access to that overseas ore. That same general

assumption prevails today, and, I might add, a lot of other nations are taking

a welcome free ride on it.
Mahan: Then and Now 41

Financially, the Marshall Plan and the hundreds of grants, loans, and

economic and military subsidies all around the world during and after World

War II all had maritime power as their firm but tacit policy basis.

And psychologically, recall that the missiles and warheads were pulled out

of Cuba thirty years ago.

In looking carefully, if all too briefly, at this mid-century exploitation of

several of our national strengths overseas, there emerges a rather special

aspect of sea power that is all too little recognized.

I have just noted five of the areas in which, during the mid-century years,

sea power played a critical role, in which sea power was quietly, at times

almost sub-liminally, involved in the extensions overseas of five areas of

national strength. I mentioned the military, the political, the economic, the

financial, and the psychological strengths of the United States.

Of these five, and there are others, only one was involved with actual

combat with war itself. Only the projection of military power normally

involves fighting.

Now let us put this special aspect of sea power in perspective. Armies and

navies and air forces, while they are all basically instruments of governmental

force, are not the same kind of force. They can not be equated by mere

acknowledgement of the technical differences that they operate in the

different media of land, sea, and air. The difference is both profound and

much more subtle than is generally recognized. And here I hasten to interject

that "different" does not mean "better" or "worse". I am neither criticizing

nor denigrating armies and air forces. When I say that navies are different

I mean just that and only that. "Different" means different characteristics

and capabilities and limitations as direct or indirect instruments of national

strength.

Of these three major kinds of armed forces, only navies can have benign

as well as an effective general employment in times of relative peace because,

basically, they operate in the relatively neutral medium of the world's ocean

waterways. Navies do not normally intrude upon the sovereignties of other

and sometimes sensitive nations around the world.

It is difficult to imagine a friendly visit of a regiment of troops, or even

a platoon, to an Asian or an African nation. It is difficult to imagine a flight

of bombers or fighter planes paying friendly and even casual calls on other

nations around the world.

I am not talking about the special cases, which by the way, may soon

diminish, in which U.S, troops and aircraft are stationed, by agreement and

often by request, in places such as NATO nations or Japan or Panama. I am

talking about the normal and almost casual intermittent maritime presence

of naval forces wherever in the world that presence may be mutually

appropriate.
42 J.C. Wylie

This almost indefinable quality of "maritime presence"—subtle, benign,

ubiquitous presence—actual or potential presence—is the great asset ot sea power in times ot peace and even in times of one or another variety of tension.

This quality of actual or even potential maritime presence anywhere around

the world is the quality that sets navies apart from armies and air forces in

employments short of war. This world-wide and benign ubiquity, this subtle

evidence of naval and thus of national strength is what makes viable the other

and normally benign elements of national strength when extended overseas. A navy has a peacetime as well as a wartime employable usefulness to the

nation. This usefulness is that it provides a basis tor other national policies

which call for the extension overseas of other and benign elements of our

national strength.

I think we can trace much of this mid-century exploitation of sea power

as evolving from the initial brilliant and perceptive vision of Mahan. He has

exercised enormous influence on the thoughts and actions of other men.

But the post-World War II situation is now essentially behind us. On the other side of this bi-polar world, the presumption of economic

historical determinism, the intellectually insupportable and practically

unworkable rationale of the communism of Marx and Lenin, and the

subsequent total arrogance of Stalin, are all collapsing. They are foundering

under the irresistible weight today of a two-hundred-year-old idea first, as far as I know, set forth in the Declaration of Independence—those five

imperishable words ". . . . the consent of the governed . . . ."

As for the free world today, a hundred years after Mahan published his

most famous book, let us look back at the half dozen representative (but not

random) illustrations of the nature of the world in 1890 with which this

discussion opened.

1. It is no longer a world centered on western Europe. Nothing less than

a world-wide comprehension will now serve the strategist.

2. The United States has moved from an isolated internal focus on itself

to a world wide accommodation of its interests, its responsibilities, and its involvements.

3. The Industrial Revolution has been overtaken by several aspects of the

techno-electronic revolution. Perhaps the two most important are the world

wide communication revolution (which has enormous social and political as well as military implications), and the vast and still embryonic informationmanagement revolution (which has equally vast implications in almost every

walk of life). 4. Darwin and the revolution in the natural and social sciences has been

balanced by Einstein's ideas and the resulting incredible explosion of

knowledge in the physical sciences, an explosion of knowledge which ranges

from the macro-physics of Stephen Hawking through the many aspects of
Mahan: Then and Now 43

space travel and nuclear energy and even floppy discs to the mim-micro-biophysics ot the men who are altering genes.

5. The earth is now known. The frontiers ot exploration are now in the

laboratories and m space and the universe.

6. Colonialism, that driving torce ot the late nineteenth century, has now

become a universal sin. The concept ot colonialism, the assumed natural

dominance ot one people over another, has been rejected in tavor of the aev

assumption ot equality ot all mankind. This new assumption ot equality may,

in turn, be the spark behind that most powertul political torce in the world

today: the concept ot nationalism. Thus colonialism has been succeeded by

nationalism.

In sum, every characteristic that I cited to describe the nature ot the world

ot Mahan in 1890 has been upset or superceded. Not one ot those six 1890

aspects is valid today.

Without taking the time to explain, even had I the skills and the knowledge,

I posit that the world at this closing ot the twentieth century is in the midst

of the greatest combined moral and social and intellectual and political and

techno-scientific revolution in all history, greater even than that ot the

combined Renaissance and Reformation which brought the European world

out oi the Dark and Middle Ages in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

These are turbulent and exciting times. Practically nothing is the same as

it was a hundred years ago.

So. where does that leave Mahan's notions oi sea power today?

Since the moral, intellectual, social, political, economic, military', financial,

and technological criteria ot the late nineteenth century have all changed so radicallv as to be largely irrelevant, it seems to me that the onlv wav to

appraise sea power then and now is to start with abstractions. Only in the

abstract can we connect 1890 and 199t

In non-specific terms, what is strategy? What is its aim? How might the

aim be achieved? And what is the role oi sea power in that process as it applies

to the United States?

And here again, as I did earlier. I should halt-apologize. For the sake ot

the brevity* appropriate to atter-dinner comment. I am going to offer a series

oi theorems without the proot that should accompany them. I am willing

to argue them later and privately it any oi you should find that appropriate.

The first theorem is that a strategy is a plan tor doing something to achieve

some known aim.

The second is that the aim ot strategy is some measure oi control over

some other individual or group. This control may be direct or indirect. It may be partial or complete. It may be subtle or obvious. It may be immediate

or slow. But. whatever may be its characteristics, it should be sufficient to

induce or to torce its target into some status or position or action or attitude

acceptable to the strategist.
44 J.C. Wylie

Then a third theorem is that this desired measure of control may be achieved

by manipulation of a pressure point, a center of gravity, a leverage which

will control or sway or influence the situation to the advantage of the

strategist.

Please note that everything I have said about strategy in these last few

paragraphs pertains to any strategy or plan for doing something. It applies

to a domestic political strategy. It applies to a strategy for peddling breakfast

food. It applies to the strategy of a game of poker. It is not limited to national or military strategy.

So we now narrow the focus of the discussion to national strategy, which

includes, but by no means is limited to, military strategy.

National strategy comes into play when one nation wants another to adopt

a course acceptable to the strategist. This requires some degree of control,

of influence, some kind of leverage, social, political, economic, military, or whatever may be appropriate.

The connecting link between Mahan's sea power of 1890, the sea power

of the middle years of this century, and sea power today at the end of the

twentieth century is the inherent capability, then and now, in peace or in

war, to extend some kind of control or influence, some kind of leverage, from

the sea on to the land.

As it did in Mahan's writings a century ago, as it did for the United States

in the middle years of this century, one nearly universal vehicle for this

leverage, for extension of control today may be found in sea power, not as a policy in itself, but as a basis for policy. Exploitation of this capability to

extend some measure of control, more often a degree of influence, from the

world's great interconnecting maritime communication system, from the sea on to the land, is the great asset of sea power then and today. A kind and

degree of control that may be direct or subtle, immediate or slow, forceful or benign, the variations are infinite—some measure of control or influence

extended from the sea on to the land.

This worldwide and normally quite benign ubiquity is the great and unique

asset of sea power.

As long as the United States chooses to continue as the leader of the free

world, sea power is the absolutely vital basis for United States policy, in peace

or war, anywhere in the world. Without sea power as its tacit, but no less

real, basis, no policy in the world wide interests of the United States would

be fully viable. Such a policy would have little substance.

No matter what course is adopted by Nato, if it continues to involve any

United States military support, the United States policy must have sea power

as its basis. Whether it means maintenance of troops in Europe, or it means

promised help from this side of the ocean in event of need, the U.S. policy

vis a vis Nato must be predicated on sea power as its basis.
Mahan: Then and Now 45

Argue as you will our policy toward Israel, as long as it contains some

kind of assurance, implicit or tacit, of Israel's survival as a nation, it must

be based on sea power.

Argue as you may be inclined the continued access of the free world to

Middle-Eastern petroleum, any United States policy short of willingness to

surrender that access must be based on sea power.

Argue the commercial or political access of the United States toward the

Pacific rim, from Korea to Singapore to Melbourne, any way you choose,

any U.S. policy short of surrender of that access must be based on sea power.

Argue the United States financial or economic support of any portion of

the third world, in Asia or Africa or Latin America, any positive policy must

be based on sea power.

As long as the United States chooses to continue as leader of the free world,

then the moral, social, political, economic, military, technological, financial

and psychological influences of the United States—and I have deliberately

been repeating these many elements of our national strength almost to the

point of boredom in order to drive home the fact that all of them together

make up the composite whole of our national strength—as long as the United

States chooses to continue as leader of the free World, then this composite

amalgam of all elements of national policies must have sea power as their

basis for policy. That policy basis is the capacity inherent in sea power to

extend some measure of control, more often a control better described as influence, from the sea on to the land.

Sea power in this decade ahead is not a policy to be debated in isolation or by itself. Sea power, this essentially benign, ubiquitous, worldwide

maritime presence, is the indispensable basis for the many different aspects

of our American foreign policies all around the world.

Mahan's sea power has grown to be immeasurably more important, not

only to the United States but to the entire free world, immeasurably more

important in 1990 than it was in 1890.
46

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49

Japan and Mahan

Roger Dingman

In May 1890, just a few months short of his fiftieth birthday, Alfred Thayer

Mahan published the book that gained him a place in history. The Influence

of Sea Power upon History made its author famous, gave him a second career,

and cast its shadow over the subsequent development of navies around the

world. During the century since its publication the influence of The Influence

has been analyzed and debated extensively by historians, strategists, and naval

officers in the English-speaking world. In 1990, we know a great deal about

Mahan's impact upon the navies of the two nations that most concerned him:

America and Britain.

Once one leaves the Anglo-American world, however, it becomes quite

clear that we know relatively little about the impact of Mahan and his

writings. If one looks far to the west, across the Pacific to Japan, the question

of Mahan and his influence upon naval developments becomes quite murky.

That assertion might seem, on its face to be counter-factual. Mahan himself

said that more of his works were translated in his lifetime into Japanese than

into any other language. His Influence came out in a new Japanese translation

only eight years ago, and a Japanese language biography of the admiral has

just been published. Moreover, scholars here and in Japan have not been loath

to suggest that Mahan cast a long shadow across the Pacific. Fifteen years

ago two leading American and Japanese historians agreed that Mahan's ghost

propelled the United States and Imperial Japanese navies toward Pearl

Harbor. Only two years ago, the most recent analyst of Mahan's influence

in the United States asserted that the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) had

pursued Mahan's strategic doctrine "in purer form" than any other navy. 1

1 Alfred Thayer Mahan, From Sail to Steam Recollections of Naval Life (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1907; New York: Da Capo Press ed., 1968), p. 3; John B. Hattendorf and Lynn C. Hattendorf, comp., A

Bibliography of the Workds of Alfred Thayer Mahan, (Newport, R.I.: Naval War College Press, 1986), entry

A2 translation n; Tanimitsu Taro, Koko no teitoku Arufuredo T. Mahan (The Noble Admiral Alfred T. Mahan)

(Tokyo: Hakuto sh5bo, 1990); Asada Sadao, "The Japanese Navy and the United States" in Pearl Harbor

as History, Dorothy Borg and Shumpei Okamoto, eds., (New York: Columbia University Press, 1973),

p. 259; Richard W. Turk, The Ambiguous Relationship: Theodore Roosevelt and Alfred Thayer Mahan (Westport,

Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1987), p. 4.
50 Roger Dingman

I am skeptical of these claims about Mahan's influence across the Pacific for

several reasons. They are, in the first place, little more than claims,

unsupported by any substantial body of evidence. They reflect the

superannuated notion that the flow of "influence" across the Pacific was

unidirectional - from America to Japan. They also presume a singularity about

Mahan and his ideas that contradicts the multi-faceted character of both.

Consequently, this essay addresses one central question: To what extent

did Alfred Thayer Mahan have an impact upon Japan and its navy? In

developing an answer to that puzzle, I will focus on but three of the many

roles Mahan played with regard to Japan. I will leave in the background his

role as arms-merchant in the late 1860's, when he witnessed the delivery to

Japan of the former Conferederate ram Stonewall, the vessel that sealed the

fate of the shogun's navy and, paradoxically, helped make its defeated

commander one of the founding fathers of the IJN.2 In that role, the young

lieutenant was but an executor of the policies of others, not a force for change

in his own right. Nor will what follows analyze Mahan's role as historian,

for I have found no evidence of his significance in that capacity on the far

side of the Pacific. Instead, I will focus on Mahan as publicist for building

a great navy, as naval thinker, and as the "god of seapower."

Mahan played the first two of those roles, simultaneously, in life; the third

was his only in death. In this essay I will, for the sake of analytical clarity,

consider each separately. But in fact three fundamental questions about

Mahan's "career" in Japan recur in a way that provides unity to the inquiry

that follows. First, how did the Japanese come to know Mahan and his

writings? Secondly, how did they make use of him? And, finally, what impact,

if any, did he have upon Japan's naval policies?

II. NAVAL PUBLICIST

Mahan first became a potential force for change in Japan in his role as publicist for the building of a great navy. Kaneko KentarO brought Mahan,

figuratively, to Japan. Kaneko, who as a youth had gone to America with

the Iwakura Mission, stayed on to obtain a Harvard bachelor's degree, and

eventually accompanied his patron, Prince ItO, on a tour of Europe, was one

of the great importers of foreign ideas into mid-Meiji Japan. In 1890 he went

to the United States and there, in all probability, was introduced to The

Influence of Sea Power Upon History by his old Cambridge friend and its most

famous reviewer, Theodore Roosevelt. Kaneko read the. book with great

enthusiasm. It brought to him something akin to a burst of Zen enlightenment.

When he reached home, he translated its first, seminal chapter and gave a

2 Mahan, From Sail to Steam, pp. 251-252; Mark R. Peattie, Nan'yo: The Rise and Fall oftheJapanese in Micronesia 1885-1945 (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1988), p. 5.
Japan and Mahan 51

copy to the Navy Minister. In that form, Mahan appeared in The New Seapower

Magazine, the journal of the Imperial Japanese Naval Officers Association.3 Kaneko brought Mahan's Influence to a navy and a nation that were poised,

for yet another time in the barely two decades since the restoration of the

Meiji emperor in 1868, on the brink of great changes. The Japanese navy in

1890 was a healthy adolescent. Pieced together as a distinct force from domain

(han) and shogunal naval forces eighteen years earlier, it consisted of nearly

sixty ships of which twenty-five could be considered modern warships. Some

1400 officers and ten thousand men manned this force, which was divided

into two elements, one to defend the Japan Sea coast, the other to operate

in the Pacific. The largest of its ships were modern cruisers, all of which

were built abroad. The ships of this navy, British and American built, were

like their captains, men trained in Holland, England, and Germany, an

amalgam of foreign influences.4 This navy's leaders were strong and shrewd - but politically weak. Its two

key figures were losers. Admiral Enomoto Takeaki had commanded the

shogunal navy defeated by the Emperor Meiji 's champions. Admiral SaigO

Tsugumichi was in charge of the ill-fated 1874 expedition to Taiwan.

Although both men were "rehabilitated" and rose to prominence as effective

bureaucrats in what was essentially a government of oligarchs, the navy

remained distinctly subordinate in power and influence to the army. It had

no independent general staff until 1893. Indeed, barely ten days after Mahan's Influence was published, Marshal Yamagata Aritomo, the prime minister,

removed both Enomoto and Saigo from the cabinet. 5 Much like an adolescent, this navy had many visions of what it wanted

to be. It wanted, in the first instance, to be big. In 1888, Navy Minister Saigo

argued that a fleet appropriate for "an independent nation" should consist

of eight armored battleships, eight armored cruisers, sixteen first class and

thirty two cruisers, and a variety of smaller craft which, in total, added up

to a force more than twice the size of the existing navy. The Imperial Navy

also wanted to be on the cutting edge of technological innovation; two of

its steel cruisers were considered the most powerful in the world. The Japanese

Navy also wanted to be very much like the Royal Navy. Indeed, by putting

3 Takenobu Y., ed., The Japan Year Book, 1915 (Tokyo: Japan Year Book Office, 1915), p. 157; Obata

Kyugoro, An Interpretation of the Life of Viscount Shibusawa (Tokyo: Tokyo Printing Company, 1937), p. 79; Hamada Kenji, Prince ltd (Tokyo: Sanseido, 1936), p. 84; Turk, p. 16; Kaneko Kentarob, Preface to Alfred

T. Mahan, Taiheiyo kaiken ron [On the Command of the Pacific] (Tokyo: Senryu do, 1899; Asada Sadao,

ed. and transl., Arufredo T. Mahan, Volume 8 of Amerika kotenhunko [Classics in American Culture] (Tokyo:

Kenkyu sha, 1977), p. 8.

4 Peter G. Cornwall, "The Meiji Navy," Unpublished University of Michigan Ph.D. dissertation, 1970,

pp. 42-52; Toyama Saburo, Nihon kaigun shi [A History of the Japanese Navy] (Tokyo: Kyoiku sha, 1980),

p. 20; Stephen Howarth, The Fighting Ships of the Rising Sun: The Drama of the Imperial Japanese Navy 1895- 1945 (New York: Atheneum, 1983), pp. 15-16; Peattie, Nan'yo, pp. 5-6.

5 Nagasaka Kaneo, Denki dai nippon shi dai jusan han kaigun hen [A Biographical History of Great Japan:

Volume 13: The Navy] (Tokyo: Shinzan kaku, 1936), pp. 33-41, 61-82; Tokinotani Masaru, ed., Nihon

kindai shijiten [Historical Dictionary of Modern Japan] (Tokyo: Toyo'keizai shimpo sha, 1958), p. 682.
52 Roger Dingman

its naval academy in the hands of a team of British instructors who required

mastery of English as well as naval science, the IJN made clear its desire to

be an international gentleman of sorts. 6 Precisely what that meant was not, as yet, very clear. Navy leaders spoke

of protecting the nation's long coastline and counted the number of European

and Chinese warships in East Asian waters. But they had no designated

hypothetical enemy. The army wanted a force to guarantee safe transport

of troops to the Asian mainland; and diplomats needed ships to back up their

efforts to "open" Korea. Admiral Enomoto, however, thought the navy's

future lay to the south and east, rather than to the west. He used it to annex

Iwo Jima and to stimulate interest in further expansion, by trade and

emigration, into the Pacific islands. In 1890, he sent the IJN training ship

Tsukuba to Hawaii for the first time.7 This navy served a state that was experiencing dramatic political,

economic, and diplomatic changes. Japan was about to embark upon an

experiment in constitutional government. In 1890 the nation held its first

elections. They ushered in a decade and more of debate and tension between

advocates of party government in the Diet (legislature) and the men of 1868

who had become the oligarchs of Japanese politics. These political changes

meant that the navy had to appeal for funds for its growth to a broader, less

homogeneous audience.8 Economically, that would not in and of itself be difficult. During the years

that Mahan was drafting his Influence, Japan's GNP grew by twenty-five

percent; in the decade between the book's publication and the end the century,

it would more than double. In 1890, the navy's budget was barely one percent

- precisely the magic number for today's Japanese defense budget - of the

GNP. Moreover, the Meiji oligarchs, and their parliamentary adversaries,

were prudent managers of the national accounts. Government expenditures

exceeded revenues in only six of the 23 years since the Restoration. In eight

of the ten years remaining in the nineteenth century, they preserved that

relationship.9 But much like the navy, the Meiji state as yet seemed unsure of the role

it should play on the stage of world politics. Its foreign policy aimed, in the

short term, at ending the vestiges of extraterritoriality imposed upon the

shogun's Japan by Commodore Perry and his successors. But in the longer

term, Japan appeared to be torn between contradictory visions of what its

6 Kaigun sho hen, Yamamoto to Gombei to kaigun [Yamamoto Gombei and the Navy] (Tokyo: Hara shobo,

1966), pp. 302-304; Howarth, p. 15; Cornwall, pp. 85-86.

7 Kaigun sho, Yamamoto, p. 306; Peattie, p. 7.

8 Kenneth B. Pyle, The New Generation in Meiji Japan: Problems of Cultural Identity, 1889-1895 (Stanford,

California: Stanford University Press, 1969), pp. 144-145.

9 B.R. Mitchell, ed., International Historical Statistics: Africa and Asia (New York: New York University Press, 1982), pp. 660, 728; Kaigun sho, Yamamoto, p. 401; Boei cho Boei kenshujo senshi shitsu, ed., Senshi sosho kaigun gunsenbi (1) Showajuroku nen juichigatsu made [War History Series: Naval Armaments 1: To November

1941] (Tokyo: Asagumo shimbun sha, 1969), Appendix chart 5.
Japan and Mahan 53

foreign policy should be after that - torn, indeed, between conflicting views

of what economic growth and political modernity would mean

internationally. MostJapanese thought their empire must expand; the question

was - in which direction and by what means? Indeed, competing visions of

continental and maritime empires - the latter a concept central to Mahan's Influence - had already appeared. The critical, and by 1890 as yet unresolved

issue, before the Japanese people was how naval force might be used to assure

the security, prosperity, and continued growth of their empire.10 Kaneko thought Mahan offered guidance in answering that question. As

he later recalled, the Influence provided "an opportunity to resolve questions

that had haunted me for a very long time." He acted, joining the Oriental

Association and the Japanese Colonial Society, groups made up of politicians,

officials, businessmen, and educators who advocated the creation, in one way

or another, of a stronger, more independent, and greater Japan. But at least

in the short term, Mahan had little impact on the navy, the cabinet, or the

Diet. In September 1890 the admirals sought funds for a scaled down version

of their fleet construction program, emphasizing the need for two 9500 ton

battleships to match growing British and Chinese naval strength. But the

cabinet pleaded poverty, and the government sought only two cruisers and

a destroyer from the Diet. A year later, the admirals tried but failed to commit

the government to a long-term building program centered on four battleships

and four armored cruisers. Not until 1893, after demonstrating its power by

completely rejecting the cabinet's previous year's proposed budget, did the

Diet approve construction of two battleships, one cruiser, and one gunboat,11 The Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, however, changed the politics of

naval expansion. The IJN's success in the Battle of the Yalu fueled a wave

of patriotism. The foreign ministry's compromises in the Treaty of

Shimonoseki and intervention by France, Russia, and Germany that deprived

Japan of control of the Liaotung Peninsula triggered an explosion of

xenophobic nationalism. The war, moreover, left Japan a proto-maritime

empire, with new territory in Taiwan, new influence in Korea, and the

prospect of commercial, if not territorial, growth in Manchuria. From 1895

onwards, far more citizens and legislators were ready to believe that a strong

navy was essential to the prosperity and survival of the Japanese Empire.12

10 Akira Iriye, Pacific Estrangement: Japanese and American Expansion, 1897-1911 (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1972), pp. 21-25. For a different view, which argues that Imperial Japan was

from first to last a continental empire, see Clark G. Reynolds, "The Continental Strategy of Imperial

Japan," U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, 109 (August 1983), pp. 65-67.

11 Kaneko, Preface to Taiheiyo kaiken ron; Alfred T. Mahan, Kaijo kenroyoku shi ron (Tokyo: Toho kyokai,

1896), volume 2. appendix: An explanation of the establishment of the Oriental Association; Iriye, p. 40; Kaigun sho, Yamamoto, pp. 309-337, Boei cho, Kaigun gunsenbi 1 appendix: chart 5; Iwanami shoten henshu

bu, Kindai ninon sogo nempyo (General Historical Tables for Moder Japan) (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1968),

p. 134.

12 Iriye, pp. 45-47; Pyle, pp. 179-183.
54 Roger Dingman

The IJN did grow dramatically over the next eight years. In 1894, it went

to war against China with an assemblage of ships numerically inferior to those

of its prospective foe. In 1904, Japan challenged Russia with a force whose

nucleus was six battleships and six armored cruisers, enough to give it a slight

numerical and definite technological edge over the enemy's Far Eastern fleet.

In the interim, the Japanese navy experienced what a Philadelphia shipbuilder

called a "cyclone" of growth: its manpower nearly doubled; the number of

its ships rose almost 30%; and its total tonnage jumped nearly 300%. The

average naval budget in this pre-Russo-Japanese War period was almost seven

times the annual average of those during the five pre-Sino-Japanese War

years. And yet the cost of the navy as a percentage of GNP was more than

halved. 13 The Imperial Navy, however, had to fight for funds in a political

environment that was much more turbulent than that of the pre-Sino-Japanese

War years. Its leadership was stable; only five men served as Navy Minister

between the publication of Mahan's Influence in 1890 and his death nearly

twenty-five years later. Cabinets were more fractious and fragile, as oligarchs

and proto-party leaders jockeyed for power. Only three cabinets governed

between 1890 and 1896; but twice as many were formed during the next eight

years. Departing from usual practice during that same period, the government

in four different years, spent more than it took in. The year of the first deficit,

it should be noted, was 1897 - when the naval budget climbed to an all-time

high, topping out at more than seven times what it had been in 1890. 14 In this kind of environment, those who championed building a great navy

appear to have found Mahan useful. He was, of course, by the latter half

of the 1890's a much more authoritative figure than he had been earlier. The

captain was the Paul Kennedy of the decade - a man who metamorphosed

from struggling scholar into celebrity of world-wide renown. Queen Victoria

and Kaiser Wilhelm had received Mahan and reportedly had read his book.

The Influence, by the end of the decade had run through fifteen English

language editions and been translated into five languages. By 1897, the flow

of articles from his pen was thought important enough to warrant re- publication as The Interest of America in Sea Power. Mahan had also been called

back from retirement to become a persona in Washington, the city which by

decade's end was the capital of the newest, great power. 15

13 Toyama Saburo, Nihon kaigun shi [A History of the Japanese Navy] (Tokyo: Kyoiku sha, 1980), pp. 68, 91; Cornwall, pp. 45-46, 52; Kaigun sho, Tamamoto Gombei, p. 401, Boei cho, Kaigun guttsenbi 1, appendix,

chart 5; B.R. Mitchell, comp., International Historical Statistics, Africa and Asia (New York: New York

University Press, 1982), pp. 660, 728.

14 Tokinotani, Kindai nihon shijiten, pp. 682-685; Mitchell, Africa and Asia, p. 660; Boei cho, Kaigun gunsenbi

1, appendix, chart 5.

15 Robert Seager, II, Alfred Thayer Mahan: The Man and His Letters (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1977), pp. 279-281, 348-352, 354-429, passim; William E. Livezey, Mahan on Sea Power (Norman: University of

Oklahoma Press, 1947), p. 67; Hattendorf and Hattendorf, entries A2 a-q, A2 Trans a-j.
Japan and Mahan 55

In July 1895 Navy Minister SaigO Tsugumichi used Mahan-like language

in proposing to the cabinet a 75-ship building program, of which four were

to be first class battleships. He argued that the naval engagements of the war

against China proved the need for an effective fleet rather than simply a particular number of ships. His rationale for building such a fleet was, in

essence, Mahan 's: the Imperial Navy must be able "to exercise control of

the sea". The power of that phrase was not great enough to overcome the

cabinet's caution and Saigo's colleagues divided the building program into

two phases, the first of which was presented to the Diet in December 1895,

the second a year later. That prudence paid off, for early in 1896 the legislators,

for the first time, committed themselves to fund a long-term, naval expansion

program. 16 With that preliminary victory in hand, first the Naval Officers'

Association, and then the Oriental Association, swung into action with a complete translation of Mahan's Influence. In April 1897, he learned that the

latter group had presented copies of the book to the emperor and crown

prince. The book was used as a text at the military and naval academies, and,

the Imperial Household Agency had purchased three hundred copies for

placement in every middle and high school in the empire. Two years later,

having returned to America to claim an honorary degree from Harvard, now

Baron Kaneko was, once again, taken with Mahan 's latest work. He brought

it home for translation and distribution by the Oriental Association under

an intriguing new title. What was originally The Interest ofAmerica in Sea Power

became On the Command of the Pacific. 17 That metamorphosis suggests an important point about how and why

Japanese naval expansionists found Mahan as naval publicist useful to their cause. He was not so much the propounder of specific doctrines as the

reaffirming expositor of ideas they already held. His Influence was not received

as gospel, but it was taken out of mothballs and refurbished, so to speak, when

it became politically prudent to do so. Baron Kaneko and those like him did

not see Mahan as a provider of insight into immediate American policies;

if they had, more than a year would not have passed between the publication

and translation of his America's Interest. Instead, Baron Kaneko and Japanese naval expansionists found in Mahan

more general arguments about the relationship between seapower and

national power that suited their immediate political needs. The Influence of

Sea Power Upon History was presented to naval officers and ordinary citizens

as a reminder that principles - ideas that could be discerned from the study

of the past - and not technology or politics alone must guide the development

16 Kaigun sho, Yamamoto Gombei, pp. 246-260; Kindai nihon sogo nempyo, p. 146.

17 Secretary, Oriental Association to Mahan, April 1, 1897, box 3, Alfred T. Mahan papers, Library of

Congress; Kaneko Kentaro, Yubei kenbun roku [A Record of Things Heard and Seen on a Journey to America]

(Tokyo: Hachiya shoten, 1900), Preface; Kaneko preface to Taiheiyo kaiken ron.
56 Roger Dingman

of the fleet. Mahan provided, as Kaneko argued in his introduction to America's

Interest, evidence that the Americans had awakened from their illusions about

the need for a great navy. If Japan was to retain its position as the greatest

maritime nation in the Pacific, its citizens ought to read what Mahan had

written. For after all, one of his essays in this second volume to appear in

Japanese culminated in the classic defense for spending money on arms in

peacetime: "A navy ... is, in the last analysis, a political factor of the utmost

importance in international affairs, one more often deterrent than irritant."18 To suggest that Mahan the publicist of seapower was a tool of potentially

great value to Japanese naval expansionists, however, is not to argue that

he was in any sense the cause of their actions. The IJN's leaders had outlined

the kind of fleet they wanted before his Influence appeared. While they invoked

his ideas and used his language in the wake of the Sino-Japanese War to justify

fleet expansion, it was that conflict - and the prospect ofanother with Imperial

Russia - that provided the much more basic sense of threat that yielded

affirmative Diet votes for a bigger navy. At no point between 1890 and the

outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War was Mahan presented as spokesman or prophet for a hypothetical foe. He was, at most, a tool which others employed

to serve their own ends.

III. NAVAL THINKER

If Mahan as publicist was a useful tool for Japanese naval expansionists,

can it also be said that Mahan as naval thinker became a force for intellectual

change within the IJN?

The short answers to that question are quite clear. In 1974, Stephen Pelz

suggested that Mahan was a kind of intellectual godfather to the IJN's two

most important early twentieth century strategists, Akiyama Saneyuki and

Sato Tetsutaro. Through them the concept of a battleship fleet whose purpose

was to seize and maintain command of the sea became the dominant element

in Japanese naval thought. Mahan also provided the enemies of arms control,

Admiral KatO Kanji foremost among them, with the intellectual ammunition

which they used in the early 1930's to destroy the Washington naval arms

limitation system. Thus Mahan slew the lesser dragon of guerre de course in

the Pacific precisely as he slaughtered its more terrible French counterpart

in the Atlantic and Mediterranean. 19 Such short answers leave open at least three questions which must be

resolved if Mahan's impact upon the IJN is to be properly understood. First,

18 Ibid; Suikosha introduction to Mahan, Kaijo kenryoku shi ron, pp. 1-12; Alfred T. Mahan, The Interest of America in Seapower, Present and Future (Boston: Little, Brown, & Co., 1898 ed.), pp. 171-172.

19 Stephen Pelz, Race to Pearl Harbor (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1974), pp. 25-27; Kenneth

Hagan, "The Influence of Mahan on History: A Centennial Reassessment," speech at American Military

Institute luncheon, Organization of American Historians Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C., March 23, 1990.
Japan and Mahan 57

what was the character of that navy's leadership at the beginning of the

century, and how intellectually open was it? Second, how did Japanese naval

leaders come to know Mahan and to what extent did they consider him useful

to their purposes? And thirdly, what impact, if any, from Mahan is to be

found in their writings on strategy?

The leadership of the IJN during Mahan's lifetime was small, savvy, and

most certainly open to ideas from outside Japan. There were, until the turn

of the century, only three admirals, five navy ministers, and, in the seven

years of its existence, two chiefs of the naval staff. Some of these men enjoyed

what seem by today's standards remarkably long tenure in office. Ito Sukeyuki

commanded the naval staff for a decade, from 1895 to 1905. Yamamoto

Gombei would be chief of the powerful naval affairs bureau, navy vice

minister and minister, or prime minister from 1895 until 1914. Moreover, each

generation of the inner leadership corps saw to it that the next was exposed

to foreign ideas as it had been either indirectly through higher education or

directly through assignments overseas.20 One measure of this openness was the 1886 decision to establish a higher

naval college, one not implemented until November 1888 when Captain John

Ingles, RN, arrived to take charge of its instructional program. Over the next

six years, he made it a good professional school, one which emphasized

engineering and mathematics, to which were added other specialized

scientific courses. Following an interruption occasioned by the Sino-Japanese

War, the college curriculum in 1897 was modified to take account of recent

developments in Europe. The president, Captain (later Admiral) Sakamoto

Toshiatsu, introduced a course modeled on that taught at the French Naval

War College. For the first time, a handful of students would concentrate on

strategy and tactics, naval administration, and leadership rather than more

technical subjects. Even so, this course ran for a mere six months, while those

in engineering and related specialties kept students for two years.21 1897 also brought a decided change to the IJN's other institutional window

on the outside world, the overseas resident observer system. From its beginning in 1873 through 1896, this program sent 106 men to study in nine

countries; nearly a third of them left Japan after the publication of Mahan's

Influence. All but six officers concentrated on engineering or technological

subjects. In 1897, and again in 1900, five officers were sent to the United States,

Britain, France, Germany, and Russia for two year terms to study such subjects

as strategy, naval administration, and national defense policy. Three years

later, another group of five went to Europe and the United States to study

those subjects as well as international law and naval building programs. From

20 Tokinotani, Kindai Nihon shi jiten, pp. 682-686; Toyoda J5, Kaigun gunreibu [The Naval General Staff] (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1987), pp. 85-86.

21 Sanematsip Yuzuru, Kaigun daigaku kyoiku [Education at the Naval War College] (Tokyo: Kojin sha, 1985), pp. 48-49, 54-55.
58 Roger Dingman

this group came the senior strategists at the Imperial Japanese Naval War

College, two of its presidents, a chief of the naval staff, and the two senior,

uniformed delegates to both the Washington and the First London Naval Arms

Limitation Conferences. Collectively these men represented the "brains" of

the IJN over the next three decades.22 How did these leaders of the future come into contact with Alfred Thayer

Mahan? Some, if not all, knew him through the translated Influence. Others

learned of his writings at the Naval War College, as Captain Ingles attested.

None met Mahan until the autumn of 1897, when Akiyama Saneyuki, a twenty-nine year old lieutenant who had graduated from the Naval Academy

barely ninety days after Mahan's Influence was published, came to his New

York City home. Akiyama presented himself to Mahan as a would-be student

of strategy, but in fact, as he had indicated at a farewell party with his cohort

of overseas students, he was as interested in military and naval psychology

as in strategy more narrowly defined.23 In this first meeting with Mahan, he behaved more like an intelligence

officer than a would-be student of strategy. Although he had already been

given a negative reply by the State Department, he asked Mahan whether

foreign students might attend the War College at Newport. The captain

recalled that a Dane and a German who had previously sought to attend had

been rejected, and then quickly added that there were matters of national

security under consideration there that could not be divulged to foreigners.

Akiyama then got some advice on what to read from Mahan - who started

with Jomini. The captain also offered to provide an introduction to the Naval

Library in Washington where the young lieutenant could peruse books on

strategy. In time, before his two year stay in America ended, Akiyama did

get to Newport where he heard Captain Charles Stockton's lectures on

international law.24 Before that occurred, however, the Imperial Navy made a second attempt

to come to know Mahan and profit from his works. Nearly two years later,

in March 1899, one of the three Japanese midshipmen Mahan had come to

know and welcomed into his home while teaching Gunnery at Annapolis

twenty-two years earlier, suggested to his superior in the Naval Affairs

Bureau that his former instructor be invited to teach strategy at the Imperial

Japanese Naval War College. The proposal worked its way up the

bureaucratic ladder in Tokyo and emerged as an order to the Japanese naval

attache in Washington to search out and engage a veteran of the Newport

faculty who would be willing to come for a three year term. Salary would

22 Suekuni Masao and Koike Iichi, comp., Kaigun shijiten, [Dictionary of Naval History] (Tokyo: Kokusho

kank5 kai, 1985), pp. 189-191; Denki dai nihon shi 13: 117-131, 178-183.

23 Seager, p. 659; Shimada Kinji, Amerika ni okeru Akiyama Saneyuki [Akiyama Saneyuki in America] (Tokyo:

Asahi shimbun sha, 1975), 1: 42-44.

24 Shimada, 1:45-46; 182; Sanematsu, pp. 160-161. Two Swedes had attended the U.S. Naval War College

in 1893, but U.S. policy changed by 1897 when the college was considering war plans.
Japan and Mahan 59

depend upon rank, and that listed for the first name on the list, Mahan's, was

twelve thousand yen per year, or approximately six thousand dollars. This

was a sum slightly less than twice his captain's retirement pay, but roughly

equal to his average annual earnings during the last twenty years of his life.

But before the attache could open negotiations with Mahan and the authorities

at Newport, the captain was appointed to the American delegation to The

Hague Peace Conference of 1899.* That occasion gave the Japanese - not just Akiyama, but also his fellow

overseas observers, including the then acting president of the Imperial Naval

War College, Captain Sakamoto Toshiatsu - the chance to see Mahan over

an extended period of time. Most probably, they liked what they saw. The

captain's definition of his mission - to keep American civilians from proposing

or saying anything foolish or harmful to the necessary growth of the navy

- coincided precisely with their own objective. For Japanese and American

naval representatives alike, the journey to The Hague was a damage control

mission.26 In another sense, however, it provided Captain Sakamoto, Akiyama, Sato

Tetsutaro and their fellow overseas observers with an opportunity to assess the state of naval thought in the West. Their contact with distinguished naval

personalities and the various schools of naval thought which they represented

appears to have produced the conclusion that Mahan was but one of several

important naval thinkers in the West, and not necessarily the pre-eminent

one. Several facts point to this conclusion. First, Akiyama and his colleagues

talked as much about French Foreign Minister Leon Bourgeois, Captain

"Jackie" Fisher, and the Russian tactician, Admiral Stepan O. Makarov as about Mahan. Then, too, neither the Japanese naval attache in Washington

nor Naval War College President Sakamoto followed up on the idea of

inviting Mahan or another Newport personality to Tokyo. It was also true

that Sato TetsutarO, after leaving The Hague, went to England to study

national defense policy; it would be 1901 before he turned his gaze to Mahan's America.27

It can not be said that the Japanese were sufficiently impressed by Mahan

as to rush, upon their return home, his remaining works into print. His The

Influence of Sea Power on the French Revolution and Empire, published in English

in 1892, did not appear in Japanese until 1900. Mahan's Nelson, which struck

Akiyama as more valuable for its insights into the psychology of leadership

than for anything it said about naval tactics or strategy, was not published

25 Shimada, 2:222-224; Mahan's student was later Vice Admiral Serata Tasuka, for whose Japanese

biography Mahan later wrote a preface. Seager pp. 331, 628; Cornwall, pp. 201-204.

26 Shimada, 2:217-222; Seager, 410-411; James Brown Scott, comp., The Proceedings of the Hague Peace

Conferences Transcripts of the Official Texts The Conference of 1899 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1920),

1:267-368,375.

27 Shimada, p. 222; Suekuni and Koike, 191; Makarov had published his major work, Discourses on Questions of Naval Tactics in 1897. See The Great Soviet Encyclopedia 15:339.
60 Roger Dingman

in translation until 1906, nine years after it came out. Neither Mahan's

geopolitical musings in The Problem ofAsia (1900) nor his attempted summation

ofbasic principles in Naval Strategy (1911) became available to Japanese readers

during his lifetime.28 In short, it would appear that Mahan, at the turn of the century, was known

to and respected by the most important leaders of the Imperial Japanese Navy

and its educational elite. However, his influence upon their thinking about

naval strategy, whether through his Influence or his other writings, was far

from exclusive. Mahan's was but one of many foreign voices to which the

most ambitious and intelligent IJN officers felt they must listen.

What impact did the American have upon the two Japanese strategists,

Akiyama Saneyuki and Sato TetsutarO, most often described in the West as his followers? The evidence currently in hand suggests that Mahan's

"influence" upon both men was less than has previously been thought.

Although Akiyama read Mahan during his sojourn in the United States, he

was much more enthused and instructed by what he saw as an observer of

the U.S. Navy's treatment of the Spanish fleet off Cuba. Upon returning to

Japan, he continued to read Mahan's works, but he also devoured Sun Tzu,

the writings of contemporary European navalists, and a treatise by one of

his ancestors which stressed the need to seize the offensive in battle. Akiyama's

1903 Lectures on Naval Tactics also reflected his collaboration in war-gaming

with Lieutenant Hirose Takeo, who brought back Admiral Makarov's tactical

ideas from Imperial Russia. In 1912, a year after Mahan's Naval Strategy

appeared, Akiyama published his Fundamentals of Naval Strategy. He echoed

Mahan in stressing the need for the fleet to determine base needs and in

insisting that fleet's ships have similar characteristics so that they might better

the operate under a single command. However, Akiyama wrote more to

garner support for building a Japanese fleet with eight battleships and eight

cruisers as its core than to educate fellow naval officers on basic principles

of naval strategy.29 What was true of Akiyama appears to have been even more so for Sato

Tetsutaro. Admiral Yamamoto Gombei sent him first to England in the belief

that Britain, as an island empire, had more wisdom pertinent for Imperial

Japan than any other nation. Sato spent less than a third of his period of

overseas study in the United States. The book he produced after returning

to Japan as an instructor at the Imperial Naval War College, On the Defense

of the Empire (1902), differed substantially in structure, content, and purpose

28 Hattendorf and Hattendorf, entries A4 trans c; A6 trans b; A18 trans c.

29 Sanematsu, pp. 161-165; Kaigun gunsenbi 1, pp. 108, 126-129; for a fuller appreciation of Akiyama's role

in the development of naval thought in Japan, see Mark Peattie, "Akiyama Saneyuki and the Emergence

of Modern Japanese Naval Doctrine," U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings 103 (January 1977), pp. 60-69. Peattie puts to rest the World War II notion that Japanese naval officers were uninterested in and incapable

of abstract thought, a notion put forward by Alexander Kiralfy, "Japanese Naval Strategy," in Edward

Mead Earle, ed., Makers of Modem Strategy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1943), p. 461.
Japan and Mahan 61

from any of Mahan's writings. Only two of its twenty chapters dealt with

the "lessons" of history and three focused on Japan's "national essence". Sato

drew upon the ideas of Mahan and European naval thinkers, but he organized

them so as to instruct the Japanese public in the fundamentals of naval balance

of power politics rather than strategy. The original version of his work, copies

of which were presented to the emperor, sounded a clarion call for more

naval construction to maintain that balance. In 1908, after Tsushima, when

a revised, retitled, and enlarged version appeared as The History of Imperial

Defense, his aim was to promote the building of a great navy that looked more

to its own experience than to American or British ideas for strategic insight. 30 In short, when Akiyama's and Sato's writings are considered in the context

of the Imperial Navy's efforts to keep abreast of developments in naval

thought in the West, it appears that the two men were more than mere

transmitters ofMahan's ideas to Japan. They may have drawn inspiration from

him; but both looked to other authorities, both ancient and modern, in writing

their books. Akiyama and Sato were also nationalists, men who set out to

create Japan's own tactics and strategy. Moreover, as participants in both

the Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese Wars, they turned more to their own

empire's recent history than to the more distant past as Mahan had. Finally

and most importantly, a comparative analysis of their writings suggests that

they, much more than he, were men whose pens were mobilized more to

support specific building programs than to elucidate general principles. In

that sense, neither should be dubbed "the Mahan of Japan."31

IV: "THE GOD OF SEAPOWER"

In a traditional Japanese family, when someone dies the remains are cremated, a funeral is held, and a tombstone bearing his posthumous Buddhist

name is placed in the cemetery. A small tablet bearing that name is also placed

on the "Buddha shelf" or miniature altar in the family home. There the tablet

remains as a reminder of the deceased's contribution to and influences upon

the family. After Alfred Thayer Mahan's death in December 1914, the

Japanese treated him very much as if he were a family member whose tablet

occupied a position of honor on the "Buddha shelf". On five occasions

someone in that family chose to pick up that tablet, read the name inscribed

upon it, and reflect on the meaning, for Japan, of what Mahan had written.

30 Kaigun gunsenbi i, pp. 119-125; Suekuni and Koike, p. 191; SatoTetsutaro, Teikoku kokubo ron [The Defense

of the Empire] (Tokyo: Suikosha, 1902); Teikoku kokubo shi ron [The History of Imperial Defense] (Tokyo:

Suikosha, 1908). Second and third editions of the latter were published in 1910 and 1912, respectively.

In 1913, Sato put his fundamental ideas forward in their most politically usable form, a pamphlet entitled A Study of National Defense. I am indebted to Mark Peattie for this point. His "Sat5 Tesutaro and the Contradictions of Modern Japanese Naval Strategy", co-authored with David Evans, will appear in the

Fall 1990 issue of Naval History.

31 Toyama Misao, ed., Rikukaigun shokanjiji soran {Kaigun hen) [An Overview of Army and Navy Officer

Personnel - The Navy] (Tokyo: Kyoiku shobo, 1981), pp. 55, 65; Iriye, p. 146.
62 Roger Dingman

To recall those occasions is, in a sense, to consider how Mahan over the more

than three quarters of a century since his death, became for Japan's navies,

a kind of "god of seapower".

Eighteen years after his death, Mahan reappeared in Japan in a translation

of his least successful book, Naval Strategy. By 1932 the Japanese Empire and

the Imperial Japanese Navy were quite different from what they had been

in 1911, when Mahan's book first appeared. Japan's informal empire was,

thanks to the Kwantung Army's actions in Manchuria, on the verge of

becoming a formal, if not formidable, continental sphere. The IJN was the

third largest navy in the world with ships technologically equal or superior

to those of the other two. Once again, the nation and the navy, much as they

had been forty years earlier, had reached a turning point in their relationship

to one another. This time the navy, and its arch-rival the Imperial Japanese

Army, gained the upper hand over civilian legislators. Yet victory, if it be

defined as security, eluded empire and fleet alike. Both perceived themselves

to be under siege, from the Anglo-American seapowers who would not

recognize Japan's predominance in East Asia and from Soviet communism,

whose agents and soldiers menaced the empire's possessions on the Asian

mainland.32 In these circumstances, the Naval Staff sponsored the translation and

publication of two editions of Mahan's Naval Strategy. Both stressed his most

basic message: seapower was an essential element of national power. The first

edition admonished its intended readers - general staff officers, Naval War

College instructors, and their students in its elite staff officer preparatory

course (nearly twice as many annually as in Mahan's day) to study diligently

the relationship between international politics and the rights and interests of

the nation state. Mahan was particularly valuable for that purpose because

he elucidatated so thoroughly the relationship between U.S. naval strategy,

the American national character, and geographic position. His navalism,

readers were advised, ranked with the Monroe Doctrine and the Open Door

policy as a fundamental principle of American national policy.33 The second edition, which appeared barely six months after Secretary of

State Henry L. Stimson pilloried Japan for its actions in Manchuria and China,

was intended for a wider audience. Its preface ominously suggested that what

in the past had been mere theories about a war between Japan and the United

States had become pressing and very real problems of naval strategy. The

informed citizen ought to read Mahan so as to better understand the elements

32 Pelz, p. 28; W.G. Beasley , Japanese Imperialism 1894-1945 (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1987), pp. 175-

197.

33 Alfred Thayer Mahan, Kaigun senryaku [Naval Strategy], Ozaki Shuzei, transl. (Tokyo: Kaigun gunreibu,

1932), translator's introduction. This edition, published in April 1932, is not listed in Hattendorf and

Hattendorf. One clue as to the uses to which the Naval Staff put this edition can be found in the fact that the National Diet Library copy of the book came from the personal library of the diplomat, publicist,

and later (1948) Prime Minister, Ashida Hitoshi.
Japan and Mahan 63

of American grand strategy underlying the particulars of Washington's naval

policies. By implication, the preface echoed Sato Tetsutaro's message in New

Approaches to National Defense, published two years earlier: the need for more,

and bigger, naval weapons.34 A decade later, when an abridged version of this translation was published

in Tokyo, Japan and America, the USN and the IJN were locked in a struggle

for mastery of the Pacific. Both navies were training hundreds of thousands

of officers and men to fight the greatest sea battles in history. Who could

be more useful for that purpose than "the god of seapower?" Just as Margaret

Sprout revived Mahan and made him useful in inculcating officer candidates

(through the NROTC and OCS programs) with basic principles of seapower,

so, too, in Japan Mahan served to educate ensigns to be. That he was available

in shortened form in language they could understand made him all the more

useful in trying to teach these young men how to use surface ships, aircraft,

and submarines to defend the empire.35 Thirty-five years later, Alfred Thayer Mahan reappeared in Japan for a third time. By the late 1970 's, Imperial Japan and the IJN had long since

vanished. In their places a new Japan with a new navy, the Maritime Self

Defense Force, had arisen. The former was at last territorially whole, save

for two tiny islands held by the Soviet Union; and its vibrant economy made

it the envy ofAsia and ofits most important trading partner, the United States.

The Maritime Self Defense Force, not unlike the Meiji Navy of the 1890's,

was a healthy twenty-three year old, bursting with visions of what it might

do in the future, albeit this time in collaboration rather than competition,

with the United States Navy.36 In 1977, it was a scholar, not a sailor, who detected sufficient contemporary

relevance in Mahan to publish a new translation of portions of his Influence

and several of his articles. Asada Sadao, a Yale Ph.D. who had studied with

that most patriotic of American diplomatic historians, Samuel Flagg Bemis,

made Mahan accessible to post-World War II generations unable to

comprehend the archaic Chinese characters and Sinicized style in which

Mahan's writings had originally appeared. He de-mythologized the admiral,

introducing him as a representative of 19th and early 20th Century American

culture and reviewing the debate over the quality of his work as history and

the extent of its influence on policy. Asada argued forcefully that one must

read Mahan in order to understand how and why the United States had become

34 Alfred Thayer Mahan, Beikoku kaigun senryaku [American Naval Strategy], Ozaki Shuzei, transl., (Tokyo:

Chikura shobo, 1932), preface. This edition is listed as A18 trans c. in Hattendorf and Hattendorf; Sato

Tesutar5, Kokubo shinron, especially chapters 6, 8, and 17; Kaigun gunsenbi 1, pp. 679-682.

35 Kaigun senryaku, Ozaki Shuzei, transl., (Tokyo: Koa Nihon sha, 1942), listed as A 18 Trans, e in Hattendorf

and Hattendorf; Margaret Sprout, "Mahan: Evangelist of Seapower," in Earle, ed., Makers of Modern

Strategy, pp. 415-445; Asada, Arufredo T. Mahan, p. 9.

36 Japan Times, The Defense ofJapan, 1981 (Tokyo: The Japan Times, 1981), pp. 167, 347; Japan, Statistics Bureau, Prime Minister's Office, Statistical Handbook of Japan 1980 (Tokyo: Statistics Bureau, Prime

Minister's Office, 1980), pp. 28, 79.
64 Roger Dingman

the predominant power in the Pacific. His comments echoed, with a

significant difference, the pre-Pearl Harbor arguments as to Mahan's

importance: Now the admiral's writings might provide insight into the

policies, not of an enemy, but ofJapan's most important ally.37 The following year, Toyama Saburo republished and provided a fresh

introduction to Mahan's Naval Strategy. Doing so came naturally to the then

professor of naval history at the Japan Defense Academy, for first as a midshipman at Etajima and then as an instructor there during the Pacific War,

he had struggled to comprehend the American's ideas. Now he made the case

for Mahan's relevance to Japanese naval professionals explicit: Mahan had

discovered principles which constituted the foundations of naval strategy.

They were no less fundamental to Japan in devising a policy of maritime

defense at the end of the eighth decade of the century than they had been

to America at its beginning. Defense Academy cadets and senior staff officers

ought to read Naval Strategy so as to better comprehend the principle of

"concentration of forces. " Mahan's arguments about the relationship between

bases and fleets would also provide insight into the two superpowers' actions

in and around Japan. Most importantly, Toyama argued, by studying Mahan

naval officers could improve their ability to use history in trying to resolve

contemporary and future problems.38 Four years later, in 1982, retired Admiral Kitamura Kenichi brought out

the most recent translation of Mahan's Influence ofSeapower Upon History. That

must certainly have eased the burden of fledgling staff officers at the Naval

War College, who were required to write one of six major essays on a classic

Western naval or military strategist. But Kitamura, not unlike the prewar

Naval General Staff translator of Mahan's Naval Strategy, probably had a wider

audience in mind. He summed up the admiral's contemporary relevance by

recalling what had occurred a few years earlier when he met Chief of Naval

Operations James L. Holloway, III. When the American asked him what he

thought Soviet strategy was, Kitamura replied that Admiral Gorkachov

seemed high on Mahan. Admiral Holloway heartily agreed. The Japanese

admiral noted the differences between the geopolitics of the world which

Mahan described in his most famous book and the strategic situation of the

late Twentieth Century. But he clinched his case for Mahan's contemporary

relevance by arguing that the Soviet threat showed increasing signs of being

maritime in the sense in which the American admiral had written. 39

37 Asada, pp. 8-13; Asada's translations included 13 articles, the first of which was the introduction to Mahan's Influence.

38 Toyama Saburo, introduction to Mahan, Naval Strategy (Tokyo: Hara Shobo, 1978), pp. 1-14, publication data page. This edition reprints the 1932 Naval Staff translation.

39 Kitamura Ken'ichi, translator's introduction to Mahan, The Influence of Sea Power Upon History (Tokyo:

Hara Shobo, 1982), pp. 1-16, publication data page, listed as A2 Trans n in Hattendorf and Hattendorf;

April 24, 1990 telephone interview with Captain James E. Auer, USN (Ret), the first U.S. Navy student

at the Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force Staff College, 1977.
Japan and Mahan 65

With that argument, Kitamura brought the argument for Mahan's

relevance around full circle. Once again, Japan must turn to "the god of

seapower" in order to understand and deal with its most formidable enemy.

V: CONCLUSION

One searches the pages of recent histories of the Imperial Japanese Navy

in vain for any mention of Alfred Thayer Mahan.40 That his name does not

appear raises, again, the question with which this essay began: What impact

did Mahan have uponJapan and its navy? Was "the god of seapower, " nothing

more than a very distant, scarcely visible, and not terribly important deity

after all?

I think not.

Mahan, in each of his roles in Japan, did not cause things to happen. But

he did aid men who already knew what must be done achieve their goals.

Kaneko Kentaro found in Mahan the naval publicist arguments with which

to champion maintaining a great navy to advance the interests of a growing

empire. Akiyama Saneyuki and Sato TetsutarO - and their superiors who sent

them abroad to take soundings on naval thought - found in Mahan the naval

thinker ideas which, when mixed with those of others and their own, yielded

arguments for building a fleet to defend that empire. And Mahan in death

did provide a reminder that Japan as a maritime empire needed a navy to

protect its interests, whether in conflict or collaboration with the United

States.

In each of these roles, however, Mahan was being used by, not serving

as instructor to, the Japanese. That fact suggests to me a larger truth about

the importance of Alfred Thayer Mahan's "career" in Japan. In his Influence,

Mahan sought, like the Nineteenth Century man of principle he was, to

elucidate basic principles which should serve as guides for future action. He,

like virtually every other military and naval thinker of his time, wanted to

simplify and reduce complex realities so as to prescribe conduct.41 Implicit

in that approach to strategy-making was the notion that man, with the

"correct" ideas, could manage, if not command, his future.

On one level, the Japanese might be said to have reversed that ideal

relationship between ideas and action. They, much like the military leaders

of late imperial Germany and the Third Reich as Michael Geyer has explained

them to us, let ideas, Mahan's ideas, become the servants of organization,

the tools for acquisition of new technologies, the means to preconceived ends.

40 For examples of such histories, see Nomura Minoru, Rekishi no naka no Nihon kaigun [The Japanese Navy

in History] (Tokyo: Hara shobo, 1980) and Toyama Sabur5, Nihon kaigun shi [A History of the Japanese

Navy] (Tokyo: Kyoiku sha, 1980).

41 John Shy, "Jomini" in Peter Paret, ed., Makers of Modern Strategy from Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age

(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986), p. 179.
66 Roger Dingman

In that respect, the turn-of-the-century Japanese figures upon whom I have

focused attention, might be seen as harbingers of a grim future. They might

even be said to have anticipated the thought of former Army Chief of Staff

Creighton Abrams, who was recently reported to have said that the

theoretical constructs of strategy were just so much gas - that budgets,

politicians, and the sheer force of events, not ideas, determine outcomes.42 On another, deeper level, however, the story of Mahan in Japan might be

read so as to yield a less dismaying conclusion. For the Japanese who used

Mahan did try, however imperfectly, to make ideas work for themselves and

their nation. They did attempt, by using Mahan and his works, to let ideas

make a difference. Perhaps on this centenary observance of the publication

of The Influence of Sea Power upon History, we should let their efforts remind

us of our responsibility to do the same.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I wish to acknowledge with particular thanks two persons without whose

timely assistance this essay could not have been written: Ms. Barbara Donnelly

of the U.S. Naval War College Library, and Mrs. Emiko Moffet, East Asian

Section, Hoover Institution Library.

Throughout this essay, Japanese names are cited in the normal order, that

is surname followed by personal name.

42 Michael Geyer, "German Strategy in the Age of Machine Warfare, 1914-1945," in ibid., pp. 527-597; Harry Summers quotes General Creighton Abrams in Los Angeles Times, April 20, 1990.
67

Chapter 6

The Influence of AT. Mahan

Upon German Sea Power

Holger H. Herwig

In May 1890, when Little, Brown at Boston published at four dollars a heavy tome entitled The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783, it could hardly have anticipated its success: the book eventually went through

fifty editions, and was translated into six major languages. Its author, an

obscure captain on the staff of the Naval War College, likewise could hardly

have known that he was about to launch a remarkable career as naval

historian and propagandist: Alfred Thayer Mahan went on to write more

than twenty books, 160 journal articles and 100 newspaper articles, many

of which were translated into a wide variety of languages, including

Chinese, Dutch, French, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Spanish, and

Swedish. 1 Mahan's Influence of Sea Power appeared at a propitious time in German

history. Two months earlier, the young Kaiser Wilhelm II had brusquely

"dropped" the "pilot," Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, in order, as the

monarch put it, to become sole "Officer of the Watch of the Ship of State. "

2 The half-English Kaiser was bedazzled by Britain's maritime greatness, and

Mahan's book convinced him of the need to expand overseas, to raise

Germany to the status of a global (rather than continental) power on the

basis of a symmetrical fleet whose locus of power was the battleship. In

1894, Wilhelm II "devoured" Mahan's Influence of Sea Power, richly

annotated his copy of the book, and recommended that German naval

officers commit it to memory. The following year, he took great delight

1 See John B. Hattendorf and Lynn C. Hattendorf, eds., A Bibliography of the Works of Alfred Thayer

Mahan, Historical Monograph Series No. 7 (Newport: Naval War College Press, 1986); and John B. Hattendorf, ed., Register of the Alfred Thayer Mahan Papers, Manuscript Register Series No. 15 (Newport:

Naval Historical Collection 1987).

2 See Holger H. Herwig, "Luxury" Fleet: The Imperial German Navy 1888-1918 (London and Atlantic

Highlands, NJ: Ashfield Press, 1987), pp. 17 ff.
68 Holger H. Herwig

in receiving the American captain on board the Royal Yacht at Cowes.3 More realistically than memorizing Mahan, Wilhelm II was instrumental

in persuading the editors of the semi-official naval journal Marine-Rundschau

to commission Vice Admiral Karl Batsch to translate Mahan's opus: it was

published in 1986 as Der Einfluss der Seemacht auf die Geschichte 1660-1783 by

the military publishers E.S. Mittler und Sohn at Berlin.

Alfred von Tirpitz (ennobled 1900) was appointed State Secretary of the

Navy Office in June 1897, and he immediately secured publication of a second

edition of Der Einfluss der Seemacht in 1898. Most of Germany's future admirals,

from Assmann to Wegener, at some point in their earlier careers read,

annotated, and commented upon Mahan's great book. Indeed, Mahan rapidly

became a familiar figure in German naval circles. In order to popularize the

idea of sea power generally and to secure passage of two navy bills in 1898

and 1900 specifically, Tirpitz secured translation also of Mahan's The Influence

of Sea Power Upon the French Revolution and Empire, 1793-1812. It appeared in

two volumes in 1898-99 and, as Mahan by now was a best seller, both volumes

were offered to the public at less cost than the captain's first book.4 Mahan's

1897 discourse upon The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future also

appeared in German translation—with a commercial publisher this time, and

with the more explicit title of "The White Race and Sea Power."5 Finally,

the editors of the Marine-Rundschau were sufficiently impressed with Mahan's

articles on the "Lessons of the War With Spain" in The Times of London

that they procured a four-part translation in 1899. Perhaps of interest in

understanding how much of Mahan the Germans took to heart is the fact

that Tirpitz did not opt to translate the American's forays either into

international relations or into naval strategy and military operations.6 Both Mahan and Tirpitz realized that the public had first to be made aware

of the need for a battle fleet. In the United States, Mahan was instrumental

in founding the Navy League. In Germany, Tirpitz raised the art of public

opinion manipulation to new heights. A special News Bureau within the

Imperial Navy Office as well as the two semi-official journals Marine3 William E. Livezey, Mahan on Sea Power (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1981), pp. 67, 73. Richard von Kiihlmann, Erinnerungen (Heidelberg: Lambert Schneider, 1948, pp. 130, 291-92, recollected

that "the best heads" in the Foreign Office studied Mahan's work "exactly word for word." After his

stint as State Secretary of the Foreign Office, Kiihlmann concluded: "Wilhelm's entire maritime

Weltanschauung was built upon Mahan. Mahan's ideas about the supremacy of a battle fleet based upon

capital ships set the stamp upon the third German emperor's reign and decisively influenced Germany's

political fate for a very long time." See also Andrew D. White, Autobiography (London: Macmillan, 1905),

v. 2, p. 224.

4 Der Einfluss der Seemacht auf die Geschichte. Zweiter Band 1783-1812, Die Zeit der Eranzosischen Revolution und

des Kaiserreiches (Berlin: E. S. Mittler, 1898-00), 2 vols.

5 Die Weisse Rasse und die Seeherrschaft (Vienna and Leipzig: M. Braunschweig, 1909).

6 Retrospect and Prospect: Studied in International Relations, Naval and Political (Boston: Little, Brown, 1902),

and Naval Strategy Compared and Contrasted with the Principles and Practice of Military Operations on Land (Boston:

Little, Brown, 1911). The latter, however, was translated into Chinese, French, Japanese, Korean, and

Spanish.
Germany and Mahan 69

Rundschau and Nauticus brought the Mahanian message to the remotest corners of the Reich. Pastors and so-called "fleet professors" vied with one another

to spread the gospel of "navalism." And a German Navy League, boasting

one million members by 1914, produced Die Flotte, a glib publication with

a circulation of 750,000, in order to provide grass-roots support for Tirpitz's

naval program.7 Mahan, for his part, had been too preoccupied with the Royal Navy to

take much note of developments in Germany. While still a young man, Mahan

had completed grammar courses in German at Columbia College in 1855 and

1856, but his keen interest in German naval policy unsurprisingly came only

with the onset of the Anglo-German naval race. By 1911, German naval

expansion had impressed Mahan sufficiently to revise "as tenable no longer"

his earlier view that "European politics are scarcely to be considered as part

of the Naval War College course."8 In fact, Mahan took his case to the public. In April 1909, he lectured

Americans concerning "Germany's Naval Ambition" in Collier's Weekly. In

June and July 1910, he turned to The Daily Mail in London in order to explain

to Britons "The International Significance of German Naval Developments."

On 24 May 1912, Mahan warned his fellow countrymen through The New

York Times that the Monroe Doctrine was now at "Germany's Mercy." By

the eve of the First World War, Mahan had become highly alarmist about

the unchecked growth of German sea power; in August 1914, he used both

The New York Evening Post and The New York Times to lay down a challenge

that "England Must Fight Germany." Two days after his death, the New York

American, on 3 December 1914, published Mahan's posthumous appeal to the

nation, "Mahan Foresees Peril to U.S. if Germany Wins."9 The gist of all these writings was that "the growth of Germany in industrial,

commercial, and naval power" constituted "the distinctive feature of the

change" in European relations since the turn of the century. The "power

of the German Navy" was now also "a matter of prime importance to the

United States." In Europe alone, the Royal Navy of Great Britain possessed

the "power to control Germany."10 The enthusiastic reception of Mahan in Germany, then, rested mainly upon

the American's overall advocacy of sea power, rather than upon the specific

historical "lessons" that he had drawn from his study of Britain in the age

of sail. Indeed, anyone who reads The Influence of Sea Power Upon History will

7 The most exhaustive study of what Tirpitz called "spiritual message" is by Wilhelm Deist, Flottenpolitik

und Flottenpropaganda: Das Nachrichtenbureau des Reichsmarineatntes 1897-1914 (Stuttgart: Deutsche VerlagsAnstalt, 1976), esp. pp. 71 ff.

8 Mahan, Naval Strategy, p. 103.

9 Many of these articles have been reprinted in Charles C. Taylor, The Life of Admiral Mahan (New York:

Doran, 1920), pp. 293-94, 325-26, 308-45; and Robert Seager II and Doris D. Maguire, eds., Letters and

Papers of Alfred Thayer Mahan (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1975), v. 3, pp. 457-59, 550-51, 698-700.

10 Mahan, Naval Strategy, pp. 108-110.
70 Holger H. Herwig

admit that it is heavy going. For the most part, the book consists of a rather

plodding chronology of British sail from the Second Dutch War to the

Surrender at Yorktown. One really has to mine the book for the few nuggets

that it contains. The Germans, in fact, could have been content to translate

merely the first chapter dealing with the hallowed six "Elements of Sea

Power," for Mahan's enunciation of the basis upon which Britannia had built

its maritime dominance was what mattered to Wilhelm and to Tirpitz.

It is not surprising, therefore, that Mahan's opus was immediately put to

practical political use by Tirpitz. Fully one-fourth of the 8,000 copies extant

were distributed in support of the First Navy Bill in 1898. Copies were soon

placed on board every warship in the Imperial Navy. Tirpitz next appealed

to the Prussian minister of culture, the chief of the General Staff, and the

war ministers of the four federal armies (Prussia, Saxony, Bavaria, and

Wurttemberg) to do all within their power to popularize Mahan's work in

military installations and in public schools. In addition, Tirpitz called upon

every state secretary in the Reich government, all four state premiers (in

Berlin, Dresden, Munich, and Stuttgart), the Senates of the Hanseatic cities,

and the rectors of all universities to spread the gospel according to Mahan;

order lists for Der Einfluss der Seemacht accompanied the admiral's appeal.

This almost slavish devotion to Mahan served several purposes. First, and

most obvious, Mahan's ideas lent credence and gave impetus to the fleet

propaganda already being generated by Tirpitz 's Navy Office. Second, the

manner in which emperor and admiral endorsed and supported Mahan's

writings tended to give them quasi-official character. This, in turn, led to

the third feature: having elevated Mahan's writings to semi-official status,

Tirpitz used them to discipline his officers. As early as June 1897, Tirpitz

had an imperial decree issued prohibiting public discussion of the basic tenets

of German naval developments—and these, of course, were purely Mahanian.

In short, deviation from the philosophy of sea power as laid down by Mahan

became cause for censure or even dismissal in the German navy.11 Unfortunately, Tirpitz never offered his own critical discussion of Mahan's

ideas. Instead, he was content to exploit Mahan for the task of creating a German battle fleet second only to that of Britain. After the first World War,

Tirpitz rather pompously declared in his memoirs that he had "empirically

developed" his own naval plans "in the small exercise area before the Kiel

Bay" while Mahan had "simultaneously developed them theoretically from

history" at Newport.12 Put differently, Mahan the prophet rather than Mahan

the historian best served German needs.

By the late 1930s, Erich Raeder no longer felt the need to enunciate his

own theory of sea power according to Mahan, for the American's writings

11 See Deist, Flottenpolitik und Flottenpropaganda, p. 89, Two celebrated early victims of this decree were

Vice Admiral Victor Valois and Captain Curt Baron von Maltzahn.

12 Alfred von Tirpitz, Erinnerungen (Leipzig: K. F. Koehler, 1919), p. 47.
Germany and Mahan 71

by then had become an article of faith with most Seeoffiziere. Raeder's main

task, in fact, was to sell the doctrine of sea power to the Austrian Adolf Hitler.

Hence, in lieu of Tirpitz and Raeder's intellectual analysis of The Influence

of Sea Power upon History, it remains to be seen to what degree the German

naval buildup both at the turn of the century and in the 1930s corresponded

to Mahan's maxims.

First and foremost, it must be stressed that Mahan, Tirpitz, and (to a lesser

degree) Raeder developed not merely naval strategies but rather philosophies

of sea power that encompassed national elements of culture, politics,

economics, and military-military-naval doctrine. All three sailors sought to

change their respective nation's strategic culture. They perceived the

hierarchy of Great Powers to be constantly in a state of flux. To stand still meant decline. Sea empires rose and fell. Especially Mahan and Tirpitz

unabashedly extended the crude doctrines of social Darwinism to the field

of international competition. And whereas Mahan in time developed an

overtly anti-German posture, Tirpitz (and later Raeder) came to view the

Anglo-Saxon Atlantic world as the Reich's natural nemesis.

National greatness could be achieved only through sea power, which for

these sailors revolved around symmetrical battle fleets whose center ofgravity

were powerful battleships. Concentration of the main fleet and decisive battle

on the world's oceans alone led to "command of the sea" and the full

blossoming of

* 'sea power" to include not only its naval but also its commercial

component. In short, control of what Mahan termed "the great throughways

of the world's traffic" through strategic "stations along the road," that is,

naval bases, led to Great Power status.

To be sure, along the way, international conflict was unavoidable.

Maritime commerce was intensely competitive, and would of necessity lead

to expansion and possibly to war. As Tirpitz put it in February 1896: "If we

intend to go out into the world and strengthen ourselves commercially by

means of the sea . . . we shall come across interests everywhere that are either

already established or to be developed for the future. This means conflict

of interests." Yet, this could not be avoided. Mahan had suggested that a strategy of offensive sea control was the only means of survival in a world

of inevitable commercial struggle. Tirpitz, in his rather opaque manner,

likewise argued that "sea power alone comprehends the many-sidedness of

world policy."13 Tirpitz 's famous "Service Memorandum IX" of 16 June 1804 became the

blueprint for German "navalism" for the next forty years. It is purely

13 Tirpitz to General Albrecht von Stosch, 13 February 1896, Cited in Tirpitz, Erinnerungen, p. 55. See

also Holger H. Herwig, "The Failure of German Sea Power, 1914-1945: Mahan, Tirpitz, and Raeder

Reconsidered," The International History Review, February 1988, pp. 68-105. In 1894 Tirpitz couched the

rationale for German sea power in purely Mahanian terms: "Does one really think that worldwide industry

is possible without world trade, and world trade without world power? But world power is inconceivable

without a strong fleet." Cited in Deist, Flottenpolitik und Flottenpropaganda, p. 35.
72 Holger H. Herwig

Mahanian. "A state which has sea interests," Tirpitz stated, "must be able

to represent them and to make its power felt beyond territorial waters." A

high seas fleet alone could guarantee Germany a secure role in "world trade,

world industry, and to a certain degree high-seas fisheries, world

transportation, and colonies." Such a fleet, as Mahan had already enunciated,

would require one-third numerical superiority over any potential adversary.

"The natural deployment for a fleet," Tirpirz argued, "is the strategic

offensive." Sole aim of the latter was "to come to battle as soon as possible."

History had shown that "squadron war" was "the most effective type of fleet

offensive" and "its major decision lies in battle."14 In short, the objective of

war at sea was to sink the hostile fleet, thereby securing one's own coast

and commerce, rendering the enemy impotent, and his shores vulnerable to

blockade—in a word, absolute sea denial.

In time, Tirpitz 's views would rigidify into the dogma of the decisive battle

(Entscheidungsschlacht) to be fought in the waters "between Helgoland and the

Thames." Such a naval Armageddon would bestow "command of the sea"

upon the victor. For Tirpitz, as for so many others of his generation, life was

reduced to a simplistic either-or situation: either "decisive battle on the high

sea" or "inactivity, that is, moral self-destruction."15 Sea power was thus

viewed as absolute, rather than as provisional or proportional. Doctrinal and

organizational rigidity became the dominant feature of Tirpitz 's hermetic

naval thought.

Admiral Erich Raeder adopted unquestioningly most of the Mahan-Tirpitz

philosophy of sea power. One year after Adolf Hitler's appointment as German chancellor, Raeder announced what was to become the credo of the

Kriegsmarine: "The scale of a nation's world status is identical with the scale

of its sea power."16 Again, the ideal weapon with which to attain sea power

was the symmetrical battle fleet centered around battleships. And whereas

the imperial Navy during the First World War had laid down plans for 50,000-

ton capital ships, Raeder by 1937 had his staff draw up blueprints for 100,000-

ton behemoths.17 Raeder proved to be a good salesman. While Hitler generally failed to

appreciate sea power and specifically denigrated the Imperial Navy as a

14 Bundesarchiv-Militararchiv (hereafter BA-MA), Freiburg, West Germany, NachlaB Tirpitz, N 253,

v. 34. Taktische und Strategische Denkschriften des Oberkommandos der Marine Nr. IX. Allgemeine

Erfahrungen aus den Manovern der Herbstubungsflotte, 48 pp.

15 Loc. cit. Also, BA-MA, NachlaB Tirpitz, N 253, v. 4, A-B 4-5. Tirpitz 's notes for an imperial audience,

15 June 1897, Many of the basic documents pertaining to the "Tirpitz Plan" have been published by Volker

R. Berghahn and Wilhelm Deist, eds., Rustung im Zeichen der Wilhelminischen Weltpolitik, Grundlegende

Dokumente 1890-1914 (Diisseldorf: Droste, 1988).

16 Cited in Wilhelm Deist, "Die Aufrustung der Wehrmacht, " in Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg

(Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1979), v. 1, p. 454.

17 Bernd Stegemann, "Hitlers 'Stufenplan' und die Marine," in Historische Studien zu Politik, Verfassung und

Gesellschaft, Festschrift fur Richard Dietrich zum 65. Geburtstag (Bern and Frankfurt: H. Lang, 1976), pp. 308-

311.
Germany and Mahan 73

"parade piece" whose role in the Great War had been insignificant, Raeder

by 1934 had convinced Hitler that even a land war was "impossible" without

sea power capable of guaranteeing ore shipments from Scandinavia. 18 That

same year, Raeder demanded that the Third Reich build a surface fleet onethird the size of England's; later he raised the desired ration to thirty-five

percent and then to fifty percent of British surface tonnage. 19 Therewith,

Tirpitz 's magical formula of two German to every three British capital ships

was almost within sight.

By February 1937, Raeder had become so bold as to lecture Hitler and

leading party members in the role of sea power in modern German history.

The Imperial Navy's strategic defensive of 1914-1918 had cost the Reich the

war; Raeder vowed never to repeat it. Like Mahan and Tirpitz before him,

Raeder defined sea power as "command of the maritime lanes of communication."

The strategic offensive alone guaranteed success: the Kriegsmarine would be

able to fulfill its assigned role in any future war only through "the most

powerful initiative, deploying even the highest war craft, on the broad high

seas."20 Raeder 's famous "Z-Plan" ofJanuary 1939 became a final attestation

of Mahanian and Tirpitzean logic with its pronounced emphasis upon

battleships, battle-cruisers, and heavy cruisers within the overarching notion

of the symmetrical battle fleet. 21 Cruiser warfare, the guerre de course of the French admiral Theophile Aube's

Jeune Ecole, was fought as heresy by Mahan, Tirpitz, and Raeder alike. The

American never tired of lecturing his readers that "the enemy's ships and

fleets are the true object to be assailed on all occasions," and deemed cruiser

warfare "unsubstantial and evanescent in itself," wholly incompatible with

"command of the sea," a "dangerous delusion . . . presented in the

fascinating garb of cheapness."22 Tirpitz could not have put it more bluntly. Already in the "Service

Memorandum Nr. IX" of 1894 he had asserted that cruiser warfare would

always "be fought under the most unfavorable circumstances" and "at places

where hostile squadrons rule the sea." But above all, cruiser warfare by its

very nature renounced "the strongest means which naval war offers," namely,

"the struggle for control of the seas." The latter could come about only

"through battle"; cruiser warfare thus remained "the last and only means

18 Raeder 's discussion with Hitler, 2 November 1934, cited in Michael Salewski, Die deutsche Seekriegsleitung

19354945 (Frankfurt, Bernard & Graefe, 1970), v. 1, pp. 15-16.

19 Salewski, Seekriegsleitung v'. 1, pp. 8, 13; and Deist, "Aufriistung der Wehrmacht," pp. 453-54.

20 BA-MA, RM 8, v. 1491, pp. 55-76. "Grundsatzliche Gedanken der Seekriegsfuhrung. Vortrag Ob. d. M. gehalten am 3. February 1937." The document was almost seventy pages long.

21 See Deist, "Aufriistung der Wehrmacht," p. 471; and Gerhard Bidlingmaier, "Die strategischen und

operativen iiber legungen der Marine 1932-1942," Wehrwissenschaftliche Rundschau, June 1963, p. 317.

22 Mahan, The Influence of Sea Power upon History 1660-1783 (New York: Hill and Wang, 1957), pp. 116,

288,481.
74 Holger H. Herwig

of the vanquished or originally impotent sea power."23 Tirpitz simplistically

equated sea power with battleship strength.

Erich Raeder likewise dismissed cruiser warfare as being incompatible with

sea power. Already in the 1920s, during his brief stint as naval historian,

Raeder had introduced his two volumes of the official German history of the

war at sea dealing with "Cruiser Warfare in Foreign Waters" by parroting

Mahan (without acknowledgment): guerre de course, Raeder asserted,

constituted but a "dangerous delusion . . . presented in the fascinating garb

of cheapness."24 Lest the impression be given that Tirpitz and Raeder were the only two

German admirals who unabashedly trumpeted such Mahanian assertions, note

should be taken that both Admiral Reinhard Scheer, commander of the

German High Seas Fleet from 1916 to 1918, and Captain Magnus von

Levetzow, his chief of staff, fully endorsed the heavy emphasis upon

battleships and the centrality of battle. While Scheer was quite prepared to

endorse unrestricted submarine after the Battle ofJutland as the only available

means of overcoming Britain's numerical superiority in warships and its advantageous maritime-geographical position, he nevertheless remained

wedded to the Mahanian philosophy of sea power. In January 1917, he tersely

reminded his staff that the U-boat was but a temporary expedient on the

ultimate road back to Mahan and Tirpitz: "The peace we seek to bring about

with submarines must become the second birthday of the German High Sea

Fleet."25 Nearly twenty years later, Admiral Raeder's official naval historian,

Vice Admiral Kurt Assmann, summarized his chieFs aversion to underwater

craft in similar terms: "A U-boat power is not a sea power."26 Levetzow, for his part, even after the First World War could not shed

a pathological obsession with the notion of centrality of battle. "The

victorious naval battle," he lectured the exiled Kaiser Wilhelm II at Doom,

"is thus always correct and never wrong strategy

where at sea it will be fought

against the enemy's force is really immaterial." A victorious battle, in all

cases, automatically constituted sea power.27 While Mahan, like Carl von Clausewitz before him, has been denounced

by his critics as a mere Mahdi of (battleship) mass, a careful reading of The

Influence of Sea Power would suggest that a certain degree of subtlety and

complexity of thought permeated Mahan's writings. Indeed, while the

American had argued that it sufficed for a first-rate naval power "only to

23 BA-MA, NachlaB Tirpitz, N 253, v. 34, "Dienstschrift Nr. IX. "See also Tirpitz, Erinnerungen, p. 80.

24 Erich Raeder, ed., Da Kreuzerkrieg in den ausserheimischen Gew'assern (Berlin: E. S. Mittler, 1922), v. 1, pp. 3-6.

25 BA-MA, RM 5, v. 922. "U-Bootskrieg 1916-18," memorandum of 31 January 1917

26 Cited in D. C. Watt, "Anglo-German Alliance Negotiations on the Eve of the Second World War,"

Journal of the Royal United Service Institution, February to November 1958, p. 384.

27 See Wolfgang Wegener, The Naval Strategy of the World War, ed. by Holger H. Herwig (Annapolis:

Naval Institute Press, 1989), p. xl.
Germany and Mahan 75

be able to meet the strongest" foe "on favorable terms," he had carefully

added that it could do so only if it were "sure that the others will not join

in destroying a factor in the political equilibrium."28 In other words, Mahan

was alive to the principle of interaction and declined to view maritime

struggle in isolation from grand political developments.

Tirpitz would seize upon Mahan's caveat and over time develop a highly

important component of his naval-political blueprint: the "alliance value"

(Bundnisfahigkeit) of a battle fleet. As early as 1894, in his "Service

Memorandum Nr. IX," the German had argued that a potential battle fleet

would constitute a political power lever against neutral states. "Only an

offensive fleet," he had written, "encompasses a desirable alliance value."

In other words, a German High Seas Fleet need be sufficient numerically not

only to deter "perfidious Albion," but also to rally other, lesser naval powers

to the German banner.29 In the process, Tirpitz was able to jettison Mahan's

recommendation that an attacking fleet possess one-third superiority; rather,

it need be only sufficiently strong both to deter attack and to attract additional

naval allies.

Forty years later, Admiral Erich Raeder resurrected this theme of the

potential "alliance value" of a second German High Seas Fleet—but in a

slightly different form that Tirpitz. During his first official briefing of

Chancellor Hitler in April 1933, Raeder cleverly suggested that a battle fleet

might serve as a highly desirable complement to the Fiihrer's program of

continental expansion. In fact, the admiral summed up this first meeting with

the National Socialist chancellor with the simple optimistic phrase "alliance

value."30 One year later, in March 1934, Raeder candidly suggested to the

British naval attache in Berlin that "one squadron of heavy ships" might be

a "political plus" in Britain's struggle against the American rival. 31 In other

words, the German admiral was quite prepared to dangle the potential

"alliance value" of a squadron of German capital ships before the British in

hopes that they, in return, would allow Hitler a "free hand" on the Continent.

Put differently, a powerful German battle fleet would serve as a deterrent

against possible hostile English interference in German affairs on the

Continent; in the case of a "benevolent" Britain, it could offer the decisive

edge in future Great Power conflagrations. In both cases, the German fleet

would demonstrate anew its "alliance value."

28 Mahan, Influence of Sea Power, p. 139.

29 BA-MA, NachlaB Tirpitz, N 253, v. 34, "Dienstschrift Nr. IX;" Tirpitz, Erinnerungen, p. 106; Alfred von Tirpitz, Politische Dokumente. DerAufbau der deutschen Weltmacht (Stuttgart and Berlin: J. G. Cotta, 1924), pp. 108; Herwig, "Luxury" Fleet, pp. 35 ff.

30 Deist, "Die Aufrustung der Wehrmacht," p. 452; Wilhelm Deist, The Wehrmacht and German Rearmament (London and Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1981), p. 72; Holger H. Herwig, "Prelude to Weltblitzkrieg: Germany's

Naval Policy Towards the United States of America, 1939-1941," Journal oj Modern History, December 1971,

pp. 649-68.

31 Michael Salewski, "Marineleitung und politische Fuhrung 1931-1935," Milifargeschichtliche Mitteilungen,

Fall 1971, p. 131.
76 Holger H. Herwig

British naval supremacy was a theme central to the naval philosophies of

Mahan, Tirpitz, and Raeder. For the American, the Royal Navy was a force

to be studied and emulated as well as a potential ally in global power politics.

For Tirpitz and Raeder, it was the most likely major adversary, the focal

point of their threat assessments.

Surely, no one today will argue that the Tirpitz plan was not first and

foremost directed against "perfidious Albion." As early as 1899, the admiral

had confided to the Saxon government that "for political reasons" he could

not simply inform the Reichstag that "naval expansion is aimed primarily

against England." Likewise, Tirpitz argued that the ultimate size and

deployment of the battle fleet revolved around thoughts "which really cannot

be written down." By 1914, however, he was willing to concede: "We must

have a fleet equal in strength to that of England.

"

32 Raeder, for his part, initially also sought to disguise the anti-English nature

of German naval expansion. Until 1937, he clung desperately to what Michael

Salewski has termed the "tabu" of refusing to consider any future war against

England. Over and over again, Raeder sought (and received) Hitler's assurance that Germany would never again become involved in a war with

England, Italy or Japan.

But how realistic was this "tabu"? Any careful reading of Mahan would

have revealed clearly that England, by tradition and historical necessity, had

never allowed any one power to dominate the Continent. Raeder probably

knew this in his heart of hearts. Already in the 1920s, in connection with

his work on German cruiser warfare during the Great War, Raeder had come

to the conclusion: "The case of war with England must always be taken as the basis for German strategic studies."33 In 1928, Raeder had confided to

Admiral von Levetzow that Hitler ought to avoid the topics of England and

sea power for he understood neither. And finally, in June 1934, Raeder openly

counseled Hitler that "the fleet eventually would again have to be built against

England."34 In all fairness, it should also be noted that Tirpitz and Raeder readily

adopted Mahan's shortcomings and oversights. Joint service operations or

joint service strategic planning were foreign to Mahan, as they were to his

German admirers. Tirpitz steadfastly refused to coordinate his maritime

strategy with the Reich's allies at Vienna and Rome, his budgetary strategy

with the chancellor and other Reich agencies, and his operational planning

with the Prussian General Staff and the War Ministry. Raeder, in turn,

likewise declined to coordinate his fiscal planning with other service agencies,

32 See Herwig, "Luxury" Fleet, p. 37.

33 Erich Raeder, ed., Cruiser Warfare in Foreign Waters (Berlin: n. p., 1929), v. 1, p. 9.

34 Michael Salewski, "Die deutsche Kriegsmarine zwischen Landesverteidigung and Seemachtambitionen," in Die Deutsche Marine. Historisches Selbstverst'andnis und Standortbestimmung (Herford and Bonn: E.

S. Mittler, 1983), p. 77; Salewski, Seekriegsleitung, v. 1, p. 14.
Germany and Mahan 77

or his operational designs with either army or air force. And when in 1940

he developed the one German strategic alternative to the invasion of the Soviet

Union, his celebrated Mediterranean program, it was done in isolation and

without reference either to the Wehrmacht, the Luftwaffe, or to the regional

and vital partners at Rome, Vichy, and Madrid.35 And while concepts such

as the balance of power, alliances, and coalition warfare are not to be found

in the index of The Influence of Sea Power, neither were they in the working

vocabulary either of Tirpitz or of Raeder.

Since the German navy failed in both world wars to achieve its political

objective—namely, to supplant Great Britain as the dominant naval power

in the Atlantic theater—it is only fair to ask whether this was due in part

to basic flaws inherent in Mahan's naval philosophy. By and large, I would

argue that the problem lay instead in a persistent German misreading (or

ignoring) of Mahan.

In the first place, neither Tirpitz nor Raeder fully appreciated Mahan's

vital precondition for sea power: "ready access to the ocean by one or two

outlets." Maritime geography, as Mahan had stated repeatedly, dictated that

Germany could reach the "great common" only through the English Channel

or through the Scotland-Norway passage. Great Britain, Mahan wrote, "lies

to Germany as Ireland does to Great Britain," flanking both German "routes

to the Atlantic."36 Neither Tirpitz nor Raeder proved willing to address

squarely Germany's disadvantageous maritime-geographical location astride

the "dead" North Sea.

Secondly, Tirpitz and Raeder chose to ignore Mahan's warning that no

nation concurrently could be both a great land power and a great sea power.

Limited material and manpower resources militated against powerful

deployment on land as well as at sea. History had provided a prime example

for Mahan of such a nation in the case of France under Louis XIV. "A false

policy of continental extension swallowed up the resources of the country."37 Moreover, island nations enjoyed an inherent advantage in naval competition

due to their secure geographic location: "History has conclusively

demonstrated the inability of a state with even a single continental frontier

to compete in naval development with one that is insular, although of smaller

population and resources."38 Imperial Germany would by 1910 deplete its

Treasury by military and naval expenditures, while Raeder's "Z-Plan" of

January 1939 would suffer from acute lack of raw materials, labor, and

construction yards.

35 See especially Gerhard Schreiber, Revisionisms und Weltmachtstreben: Marinefuhrung und deutsch-italienische Beziehungen 1919-1944 (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1978).

36 Mahan, Influence of Sea Power, p. 286; Mahan, Retrospect and Prospect, p. 166.

37 Mahan, Influence of Sea Power, p. 65.

38 Mahan, Retrospect and Prospect, p. 169.
78 Holger H. Herwig

Thirdly, Tirpitz as well as Raeder sought to finesse Mahan's critical

emphasis upon superior fleet size. The American had stressed that a fleet "of

size and quality adequate to the proposed operations" was absolutely

necessary. A fleet of inferior strength, on the other hand, "could be used

offensively only by great care, and through meeting the enemy in detail."39 Shibboleths, such as the "alliance of value" or the deterrent function of the

German battle fleet, in the end, served well neither Tirpitz nor Raeder

much less, Germany.

At the political level, both Tirpitz and Raeder ignored Mahan's emphasis

upon British national character as well as character of government. Even a cursory reading of Mahan would have shown both German admirals that

throughout modern history, Britain had rallied to meet all continental

challenges—from Louis XIV to Napoleon, and from Wilhelm II to Adolf

Hitler. As Winston S. Churchill once put it, what was in the nature of a "luxury" to Germany—namely, sea power—was a vital prerequisite to

England's survival. What remained of Mahan, then, was the dogged obsession

with concentrated battleship fleets designed to press the offensive vigorously.

Finally, neither Tirpitz nor Raeder found strategic insight in Mahan—for

the simple reason that they concentrated almost exclusively upon the

American's naval philosophy, while ignoring his rich literature scattered

throughout a plethora of popular and service journals dealing with maritime

strategy.40 As a result, German admirals overall suffered from what Herbert

Rosinski, a former teacher at the German Naval Staff College, termed

"atrophy of strategic thought."41 Admiral von Tirpitz 's pathetic question of

May 1914 to the Fleet chief, Admiral Friedrich von Ingenohl, "What will

you do if they [the British] do not come?,"42 as well as Admiral Raeder 's crushing conclusion of 3 September 1939, that the Kriegsmarine could only "die

gallantly" in the war, which had come again Ave years too early,43 speaks

volumes for Rosinski 's observation.

To be sure, a number of German naval officers had quickly grasped Mahan's

notions concerning maritime-geographical position and access to the great

oceanic arteries of global communication. Around 1908-09, two successive

Chiefs of the Admiralty Staff, Vice Admiral Friedrich von Baudissin and

Admiral Max von Fischel, had warned Tirpitz that only by attacking England

could Germany hope to become a first-rate sea power and extend its naval

39 Mahan, Influence of Sea Power, p. 460.

40 For example, Atlantic Monthly, Century Magazine, Collier's Weekly, Engineering Magazine, Forum, Harper's

Independent, Leslie's Weekly, McClure's, North American Review, Scientific American, Scribner's, and World's Work.

41 Herbet Rosinski, "German Theories of Sea Warfare," Brassey's Naval Annual 1940, p. 90. This article, as well as several others by Rosinski, has been reprinted in B. Mitchell Simpson III, ed., The Development

of Naval Thought: Essays by Herbert Rosinski (Newport: Naval War College Press, 1977).

42 Cited in Albert Hopman, Des Logbuch eines deutschen Seeoffiziers (Berlin: A. Scherl, 1924), p. 393.

43 BA-MA, PG 32023, Case 103, Kriegstagebuch Seekriegsleitung. I Abteilung, Teil A, p. 43. See also Gerhard Wagner, ed., Lagevortfage des Oberbefehlshabers der Kriegsmarine vor Hitler 1939-1945 (Munich: J. F. Lehmanns, 1972), pp. 19-21.
Germany and Mahan 79

reach beyond the North Sea. As Fischel had succinctly put it: "We are fighting

for access to the ocean, whose entrances on that side of the North Sea are

in England's hands. We are therefore basically the attacker, who is disputing

the enemy's possessions."44 Tirpitz chose not to respond. Instead, he redoubled

his efforts to deny the Admiralty Staff influence over his maritime plan.

In 1915, and again in 1929, Wolfgang Wegener most sagaciously critiqued

the Tirpitz plan. An avid reader of Mahan, Wegener brutally lectured both

Tirpitz and Raeder that destruction of the hostile fleet was "to a certain

degree" only an "incidental goal" in war at sea

unless it were followed by

secure control of the maritime arteries of trade and communication. The

German navy's "one-sided" concentration on "the battle" between

Helgoland the Thames, Wegener stated, had precluded insight into naval

strategy and engendered an obsession with the operational art of war. Echoing

Mahan, Wegener further ventured that England's superior geographical

situation astride the two exits to the North Sea as well as its crushing fleet

superiority effectively blocked the unfolding of Germany's naval ambitions.

Depicting the North Sea as a "dead sea," Wegener argued that "the door

to the Atlantic" could be kicked open only through territorial expansion in

the West (France) and the North (Norway) as well as by a larger, faster,

more powerful High Seas Fleet. Like Tirpitz before him, Raeder tolerated

no criticism: Wegener became the fete noire of the Kriegsmarine, and was

singled out by Raeder for personal vilification. 45 In conclusion, both Tirpitz and Raeder undertook inadequate analyses of

Mahan's naval philosophy. Both failed to grasp the deeper meaning of Mahan's analysis of British sea power and national character. Inferior geographical

position, inadequate fleet size, and "atrophy of strategic thought" in the end

bedeviled both German admirals. Tirpitz as well as Raeder basically failed

to confront the clear-cut alternative of both 1914 and 1939: either to build

a battle fleet one-third superior to England's in order to challenge "perfidious

Albion" for control of the Atlantic "great common," or, from the outset,

to acquiesce in Britain's naval supremacy and to concentrate fully on the

Reich's pivotal position of semi-hegemony in the heart of Europe, wedged

in between two potentially hostile land powers.

It is hard to argue with Herbert Rosinski's conclusion that it was "the

fundamental strategic contradiction in Tirpitz 's policy that, in trying to

wriggle between these two inexorable alternatives, he set himself into

diametric contradiction not only to this situation, but to all the principles

of naval warfare."46 That observation pertains equally to Erich Raeder. In

44 Cited in Herwig, "Luxury'" Fleet, p. 190. See also Carl-Axel Gemzell, Organization Conflict and Innovation: A Study of German Naval Strategic Planning, 1888-1940 (Lund: Esselte Studium, 1973), pp. 79-80.

45 See my introduction to Wegener's Naval Strategy of the World War, pp. xv-lv.

46 Rosinski, "Strategy and Propaganda in German Naval Thought," Brassey's Naval Annual 1945, pp. 130-

131.
80 Holger H. Herwig

the final analysis, it was their incorrect reading of Mahan, rather than the

American's misreading either of British sea power or of the British national

interest, that accounted for the shortcomings of German "navalism" in the

twentieth century.

In concluding, it should be pointed out that whether one sees Mahan as a glorified hero or as a despicable villain—and there are ample devotees of

both positions—he was not as dogmatic in his views as is often presupposed.

Four years after publishing The Influence of Sea Power upon History, Captain

Mahan gave an interview to the New York Herald (Paris) in which he bluntly

rejected the use of "pocket manuals" to set rules and standards" for instruction

at the Naval War College. Likewise, he decried slavish reliance upon "the

work of some one or two masters in the art" as their writings might well

fail to "provoke others to search for themselves." Despite the fact that he

had been reared on the works of Henri Jomini from his father's library, and

had even named his dog after the Swiss hagiographer of Napoleon I, Mahan

concluded the interview with an observation worthy of Carl Von Clausewitz:

"War cannot be made a rule of thumb, and any attempt to make it so will

result in disaster, grave in proportion to the gravity with which the issues

of war are ever clothed."47 Admirals Tirpitz and Raeder would have done

well to have heeded this sage advice.

47 The New York Herald (Paris). 7 February 1894, p. 2.
81

Cnapier 7

140 Years of German Navies:

Their Defeat and Re-Birth - From Confrontation to Co-Operation

Captain Dr. Werner Rahn, FGN

Twelve theses on the development of the German Navy in the Nineteenth

and Twentieth Centuries:

1. A Great Power with worldwide trade links, colonies abroad and free access to the seven seas, in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, required

a navy as a military instrument in order to be able to assert her position in

relation to other Great Powers. The concept and structure of this force was,

however, dependent upon the potential threat. During the Nineteenth

Century Great Britain, the dominant sea power, had an influence on the naval

policy of all other Great Powers having any kind ofnavy. Based on the theories

of Alfred T. Mahan, at the end of the Nineteenth Century, navies, in the

form of a battle fleet, were increasingly regarded as an essential instrument

for a Great Power wishing to represent and enforce worldwide interests.

2. The first German Navy came into being from 1848 onwards, at a time

when Germany had no answer to a Danish blockade. The Navy soon became

a symbol of the armed might of the hoped-for united Reich. The idea o£ a

fleet was seen as a political instrument and embodied demands pointed to

differing tendencies: on the one hand the liberal aim of having free access

to the world in order to increase trade, and on the other hand, the overt

ambition ofusing power politics and the law of the strongest in order to create

a hegemony.

3. Owing to the German Reich's position in Central Europe, with potential

enemies in both East and West, the naval buildup was for a long time

overshadowed by the Army. The developments during the turn of the century

showed that, because of her central position in Europe, for the young German

Reich, any power policy which included a claim to rule the seas interfered

with Great Britain, was bound to encounter deep mistrust on the part of this
82 Werner Rahn

strategically-minded sea power, a mistrust which could quickly turn out to

be a deadly danger to the Reich. The German Naval Command overestimated

the possibility of a German naval war against Great Britain. Due to the

geographical conditions, the British were capable of achieving their strategic

aims with regard to Germany without entering into a decisive battle.

4. The buildup of the German High Seas Fleet at the beginning of the 20th

century came at a time of enormous technical change in which weaponry

quickly became obsolete. At almost no other time during this century did

maritime weapons systems become outdated as quickly as in the decade prior

to the First World War. In the maritime arms race, the Reich was unable

to keep up in building capital ships, since her resources were insufficient to

fulfill all the arms requirements of both Army and Navy.

5. The outbreak and the course of the First World War showed that the

German Naval Command's political and strategic concept did not work.

During the July crisis of 1914 the High Seas Fleet was no deterrent. The

employment of the fleet had no strategic effect on the conduct of war as a whole. Germany's one-sided and inadequate concept of submarine warfare

was a large factor in the USA's entry into the war. In November 1918, due

to the Navy's high-handedness, it became the starting-point for political

turmoil within the Reich.

6. During the Weimar Republic, the Navy had great difficulties in adapting

to the new republican form of government. It regarded itself as an essential

element of the nation's defense. However, the Navy hoped for better times,

in order to build a new fleet without arms restrictions, a fleet which complied

with the Naval High Command's idea of the Reich's security needs and

position of power.

7. Because not everyone accepted it, the Treaty of Versailles was incapable

of supplying the basis for a lasting period of peace and security for the whole

of Europe. Mutual mistrust was perpetuated. The Germans failed to draw

the correct conclusions from the political and military scale of the defeat of

1918, conclusions which would have been necessary for the consolidation of

the Reich both in home and foreign-policy terms. Like other parts of

Germany's political and military elite, the German naval leadership did not

reconcile itself to the Treaty of Versailles. However, this attitude did not

mean that German policy was necessarily on a one-way route to war in 1939.

8. After 1933, the Navy eventually became subject to Hitler's long-term

ambitions for dominating the world and the seas in particular. But the Second

World War broke out before his plans for a gigantic shipbuilding programme

could take effect. When the war came, the Navy was totally unprepared for

it. To compensate, Germany attempted to force a strategic decision by

destroying the superior Anglo-Saxon maritime powers' shipping capacity (sea

denial) rather than by fighting them for mastery of the Atlantic (sea control).
German Navies 83

9. From 1940 onwards, Germany possessed a good geographical basis for

naval warfare in the Atlantic, but this basis could not be fully exploited due

to insufficient weaponry. The U-boat did supply an effective weapon in the

fight against enemy shipping up to 1942, but, as a result of the general war

situation, and the critical situation in the Mediterranean and the Eastern front,

the Naval Command was forced to employ its last remaining offensive

capability like a "strategic fire brigade". This led to enormous attrition,

which in no way complied with the strategic concept of mass concentration

in the Atlantic. The concept of the U-boat war failed in 1943 because the

submarine had lost its capability of escaping from enemy surveillance and

defense as the allies developed their ASW-weapons.

10. From 1943 onwards, the Navy under Grand Admiral Karl Donitz, had

an officer at the helm who was both a charismatic leader in himself, and could

be seen to have close links to Hitler and Nazi ideology. Not until after Hitler's

death did he change "from the almost-blind tool of criminal to the responsible

soldier of the traditional Prussian school". 1 He did everything in his power

to liquidate the already lost war in a proper fashion and, at the same time,

to evacuate as many people as possible across the Baltic to the West. This

last wartime act gave the Navy much public recognition.

11. In the course of this century, Germany has twice tried to force a strategic

decision in direct-confrontation with the Anglo-Saxon naval powers by

cutting the Atlantic shipping routes (SLOCs). Both attempts ended in failure.

The second defeat brought with it the end of the German Reich and the

dissolution of all German armed forces. The Western orientation of the

Federal Republic of Germany led to the close binding of the new German

armed forces into the Atlantic Alliance. This meant, for the Navy, the smallest

of the armed services within the Bundeswehr (Federal Armed Forces), that

for the first time in her history she was obliged merely to perform that

function "which a German Navy can actually perform"2 in close cooperation

with the great maritime powers.

12. Today, the German Navy has not only a lively interest in its history,

but also a special relationship to it. A clear link can be seen between the

historical self-understanding of her officers and the history of their service.

In the past, this link often served only to legitimize and to secure its own

position. The Navy, which came into being in the mid-19th century, often

had to fight for recognition and even for its existence during a relatively short

history. However, there can be a danger, if historical interest is limited only

to the Navy and naval warfare, too little attention may be given to the

overlapping political correlations.

1 Michael Salewski, Die deutsche Seekriegs-leitung 1935-1945, Vol. 2, Munich 1975, p. 552.

2 Dieter Hartwig (comment) in: Die deutsche Flotte in Spannungsfeld der Politik 1848-1985. Ed. by Deutsches

Marine Institut and Militargeschichtliches Forschungsamt (with contributions by G. Fromm, etal), Herford

1985, p. 197.
84 Werner Rahn

Bibliography

For further reading, see the works cited by Holger Herwig as well as the following:

Guides and handbooks:

Bird, Keith W., German Naval History. A Guide to the Literature. New York, London 1985.

Diilffer, Jost, "Die Reichs-und Kriegsmarine 1918-1939," in: Handbuch zur deutschen

Milit'argeschichte 1648-1939, hrsg. vom Militargeschichtlichen Forschungsamt, Bd 4/

Abschnitt VIII, Miinchen 1978.

Petter, Wolfgang: "Deutsche Flottenrustung von Wallenstein bis Tirpitz," in: Handbuch

zur deutschen Milit'argeschichte 1648-1939, hrsg. vom Militargeschichtlichen

Forschungsamt, Bd 4/Abschnitt VIII, Miinchen 1978.

Series and collected essays: Das Deutsche Reich undderZweite Weltkrieg, hrsg. vom Militargeschichtlichen Forschungsamt,

Bd 1 ff., Stuttgart 1979. Marine und Marine politik im Kaiserlichen Deutschland 1871-1914, hrsg. vom Militargeschichtlichen Forschungsamt durch H. Schottelius und W. Deist, 2. Aufl.,

Diisseldorf 1981. Seemacht und Geschichte. Festschrift zum 80. Geburtstag von Friedrich Ruge, hrsg. vom Deutschen

Marine Institut, Bonn-Bad Godesberg 1975. Monographs:

Berghahn, Volker R., Der Tirpitz-Plan. Genesis und Verfall einer innenpolitischen Krisenstrategie unter WilhelmlL, Diisseldorf 1971.

Diilffer, Jost, Weimar, Hitler und die Marine. Reichspolitik und Flottenbau 1920 bis 1939, Diisseldorf

1973. Duppler, Jorg, Der Juniorpartner. England und die Entwicklung der deutschen Marine 1848-1890,

Herfordl986.

Duppler, Jorg, Prinz Adalbert von Preussen. Gr'under der deutschen Marine, Herford und Bonn

1986. Herwig, Holger H., Das Elitekorps des Kaisers. Die Marineoffiziere im Wilhelminischen

Deutschland, Hamburg 1977. Lambi, Ivo Nikolai, The Navy and German Power Politics, 1862-1914, Boston 1984. Rahn, Werner, Reichsmarine und Landesverteidigung 1919-1928. Konzeption und F'uhrung der Marine

in der Weimarer Republik, Miinchen 1976. Thomas, Charles S., The German Navy in the Nazi Era, Annapolis 1990.
85

is/*> '/,&'€&{-/# ^£rt~ttsr-*^XsC44

/ /. „ ,/,. ,.

Certificate of completion of a course in German grammar at Columbia College in 1856. Mahan completed a previous course in 1855. From the collections of the Naval Historical Collection, Naval War College. Manuscript item 104.
86

ESCUELA DE GUERRA NAVAL

INFLUENCIA

DEL

PODER NAVAL

EN LA HISTORIA

1660-1783

POR

A.T. MAHAN

SEGUNDO TOMO

Version Castellana Para Uso Exlusivo

de la Escuela de Guerra Naval

BUENOS AIRES

1935

Title page of Spanish translation prepared for the use of the Argentine Naval War College

in 1935; from the collection of the Eccles Library, Naval War College.
87

Chapter 8

The Character and Extent of

Mahan's Influence in Latin America

Captain Guillermo J. Montenegro, Argentine Navy (Ret.)

When dealing with the historical background of Mahan's influence in Latin

America, it should be taken into account that, by 1890, most Latin American

countries already had significant experience related to what "Sea power"

(or the lack of it) meant.

Background.

During the wars for Independence, sea power nearly played a decisive role.

Episodes such as the defeat of the Spanish Squadron off Montevideo (1814), put

an end to Spanish power in the River Plate area and in the South Atlantic. The

seaborne invasion of the viceroyalty of Peru (1820) allowed the revolutionaries

to force a decisive encounter against the Spanish at Ayacucho; and the action

of Lord Cochrane 's Brazilian Squadron (1823), significantly contributed to defeat

Portuguese efforts to retain control of their South American colony. 1 The significance of sea power goes beyond the wars of Independence.

Spanish attempts to punish their former colonies, the "gunboat diplomacy"

exercised by the Great Powers, as well as rivalries between the newly

emerged nations led to several armed conflicts in which sea power was

significant, if not decisive.

The following relevant examples could be mentioned:

• The Argentine-Brazilian war of 1826-1828, in which Brazil's "big navy" effectively

blockaded Buenos Aires, and the Argentines could only respond by coastal actions and

by resorting to the guerre de course. • The Anglo-French interventions against Argentina in the 1830's and 1840's. • The Spanish intervention in the Pacific coast of South America in the 1860's in which

Chile and Peru remained on the defensive because of their inferior naval forces. • The war between Chile and Peru in the 1870's, in which Chilean sea control proved

decisive. • Finally, even Paraguay suffered the weight of the superior Brazilian Fleet during

the War of the Triple Alliance in the late 1860's. 2

1 See basically, Scheina, Robert L. Latin America: A Naval History 1810-1987. Annapolis, 1987. Chapter 1.

2 Op. cit. Chapter 3.
88 Guillermo J. Montenegro

This maritime heritage was interpreted in several important historical

works in the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries by naval

historians, such as Carranza3 in Argentina, Meirelles da Silva4 in Brazil,

Langlois5 in Chile and Melo6 in Peru. Therefore, Mahan's teachings fell on

fertile ground, and his influence followed several different (and in some cases interconnected paths) in addition to a direct intellectual message.

At the beginning of this century, Mahan's works were widely read and

studied in Latin American naval circles. Along the years, some naval writers

produced their own derivations of Mahan's theories, adapted for their own

countries. A few of the early works established the basis for their own national

naval thinking.

This intellectual influence was reinforced by the direct contact of Latin

American naval officers with the U.S. Navy, through courses given in the

United States as well as by the spreading influence of the U.S. naval missions.7 Particularly, in the case of Brazil, Chile and Argentina, several "waves"

of Mahanian influence came by an indirect route, the examples set by the

"superpower" navies of that day. This influence occurred in a period of acute

rivalries between Chile and Argentina in the 1890's and between Brazil and

Argentina in the first decade of the Twentieth century. All of these countries

made significant efforts to create and maintain strong "battle fleets", at least

equivalent to their prospective opponents. When the Dreadnought battleship

appeared, first Brazil, then Argentina, and finally Chile joined in a regional

naval race. 8 The perceptions of the lessons of the Russo-Japanese war (1904-1905) had

the effect of confirming the soundness of the concept of a strong, superior,

dominant battle fleet to achieve "command of the sea".9 The outcome of World War I again confirmed this, taking into account

the impact of the Allied blockade upon the collapse of the Central Powers,

the indecisiveness of the surface raiders and the apparent containment of the

submarine menace. 10 The naval development of the Great Powers in the inter-war years, the

weight of Allied sea power in World War II and the U.S. -Soviet naval rivalry

after 1945, reinforced the soundness of the "strong navy" concept.

3 Carranza, Angel J. Campahas Navales de la Republica Argentina, 4 Vols. Ministerio de Marina, Buenos Aires, 1914-1916.

4 Meirelles da Silva, Theotonio. Historia Naval Brasileira. B.L. Gamier, Rio de Janeiro, 1884.

5 Langlois, Luis (Commander). Influencia del Voder Naval en la Historia de Chile desde 1810 a 1910. Imprenta

de la Armada, Valparaiso, 1911.

6 Melo, Rosendo. Historia de la Marina del Peru, 3 Vols. El Auxiliar del Comercio, Lima, 1907-1915.

7 Scheina. op. cit. Chapter 9.

8 Ibid. Chapters 3 & 5.

9 Montenegro, Guillermo J. (Captain, Navy). "The Influence of Naval Thought upon World War I". Unpublished essay, Buenos Aires, 1989.

10 Ibid.
Latin America and Mahan 89

Finally, Mahanian inspiration was felt in the continued intervention, both

intellectual and actual, of Latin American navies in the maritime affairs of

their respective countries, by giving impulse to their merchant marines,

harbors, shipbuilding and fishing industries, and by trying to create a "maritime mentality" in their respective populations.

Mahan and Latin American Authors.

What were the results of this multi-channeled influence?

First, what was the impact of local authors, inspired by Mahan's thought

and the prevailing naval thought of the century?

Mahan's theories were known by the turn of the century. From the available

data, it could be stated that the first Spanish language translation of The

Influence of Sea Power upon History was carried out in Chile, in 1900. » The

creation of an Argentine Naval War College in 1934 led to further editions

in Spanish of The Influence of Sea Power upon History12 as well as Naval Strategy ^ Moreover, the appearance of Castex 's Theories Strategiques," having a reasonable Mahanian "touch", added further impulse to the influence of

classical naval thought in Latin America.15 Other naval literature which threw further light upon Mahan's ideas or

reinforced classical naval thought were Groos' Seekriegslehren im Lichte des

Weltkrieges; 16 Di Giambenardino's, h'Arte della Guerra in Mare;11 Brodie's A Guide

to Naval Strategy19 and Earle's Makers of Modern StrategyTM whose chapter on

Mahan is still basic reading.

These works were translated and edited by the Argentine Naval War

College or the Argentine Navy Ministry, as well as Groos' and Brodie's by

the Chilean Navy, and Di Giambernardino's by the Brazilian Navy,20 and

became standard classics in Latin American professional circles.

11 Mahan, Alfred T. Injluencia del Poder Naval sobre la Historia. Editorial Talleres Tipograficos de la Armada,

Valparaiso, 1900; cit. by Buzeta, Oscar in Chile Geopolitico - Presente y Futuro. Centro de Investigaciones

Socio-economicas de la Compania de Jesus en Chile, Santiago de Chile, 1978, page 48.

12 Mahan, Alfred T. Injluencia del Poder Naval en la Historia. 1660-1783, 2 Vols. Escuela de Guerra Naval,

Buenos Aires, 1935.

13 Mahan, Alfred T. Estrategia Naval, 2 Vols. Escuela de Guerra Naval, Buenos Aires, 1935.

14 Castex, Raoul P. Theories Strategiques, 5 Vols. Editions Geographiques, Maritimes et Coloniales, Paris, 1929-35.

15 Rosinski, Herbert. The Development of Naval Thought. Naval War College Press, Newport, 1977. Page

33.

16 Groos, Otto. Seekriegslehren im Lichte des Weltkrieges. E.S. Mittler & Sohn, Berlin, 1929.

17 Di Giambernardino, Oscar. L'Arte della Guerra in Mare. Ministerio della Marina, Roma, 1937.

18 Brodie, Bernard. A Guide to Naval Strategy, 3rd. ed. Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1944.

19 Earle, Edward Mead. ed. Makers of Modern Strategy. Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1944.

20 Castex, Raul. Teorias Estrategicas, 5 Vols. Escuela de Guerra Naval, Buenos Aires, 1938-42; Groos, Otto. La Doctrina de la guerra mantima segun las ensehanzas de la Guerra Mundial. Estado Mayor General-Armada

Argentina, Buenos Aires, 1935; Groos, Otto. La Doctrina de la Guerra Mantima Imprenta de la Armada,

Valparaiso, 1939; Di Giambernardino, Oscar. El Arte de la Guerra en el Mar. Ministerio de Marina, Buenos

Aires, 1940; Di Giambernardino, Oscar. A Arte da Guerra no Mar. Imprensa Naval, Rio de Janeiro, 1939; Brodie, Bernard Una Guia en Estrategia Naval. Escuela de Guerra Naval, Buenos Aires, 1947; Brodie,

Bernard. Guia de Estrategia Naval. Imprenta de la Armada, Valparaiso, 1949; Earle, Edward Mead. Creadores

de la Estrategia Modema, 2 Vols. Escuela de Guerra Naval, Buenos Aires, 1948.
90 Guillermo J. Montenegro

Mahan's theories were a source of inspiration for two different categories

of Latin American authors.

A first group concentrated itself mainly on the naval strategy aspects of

Mahan's writings and advocated the importance of sea power as a whole,

i.e. the buildup of a strong navy, the elements of a sea power, the "fleetin-being" concept, naval bases, interior lines, the validity of a "one power

standard" for their own countries, and even the right meaning of the term

sea power in their own languages; as well as the significance of own national

maritime capabilities - merchant marine, shipbuilding and fishing industries,

harbors, etc.- to support a sound sea power.

Among this first group, scattered along the decades of this century, one

can mention authors such as Storni in Argentina,21 Flores and Caminha in

Brazil,22 Langlois and Diaz Buzeta in Chile,23 and Buse de la Guerra in Peru.24 The writers in second group, most of whom were military people, focused

their efforts on the geo-political side of Mahan's ideas. When they analyzed

the "classic" geo-political thinkers, they gave wide coverage to Mahan's

thought, often referring to him as "the geo-politician of the sea". Some

examples of writers in this group are Marini and Fraga in Argentina,25 Flores,

de Castro, Oliveira Mafra and Lima Abreu in Brazil26 Pinochet and Buzeta

in Chile27 and Buse de la Guerra and Ramirez Canaval in Peru.28

It should be noted that these Latin American authors were not alone in

their interpretation of Mahan as a geo-politician. Several North American

scholars have stressed this same aspect in Mahan's thought.29

21 Storni, Segundo R. (Vice-Admiral). Internes Argentinos en el Mar, 2nd ed. (First published in 1916), Buenos

Aires, 1952.

22 Flores, Mario Cesar (Captain, Navy). "Poder Naval na decada dos setenta". Biblioteca do Exercito

- Servigo de Documentagio Geral da Marinha, Rio de Janeiro, 1972. Part 3, Chapter I of: Panorama do Poder Maritimo Brasileiro; Caminha, Joao Carlos Goncalves (Vice-Admiral). "Mahan: sua epoca e suas ideias".

Revista Maritima Brasileira, July-August-September 1986, pp. 15-70.

23 Langlois, op. cit.; Diaz Buzeta, Santiago (Captain, Navy). Estrategia Naval. Imprenta de la Armada,

Valparaiso, 1956.

24 Buse de la Guerra, Hermann. "Influencia del Poder Maritimo en America". Instituto de Estudios

Historico-Maritimos, Lima, 1980. Part II of Simposium sobre El uso del Mar y Su Influencia en el Desarrollo Nacional.

25 Marini, Jose F. (Colonel). El Conocimiento Geopolitico. Circulo Militar, Buenos Aires, 1985; Fraga, Jorge

A. (Rear-admiral). Ensayos de Geopolitica. Instituto de Publicaciones Havales, Buenos Aires, 1985.

26 Castro, Terezinha de. "Retrato do Brasil". Atlas - Texto de Geopolitica, Biblioteca do Exercito, Rio de

Janeiro, circa 1986; Flores, Mario Cesar (Captain, Navy). "Poder Maritimo-Conceito e situacao

Brasileira". Biblioteca do Exercito-Servico de Documentagao Geral da Marinha, Rio de Janeiro, 1972. Part 2, Chapter 1 of: Panorama do Poder Maritimo Brasileiro; Oliveira Mafra, Roberto Machado de (Lt. Colonel)

& Lima Abreu, Carlos Athayades de (Lt. Colonel). "Introducao a Geopolitica". A Defesa Nacional, OctoberNovember-December 1977.

27 Pinochet Ugarte, Augusto (General). Geopolitica de Chile. El cid, Mexico, 1978 (First published in 1968);

Buzeta, Oscar (vice-Admiral). Chile Geopolitico: Presente y Euturo. Centro de Estudios de Investigaciones

Socio-Economicas de la Companiia de Jesus en Chile, Santiago, 1978.

28 Buse de la Guerra. op. cit.; Ramirez Canaval, Hugo (Peruvian Rear-Admiral). "Introduccion a la Geopolitica". Revista "Geopolitica Nr. 19, September 1980, Buenos Aires. Pages 12-31.

29 See for example, Livezey, William E. Mahan on Sea Power. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman,

1947, Chapter XIV, and, Gray, Colin S. The Geopolitics of the Nuclear Era. National Strategy Information

Center, New York, 1977.
Latin America and Mahan 91

It is worthwhile taking into consideration that, besides the aforementioned

literature, Latin American intellectuals in the fields of strategy and geopolitics

were also familiar with a number of other classical works such as those by

Darrieus,30 Daveluy,31 Corbett,32 and Wegener33 as well as with the historical

works derived from the major wars of the century, particularly, the RussoJapanese War and World Wars I and II. Many of these books were translated

and locally edited. Moreover, Latin American authors produced their own

interpretations of these wars.

U.S. Naval Missions.

The U.S. naval missions and advisory groups, as well as the attendance

at U.S. naval courses by Latin American naval officers exerted an intellectual

influence. In addition, the creation of Naval War Colleges provided another

channel of influence in most of the Latin American navies during the century.

The first U.S. naval missions in Latin America were those established in

Brazil and Peru, during the closing days of World War I. Over the years,

they have provided a continuous flow of American ideas, doctrines,

procedures, technology, professional literature, etc., not only in these two

countries, but to the whole range of countries which, during the century,

had a U.S. naval mission.34 By the mid-nineteen thirties, Argentina, in spite of not having a naval

mission, requested a U.S. "group of naval advisors" to assist in the

establishment and development of its Naval War College. It was no

coincidence that, among the first books published by the newly created War

College in 1935 were the Spanish translations of Mahan's The Influence of Sea

Power upon History and Naval Strategy. 35 As a first conclusion, it may be stated that Mahan's naval thought was

known and accepted among Latin American navies, and his geo-political ideas

were and are still influential among other branches of the military and even

civilian circles.

The Form of Latin American Navies.

One can see Mahan's influence in the type of navies that have been

developed by the Latin American countries since the beginning of the century.

Brazil, Chile and Argentina were, perhaps, the most "battle fleet minded"

of the Latin American countries during the first half of the century. Given

the prevailing naval theories among the Great Powers, their rivalries and their

30 Darrieus, Gabriel. La Guerre sur Mer. Agustin Challamel, Paris, 1907.

31 Daveluy, Rene. Etude sur la Strategie Navale. Berger - Levrault & cie, Paris, 1905. Daveluy, Rene. L'Esprit de la Guerre Navale, 3 vols. Berger - Levrault & Cie, Paris-Nancy, 1909-16.

32 Corbett, Julian S. Some Principles of Maritime Strategy. Longmans, Green & Co, London, 1911.

33 Wegener, Wolfgang. Seestrategie des Weltkrieges. E.S. Mittler & Sohn, Berlin, 1929.

34 Scheina. op. cit. Chapter 9.

35 See notes 12 & 13.
92 Guillermo J. Montenegro

financial position, reasonably better than the rest of Latin America, led to

great efforts to create and keep a significant naval power in each one of the

three countries.

Brazil. Brazil led the way with its 1904 program calling for two battleships

(the first Latin American Dreadnoughts), two cruisers and ten destroyers. A

third battleship, Rio de Janeiro, was later sold to Turkey because of financial

problems which also led to the cancellation of its proposed replacement, to

be named Riachuelo. In addition, three submarines joined the Brazilian Navy

by 1914.

Brazilian battleships were later modernized during the 1920 's. One of them,

Minas Gerais was again extensively modified in the 1930's.36 There were no significant additions to the surface navy until the late 1930's,

at which point Brazil ordered six H-class destroyers from Great Britain. They

were never delivered because of the outbreak of World War II. Prior to this, the Brazilian Navy had tried to purchase or lease some U.S.

vessels. Unsuccessful, in part because of Argentinean diplomatic opposition,

Brazil started a national shipbuilding program which led to the construction

ofnine destroyers which were commissioned between the mid 1940's and early

1950's. 37 During the fifties, other important additions to the Brazilian Fleet

were two U.S. cruisers of the Brooklyn-class and an aircraft carrier (ex-HMS

Vengeance).

Besides the surface fleet, the Submarine Force, one of the first in South

America, was reinforced between the late twenties and thirties, by four Italian

built submarines.

The 1960's and the early 1970's gave way to a period in which most Latin

American navies were shaped by the transfer of a large number of former

U.S. Navy ships, mainly destroyers and submarines.

By the mid-seventies the Brazilian Navy sought an expansion outside the

U.S. transfer system. Six frigates of British design (Niteroi-class) and three

British built Oberon class submarines became the core of this program.

The latest additions to the Brazilian Navy are four Inhahuma-class frigates

and four "209"-class submarines all of which were built in local shipyards.

Argentina. The Brazilian 1904 program generated a swift Argentine

answer: two battleships and twelve destroyers were ordered from foreign

shipyards. (In fact, because of the outbreak of World War I, only four

36 Scheina. op. cit. Chapter 5; Schema, Robert L. "Lateinamerikanische Dreadnoughts". Marine Rundschau, Nr. 9, 1979, pp. 571-580; Breyer, Siegfried. Schlachtschiffe und Schlachtkreuzer 1905-1970.].?. Lehmanns Verlag,

Munich, 1970; Breyer, Siegfried. Grosskampfschiffe 1905-1970, Band 3. Bernard & Graefe Verlag, Munchen,

1979; Conway's all the World Fighting Ships, 1906-1921. Conway Maritime Press, London, 1985. Pp. 403-407.

37 Scheina, 1987, op. cit. Chapter 9; Conway's all the World Fighting Ships, 1922-1946. Conway Maritime Press, London, 1980, pp. 416-418; Almeida Guillobel, Renato de (Captain, Navy). "A Marinha do Brasil na Guerra

1942-1945" (Lecture delivered in 1945), Subsidios para a Historia Maritima do Brasil, Volume XXIII - Servico

de Documentacao Geral da Marinha, Rio de Janeiro, 1967, pp. 149-150; Vidigal, Armando Amorim Ferreira (Vice-Admiral). "A Evolucao do Pensamento Estrategico Naval Brasileiro", Revista Maritima Brasileira, August-September-October 1983, p. 37.
Latin America and Mahan 93

destroyers actually joined the Argentine Fleet). The purchase of a third

Dreadnought was contemplated, as a way to counterbalance the third Brazilian

battleship, but, after the latter's cancellation, the Argentine project was

discontinued.38 The Argentine naval programs of the 1920's and 1930's are, perhaps, the

most significant. Argentine battleships were extensively refitted in 1924-1925,

where they received most of the improvements derived from the "lessons"

of World War I. These improvements included, oil fired boilers, geared

turbines and new fire control systems. Additionally three cruisers, twelve

destroyers, and three submarines joined the Navy between 1927 and 1939. 39 In the early fifties, the Argentine Navy received, as did Brazil and Chile,

two U. S. built cruisers of the Brooklyn-class. These transfers marked the end

of Argentine naval dominance in the Southern cone. In fact Argentina had

achieved, by the late thirties, a "two power standard", in excess of the "one

power standard" prescribed by Storni, one of the Argentine Mahan-inspired

naval writers, whose work was previously mentioned.40 By the late fifties, the Argentine Navy received its first carrier (ex-HMS

Warrior), which became the first operational aircraft carrier in South America.

As previously stated in reference to the Brazilian Navy, the sixties and

the early seventies were highlighted by the transfers of a large number of

former U. S. vessels. However, even in the late 1960's the Argentine Navy

turned to Europe, seeking new warships. Two British type 42 DDG's and

two German-built "209"-class submarines were ordered. These units were

commissioned in the Argentine Navy between the mid-seventies and early

eighties.41 Moreover, in 1969 the Argentine Navy took advantage of the opportunity

of purchasing the Dutch aircraft carrier Karel Doorman (ex-HMS Venerable) , providing the Fleet with the capability of operating jet attack aircraft. Also,

three French-built A-69-type corvettes were commissioned between the late

seventies and early eighties. The next large procurement effort led the

Argentine Navy to add four Meko-360-class destroyers, two TR 1700

submarines and three Meko-140-class corvettes to its inventory, as well as a squadron of anti-ship missile armed Super Etendard attack aircraft. In spite

of serious delays caused by the difficult economic situation in Argentina, four

TR 1700 submarines and three MEKO-140 corvettes are still pending

completion, as part of this program.42

38 Conway's all the World Fighting Ships, 1947-1982, part II. Conway Maritime Press, London, 1983, pp. 401-

405; Scheina, 1979; Conway's . . . 1906-1921, pp. 400-402; Breyer, 1970; Breyer, 1979.

39 Montenegro, GuillermoJ. (Commander). "Die Argentinische Marine seit 1945." Marine Rundschau, Nr.

6, 1978, pp. 375-397; Conway's . . . 1922-1946, pp. 419-421.

40 Scheina, 1987, p. 173; Conway's . . . 1947-1982, pp. 393 and 401.

41 Montenegro, 1978; Conway's . . . 1947-1982, pp. 393-400.

42 Ibid.
94 Guillermo J. Montenegro

Chile. The Chilean reaction to Brazilian and Argentine shipbuilding

programs during the beginning of the century indicated every intention of

keeping the pace with its two neighbors. Chile ordered two battleships to

be built in Britain, derived from the Iron Duke-class but armed with 14" guns.

These were taken over by the Royal Navy at the outbreak of World War

I. One of them, originally named Almirante Latorre served in the Grand Fleet

as HMS Canada, fought with the British battle line at Jutland and finally was

delivered to Chile at the end of the war, reverting to her original name and

becoming the only "super-Dreadnought" in South America. The second ship,

whose intended name was Almirante Cochrane, was converted during

construction into an aircraft carrier and became HMS Eagle.43 In compensation,

the Chilean Navy got six British-built submarines giving birth to the third

South American submarine force. In the late twenties, the Chilean Navy

improved its capabilities with the modernization of the Latorre, and the

purchase of six destroyers and three submarines from Britain.44 Chile also

intended to obtain U.S. built cruisers, destroyers and submarines for the

Chilean Navy by 1940, but these projects never materialized.45 Like Brazil and Argentina, Chile also received two U.S. -built cruisers of

the Brooklyn-class by the early fifties. In addition to some U.S. transfers in

the sixties and the seventies, Chile purchased two brand-new British-built

destroyers by the early sixties (one of the few additions of new foreign built

vessels to Latin America in the first decades after World War II). Further

increases to the Chilean Navy were the ex-Swedish cruiser Gota Lejon in

the early seventies, two Leander-class frigates and two Oberon-class submarines

in the mid and late seventies, plus two German-built "209 "-class submarines

and four ex-British County-class destroyers in the eighties.46 Peru. The Peruvian Navy, which is now one of the major Latin American

naval powers, started this century in a very poor condition. Devastated by

the lost war of the Pacific against Chile, Peru was in an extremely difficult

economic situation. After World War 1, the only significant additions to her

navy were four U.S. built "£"-class submarines, which joined the Peruvian

Navy in the late twenties. Some authors have argued that Peru attempted

to counter Chile's superior surface fleet by creating a significant submarine

force following Brazil's example. Brazil had done this to counter the

perceived threat from Argentina during the twenties and the thirties, trying

to balance with submarines her opponent's superiority in surface forces.47 In

Peru, border disputes with Ecuador caused a difficult relationship between

the two countries and actually led to war by the early forties. This was another

43 Scheina, 1979; Breyer, 1970; Breyer, 1979; Conway's . . . 1906-1921, pp. 407-409.

44 Conway's . . . 1922-1946, pp. 422-423.

45 Scheina, 1987, pp. 85, 163.

46 Conway's . . . 1947-1982, pp. 407-411.

47 Conway's . . . 1922-1946, pp. 416, 423.
Latin America and Mahan 95

impetus to keep a strong Peruvian Navy. Peru obtained a second important

enforcement for its submarine force in the fifties, when four brand new U.S.-

built submarines of the Abtao-class were commissioned. These boats were

similar to the U.S. hunter-killer boats of that day. Through the mid-seventies,

these Peruvian submarines constituted the most modern units of its kind in

South America, as well as being another of the few additions of foreign built

"new" vessels to Latin American navies between the end of World War II and the early seventies.48 On the other hand, the Peruvian surface forces

received no significant improvements until the late fifties, when two Britishbuilt cruisers of the Co/owy-class were purchased. This led to a sustained

expansion from the sixties up to the early eighties, which included two exBritish Daring-class destroyers, seven ex-Dutch Holland/Friesland-class

destroyers, two ex-Dutch cruisers, three Lwpo-class Italian-built frigates and

six French-built PR 72 P-type missile corvettes.49 The submarine force was

also updated, by the purchase of six German-built "209"-class boats.50 Venezuela. Venezuela's Navy was a minor force during the first half of

the century.51 In the late forties and early fifties, improved political and

economic conditions led to naval expansion. The first important additions

were three new construction British-built destroyers, roughly equivalent to

the Battle and Daring-classes, which joined the Venezuelan Navy by the midfifties. (These destroyers were another of the few additions of foreign, newly

built vessels to South American navies between 1945 and the early 1970's).

Further increases in fleet strength, in addition to U.S. transfers, were six

Italian-built frigates commissioned in the mid fifties, six Italian Lw^o-class

frigates in the early 1980's and four German 209-type submarines between

the late seventies and the early eighties. These additions made Venezuela a

significant naval power in the Caribbean region.552 Colombia. Colombia's Navy was almost non-existent by the time tensions

with Peru arose in the mid-nineteen thirties over boundary disputes. This

necessitated a significant effort in order to build up a navy almost from

scratch. 53 Two destroyers were purchased from Portugal.54 Subsequent

additions to the Colombian Navy, as far as new ships is concerned, have been

relatively minor, i.e.: two Swedish-built destroyers in the late fifties and four

FS-1500 HDW-built frigates and two "209 "-type submarines in the early

eighties. 55

48 Conway's . . . 1947-1982, pp. 421-425.

49 Ibid.

50 Ibid.

51 Conway's . . . 1922-1946, p. 415.

52 Conway's . . . 1947-1982, pp. 427-430.

53 Reyes Canal, Julio C. (Captain, Navy). Contra viento y marea - Cuaderno Bitacora de la Fundacibn de una Armada. Bogota, 1985.

54 Conway's . . . 1922-1946, p. 415.

55 Conway's . . . 1947-1982, pp. 411-413.
96 Gujllermo J. Montenegro

Ecuador. Maintaining that its border dispute with Peru (from the

Ecuadorain perception), has not been fully solved, Ecuador has sought to

upgrade its navy since the early 1950's and has made significant progress,

which has culminated in the commissioning of six Italian-built missile armed

corvettes, three missile fast attack craft and two German "209 "-type

submarines between the late seventies and early eighties. 56 The remaining Latin American countries kept relatively small naval forces

during almost the entire century. In most cases this was due to lack of

resources, and, in some others, because of the non-existence of regional

tensions, as in the case of Mexico.57 Paraguay. Paraguay was a special case. In spite of having no sea coast,

the existence of navigable rivers along its borders and across its territory,

coupled with a growing tension with Bolivia in the late twenties, which

eventually caused a war in 1932-1935, led to the acquisition of two excellent

river gunboats, which joined the Paraguayan Navy in 1931.

Mahanian Navies. It should be emphasized that the acquisition and

maintenance of the naval forces mentioned in the previous paragraphs

represented and still constitute a substantial effort for all the Latin American

countries involved. Latin American countries have had first hand experience

regarding "having or not having" the adequate amount of sea power to face

a crisis or a war situation. These fleets came to life because of tensions and

dangers perceived as real, as well as a means to gain diplomatic leverage,

whenever necessary.58 Moreover, it should be said that several of the aforementioned Latin

American naval writers, as well as some others, were advocates of a big navy

or showed a distinct concern for a naval balance in the face of prospective

rivals. 59 Therefore, one may conclude that, when tensions were present and

resources available, the Latin American Navies favored, and still favor, the

Mahanian concept of a strong navy.

Navies and Sea Power. There is another area in which Mahanian

inspiration proved significant. This was the continued concern of Latin

American Navies in the maritime affairs of their respective countries, giving

impulse to their shipyards and fishing industries, their maritime legislation,

56 Ibid, pp. 415-416.

57 Conway's . . . 1922-1946, p. 414; Conway's . . . 1947-1982, pp. 419-420.

58 Scheina, 1979.

59 Dias, Arthur. O Problema Naval. Oficina da Estatistica, Rio de Janeiro, 1899; Storni, op. cit.; Lagos, M.J. (Rear-Admiral). El Voder Naval, Buenos Aires, 1921; Burlamaqui, Armando (Captain, Navy). A situaqao

Naval Sul Americana em 1921. Imprensa Naval, Rio de Janeiro, 1921; Burlamaqui, Armando (Captain, Navy).

Esboqo da Politica Naval Brasileira, Imprensa Nacional, Rio de Janeiro, 1923; Flores, Mario Cesar (Captain,

Navy). A Marinha de Guerra no Brasil Actual, Biblioteca de Exercito, Servico de Documenta^ao Geral da

Marinha, Rio de Janeiro, 1972. Part 3. Chapter 2 of: Panorama do Poder Maritimo Brasileiro; Ghisolfo Araya,

Francisco. "Situacion Estrategica Naval". Revista de Marina, Valparaiso, 1985, pp. 401-474, 605-644 of: El

Poder Naval Chileno, vol. II.
Latin America and Mahan 97

etc., trying to put into practice the dictum: "Naval strategy has indeed for

its end to establish, support and increase, as well in peace as in war, the sea power of a country".60

It should be remembered that, in the beginning of this century, Latin

American merchant navies were very small or nonexistent, the indigenous

capabilities for ship repairs were minimal, and those for shipbuilding were

nil. Therefore, the upgrading of national maritime assets was a colossal task

to face.

Latin American Navies have dedicated strong efforts to educate their

populations about the advantages of sea power and its meaning. In some cases these policies led to the creation of Navy Leagues, which play an important

role in teaching and informing the public about sea power. Naval officers

have played a key role in this. In most Latin American countries, important

positions concerning the merchant marine, the shipbuilding industry, harbor

administration, maritime police, piloting, have usually been held by either

serving or retired naval officers.

Another maritime-related field ofinterest was, and is, the Antarctica. Chile

and Argentina were the pioneers, and for many years, they were the only

Latin American countries there. However, in the last few decades, a large

number of regional countries have encouraged expeditions and/or settled

permanent scientific bases there. In all cases, navies have had the most

prominent share in each country's efforts to build and maintain a presence

in Antartica.

This actual involvement In the maritime affairs of each country has gone

hand to hand with a parallel intellectual effort to influence and to inform

the maritime-related community and the general public. Latin American

literature about the "Maritime Interests" of each country is really massive.61

60 Mahan, Alfred T. The Influence of Sea Power upon History-1660-1783. Little, Brown & Co, Boston, 1940,

p. 23.

61 Some relevant examples are: Flores, Mario Cesar (Captain, Navy). Panorama do Poder Maritimo Brasileiro. Biblioteca do Exercito, Servico de Documentacao Geral da Marinha, Rio de Janeiro, 1972. Especially

Part 4 - "Marinha Mercante"; Part 5 - "Construgao e Reparos Navais"; Part 6 - "Portos"; Part 9 - "O

Homen e O Mar"; Storni, op. cit.; Fraga, Jorge A. (Rear-Admiral). La Argentina y el Atlantico Sur. Instituto de Publicaciones Navales, Buenos Aires, 1983; Casellas, Alberto O. (Captain, Navy). La Alternativa Oceanica.

Instituto de Publicaciones Navales, Buenos Aires, 1987; Parra Maza, Raul (Captain, Navy). "La Politica Maritima Peruana con Proyeccion al Siglo XXI". Revista de Marina, Lima, November-December 1980,

pp. 192-206; Indacoechea Queirolo, Alberto (Vice-Admiral). "Los Intereses Maritimos y su Relacion con

la Marina de Guerra del Peru hasta 1979", Revista de Marina, Lima, November-December 1980, pages 207-

212; Carcelen Basurto, Jose (Rear-Admiral). "Los Intereses Maritimos y su Relacion con la Marina de

Guerra del Peru en la Decada del '80". Revista de Marina, Lima, November-December 1980, pp. 213-222; Leon y Leon, Adolfo. "Situacion, posibilidades y metas de la Marina Mercante Nacional". Instituto de

Estudios Historico-Maritimos, Lima, 1980. Part IV of: Simposium sobre el uso del mar y su influencia en el desarrollo nacional; Villagran Tapia, Cesar (Captain, Navy). "La Construccion Naval en el Peru". Instituto de Estudios

Historico-Maritimos, Lima, 1980. Part VI of: Simposium sobre el uso del mar y su influencia en el desarrollo nacional; Castafion Pasquel, Emilio. "Resefia Historica de la Pesca e Industrias Conexas - Proyecciones". Instituto de Estudios Historico-Maritimos, Lima, 1980. Part VIII of: Simposium sobre el uso del mar y su influencia en

el desarrollo nacional; Scheihing Navarro, Ruben. "Proyeccion Maritima Nacional. Revista de Marina,

Valparaiso, 1985, pp. 537-555 of El Poder Naval Chileno vol. II; Angulo Budge, Eduardo. "Intereses Maritimos". Revista de Marina, Valparaiso, 1985, pp. 557-603 of El Poder Naval Chileno vol. II.
98 Guillermo J. Montenegro

Throughout this century, the majority of the Latin American naval writers

have tried hard to influence conditions in the light of these factors that Mahan

identified, such as National Character and Character of the Government,62 which affect the sea power of a country.

Conclusion. Mahan's influence in Latin America was not exclusive, being

shared with - and in some cases reinforced by some of the "Outstanding Naval

Strategic Writers of the Century".63 Moreover, his influence had a varying

impact upon each individual country, and, was expressed through varying

paths. Despite this, Mahan's influence in the region was and remains a real one. For most Latin American navies, he is a major prophet, if not the only

prophet.

62 Mahan, A.T., op. cit., pp. 50, 58.

63 Hunt, Barry D. "The Outstanding Naval Strategic Writers of the Century". Naval War College Review

September-October 1984, pp. 86-107.
99

Chapter 9

Low Intensity Conflict in Latin America

Does Mahan have a Place

Robert L. Schema

Above all else, Alfred Thayer Mahan was the Thalassocratic determinist

of the United States. For Mahan, national greatness, and even survival,

depended upon sea power.

One does not have to be a student of Mahan in order to practice his

teachings. 1 Examples exist within Latin America, as elsewhere, of leaders who

have employed the theories of noted strategists without having been exposed

to their writings.2 For three decades Fidel Castro has been employing elements of sea power

as defined by Mahan to further Cuba's foreign policy throughout Latin

America. On the surface it might seem ridiculous to argue that a country

ranked somewhere among the "un-rank" of world naval powers, could

seriously challenge the nation possessing the world's most powerful fleet, the

United States Navy. This would be ridiculous if sea power were based solely

upon navies. However, as Mahan noted, sea power is more than navies for

it "includes not only the military strength afloat . . . but also the peaceful

! And conversely, studying Mahan does not necessarily mean that one has learned from his writings.

2The greatness of many noted military teachers lies in the fact that they articulated the obvious before

it was espoused by others. This does not necessarily mean that others can not practice the art first or

practice it ignorant of the writings of anointed teacher. Since few analysts look to Latin America for military lessons, many of these have gone unnoticed. For example, between 1817 and 1824 General Jose de San Martin used sea power to carry the war of Independence from Argentina to the center of Spanish

power in South America, Peru, with the strategy of liberating Chile first and then transporting his army

over the sea to Peru. He came to this strategic concept after witnessing the defeat of three Argentine

expeditions led by his predecessors. These had failed to reach Peru by way of the Bolivian highlands.

This projection of sea power ashore long preceded the writings of Mahan. A century later during the Chaco War, Marshal Jose Estigarribia successfully employed a strategy based on mobility against his opponent, General Hans Kundt, who was married to the old doctrine of holding territory. This took place

before Estigarribia could have had access to Charles de Gaulle's Vers I'Armee de Metier, published in 1934,

and Erwin Rommel's Infanterie greift an, published in 1937.
100 Robert L. Scheina

commerce and shipping. . . ."3 As we shall see, merchant ships can haul more

than commerce and fishing craft can catch more than fish.

Two factors allow the commercial aspects of sea power to play a major

role in modern Latin American history. First, since World War II, "low

intensity conflicts" have been the dominant form of warfare throughout the

region. Covert action can play a critical role in such fighting. During such

warfare, fishing fleets and merchant marines have more opportunities to

support national objectives than do navies. Merchant ships and fishing craft

may be sent almost anywhere at almost anytime without undue notice. A

warship by its nature attracts attention at all times, thus limiting its usefulness

for covert operations.

Second, Latin American nations are heavily dependent upon the sea for

commerce. More than 90 percent of all international commerce carried among

Latin American nations moves by water. No Latin American nation has

developed a merchant marine capable of meeting domestic needs. This lack

of merchant marines provides others, including Cuba, the opportunity to use

their fleets for political objectives within the region.

Most Latin American nations claim exclusive economic zones or territorial

waters extending out to 200 miles in order to control the sea's rich bounty.

Cuba is the only Latin American nation which has developed a fishing fleet

large and sophisticated enough to roam the world's oceans thousands of miles

from home. Today, fishing is the third most important industry in Cuba.4 In

about 1980 Cuba even converted a fishing vessel, the Isla de la Juventud, into

an intelligence gathering ship. 5 Among the remaining Latin American nations,

fishing fleets are not even large enough to exploit the harvest within their

own territorial waters.

In order to earn much needed hard currency, most Latin American nations

find it financially necessary to license foreign fleets to fish in their waters.

Cuba and other communist bloc nations are always competitive bidders for

these fishing rights. In some cases, such as the current agreement between

Peru and the Soviet Union, the foreign fishing fleet has routine access to the

ports of the licensing nation.6 Ironically, in spite of th fact that Cuba is an island, sea power did not play

a major role in bringing Fidel Castro to power. True, Castro and his band

of 82 did arrive by boat in 1956 and they did receive significant financial help

from sympathizers in the United States. However, during the fighting which

3Alfred Thayer Marian, The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660-1783 (Boston: Little, Brown & Co.,

1935), p. 28.

4The two more significant industries are sugar and the re-export of oil. Dominguez and Hernandez, U.S.- Cuban Relations in the 1990s (Boulder: Westview Press, 1989), p. 238.

5 Baker, Combat Fleets of the World 1990-91 (Annapolis: U.S. Naval Institute Press, 1990), p. 103.

6 During the 1970s Peru signed a fishing agreement with Cuba which permitted twelve Cuban fishing vessels

to operate in Peruvian waters. Within a few years the agreement was shifted to the Soviet Union because

of the significantly greater capacity of its fishing fleets. Los Convenios Pesqueros entre El Peru y La Union

Souietica en Debate (Lima: CEPEI, 1989), p. 21.
Low Intensity Conflict 101

followed, less than 15 per cent of Castro's logistical support came from outside

Cuba.7 The 1959 Cuban Revolution was an air and ground war.

During his early years in power, Castro undoubtedly learned to appreciate

the use of naval power. In June 1959 some two hundred guerrillas sailed from

Cuba in two vessels apparently under the escort of three Cuban frigates,

holdovers from Batistas Navy. Their objective was the overthrow of

Dominican strongman Rafael Trujillo. Although successfully landed, this

effort to spread revolution failed. 8 On 17 April 1961 Castro successfully

defeated the Bay ofPigs invasion; he, more than anyone, must have understood

that this American failure was not caused by lack of adequate naval strength.

During this same time Castro openly threatened to support an invasion of

Panama by revolutionaries. U.S. naval forces, patrolling the Caribbean coast

of northern Panama between 24 April and 4 May, prevented the threat from

being carried out.9 And in October 1962 Castro again witnessed the use of

U.S. naval power during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Castro must have

appreciated that he could not openly challenge the United States Navy.

Following the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro became the champion of

Marxists seeking to bring about change through violence. Mario Llerena, a

liberal intellectual who had supported Castro during the Revolution, wrote:

"Revolution, then, came to be Castro's supreme vocation. Castro sees revolution not

as a last resort but as a channel for self-expression—an escape valve for his accumulated

resentments and hates. He actually needs revolution as the addict needs drugs. 10 During the three decades following the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro

supported guerrilla warfare as he searched for a winning strategy. The decade

of the 1960s was dedicated to the foco strategy as articulated by Che Guevara.

This was followed by years of support for urban guerrilla warfare. And today,

we might call the current era the strategy of the united front. Successes have

been few; nonetheless, Castro does not seem to have lost his revolutionary

enthusiasm.

One constant throughout these three decades has been Castro's use of

Cuba's merchant and fishing fleets to support the struggle against nonMarxists governments. For obvious reasons, Castro has attempted to keep

secret their operations in support of political objects. However, thirty years

of activity can not be made totally invisible.

7 Chapelle, "How Castro Won," 334-35; Time (14 July 1958), 29.

8 Fermoselle, The Evolution of the Cuban Military: 1492-1986 (Miami: Ediciones Universal, 1987), p. 348-49. During this period other guerrilla groups sailed for Panama, Nicaragua and Haiti. However, no direct Cuban maritime support has been proven.

9Robert Scheina, "The Cuban Navy," in The Soviet and Other Communist Navies: The View from the mid- 1980s ed. by James L. George (Annapolis: U.S. Naval Institute Press, 1986), pp. 324-25.

10Mario Llerena, Unsuspected Revolution (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1978), p. 203. Today, many

scholars convincingly argue that Fidel Castro has always been the most generous supporter for revolutionary warfare, at times even contrary to the wishes of the Soviet Union.
102 Robert L. Scheina

During the early 1960s, Castro focused much of his revolutionary activity

against the fledgling democratic government of Venezuela. In July 1964 the

Venezuelan armed forces discovered three tons of munitions which had been

brought by sea from Cuba.11 In July 1966 and again in May 1967 Castro openly

reinforced the Venezuelan Communist Douglas Bravo with arms and fresh

guerrillas trained in Cuba. On 18 May 1967 several Cubans were captured

landing on the Venezuelan coast. Granma, the official Cuban newspaper,

responded to Venezuelan charges that Cuba was aiding Communist guerrillas

not with denials but admission:

"We are accused of helping the revolutionary movement, and we, quite so, are giving

and will continue to give help to all revolutionary movements that struggle against

imperialism in any part of the world, whenever they request it."12 By the mid 1960s, Cuba had significantly expanded its fishing fleet, thanks

to the help of the Soviet Union, to permit fishing outside the Caribbean. In

1966 two Cuban stern freezer trawlers operated with the Communist-bloc

fleet off Argentine's Patagonia coast. The following year, an armada of

Communist-bloc fishing vessels appeared off the east coast of South America.

Some newspaper reports claimed that there were as many as two hundred

fishing vessels. In response, the Argentine government extended its fishing

zone out to 200 miles. The Communist-bloc fishing fleet delayed in leaving

Argentine waters. As a result, the Argentine Navy used force to seize two

large processing ships and a number of catch boats. In early 1971 Brazil also

extended its territorial waters to 200 miles, thus making short-lived Cuban

fishing in those waters. 13 This also prevented their participation in covert

operations in support of urban guerrillas, a serious Brazilian concern at that

time. In spite of these setbacks the Communist-bloc fishing vessels, including

those of Cuba, continued to operate off the East Coast of South America,

outside the 200 mile exclusion zones. Salvador Allende's election as President of Chile in November 1970 opened

new opportunities for Cuba's fishing industry. In February 1971 the newly

established Chilean Ministry of Fisheries signed a fisheries technical assistance

agreement with Cuba. Under this agreement, Cuban ships were permitted

to fish inside Chilean waters if licensed; the possibility of a Chilean marine

fisheries school with Cuban instructors was to be studied; and Cuba promised

to assist in determining the fisheries stock within Chilean waters. In fact,

Cuba proved to be technically incapable of delivering on these promises;

"Carbonell, And the Russians Stayed (New York: William Morrow and Co., 1989), p. 369.

12Granma Weekly Review (Havana) 21 May 1967.

13In 1972 the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) established by the United Nation's Conference on the Law

of the Sea (UNCLOS) had not yet been put forward. The only practical way to guarantee fishing rights was to extend the territorial waters unilaterally. After 1982 Brazil adopted a 12 mile territorial sea with

a 200 mile EEZ. Thebberge, Soviet Seapower in the Caribbean (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1972), p. 156-

57.
Low Intensity Conflict 103

however, the necessary know-how was to be provided by the Soviet Union.14 Soon three Cuban boats were operating in territorial waters off central Chile

and six Soviet vessels to the north. According to the Chilean Navy, the first

priority of these fishing boats was oceanographic and military intelligence. 15 On 12 September 1973 an incident occurred which fueled speculation that

Cuban maritime activity within Chilean waters was more than commercial.

The Cuban merchant ship Calle Larga fled Valparaio following the overthrow

of the Salvador Allende government. She was overtaken by Chilean destroyer

Blanco Encalada but permitted to proceed. It is speculated that she had carried

arms to the Chilean Communist. Since proof was not immediately at hand,

the ship had to be permitted to proceed. 16 The Communist-bloc fishing fleet did not return to the waters off Chile

until 1982. Between 1982 and 1986 the Communist-bloc fishing fleet operated

off Chile between 230 and 300 miles out. The Chilean Navy estimated that

the fishing catch by the Communist fleet grew from 576,000 tons in 1982 to

1,700,000 tons in 1986.

Cuban maritime assets were important in the arming of Grenada following

the rise of the pro-Communist government of Maurice Bishop in March 1979.

Grenada contracted with the Soviet Union and East Bloc nations for large

quantities of arms. The agreement called for the weapons to be shipped to

Cuba and from there they were trans-shipped apparently by Cuban maritime

assets to Grenada. 17 The extent of Cuba's maritime support given to the Sandinistas appears

to be modest. Prior to the overthrow of Somoza, apparently Cuban aid was

primarily delivered by aircraft. Considering the arms could be flown openly

into Costa Rica's San Jose airport and then trucked into Nicaragua, maritime

routes offered no advantage. This does not seemed to have changed following

the Sandinista seizure of power. During the first three months of 1984 the

Contras attacked shipping in Nicaragua's west coast ports. Of the

approximately 20 merchant ships damaged by gunfire and mines it appears

that only one flew the Cuban flag. 18 Considering that Cuba and Nicaragua

had excellent air service and that Nicaragua's principal ports are on the

Pacific, the absence of the Cuban merchant marine should come as no surprise.

However, sea as well as land and air routes were used to introduce weapons

14 In addition, the agreement did help break down the attempt to isolate Cuba by the Organization of

American States. Thebberge, Soviet Seapower in the Caribbean, 160-62.

15Chilean Navy produced video tape entitled "Soviet Fishing Boat operations in Proximity of Chilean

Coastal Waters," no date.

16£/ Mercurio (Valparaiso), 13 Septiembre 1973, p. 1. "Agreement between the Government of Grenada and the Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics dated 27 July 1982 published in Uri Ra'anan, et. aL, Hydra of Carnage (Lexington: Lexington

Books, 1986), pp. 364, 379-81. w Watt Street Journal (6 March 1985), 20:1.
104 Robert L. Scheina

into El Salvador from Nicaragua. Arms were shipped across the Gulf of

Fonseca in small craft. 19 Probably Cuba's most daring affront to U.S. naval power began in 1982.

In that year a department was created within the Interior Ministry the task

of which was to smuggle scarce materials from the United States to Cuba.

According to radio Havana, which publicly exposed this operation in 1989,

"Not a few necessities were resolved this way."20 A large number of Cuban

intelligence agents had been introduced into the United States during the

Mariel Boatlift in 1982. These agents routinely crossed between Cuba and

Florida in speed boats known as cigarette boats. One of these agents, Mario

Estavez Gonzales, described to various committees of the U.S. Congress how

it was easy to travel by high speed craft between the two countries. Senator

Paula Hawkins asked Estavez, "How many times had you gone back and

forth?" The answer, "I would go every month, two or three times." Senator

Hawkins continued, "And when you would come back to the United States,

did anybody check any of your documents or ask for your identification?"

Estevez responded, "This is a very free country. They don't ask for anything

here."21 According to Eden Pastora Gomez, at the time a member of the Sandinista

National Directorate, Fidel Castro decided to enter the narcotics business in

1982 with the objective of introducing drugs into the United States in order

to undermine the social fabric. 22 In contradiction, Radio Havana claimed that

General Arnaldo Ochoa was fully responsible for Cuba's participating in the

drug trafficking.23 Regardless of which is correct, Cuba tried to coerce drug

dealers into using their craft to carry arms to leftist guerrillas in Colombia.

Officials in Cuba had agreed to allow their territorial waters to serve as a trans-shipment site for these traffickers in exchange for a share of the profits.

The smugglers, Johnny Crump and David Lorenzo Perez, had been unable

to pay Cuban officials because one of their boats had to dump its cargo

overboard after being detected by the U. S. Coast Guard.24 During the 1980s, Cuba continued to transport weapons to guerrillas via

water routes. The Colombian Army captured a guerrilla, who a few months

earlier had been granted asylum in Cuba. He testified that he had flown from

Cuba to Panama and along with other guerrillas and arms had been landed

19Testimony of Eden Pastora Gomez, quoted in Uri Ra'anan, et. al., Hydra of Carriage, 329; U.S. Department

of State, Special Report 80, 23 February 1981, "Communist Interference in El Salvador," 7. ^Granma Editorial on Ochoa-La Guardia Case, 22 June 1989, published in Federal Broadcast and Information Service, LAT-89-120, 4.

21 Ra'anan, et. al., Hydra of Carnage, 440, see also 437-38, 448-49. ^Eden Pastora Gomez states that Castro said during the 1982 meeting, "we are going to make the people

up there (the United States) white, white with cocaine." Uri Ra'anan, et. al., Hydra of Carnage, 330. ^Granma Editorial on Ochoa-La Guardia Case, 22 June 1989, published in Federal Broadcast and Information

Service, LAT-89-120, 1-8. ^Ra'anan, et.al., Hydra of Carnage, 459, 462.
Low Intensity Conflict 105

from a boat named the Freddie on the coast of Colombia.25 As a result of

this and other Cuban activity, the Colombian government suspended

diplomatic relations with Cuba 23 March 1981. On 14 November of the same

year the Colombian Navy intercepted and sank the boat El Karma attempting

to land guerrillas and weapons on that nation's Pacific Coast.26 Cuba's attempt to promote revolution during the 1980s was not limited

to the Caribbean. In August 1986 the Chilean government discovered a large

cache of arms at four isolated locations along the northern cost of Chile. In

mid June the Chilean coastal fishing boat Chompalhue had picked up weapons

from a Communist-bloc fishing fleet operating outside the Chilean 200 mile

fishing zone. The weapons were landed using inflatable boats. The procedure

was repeated by the Chilean coastal fishing boat Astrid Sue on 6 August. The

weapons included more than 3,000 U.S. made M-16 assault rifles, 114 Sovietmade rocket launchers, almost two million rounds of ammunitions, and large

quantities of C4 and TNT explosives. One of the three guerrillas captured

at that time had been trained in Cuba.27

It would be ridiculous to argue that Fidel Castro is a Thalassocratic

determinist in the tradition of Alfred Thayer Mahan. Above all else, Castro

is a pragmatic revolutionary not wed to any military strategy. However, it would be accurate to say that Castro appreciates that the commercial aspects

of sea power, the merchant marine and fishing fleets, are important tools for

spreading revolution. For Mahan, merchant marines and fishing fleets are economic resources. Castro has broadened their use to include political and

military tasks during times of "Low Intensity Conflict."

Does Mahan have a place in low intensity conflict? Fidel Castro would

seem to think so.

^Ra'anan, et. ah, Hydra of Carnage, 452. Among the captured guerrillas were members of the 19 April

Movement (M-19) who had seized a group of diplomats at the Dominican Embassy in Bogota. As part

of a negotiated settlement, the guerrillas had been flown to asylum in Havana where they received

additional training in guerrilla warfare. Robert S. Leiken, Soviet Strategy in Latin America, 89-91. ^German Castro Caicedo, El Karina (Bogota: Plaza & Janes Editores, 1987).

^Chilean Navy produced video tape entitled "Infiltration of Arms," no date. The M-16s had been sent

to South Vietnam by the United States between 1967 and 1969. These fell into the hands of the Hanoi

government after the fall of Saigon in 1975. "Chile Intercepts Soviet Arms Aimed for Rebels," The Mexican

City News (12 August 1986), 8.

PART IIL

THE MAN AND HISTORIAN
108

Alfred Thayer Mahan was the son of Dennis Hart Mahan, Dean of the Faculty and Professor of Civil and Military Engineering at West Point. He was born September 27, 1840 and probably in this house on the grounds of the U.S. Military Academy. The house, which was also home to Mahan's five brothers and sisters, no longer exists. Copy of photograph in the U.S. Military Academy Archives.

"Marshmere," the Mahan family summer residence in Quogue, Long Island built in 1909. During the four months of winter, the Mahans' generally rented in New York City or toured abroad. Mahan *s private

study in "Marshmere" was soundproof, since he demanded absolute silence when engaged in writing.

Courtesy of the Quogue Historical Society and Mr. & Mrs. Shuttleworth.
109

Chapter My Parents,

Rear Admiral and

Mrs. Alfred Thayer Mahan

Lyle Evans Mahan

(Edited and Annotated by John B. Hattendorf)

To his contemporaries as well as to later students of his writings, the personality of

Alfred Mahan has been remote and difficult to understand. Held in awe by some and

ridiculed by others, there has been no consensus. In these previously unpublished

recollections, Mahan s youngest child and only son sketches his view ofhis parents. Despite

some minor inaccuracies, these impressions provide useful insights into Admiral Mohan's

character and personality.

Lyle Mahan went on to a successful legal andfinancial career in New York after having

graduated from Groton School and Columbia University in 1902. He wrote the

recollections of his father in 1935, more than 20 years after his father's death. Then in

his mid 50s, he may well have been responding to a request from Captain W.D. Puleston,

who was then writing a biography of Mahan. Lyle wrote the reminiscences of his mother

in 1936, nine years after her death, apparently in response to a separate request from

an unidentified source. These reminiscences are reprinted by permission of the Special Collections Department,

U.S. Military Academy Library. The original typescripts are dated as follows: 11 July

1935 for the recollections of Admiral Mahan, and 30 January 1936 for the recollections

ofMrs. Mahan. These documents complement the

((Recollections ofEllen Kuhn Mahan,

Lyle's sister, which are printed in Robert Seager II and Doris D. Maguire, Letters and

Papers of Alfred Thayer Mahan (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1975), vol. 3,

pp. 719-730.

My Father

At the time of my birth in 1881, my father was over forty years of age.

While I was still a baby, he went to sea on the Wachusett, which, as I recall,

was on duty in the Atlantic and for a time was stationed at the port of one
110 Lyle Evans Mahan

of the Central American Republics in which there was a revolution. He did

not return from this cruise until I was about four years old, so that my first

recollections of him are at about that date. 1

I remember standing in considerable awe of him, and, as a matter of fact,

the same frame ofmind continued until I was almost grown up, because, while

never unkind, he always insisted on strict and implicit obedience. He was,

however, always absolutely just. I never was on the terms of intimacy with

him that I could have wished. There was a certain reserve in his character

that seemed to prevent this, and the unfortunate situation may have been

accentuated by the fact that he was in his later middle age before I knew

him at all. At the time my father returned from the cruise on the Wachusett, my mother

and sisters and I were living with my mother's mother, Mrs. Manlius G. Evans,

at the Hotel Hanover, 2 East 15th Street, New York City. Shortly after that

time, my father was appointed to the Naval War College at Coasters Harbor

Island, Newport, R.I. In From Sail to Steam my father gives an account of his

experiences at that time in opening the sessions of the War College and getting

the necessary furnishings, etc. 2 The building, as he said, was formerly an alms house. It was an

unpretentious structure and was divided into two separate portions. The

westerly one, looking towards Narragansett Bay, was assigned to my father

and his family. The easterly portion was occupied by Commander Duncan

Kennedy and his wife and son. Just what his duties were, I do not know.3 The lower floor of my father's house, if it may be so called, were the living

quarters. Of the upper floor, I only remember one room which was a large

room with three exposures in which the lectures were given and in which

my father worked. It also crosses my mind that one or two card parties were

held there.

My principal memory of my father at this period is seeing him make the

maps or plans of the various battles which he discussed in the lecture room.

He had large pieces of red and green paper or very thin cardboard which

he cut out roughly himself in the shape of ships and pasted on to large sheets

1 Lyle Evans Mahan was born on 12 February 1881 in a house which the Mahans had rented on 11th Street, just off of Fifth Avenue, in New York City. At that time, the forty-year old Commander Mahan was

serving as navigation officer at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. In August 1883, when Lyle was two years old, Mahan left New York to take command of USS Wachusett, based at Callao, Peru. When Mahan arrived on the South Pacific station, it was the fifth and final year of the War of the Pacific. In March 1885 Mahan and Wachusett were at Panama City when the Panamanians revolted against Colombia. The

following month he cruised off El Salvador at the time when Guatemala was attempting to annex

Nicaragua, Costa Rica and El Salvador. He rejoined his family in September 1885 enroute to assignment

at the Naval War College.

2 A.T. Mahan, From Sail to Steam: Recollections of Naval Life (New York: Harper Brothers, 1907), see pages

239-300.

3 Built in 1820 by the city of Newport as an alms house, it is now Founder's Hall at the Naval War

College. Today it houses the Naval War College Museum. Kennedy, then a lieutenant, was on the administrative staff at the Naval War College in 1887.
Recollections 111

of heavy paper to show the positions of the ships in the battles. This was

something I had to imitate so I always wanted to cut out ships and paste them

on paper too, which is undoubtedly why I recall this so well.

When my father was in deep thought, he would pace up and down the

room with his head sunk forward a little bit and generally with his hands

clasped behind him. He was slightly over six feet in height and very spare.

His weight, I think, averaged between 150 and 160 pounds. His carriage was

erect except that his head was apt to be bent slightly forward. On the whole,

his carriage was graceful and easy.

I have heard it said, and I believe it is true, that my father was a strict

disciplinarian on ship, although entirely just there as at home. My son,4 who

was nine years old when my father died and who could take more childish

liberties with him than I ever dared to, and in that way probably knew him

better, and who was also very observant, said that there were two people

in the world whom he knew who he thought were actuated only by what

they believed to be right in their every action. One being his grandfather,

and the other the Rector, meaning Reverend Endicott Peabody, Headmaster

of the school which both my son and I attended.5

I recollect two incidents with regard to my father's disciplinary measures

on shipboard which I heard in my childhood and which might have been told

to me by him or by my mother who heard them from him. In one instance,

there was a sailor who was always late in coming on deck. My father asked

him what the trouble was and he said that he did not have time to get dressed.

When my father told him that he would be called a half hour before the rest

of the watch, the trouble did not recur. In the other instance, there was a sailor who habitually failed to keep his

feet clean. After several warnings, my father had one or two of the other

sailors wash them with a broom, which cured this particular failing.

I believe that my father naturally had a violent temper but he had worked

hard all his life to get it under control. I can only recollect two incidents

of what I should call loss of temper on his part, both occurring when I was

a well-grown boy or young man. In the first case, the incident was connected

with a stage driver. In Quogue [Long Island], where the family has spent

the summers ever since 1893, the station was a mile or so from the village,

and anybody who wanted to go to New York before the days of the

automobile, went to the station by stage. Each house in the village was

supplied with a red flag which was hung up when the stage was wanted. My

father wanted to go to the station one day and hung up the flag, but the stage

driver did not see it. My father accordingly had to go to the station on his

bicycle on a very hot day, and seeing the stage driver when he got about

« Alfred Thayer Mahan, II (1905-1989).

5 Groton School.
112 Lyle Evans Mahan

fifty yards from the station, began to berate him in no uncertain language,

although not in the least profane. I know that he was very sorry for it afterwards and I believe apologized.

The other incident is connected with myself. We had a new waitress who

had done something that startled my mother, I have forgotten just what it was, and my mother started to scold her, which I thought unfair and at which

I remonstrated. My father told me to stop talking, which I refused to do,

and he raised his voice very markedly to make me stop. These were the only

two incidents which I remember of his having lost his temper even

momentarily.

I never remember my father using any profane language beyond perhaps

a very mild "darn." One of my cousins who recently died, told me that my

father had used such language on occasions and intimated that it might have

been usual with him on shipboard. He said that once when his own father or uncle, I forget which, was walking along the waterfront with him, a boat

was upset and a man fell into the water, and my father jumped into a boat

in which there were some oarsmen, and in order to get them to hurry, swore

at them roundly. This is a second- or third-hand account of what happened

and I cannot vouch for its truth. I am merely trying to put down everything

that may show any sidelight on my father's character.

About 1889* we moved to New York City taking an apartment at 75 East

54th Street, which was the northwest corner of 54th Street and Park Avenue.

We were on the top floor, the 5th, and there was no elevator. In those days,

Park Avenue was very different from what it is now; the railroad tracks not

being covered over so that every train that passed was very audible and

sometimes in the early morning an engine would stop under our window and

let off steam. I was sent to school in 42nd Street opposite what is now the

site of the Public Library, which was then occupied by the old reservoir. It was very customary for my father to walk down with me at least as far as 42nd Street. I do not know for what purpose except that it was probably

to exercise our dog, who was very much a part of the family. We had owned

his mother and could not think of the family apart from the dog. He was

a bull terrier, quite a bit larger than the average, and not of the present Boston

type, but with a pointed nose. His name was Jomini, after the French General,

author of The Art of War which exercised a very profound influence on my

father's writings. My father either was very fond of walking or thought that

he ought to take exercise. At any rate, he took the dog out every morning

and afternoon, as far as I remember, and it seems to me in these walks he

was more relaxed than at most other times. I remember that there was a small boy, I should say about six years old, who caused him a great deal of

6 Mahan and his family moved to this address on 1 October 1890, after having spent July through September

at Hall Cottage, Merton Road, Newport, RI.
Recollections 113

amusement. He wore a derby hat and we passed him frequently on the way

down. My father also got a great deal of amusement because when Jomini

first went out in the morning, he would make a dead-set at the birds in the

street, and there were always quite a few of them. Once, to his great surprise,

he caught one and immediately let it go. My father always urged him on

his usually abortive charges.

My father took great pains with our religious training. He was a very

devout Episcopalian himself, not one of the lip-service kind, but one who

read the Bible and studied it very, very carefully. This is shown by his book

The Harvest Within7 which has been praised by a great many churchmen. We

were all taught to catechism, and each Sunday, one year, I had to learn by

heart the collect for that day. One day I remember saying that I could not

learn the collect and was told that that was all right, but that I would not

go out to play until I did. I soon mastered it. Not content with the catechism, my father himself got up what might be

called a supplementary catechism explaining various things and the meanings

of certain words used frequently in the church service, but which would be

entirely unfamiliar to children. This I was also required to learn by heart.

When my father again resumed work at the Naval War College, a new

building had been built, as narrated by him in From Sail to Steam.6 It was a very nice stone building, as I remember it, very close to Narragansett Bay,

that is, on the west side of the island. His quarters again overlooked the Bay.

I cannot remember the exact time that we were in this place, but it was

there, I believe, that my father was first urged to publish his lectures in book

form. I think it must have been about 1890 and 1891. Of course, I was too

young to know much about what was going on, but I afterwards learned that

my father sent The Influence of Sea Power Upon History to several publishers,

I believe about eight or ten, and that it was consistently turned down.9

It would be impossible to write anything about my father's life without

saying a great deal about my mother. 10 To my mind, they constituted a perfect

team. I can never remember a cross word being spoken on either side. The

few occasions on which my father ever expressed any annoyance was when

he thought that my mother was doing too much work and tiring herself

unnecessarily. She was a woman of very strong character and absolutely

indomitable determination. She was also a wonderful manager. The problem

of bringing up and educating properly three children on a captain's shore pay

7 The Harvest Within: Thoughts on the Life of a Christian (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1909).

8 The new building, now named Luce Hall, is mentioned only in passing in From Sail to Steam, p. 313. Mahan took charge of the new building on 22 July 1892. The College re-opened for classes on 6 September

of that year, having been closed since 1889.

9 Mahan began to look for a publisher in September 1888, offering it first to Charles Scribner's Sons,

who had published his first book, The Gulf and Inland Waters (1883). Finally, in October 1889, through

James R. Soley, Little Brown and Co. agreed to publish it. The finished book appeared in the first week

of May 1890.

10 Ellen Lyle Evans Mahan (1851-1927).
114 Lyle Evans Mahan

of $3,500 a year was quite a serious one even in those days. During the early

part of her married life, my mother kept a strict account of literally every

penny that was spent. My father always turned his entire pay over to her

each month and she gave back to him whatever he needed. This was because

of no insistence on her part, but because he preferred to have it that way.

He knew that she had excellent business sense and was very careful, and the care of money was something that he was glad to be relieved of. I don't think

he even had a bank account until the latter part of his life. I remember my

mother telling me once that she had never spent more in a month than my

father's pay for that month, that is, up to the time that their income was

increased from his writings and other sources, but that in one month she spent

only seven cents less than the amount of his pay.

In addition to taking care of the house and the children, she was only too

glad to turn her hand to anything that would help my father. When he started

to write his lectures, it soon was evident that they would have to be

typewritten. Without ever having had any experience, my mother bought

a typewriter and learned to operate the machine by herself, and I believe

that she personally transcribed every word written by my father that he

published, certainly by far the greater part of it. This, I am very certain,

was her own suggestion. She could deny herself any luxury or even necessity

if the occasion demanded, but she would do anything for her husband and

children.

I do not believe that my father's books would ever have been published

if it had not been for my mother's determination that they should. He was

easily discouraged and had a very humble opinion of himself and his own

abilities. She was, as I have said, indomitable and had supreme confidence

in him. She was absolutely determined that what he wrote should be published

and kept at him to make sure that he left no stone unturned.

Mr. James Russell Soley was Assistant Secretary of the Navy at about this

time or shortly before. He was a successful New York lawyer and had

published a book which I read with avidity when young called The Boys of

1812. It was a history of the naval war of 1812 between this country and Great

Britain. My father came to know Mr. Soley when the question of the

continuance of the War College was discussed, or he may have known him

before, I am not quite sure. 11 At any rate, he happened to tell Mr. Soley of

his difficulties in having the books published, and Mr. Soley, who believed

in the value of his works, said, "Take them to my publisher, Little, Brown

and Company of Boston, and I am sure that they will publish them." My

father told me that Little, Brown and Company said that if Mr. Soley said

11 Soley, onetime Naval Academy instructor and international lawyer, became Librarian of the Navy

Department Library in 1882. In 1885 he became the first civilian instructor at the Naval War College,

lecturing on international law through 1889. In July 1890 he became Assistant Secretary of the Navy,

becoming the foremost spokesman in Washington for the work of the War College.
Recollections 115

the book was valuable, they would publish it without reading the manuscript.

In this way the Influence of Sea Power was brought out, and my father always

insisted on giving Little, Brown and Company the right to publish any of

his books if they wanted to. The sale of books in England was taken care of by Messrs. Sampson, Low, Marston and Company, and Mr. R.B. Marston

of that firm in London became a warm friend of my father's.

When my father was ordered to the Chicago, we moved permanently to

New York. About 1891 or 1892, my father and mother bought a house, 160

West 86th Street, where the family lived until about 1905 or 1906. 12 Both my

father and mother had a horror ofowing any money except current bills which

were always paid promptly on the first of the month. They carried this feeling

to the extent of insisting upon paying for the house entirely in cash. The idea

of owing money, even when it was secured by a mortgage, was thoroughly

distasteful to both of them. The first summer that my father was away, we

went to Quogue, Long Island, for the first time. This, I think, was in 1893,

and we had a small and by no means water-proof house in what is known

as Quogue, which is separated from Quogue proper by a small body of water

known as Quantuck Bay. My oldest sister13 had several friends living there

and my mother liked the place so much that she decided to build a house

there, even in my father's absence. This shows very clearly the thorough

understanding between them, that she should undertake something of this kind

without consulting him except by letter. Ofcourse, he approved of everything

that she did. I say that the bringing up of the children and all matters relating

to the household were always left to my mother without question. My father

considered that his job was to see that everybody did as my mother wanted

them to do, although he would never hesitate to make a decision in an

important matter where one had to be made, but on the whole, my mother

was the manager, my father, the president, and felt that his main duty was

to say yes.

I remember the first summer the house at Quogue was built, 14 my mother's

brother came down to stay with her and he used to recall with glee the

conversation he had with her at that time. He said, "Ellie, Alfred will hate

this place," to which she replied, "Well, then we'll move away." He said,

"What will you do with the house?" She answered, "Sell it. " My uncle always

said, "By jove, she would and would make a profit on it too." He was a

successful business man himself, but this showed his confidence in my mother's

business judgment. His own opinion as to my father hating Quogue was

12 The family remained in the rented apartment on East 54th Street from 1890 until June 1895. They moved

into the newly purchased house at 160 West 86th Street in February 1896. They lived there during the winters until September 1905.

13 Helen Evans Mahan (1873-1963).

14 "Slumberside," the house at Quogue, was completed in the late spring of 1894.
116 Lyle Evans Mahan

entirely wrong. He loved the place from the moment he saw it and as the

years rolled by, the family steadily spent more time there.

During the years of my father's absence on the Chicago, we were naturally

very much interested in his letters. Of course, as I remember, he told us about

dining with the Queen of England and the Emperor of Germany, and also

of some of the other honors which were conferred on him, but I fear that

he did not do the various occasions justice. He was by nature an extremely

modest man. It was very difficult even for his family to get him to talk about

himself or what he had done. I knew, for instance, that he had been in the

engagement at Port Royal during the Civil War, but I never could get him

to tell me anything about it, nor did he say much of his other experiences.

This accounts for the fact that I am able to tell so little about his earlier life.

He was modest too in other ways; for instance, at Quogue the men's

bathhouse quarters and the women's were entirely separate and were so built

that it was impossible to see into either of them from outside. Most of the

men took advantage of this after bathing to take what we always call a sun

bath, each man lying in the sun for periods varying from five minutes to an

hour, in a state of nature or at the most with only the protection of a small

bath towel. I know that my father thought this disgusting, to use his own

words, although I am sure that very few men will agree with him. When

I was approaching adolescence, he attempted one day to tell me something

about the nature of the sexes, but it embarrassed him so that I hardly got

any idea at all of what he was driving at and my knowledge had to be obtained

from outside. Fortunately, it came in a way that was not at all injurious.

To return to the trip on the Chicago, I cannot remember anything of my

father's letters distinctly, except that I do recall that he told, either in a letter or personally, after he came home, that one of the undergraduates at Oxford

called down from the gallery, where they sat during the conferring of the

degrees, "Look at the red man from the West." This was supposed to be

very appropriate, since the persons upon whom the degrees are conferred

wear red gowns. If I remember right, my father was the first American who

was honored with the degree of D.C.L. by Oxford.

My father had always seemed to me lacking in affection, but I believe that

this was due to an inability on his part to show affection or it may have been

some idea that demonstrations of affection were not the proper thing. He

returned in March or April, 1895. I was just recovering from a very severe

illness of which I almost died. My mother had not let him know that I was

ill because she was afraid that it would worry him too much on his return

voyage, but I remember that when he did return, one evening while I was

lying in bed in a room adjoining the living room, that my mother told him

about my illness. He certainly was terribly shocked and asked over and over

again if she was sure that I was all right now. It was the first inkling I had

of the feeling which lay beneath the surface.
Recollections 117

The house on 86th Street was bought shortly after this and from that time

until my marriage in 1904, our winters were spent there and our summers

in Quogue in the house which my mother built during my father's absence.

This is not the house in which my sisters live now,15 which was built in 1908

or 1909, but a smaller one on what is known as Quaquanantuck Lane. The

only break in this routine was in 1898 when we took a trip abroad. My father

had planned this trip for a long time, having retired from the Navy in 1897,

I think it was, after completing forty years of service. War with Spain was

in the air, but my father made particular inquiries of the Navy Department

as to whether it was proper for him to go under the circumstances and was

assured that it was. He had planned this trip with the utmost care. We were

to be gone for six months, returning in the latter part of September from

Southampton. I believe that all the tickets both ways had been bought before

we left, and the itinerary mapped out exactly with each place that we were

to stay and the dates set down.

We went by the South Atlantic to Naples arriving there early in April

and making a short trip through southern Italy. We returned to Naples after

about ten days or two weeks, and either there or at our next stop which was

Rome, a cablegram came to my father calling him back to serve on the Board

of Naval Strategy. Of course, he left us immediately, travelling through

England and from there under an assumed name, taking a liner to the United

States, but at his express wishes, the rest of the family finished out the trip

as originally planned with very slight variations. 16 A day or two after my father left, a cablegram came from William

Randolph Hearst offering him a dollar a word to write as much as he cared

to about the war. My mother immediately cabled back, "No," knowing that

my father would not write for Hearst under any circumstances, and I may

say that he entirely approved what she did. He was convinced that Hearst

was an undesirable citizen and would not, under any circumstances, accept

his money or write for his papers, and would never allow a copy of any of

Hearst's papers to be brought into the house. Sometimes he seemed almost

fanatical upon certain subjects of this kind, but his feelings were always based

on what he believed to be his duty, and he felt that to aid in any way the

circulation of papers which he believed were doing harm was a sin on his

part, even if it were to spend a cent, the price of the paper in those days,

for a copy of one of the papers or even to seem to give them his approval

by allowing a copy in the house.

I remember another circumstance which is not particularly appropriate at

this spot, but which just came to my mind, this was during Wilson's

15 "Marshmere," built in 1909.

16 Mahan and his family left New York on a six month's leave of absence on 26 March 1898. He received

the order to return to Washington at Rome on 25 April, departing Rome on 27 April and arriving in Washington on 9 May, for duty on the Naval War Board.
118 Lyle Evans Mahan

administration when Daniels forbade the use of grog in the Navy. My father

was highly incensed at this. He was not a drinking man, although he

occasionally enjoyed a glass of wine, but to deprive a sailor of his grog was

to him unthinkable. In fact, I believe that he strongly disapproved of any

legislation designed to control people's private lives beyond preventing them

from committing crimes.

The doings of the Naval Strategy Board17 are a matter of history so that

all that I need to remark on is the heat which my father displayed at home

with regard to the so-called Sampson-Schley controversy. As I remember it,

without referring to any documents, not only did the question arise ofwhether

Sampson or Schley should be given credit for the victory over Cervera's fleet,

but whether either or both of them should be made vice admirals. My father,

of course, was absolutely convinced that the credit belonged to Sampson as Commander-in-Chief, even though he was not with the fleet at the time that

the Spanish ships came out of port. He said that all arrangements for possible

contingencies had been made by Sampson before he left on a short trip for a conference, and that his orders were strictly carried out by everybody,

except possibly Schley. He had never had any confidence in Schley, who was

almost a contemporary of his, and said that he had caused the Strategy Board

two days of intense anxiety because of disobedience of orders prior to the

time of the battle. He felt that no credit was due to Schley any more than

any of the captains in the fleet, possibly even less, although Schley was in

temporary command. I remember at the time that he told us that at the Naval

Academy in referring to Schley they used to say "Schley by name and 'sly'

by nature."

The anxieties of the Strategy Board were not alleviated by the fact that

they had an intensely hot summer in Washington that year.

In 1899, my father was appointed as the Naval Delegate of the United States

at the Peace Conference at The Hague. With regard to this, the only

noteworthy feature that comes particularly to my mind is his account of what

happened when the final draft of the document prepared for the signatures

of all the powers was submitted to the American Delegation.

That Delegation had agreed, from my father's insistence, that a reservation

should be made that the United States would not submit to arbitration any

matter arising under the Monroe Doctrine. When the final draft came in,

this had been omitted, and the document had almost received the approval

of the American Delegation without noticing the omission, which was

apparently due to an error of Holls,18 the Secretary of the Delegation. My

father, however, noticed that it was omitted and in considerable excitement

17 Mahan's "The Work of the Naval War Board of 1898: A Report to the General Board October 29, 1906," is printed in Seager and Maguire, Letters and Papers, vol. 3, pp. 627-643.

18 George Frederick William Holls, New York lawyer, non-voting secretary and legal counsel.
Recollections 119

brought it to the attention of Mr. White,19 the Chairman of the American

Delegation, so that the omission was corrected in time.20 From that time on, our lives were comparatively uneventful. My father,

having retired from the service, was not called to any active duty and spent

his entire time at home, either in New York or at Quogue. He had very few

amusements. He liked to take exercise, but only in the form of walking in

the winter and either walking or bicycling in the summer. He also went in

bathing, with considerable regularity, in the summer and thoroughly enjoyed

it. Most of the time in the water he spent floating, and particularly enjoyed

floating with his head towards the sea and letting the waves break over him.

He always wore a jersey cap with a cork sewed on it so that he would be

able to retrieve it if it was washed off, which was frequently the case. He was extremely regular in his habits. Breakfast was supposed to be at

8:00 o'clock in the morning, and all of the family was expected to assemble

for family prayers at that time, promptly, after which we had breakfast.

Promptness was also the rule for all meals.

One of his regular duties, as he considered it, was exercising the dogs in

winter. In summer, of course, they exercised themselves. Having them with

him and seeing them play gave additional pleasure to his walks, which were

generally along Central Park. He was certainly a home-loving man in every

sense of the word, hating to be separated from his family and enjoying trips

only if they were along, but if they were with him, he thoroughly enjoyed

them.

I was married in 1904 and after this, unfortunately, saw very little of my

father. The house in 86th Street was rented shortly after that time, and from

then on most of the year was spent in Quogue and the family only came to

New York for three or four months in the winter. Owing to the friction

that unfortunately existed between my wife and my parents, I did not see nearly as much of them as I should have, for which, of course, I was largely

to blame.

I think this concludes about all of my recollections. My father died on

December 1, 1914, while in Washington. His death was unexpected and I was not informed of the seriousness of his condition in time to see him before

he died. I do not think, however, that even the doctors expected the end to

come as suddenly as it did. My father had not been in the best of health for

several years, but when I last saw him, in the August before he died, there

was nothing to indicate that he might not live for several years longer.

19 Andrew D. White, historian, diplomat and former president of Cornell University.

20 This incident involved Article 27, which as originally written would have required all nations to become

involved in the disputes of any two nations. While others in the American delegation approved the wording,

Mahan alone saw that it was a violation of the intent of the Monroe Doctrine, and quickly persuaded

his colleagues to introduce a clause exempting the United States and the Monroe Doctrine.
120 Lyle Evans Mahan

At this particular time, the World War had just broken out, and he was,

of course, intensely interested and had written two or three articles for

newspapers and magazines. It is well known that within a few weeks of the

outbreak of the War,21 orders were issued that no Naval officer, either on

the active or retired list, should write any article commenting on the War.

This was to uphold Wilson's policy of neutrality in word and deed. My father

was the only officer, so far as I know, who had written anything up to the

time of the promulgation of this order, and he considered it a direct slap at

him, especially as the order came to him not through the usual channels by

way of the Brooklyn Navy Yard, but direct from Washington.

It also was widely known that he disapproved of the Administration's

policies with regard to the Navy. He was a very nervous and sensitive man

and this direct slap, as he considered it, preyed on his mind, and was, I am

certain, the cause of his early death.

While he had been ill, he was quite hardy, and I am sure that he would

have overcome his ailments and lived for a long time in the natural course of events. A manuscript which he had started for a new article remained

unfinished. He obeyed the order so far that he would not even set pen to

paper to write, even though he would not have thought of publishing what

he had written.

My father was half Irish, as I believe that both of my Grandfather Mahan's parents were fullblooded Irish people. On his mother's side, however, there

is a mixture of blood—English, French and Dutch. With the exception of

his mother's father, who was English by birth, the rest of his ancestors had

been in this country for many generations . . .» ... he was related to the Van Countlandts and Jays in New York, but

the relationship is not very generally known due to the fact that his great

grandfather, James Jay, was never legally married to his great grandmother.

James Jay lived in what is now Tenafly, New Jersey, and, as I am informed,

took to live with him the daughter of some prosperous farmers in NewJersey.

Neither he nor she believed in marriage, although at one time, at the

solicitation of John Jay, the first Chief Justice of the United States, acting

for himself and other members of the family, James did offer to marry his

consort. She refused, saying that she had agreed to live with him as the lady

of his household as long as they both wanted to continue the relationship,

and that she would abide by that agreement, but that if he insisted upon a marriage, she would leave him immediately. Whether or not one agrees with

her ideas, one must admire her courage, and the relationship was certainly

far more moral than that of 75% of modern marriages.

21 On 6 August 1914.

22 Omitted here is a reference to an attached genealogical chart.
Recollections 121

James Jay and his consort lived together in love and harmony until her death,

but because of the lack of a ceremonial marriage, as I understand, the

relationship with the other members of the Jay family was never recognized.

My Mother

My mother's maiden name was Ellen Lyle Evans. She was the daughter

of Manlius G. Evans and his wife, who was formerly Ellen Kuhn. She was

born on November 27, 1851. She always had a very strong character and will

and was positive in everything that she did. She was also, in her younger

days, very alert mentally and physically. She was quite tall, about five feet

nine inches, and also broad and heavy-set. I know very little about her earlier

life except some fragments which she told me and which emphasized what

I learned myself in later life. She was extremely punctual and very quick

in everything that she did. In her earlier years, certainly she did not have

the vice of procrastination to any degree.

Her family used to go to Sharon Springs, New York, in the summer, and

I believe that it was there that my father and mother first met. My father,

of course, was extremely religious, and he was drawn to my mother not only

for her personal attractions, but because he could see the same trait in her.

I believe that my mother was quite an attractive woman when she was young

and was very popular among the young men at Sharon Springs.

My father was eleven years older than she was. The match, I know, was

very distasteful to my grandfather.23 1 believe this was because he did not feel

that a naval officer would make a good husband both for financial reasons and also because he would be away from home so much. In any event, my

mother has told me that he would not have that damned naval officer around

his house. However, when my mother made up her mind to do anything,

she generally went through with it and she had made up her mind that she

was going to marry my father. I believe that she was not yet twenty when

they met. The probabilities are that this was in the summer of 1871 or possibly

1870,24 although I believe it is the later date. When my grandfather saw that

her mind was made up, he finally said that he would consent to the marriage

if they would agree not to see each other for a year so that my mother could

be sure that she knew her mind. This was agreed to and my grandfather,

when he saw that my mother had definitely made up her mind, ended the

probation period after six months. They were married on June 11, 1872.

Shortly after the marriage, my father went to South America and took

my mother with him. Captain Puleston25 stated that he was attached to the

23 Manlius Glendower Evans, a Philadelphia businessman.

24 They met in July 1870. Mahan proposed to her 14 August 1871.

25 This may refer to a draft chapter of Captain William D. Puleston, Mahan: The Life and Work of Captain

Alfred Thayer Mahan, USN (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1939).
122 Lyle Evans Mahan

U.S.S. Wasp with headquarters, I believe, at Montevideo.26 They were there

until after the birth of my oldest sister, Helen Evans Mahan, who was born

at Montevideo on August 6, 1873.

My mother was, among other things, a very excellent household economist.

They were determined that they would not accept any help from her family

who, at that time, were in a position to give it if they had wanted to, which

they probably would not have done, and always lived on less than my father's

pay, keeping account of every cent that she spent. She told me once that the

nearest she ever came to living beyond her income was one month when she

spent seven cents less than the amount of my father's check.

Shortly after my oldest sister's birth, but I do not know exactly when,

yellow fever broke out in Montevideo and my father felt that my mother

and my sister should leave there. I do not know whether he was relieved

from the South Atlantic station27 or just how it occurred, but they crossed

the Atlantic from Rio to Bordeaux to spend some time with my grandfather,

grandmother, and aunt, who had then moved to Pau, France.28 It was there

that my younger sister, Ellen Kuhn Mahan, was born on July 10, 1877. Some

time later they returned to New York, and I was born in that City on February

12, 1881.

Living on a naval officer's salary with three children, even in those days

when money went further than it does now, is no joke, but I never have heard

of my mother making any complaint about any hardships that she suffered

from lack of money. Although she had been brought up in an environment

bordering on luxury, she appeared to demand nothing for herself and when

clothes were to be bought, she always considered her children first, not to

speak ofher husband. My father, I know, was frequently very annoyed because

she went around wearing shabby clothes. Indeed the only times in his life

that I can ever remember his being annoyed with her was because she was

sacrificing herself for the other members of the family.

My father was unquestionably a man of very fine character and a great

deal of determination, but he did not begin to have the driving power that

my mother did. My earliest clear recollections in life were when my father

was stationed at the Naval War College on Coasters Harbor Island, Newport,

26 Mahan took command of Wasp on 17 February 1873.

27 Mahan passed on command of Wasp at Montevideo on 2 January 1875.

28 In order to reduce living costs following his financial losses in the Panic of 1873, Glendower Evans moved his family to Pau, in the department of Basse-Pyrennes in the south of France. Between duty stations,

Mahan and his wife took a six-month leave of absence to visit her family there. They returned to the United States in May 1875 and Mahan later took up an assignment at the Boston Navy Yard. In December

1876, following the disputed election of Rutherford B. Hayes, outgoing Secretary of the Navy Robeson

punished Mahan for his outspoken views, and forced him into taking a leave of absence. On half-pay,

he could only afford to live with his in-laws in France, so he returned to Pau in January 1877 with his wife, then three months' pregnant. They remained there only until September 1877, when the new

administration recalled Mahan to be head of the Department of Ordnance and Gunnery at the Naval

Academy. He remained there until July 1880, when he received orders to the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
Recollections 123

Lyle Evans Mahan, Mahan's only son, was born February 12, 1881, attended Groton School and Columbia

College (1902) and went on to a successful law practice in New York City.
124 Lyle Evans Mahan

R.I. This was when the War College was in the old insane asylum building.

I can remember my mother pounding away on the typewriter. This was done

at her own suggestion. My father probably chanced to say that he wished

he could have his manuscript typewritten and that was enough for her to

undertake to do the typing herself, although she had never touched a machine

in her life. She bought one I think secondhand and started to work. I doubt

if my father ever wrote a word for publication that she did not type. It has

always been a source of amusement to me that frequently my father would

ask my mother to read his own handwriting, words that he could not make

out himself, but she always was able to do it. When it came time to publish his books, it was my mother's driving power

that kept him to it. After one or two publishers had refused them, he began

to get discouraged, but I do not think that in those days she knew what the

word meant. She had the utmost confidence in my father's ability, and, in

addition to that, the assurances of the officers who had listened to his lectures,

and she knew that my father had a message for the naval world that ought

to be published. My father just did not seem to feel that people in general

would be interested in what he wrote, but my mother had a decidedly opposite

opinion.

My mother's willingness to do anything to lighten my father's burden is shown by the fact that when he was on the Wachusett, the rest of us lived

with my Grandmother Evans and my aunt in order to save expense. Later

on, when my father had returned, we spent a winter with his mother and

sister in Elizabeth, New Jersey. This, I know, was a great trial to my mother

although I was only six years old at the time, but I am very sure that she

never complained about it. In January, 1894, when I was at boarding school, my father was abroad

in the Chicago. I was taken very seriously ill with measles and pneumonia.

My mother came up and spent about six weeks at the school, leaving my

sisters alone in New York. It was a tremendous ordeal for her as it was a very cold winter and she had to live in a boarding house outside of the school

grounds. She came over every day, of course, and spent most of the time

with me. I can remember one time when the doctors had small hope of my

getting well that she fainted on a couch in the room. I was sufficiently

conscious to be worried by it, but did not know just what had happened,

and they told me that she had fallen. I was so much worried that the

headmaster gave her a room in the school building, but in spite of all the

anxiety and strain, she did not let my father know that I was ill as she did

not want to worry him. The first he knew of it was when he got back to

New York in April.
Recollections 125

The family's fortunes were considerably augmented about this time because

my Grandmother Mahan29 died in 1893 leaving my father a small amount of

money, and my Grandmother Evans, in 1894, leaving my mother a considerably larger amount. Nevertheless, while we were more comfortable,

the strain was not entirely eased, as my education was quite a drain. However,

about the time I entered college in 1898, an uncle of my mother's died and

left her a very considerable amount of money so that after that there was

little financial worry. The first house in Quogue was built with my father's

inheritance in 1894, and in 1898 a house was purchased in New York.

I presume it may have been largely a reaction from this strain that affected

my mother's health. She had always had a certain amount of rheumatism.

She was then over forty-five years old. From that time on, she was constantly

going to the doctor and had lost a great deal of her alertness. Her will,

however, remained as strong as before, although her body was weakened very

considerably. I do not think she ever got over the habits of economy which

had taken such a strong hold of her during her early married life, as she always

seemed to feel that she was hard up, although there was little ground for

that feeling. She never would spend any money on herself and always dressed

in the simplest possible clothes. She was extremely warm-blooded and would

frequently go out in a skirt and blouse when other women were wearing heavy

coats. This is a characteristic which I have inherited from her. In hot weather,

she suffered very considerably.

You have asked me to give you a description of my mother. I believe that

her eyes were gray and she had fairly regular features with a rather prominent

though straight nose. Her hair was quite dark when she was young, although

ever since I have any clear recollection it was gray, being white when she

died. Her face and forehead were always very wrinkled since I can remember,

which seems to be a family characteristic. Her hair was naturally wavy though

not curly.

There is no picture of my mother in existence so far as I know. She had

an unconquerable aversion to being photographed, an aversion shared by my

father although he had to submit to it occasionally; she never did. I cannot

remember ever having seen even a snapshot of her.30 She did have a tintype

taken of her when she was a girl, but I do not know even the whereabouts

of that.

29 Mary Okill Mahan (1815-1893), widow of Dennis Hart Mahan (1802-1871). There is a brief recollection of her by Lyle Mahan in this same collection, not printed here.

30 A photograph of her, with her daughter, may be found in Robert Seager II, Alfred Thayer Mahan: The

Man and His Letters (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1977), p. 313.
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Chapter 11

Christianity and the

Evangelist for Sea Power:

The Religion of Alfred Thayer Mahan:

Lieutenant Commander Reo N. Leslie, Jr.

Chaplain Corps, U.S. Navy

Introduction

After serving five years as Secretary of War (1940-1945), Henry L. Stimson

reflected upon what he called "the peculiar psychology of the Navy

Department " which according to him "frequently seemed to retire from the

realm of logic into a dim religious world in which Neptune was God, Mahan

his prophet, and the United States Navy the only true Church. The high priests

of this Church were a group of men to whom Stimson always referred as 'the Admirals'."1 Such religious language is indeed fitting for "the prophet"

named by Stimson. Alfred Thayer Mahan was a man whose ideas about

religion influenced his thought and behavior.

Mahan's Personal Faith

In the Episcopal, Church of the Atonement at Quogue, Long Island, New

York, there is a memorial tablet to Rear Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan (1840-

1914). It reads:

Great among the nations as an expounder of sea power. Greater in the Kingdom of

God as an example of a Christian man. From his earliest days at the Naval Academy Mahan showed a "tendency

to religious reflection" that was "an inheritance from both sides of his

family."2 While only nineteen, his letters to Samuel A. Ashe reveal Mahan's

interest in matters of the spirit. In commenting on a Presbyterian pastor's

sermon in the Academy Chapel he said, in a letter dated February 7, 1859:

1 Henry L. Stimson and Mc George Bundy, On Active Service In Peace and War, (New York: Harper and

Brothers, 1948), p. 506.

2 W. D. Puleston, Mahan, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1939), p. 23.
128 Reo N. Leslie, Jr. He gave a very good sermon, a little too much hell-fire and damnation in it. I can't stand what looks like an effort to bully you into religion. I have never yet heard a minister

who preached the Word of God as I should wish to preach it if I were one myself.

A man who is religious because he fears to go to hell is as despicable as one who remains

irreligious because he fears the world's opinion. My idea of the loveliness of religion

is the thought of a being who shows His love less in the physical comforts of life, than

in His sympathy for our sufferings, and I believe the great God would rather have us look on Him as a friend than as a benefactor.3 A letter written to Ashe a week earlier, February 1, 1859, concludes with

a reflection on Holy Scripture:

Do you ever read the Bible? What a beautiful passage this is that I met the other day

in a book. "Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowel be broken, or the

pitcher be broken at the foundation, or the wheel broken at the cistern - then shall the dust return to the earth as it was, and the spirit shall return unto God who gave

it." And what more sublime than the fortitude and courage of Job when he had lost

all - "Naked came I out of my mother's womb and naked shall I return thither; the

Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord." Sam, I am not religious but does it need religion to appreciate the beauty and sublimity of

such poetry as that?4 On February 20, 1859 this young midshipman who considers himself "not

religious" and "irreligious" again comments on the Bible and Biblically - based faith:

I admire the Bible as a book of great beauty, and those passages I cited and others like them, as poetry more sublime than you can find elsewhere, and as portraying a degree

ofmoral heroism and triumph of principle over human weakness that must find sympathy

and admiration in every manly heart. Totally irreligious as I acknowledge myself to be and utterly devoid of any intention or wish to be otherwise, yet if I wished a young

man to be induced to act from the loftiest motives as a man not as a Christian I would

make him read the actions and words of the great men of the Bible. 5 Despite his self-awareness as one "devoid of any intention to be religious,"

Alfred Thayer Mahan grew into a man who professed Christ as "the power

who works in us to 'sanctification'."6 No doubt his uncle, the Reverend Milo

Mahan, professor of ecclesiastical history at the General Theological

Seminary, with whom he had lived for two years in New York City, had

influenced him.7 Until his death in 1870, this Anglo-Catholic minister and

church historian served as his nephew's spiritual advisor.8 One can imagine

the theological discussions that took place when Mahan lived with his uncle

3 Robert Seager II and Doris D. Maguire (editors), Letters and Papers of Alfred Thayer Mahan, (Annapolis:

Naval Institute Press, 1975), vol. 1, p. 57-58.

4 Ibid., p. 56.

5 Ibid., p. 61

6 Ibid., volume 3, p. 336.

7 Phillip A. Crowl, "Alfred Thayer Mahan: The Naval Historian," Peter Paret, ed., Makers of Modem

Strategy From Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986), p. 445.

8 Ibid.
Religion and Mahan 129

while attending Columbia College. An example of such a dialogue is represented in a letter from Milo Mahan to his nephew in 1864:

Things happen to us constantly, which proves that God rules, or else that chance rules. But if I must choose between Chance or God, to solve the mysteries of life, it is certainly

reasonable to refer things to God of whom I can form some idea, rather than to Chance

of which I can form no idea whatsoever. God may be mysterious. His ways may be

dark and past finding out. But Chance is not mysterious merely it is utterly unintelligible

(italics are Rev. Mahan's).9

In a letter dated September 20, 1870, written after his uncle's death, Mahan

laments to Ashe about the loss of his beloved spiritual guide:

You do my uncle no more than justice, in your surmises as to the loss he has been to

us and to the church. The latter is greater than the former, for during many years we

have all been much separated. For myself I am quite at a loss to know to whom to turn for the advice and the information that I used to get in matters of theological,

rather than religious, interest -and during my last cruise I had accumulated several points

upon which I wished instruction. The loss of course is irreparable, for though I might

find equal ability, I cannot have the same familiar freedom of intercourse. It is gratifying

to our affection that two memorial windows are now erected to him. 10 Another family influence on Mahan 's spiritual development was certainly

his mother, Mary Helena Okill Mahan. In raising her son, she planted seeds

which sprouted in the fertile soil of his intellectual and spiritual struggles.

In a letter to Ashe dated October 30, 1858 Mahan states:

I should not be surprised if I fetched up in the ministry one of these days, for Mother

often told me before I entered the service, that, from the time I was born she had

dedicated me to God's service, and that it had been the prayer of her life since. "The

prayer of a righteous man," the Bible says, "availeth much," but I hope that in this

I may be allowed by Providence to suit myself, for a greater horror of anything I could

not have than I have of that same profession. 11 Although the ordained ministry was not in the plans of Providence for

Alfred Thayer Mahan, he still would have his "pulpit" to preach the Gospel.

In 1909 he published a real labor of love. With numerous articles and books

to his credit on sea power, history and international politics, Mahan also

authored a work on Christianity entitled The Harvest Within: Thoughts on the

Life of the Christian. The book reveals the decades of study in Holy Scripture

and systematic theology Mahan had engaged in. The Harvest Within includes

abundant use of Bible verses, spiritual counsel and inspirational illustrations.

In the preface Mahan discusses his motivation for writing this work making

him an evangelist for Christianity as well as an evangelist for sea power:

One clear duty of old age, whether as regards personal character or unfulfilled purposes,

is to gather up fragments that remain; to redeem lost time and lost opportunity; to utilize

9 Quoted in Charles C Taylor, The Life ofAdmiral Mahan, (New York: George H. Doran Company, 1920),

p. 266

10 Seager and Maguire, op. cit. f vol. 1, p. 358.

11 Ibid., pp. 10-11.
130 ReoN. Leslie, Jr. what is left of powers which may have begun to fail, and the remnants of thought or knowledge lying still at loose ends. 12 Mahan believed that he should share his own spiritual insights gained

through an experience through his life with "the riches of Christ." "The

riches of Christ are unsearchable," said Mahan, but chief among them is the

gift of love for Himself. It is a gift, not an acquisition."13 Not only did his sense of Christian duty inspire Mahan to write about his faith, but the great

theorist of sea power lived out his Christianity in daily life.

Mahan 's Involvement in His Church

Mahan was an actively involved layperson of the kind that would please

the pastor of any congregation. His Christian witness was manifested in his

personal devotional life, church membership and participation in mission

efforts of the Protestant Episcopal Church. Mahan's Bible study and

theological reflection have already been mentioned. In addition to the

question of whether to interpret the Bible literally, he also struggled with

how to be a positive spiritual influence in the lives of the men he commanded.

Mahan consulted his uncle on both questions and received this answer:

The best influence in your position, is that of a quiet consistent life accompanied with

as much of courtesy, gentility and consideration in dealing with your men as the nature

of the Service will allow. . . . Let punishment be administered when really needed; but

till the need comes, men should be treated, as if punishment never could be needed.

An officer who commends his Christian character by observing this rule will find that a smile, a cheerful word, or occasionally a few words of friendly expostulation will

do more in the long run, than any more ambitious or obtrusive efforts. (On the second

matter) Find a solution if possible; but if a thoroughly satisfactory solution can not be

found, do not accept a half-solution, rather let the matter rest, in short wait till the

solution comes of itself. 14 Mahan continued his struggle with Scripture and discipleship while at sea. When underway at the hour when service was being held at his home church,

he would break away when possible from his duties as captain of the ship, and

retire to his cabin. There he would have a service of private worship and read

the Episcopal Daily Service. 15 Prayer, worship, Bible study and personal reflection

were central to Mahan's spiritual life at sea and ashore. In a diary entry dated

January 1, 1869 Mahan outlines what he calls his "Rules For My Life":

Rules for My Life:

1) Rule for Drinking. A glass of sherry before and a pint bottle at dinner.

2) Rule for Prayer. Reading and prayer at 1 1 :30; 1 1 on fast day, etc; also short

prayers at 9,1, and 3. Each to be accompanied with a

distinct recalling to mind God's presence.

12 Alfred Thayer Mahan, The Harvest Within, (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1909), p. vi.

13 Ibid., p. viii.

14 Puleston, op. cit., p. 37.

15 Taylor, op. cit., pp. 262-263.
Religion and Mahan 131

3) Rule for Duty. Regular inspection at morning quarters and after-with

constant carrying of a memorandum book.

4) Almsgiving. Seventeen dollars per month to be put in, upon my

monthly drawing.

5) Fast & Feast Days. When a Collect or Gospel is appointed, meditation

thereupon for half an hour at 3 P.M.

Rules to be deliberately & prayerfully read at my morning devotions; & a prayerful

self examination in the evening.

I allow myself as having an unsettled life for sufficient cause to anticipate or postpone

a fast or feast day.

Rules not to be added to before Lent. 16 Not only was Christianity a private matter of devotion for Mahan, but

it was a public commitment. He was an active member of the Protestant

Episcopal Church in attendance, lay ministry and leadership in mission efforts.

Mahan was a "cheerful giver" in the Biblical sense. As his fourth "Rule

For My Life" indicated, while only twenty-eight years old he had already

developed the discipline of giving seventeen dollars a month in charity. At

the end of the Civil War Mahan made a voluntary offering of all the means

at his disposal to help Southern naval officers in financial trouble. Throughout

his life he often answered private requests for donations to churches or workers of the Church. One note dated November 2, 1911 gives an example:

Nov. 2, 1911. Sent Mr. —cheque for $100 named January, 1913, for repayment, but

said sum would be given or returned to some church work. He was, therefore, to consider

himself in debt to the Church, rather than to me, and on that basis to contrive repayment.

In case of my death authorised him to pay the amount to Bishop for missionary

work in diocese. 17 Mahan's authorship of The Harvest Within, called his spiritual autobiography

by many, was well received, as were his other writings on religious matters.

Responding to an article entitled "Twentieth Century Christianity" which

appeared in the April, 1914 issue of North American Review, Bishop Gailor of

Tennessee wrote: "I thank God for a layman who can state the faith as you

have declared it."18 After reading to the same article, Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels

wrote to Mahan:

"It is most helpful to the younger men to read your clear call to hold fast to the ancient

landmarks our fathers set."19 Mahan was a frequent speaker on spiritual matters at professional

organizations, churches and church-related groups. As his mother envisioned,

he was at home in a pulpit. In an address delivered at Holy Trinity Episcopal

16 Seager and Maguire, op. cit., vol. 1, p. 256.

17 Taylor, op. cit., quoted on p. 261.

18 Ibid., p. 263.

19 Ibid.
132 Reo N. Leslie, Jr.

Church in Brooklyn in March, 1899, Mahan stated the value of Christianity

in his life:

Here let me briefly say-to define my position at once clearly-that my experience of

life is that of one who has based his practice upon a full intellectual acceptance of the

Christian Faith, as explicitly set forth in the historic Creeds-the Apostles' and the Nicene

Creeds. In those, and in the Word of God, I have found, and find, not merely comfort

and strength but intense intellectual satisfaction. 20 At the conclusion of this same address, Mahan included in his remarks the

importance of his lay ministry as a Christian public speaker:

I thank you greatly for listening to me, and your Rector for asking me to speak. I value

beyond words the opportunity, once in my life, before God's people, to avow my faith,

that to me He is, and has been, - not in my imperfect service, but in His own perfect

faithfulness,-Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last. I rejoice that once at least I am able publicly to lay at His feet in words-however poor

my deeds-the confession that all that I have, all that I am, all that I have accomplished,

has been of Him and through Him, and that, as the end draws near, there abides, what

only my own demerit can forfeit, the Hope, which experience of His faithfulness renews

day by day.21

In recognition of his support of Foreign Missions, Mahan was elected to

the Board of Missions in 1900.» He served in this capacity until 1910. Mahan

was an active member of the Board of Managers of the Seaman's Church

Institute of New York from 1867 until his death in 1914.23 After his death,

the Board called him "a man of God of superior intellect, and with profound

religious convictions; a great Churchman and ardent patriot."24 A resolution

adopted on December 3, 1914 by the Trustees of a home mission effort speaks

of Mahan's activities in other areas of ministry:

RESOLVED, that the Board ofTrustees of the American Church Institute for Negroes

desire to express their sense of the very great loss which they have sustained in the

death of Rear-Admiral Mahan. He was always most deeply interested in the work of

the Institute, and was one of the most regular attendants at its meetings. His counsel

and advice were always greatly prized, and it will be difficult if not impossible to find

anyone to fill his place.

DAVID H. GREER,

President

American Church Institute for Negroes.25

20 Seager and Maguire, op. cit., vol. 3, p. 599.

21 Ibid., p. 602

22 Ibid., vol. 3, p. 657.

23 Taylor, op. cit., p. 265

24 Ibid.

25 Ibid., pp. 265-266.
Religion and Mahan 133

In another area of religious work Mahan was consulted about the Episcopal

Prayer Book. He wrote several articles on the subject in the religious journal

The Churchman.26 Mahan acted out his religious beliefs, as well as holding them in a personal

faith. His understanding of Christianity also influenced the military

philosophy, view of politics and approach to geopolitical thinking that the

evangelist of sea power developed.

The Morality of the Use of Force in International Relations

In a letter to Silas McBee dated November 27, 1898, Mahan asked a question

in a postscript: "Do Churchmen, even Bishops and Priests, practically

consider the gift of the Holy Ghost, and the powers of the world to come

to be potential factors in a nation's politics and welfare?"27 Whether they

did or not, he certainly did.

Mahan's view of the world was rooted in the idea found in Judaism and

Christianity that human history was directed by God toward a divinelyordained fulfillment in the future. In his Presidential address to the American

Historical Association on December 26, 1902, he defined history as "the plan

of Providence."28 This concept of history as a divine drama orchestrated by

God had an impact on how Mahan looked at war and the use of force in

the relations between nations.

Mahan's view of the place of force in global politics was influenced by

his religious views. In essays and speeches like "Thoughts on the Righteousness

of War" (1913), "War From the Christian Standpoint" (1900) and "The Place

of Force in International Relations" (1912), he explained his views on the

nature of war in human affairs.

The authority to wage war had been granted to earthly political authority

by the God of the Universe. Force, according to Mahan, was a regrettable

but necessary instrument in maintaining order, defending national interests,

avenging wrongdoing and administering righteous justice. Since humanity

was "far removed from human perfection," war was a "necessary evil" in

its use as "a remedy for greater evils, especially moral evils."29 Although he

rejected going to war for conquest, dynastic succession and impure motives,

Mahan believed that "the obligation to destroy the evil and the evildoer, if

need be, still exists" when injury or self-defense requires "the result of war.

"»

In "War From the Christian Viewpoint" he stated:

26 Ibid., p. 263.

27 Seager and Maguire, op. cit., vol. 3, p. 617.

28 Alfred Thayer Mahan, Naval Administration and Warfare, (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1918),

p. 267.

29 Alfred Thayer Mahan, Some Neglected Aspects of War, (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1907), p. 99.

*>Ibid., p. 100
134 Reo N. Leslie, Jr.

I affirm that War, under conditions that do and may arise, is righteous; and further,

that under such conditions it is distinctly an unrighteous deed to refrain from forcibly

redressing evil, when it is in the power of thine hand to do so. I have affirmed that

under some conditions it is unrighteous not to use force to that extent of War.31 Mahan challenged those who interpreted the Bible and Christian theology

to support non-resistance and pacifism to consider other neglected aspects

of Scripture, Christ and Christianity. As well as being the "Prince of Peace"

(Isaiah 9:6), Christ also "in righteousness does judge and make war" in

command of "the armies of heaven" with "a sharp sword with which to smite

the nations" (Revelation 19:11-15). The commandment "Thou shalt not kill"

is not for capital crimes or holy wars in the Old Testament. Christ used force

himself to expel the immoral money changers from the Temple in Jerusalem

(Matthew 21:12, Mark 11:15, Luke 14:45, John 2:15). When centurions like

Cornelius converted to Christianity (Acts 10) they were not required, or even

advised, to leave their military profession. Christ counseled the purchase of

swords by his disciples (Luke 22:36-37) and rebuked Peter only because he

used his sword prematurely (Matthew 26:52-54, John 28:10-11).

Although Mahan understood how Christian conscience could lead one to

pacifism, his own belief was quite clear. Christ, since his Kingdom was "not

of this world" had assigned the sword to the authority of nations in "the

physical coercion of material evil" within the earthly sphere.32 "Every

independent state is a kingdom in this world," he said, "Its subject or citizens,

if confronted by the prospect of innocent blood being shed, or of their Ruler

being slain (their government destroyed) are justified in resisting by force."33 A favorite Biblical passage ofMahan in articulating his view of the morality

of using force in international relations was Romans 13. Verse 4 was especially

useful in his exegesis for it says "for he [the Ruler] does not bear the sword

in vain; he is the servant of God to execute his [God's] wrath on the

wrongdoer." The sword, Mahan believes, "must defend the right" of nations.

The answer is clear, Mahan said, if the question is "should the nation do right

(go to war) and suffer or do wrong (appease evil) and be at ease?" After

all, he says, "is militarism really more deadening to the spirit than

commercialism or than legalism?"34 Since the sword of military power was assigned to nations by God, Mahan

was suspicious of efforts to restrict or prohibit the use of force in international

relations. "Legislative enactment" and the "external compulsion" of

arbitration could not replace "the fidelity of Conscience" inherit in the

righteous use of war to right wrongs and do justice, for "even the material

31 Ibid., pp. 100-101.

32 Ibid, p. 112

33 Ibid., p. 108.

34 Ibid.
Religion and Mahan 135

evils of war are less than the moral evil of compliance with wrong."35 Those

who place too much faith in international arbitration, Mahan states, fail to

recognize "how far force daily enters into the maintenance and execution

of law."36 The danger Mahan sees in "undiscriminating advocacy of

arbitration" is that "it may lead men to tamper with equity, to compromise

with unrighteousness, soothing their conscience with the belief that war is so entirely wrong that beside it no other tolerated evil is wrong."37 In his own spiritual development, Mahan had reconciled his personal faith

and his commission as a naval officer believing that Christianity was a religion

that reinforced his military profession. Force and faith were not antagonistic,

but complimentary:

Power, force is a faculty of national life; one of the talents committed to nations

by God. And this obligation to maintain right, by force if need be, while common to

all states, rests peculiarly upon the greater in proportion to their means. So viewed,

the ability speedily to put forth the nation's power, is one of the clear duties involved

in the Christian word "watchfulness," readiness for the call that may come, whether

expectedly or not. Until it is demonstrated that evil no longer exists, or threatens the

world, which cannot be obviated without the recourse to force, the obligation to readiness must remain; and where evil is mighty and defiant, the obligation to use force,

that is, war arises.38 Although Mahan's language may seem bellicose by current religious

standards, he was certainly within the mainstream of the popular Christianity

of his period. His views are also consistent with the theories of just war

formulated in Christian theology by Ambrose, Augustine and Aquinas. This

was, after all, a period ofAmerican history when President William McKinley

stated publicly that his decision to annex the Philippines came to him in a

religious experience after seeking counsel from God in prayer.

Geopolitics and "Christian Civilization"

Mahan, in addition to being a devoted Christian, naval strategist, evangelist

for sea power, historian and author, was also a great global geopolitical

thinker. Before Mackinder presented his ideas of "the Pivot Area," "the

Heartland" and the need to prevent a single continental power from gaining

control of the Eurasian "world island," Mahan had discussed similar concepts

in his book The Problem ofAsia published in 1900. In his essays Mahan identified

Russian expansionism as the greatest threat to the stability of China, global

peace and security of the world.39 Mahan also saw what he called a zone of

"the debatable and debated ground" that stretched from Northeast Asia to

35 Alfred Thayer Mahan, Lessons of the War With Spain and Other Articles, (Boston: Little, Brown, and

Company, 1918), p. 215.

36 Ibid., p. 222.

37 Ibid., pp. 236-237.

38 Ibid., pp. 232-233.

39 Robert Seager II, Alfred Thayer Mahan: The Man and His Letters, (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1977),

p. 463.
136 Reo N. Leslie, Jr.

the Balkans.40 He predicted that the sea powers Japan, Germany, the United

States and the United Kingdom would unite in alliance to contest the Russians

in the zone of "debatable and debated ground," contain Russian imperialist

expansion and control China.41 Thus, at the turn of the century, Mahan

predicted the policy of "containment" and global alliances like the U.S.-

Japan Security Treaty and Nato that would become the cornerstones of

American national strategy half a century later.

However, Mahan's interest in the Pacific Rim and East Asia was more than

political alone. Mahan's great interest in Christian missionary efforts saw in

American acquisition of the Philippines in the Spanish - American War of

1898 and Western trade with China, Korea and Japan an opportunity to spread

Christianity among Asian peoples. As already mentioned, Mahan served ten

years on the Board of Missions of the Episcopal Church. The Church

recognized his labor by naming the Mahan School in Yangchow, China, as a memorial to him.42 Mahan was concerned that either the Russians, Chinese or both would one

day rise to challenge the West. He called "the stirring of the East" and its "entrance into the field of Western interests" a "vital" and "significant"

event.43 He thought that although the potential conflict might be inevitable,

it was avoidable if Eastern nations were brought into the "Christian

civilization" of the West:

We stand at the opening of a period when the question is to be settled decisively, though

the issue may be long delayed, whether Eastern or Western civilization is to dominate

throughout the earth and to control its future. The great task now before the world

of civilized Christianity, its great mission, which it must fulfill or perish, is to receive

into its own bosom and raise to its own ideals those ancient and different civilizations

by which it is surrounded and outnumbered, the civilizations at the head of which stand

China, India, and Japan.44 Mahan expected Western political, religious and material civilization to

lift up the "ancient nations" of the East which were "deficient" in

intellectual, social and political organization.45 In order to be successful in

this spiritual offensive-defensive strategy, the Western nations must return

more to their own Christian values and ideals to facilitate their growth in

other lands:

If our own civilization is becoming material only, a thing limited in hope and love to

this world, I know not what we have to offer to save ourselves or others; but in either

event, whether to go down finally under a flood of outside invasion, or whether to

40 Alfred Thayer Mahan, The Problem of Asia, (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1900), p. 22.

41 Seager, op. cit., p. 463.

42 Ibid., p. 577.

43 Alfred Thayer Mahan, The Interest of America in Sea Power, (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1906),

p. 235.

44 Ibid., p. 243.

45 Ibid., p. 252.
Religion and Mahan 137

succeed, by our own living faith, in converting to our ideal civilization those who shall thus press upon us, - in either event we need time, and time can be gained only by

organized material force. Nor is this view advanced in any spirit of unfriendliness to the other ancient civilizations, whose genius admittedly has been and is foreign to our own.46 Mahan believed the Philippines would provide not only a geo-strategic base

for pursuit of U.S. interests in Asia, but also serve a similar purpose in

spreading Christianity to the Asian mainland. The acquisition of the

Philippines by the U.S. was guided by "the hand of Providence* ' in the view

of Mahan and many others.47 The religion of Islam did not fare any better than the religions of the East

in the eyes of Mahan. Although, in a July 30, 1867, letter to his father Mahan

lauded the temperance of the Muslim inhabitants of the Comoro Islands,48 he

considered nations under "Mahometan government" to be politically and

culturally backward.49 Mahan saw the liberation of the Balkan states from

"Turkish misrule" as the start of the decline of Islam as "a political power"

and "a religious power."50 He attributed Turkish political despotism not to

their ethnicity, but to their religion, saying "Turkish misrule is not because

they are Turks, but because Mahomet has blinded their eyes to the Person

of Christ, and to the Cross which showed His courage and fidelity."51 In addition to supporting the spread of Christianity and Western culture

in Asia through public advocacy and institutional church work, Mahan made

a significant personal effort also. In response to a request by Lieutenant

Commander K. Asami, a Christian in the Imperial Japanese Navy, Mahan

wrote an introduction to Asami 's biography ofJapanese Vice Admiral Tasuka

Serata. Admiral Serata, also a Christian, graduated from the U.S. Naval

Academy in Annapolis. In the introduction, Mahan not only praises Serata

and his Christian faith, but presents Christianity to the Japanese people.

Mahan also compliments the Japanese for progress and entices them with the

"universal" nature of Christian civilization:

Japan has recognized the progress of Christendom, has adopted its fruits, and since so doing has herself contributed to the development much which the European world fully

and explicitly admits.

It is the glory of that faith which Admiral Serata professed, in which he lived, and

in which he died, that it impresses upon the group of nations in which it is held a

solidarity, a unity, which survives and transcends all differences between them. It has

the quality of immortality, of universality, and of unity of character, which is to be

found in no other feature of their various national lives. 52

46 Ibid., p. 246.

47 Mahan, The Problem of Asia, p. 175.

48 Seager and Maguire, op. cit., vol. 1, p. 108.

49 Ibid., vol. 3, p. 511.

50 Ibid., p. 683.

51 Ibid., p. 690.

52 Ibid., p. 690-691.
138 Reo N. Leslie, Jr. Mahan thought of geopolitics not only in terms of national, economic,

commercial and military strategy, but also spiritual strategy. The Open Door

to China was considered one for evangelization as well as trade. The sea powers (United States, Britain, Germany and Japan) must insure, Mahan told

Theodore Rossevelt in a March 12, 1901 letter, that China provides "simple,

but entire, liberty of entrance for European thought, as well as European

commerce" in order for China to "be saved."53 It is indeed fascinating to see, particularly in our contemporary milieu where religion plays such a significant

role in international politics, the religious element of Mahan's geo-political

thinking. He felt Christianity could unite the East and the West in both

political and spiritual kinship.

National interests of the West are served, Mahan said, by bringing "Asian

peoples within the compass of the family of Christian states; not by fetters

and bands imposed from

without, but by regeneration promoted from within."54

Conclusion

Alfred Thayer Mahan was a man who possessed a dynamic faith. Spiritual

reflection, involvement in national and international mission efforts, historical

analysis, personal values, lay ministry, geo-strategic thinking and political

advocacy all grew from the fertile soil of his Christian beliefs. As Charles

Carlisle Taylor says in his biography of Mahan:

No portrait of Alfred Thayer Mahan which failed to emphasize his deeply religious

nature would faithfully reflect his true personality. It would be difficult to exaggerate

the intensity of his convictions or his lifelong devotion to things spiritual.55 The evangelist of sea power was a complex man with many interests and

views. The Christian faith he professed and practiced provided an

underpinning for his outlook and vision and is evident in books published and

letters written.

From his time at the Naval Academy he consistently pondered on what

it meant to live a Biblically-based faith in a modern environment. The

questions raised in his letters show, despite his chosen military profession,

Mahan had a spiritual sensitivity that informed his decision making process.

His sense of God behind history convinced him that his native land had

a role of greatness to play on the stage of time. His advocacy of America's

interest in sea power and international conditions was motivated by this belief.

Mahan's understanding of the just war tradition in Christianity led him to

the conviction that there were no Biblical or religious constraints on the use of force in international relations. On the contrary, his reading of the Holy

53 Ibid., p. 708.

54 Mahan, The Problem of Asia, p. 154.

55 Taylor, op. cit., p. 266.
Religion and Mahan 139

Scriptures made him certain that the proper moral course mandated the

resistance of evil by force if necessary, rather than acquiescence to wrong

motivated by a misguided ethic.

Mahan*s sense of missionary Christianity was at the root of his geo-political

analysis of "the problem of Asia." He desired the Open Door Policy for China

more for the conversion of the Chinese people than the commercial interests

of the West. Mahan envisioned an apocalyptic war between the East and the

West if China, India and Japan were not brought into Christendom. There

was no separation between religion and politics in the strategic thought of

Alfred Thayer Mahan. Religion and strategy were interwoven in his views

on Christian civilization.

In his political, spiritual, military and intellectual life Mahan sought to

reflect his beliefs for Christ. He was an evangelist of his faith as well as an

evangelist for sea power. A look at his life indeed reveals the truth of the

memorial plaque in his honor at the Church of the Atonement in Long Island.

With religion growing as a factor in international relations perhaps the union

between spiritual affairs and national security affairs evident in Mahan's thinking can help broaden our understanding of how global issues are viewed.
140

After his return from the South Pacific Station in the fall of 1885, Mahan took up residence with his family in New York City and continued his research in the Astor Library for his Naval War College

lectures on naval history and tactics. He continued his work until August 1886, technically under Rear Admiral Stephen B. Luce's order, but enjoying what in effect was a leave of absence from the Navy.

Most of his lectures for the 1886 College course were completed during this period.

Copy of Harper's Weekly illustration courtesy of the Redwood Llibrary.
141

Chapter 12

Alfred Thayer Mahan on the War of 1812

William S. Dudley

More than 175 years after the War of 1812, James Fenimore Cooper,

Theodore Roosevelt and Alfred Thayer Mahan, all nineteenth century

authors, are still considered the pre-eminent naval historians of that event.

Cooper was a contemporary and near participant in the events of those days,

but Roosevelt and Mahan lived in the declining years of the age of sail and

viewed the successive phases of its decline, as steam technology, more

powerful guns, and armor plate influenced warship design. In the quarter

century between 1882 and 1905, Roosevelt and Mahan made lasting

contributions to the field of 1812 studies in different ways. I propose to

compare the treatments by Roosevelt and Cooper to that by Mahan in order

to highlight the distinctive approaches of each historian, to make some more

extensive remarks on Mahan's method and biases, and to give some impression

of the way Mahan's version of the war has influenced later authors.

Naval wars in the days of sail involved a theory and practice of ship

construction, rigging and sail technology, the science of maneuvering, and

a maritime dialect that was difficult for landsmen to understand. Then, a greater proportion of Americans lived near the sea and depended on it for

their livelihood. These skills are now irretrievably lost to all but a handful

of our population. Many history professors would be hard put to explain the

necessity of "seeking the weather gauge" before closing with the enemy.

Perhaps we have come to a time when the war cannot be taught because

we have lost the means of communicating how it was fought. It will be a

real challenge to bridge this gap. When historians undertake this task, time

and again they must have recourse to Cooper, Roosevelt and Mahan.

James Fenimore Cooper was the first and in some ways the best of the

19th-century historians of the U.S. Navy. Before him came some men who

scribbled, cut, and pasted, but none before him had created a comprehensive
142 William S. Dudley

and coherent portrait of the American navies from 1775 to 1815. l When

Cooper published his History of the Navy of the United States, in 1839, he was

already an established writer who took pains with his craft. As one of the

first men of American letters, he had over a period of twenty years published

a critically-acclaimed variety of fiction and essays. He consciously included

the American national experience in his works. High-spirited as a youth, he

entered Yale at an early age, but was expelled after using gun powder to

blow the lock off a dormitory door. His father, Judge William Cooper,

consented to his signing as an ordinary seaman on board the merchant ship

Sterling for a year of preparation (1806-1807) before joining the Navy. He

served for three years (1808-1811) as a midshipman. While under the orders

of Lieutenant Melancthon Woolsey on Lake Ontario, Cooper helped to

supervise the building of the brig Ontario. This task completed, the Navy

Department sent Cooper to Lieutenant James Lawrence's Wasp in New York

harbor. Lawrence assigned Cooper the frustrating task of recruiting seamen

in New York City. During this time, Cooper came to know other officers,

such as William Branford Shubrick, a lifelong naval friend. Cooper resigned

his commission in 1811 to administer his deceased father's estate and to marry

Susan DeLancey who made it known she did not want an absentee husband.

Cooper had inherited his father's vast estates in central New York and for

a while tried farm management, but soon he turned his hand to novels to

supplement his income. As the years passed, he kept his eyes toward the sea, and created America's first sea fiction.2 He kept in touch with his naval friends,

1 Cooper's predecessors include Thomas Clark, who compiled a mixture of narrative, excerpted

documents, laws and statistics. In Naval History of the United States, Clark took advantage of the naval enthusiasm of 1812 to glue together this pastiche of the first few months of the war and boldly predicted

a second volume which was incompletely published in early 1814. There were no further volumes. Clark

went on to publish a series of Latin textbooks more suited to his talents. Some excellent naval writing appeared in the Analectic Magazine, edited by Washington Irving, who

was personally acquainted with a number ofnaval officers. It is thought Cooper was among the contributors

of these unsigned pieces. The years following the war saw the appearance of numerous edited collections of military and naval documents, such as Abel Bowen, The Naval Temple. Containing a complete history of

the battles fought by the navy of the United States from 1794-1816 (Boston, 1816); Horace Kimball, Naval Battles: being the complete history of the battles fought by the United states from 1794 (Boston, 1816); and John Brannan,

Official Letters of the Military and Naval Officers of the United States during the War with Great Britain in the Years 1812, 13, 14, & 15 (Washington, 1823). Many of these titles boasted completeness and status as histories. To a great extent, the narratives contained hyperbole and the texts were haphazardly edited. Another account that preceded Cooper's is Charles Washington Goldsborough's United States Naval

Chronicle (1824). It is not a history but is rather what the title indicates, a ponderous chronology, running

from 1775 to 1801, and unfortunately, there he stopped. He was very knowledgeable about the management

of the Navy Department, and he knew many of the leading officers, having served as chief clerk of the department under Robert Smith (1802-1809) and Paul Hamilton (1809-1812). When William Jones assumed

the post of Secretary of the Navy in January, 1813, he brought in his own appointee, Benjamin Homans,

as chief clerk. Goldsborough was brought back as chief clerk by Secretary Benjamin Crowninshield in 1815. Goldsborough also served as secretary to the Board of Navy Commissioners.

2 The Pilot (1824), The Red Rover (1827), and The Water Witch (1830) are commonly called "nautical romances;" his later nautical novels, such as The Wing and Wing (1842), Two Admirals (1842) and Afloat and Ashore (1844) were written in a more realistic vein. For a thorough discussion of these novels, see Thomas Philbrick, James Fenimore Cooper and the Development of American Sea Fiction (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1961).
War of 1812 143

was moved to write a critical essay on the Somers mutiny, and finally set

himself the task of researching and writing the history of the U.S. Navy, not

just since 1798, but the whole story since 1775. The result was very different

from what one might expect from the story-teller of the "Leatherstocking

Tales."

For a man lacking historical training, Cooper had an advanced idea of the

historian's role. In research, he used primary sources and oral history

whenever possible. He sent questionnaires to naval officers he could not

interview so as to reflect differing viewpoints. He was widely read in the

secondary sources as well. He judiciously compared published sources with

eyewitness accounts and arrived at his own judgement of events by careful

reasoning and analysis of these sources. In writing history, Cooper shunned

the popular tendency to place naval heroes on a pedestal. Memorable phrases

supposedly uttered by naval leaders rarely find their way into Cooper's

narrative. On the other hand, he was a man of his age, and would have

approved of Thomas Carlyle's emphasis on biography and the role of the

individual in history. His theme, when it emerges, is the high character of

the American naval officer. Those he admired were to serve as models for

emulation. Still, he attempted to keep above the fray. In writing about the

Battle of Lake Erie, he chose not to take up cudgels against Master

Commandant Jesse D. Elliot, the commanding officer of the brig Niagara,

whom many officers had criticized for failing to support Commodore Perry's

brig Lawrence at a critical time. Rather, Cooper based his description on

Perry's earliest reports which praised Elliot rather than those he wrote later

which condemned him. Perry's shipmates pilloried Cooper in the press and

he replied. He later blamed the slow sales of his Naval History on the festering

of the Perry-Elliot feud.3 The works of Cooper, as both novelist and historian, have been undergoing

reappraisal for the past thirty-five years. He had been neglected, since the

late nineteenth century, as a relic of the romantic era. The historian Walter

Muir Whitehill, writing in 1954, was of the opinion that "there can be no

question about the importance of Cooper's place as a naval historian. He was,

after all, the first to make any systematic attempt to cover the whole field

from the earliest colonial sea fights onward." He praised Cooper's "detached

3 Captain Daniel Dobbins, an old Lake Erie hand who served under Perry gave Cooper his due, however,

when on May 11, 1843, he wrote: "Having read your Naval History, as also the Biography of Como

Perry by Capt. A.S. MacKenzie, the biography of Capt. Jesse D. Elliot by a Citizen of N. York, and

the commencement of your life of Perry in the May number of Graham's Magazine, I would beg leave

to say that none of them are entirely free of errours; but I must say, you treated matters and things with

much the most candour . . . ." Cooper replied on May 20, "I never flattered myself with having written

a history without errors; such a phenomenon, the world never yet saw. Still, I believe myself to be nearer

to the truth than any other writer on the subject of the Battle of Lake Erie . . . ."James Franklin Beard,

The Letters andJournals ofJames Fenimore Cooper, 4 vols. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1960),

vol. 4, pp. 383-384.
144 William S. Dudley

and abstract impartiality" and his "dignified disregard of that which attracted

popular attention."4 This is an impressive statement when one realizes Cooper's own capacity

for invective and his willingness to attack opponents in pamphlets and in the

law courts. For example, in addition to his balanced view of Elliot in the

Perry-Elliot feud, he defended Commodore Chauncey's failure to cooperate

with the army in 1814 on Lake Ontario. He is but mildly critical of Rear

Admiral Cockburn's behavior in the Chesapeake Bay campaigns of 1813-1814

and is also even-handed in his treatment of Captain James Hillyar's attack

on Captain David Porter's frigate ESSEX in Chile's territorial waters. In

accounts by other American authors of the day, these matters were treated

with bias and indignation.

Cooper's approach to naval history was, first of all, episodic and narrative.

He dwelled on sea actions, related the role of principal officers, explained

the methods of rating ships, and appraised the balance of the forces engaged

in battle. With his own naval background and in consulting his human sources,

Cooper arrived at penetrating evaluations of decisions and tactics. Of the

three historians under consideration, he paid the most attention to the human

factor, including biographical detail, to enlighten the reader. Good examples

are his annotation portraits of Captain James Lawrence of the frigate

Chesapeake and Captain Johnston Blakeley of the Wasp who was lost at sea

after a very successful cruise in 1814.5 Theodore Roosevelt's The Naval War of 1812, published in 1882, was a product of an energetic personality and a brilliant, eccentric mind.6 His study

of the War of 1812 had nothing to do with his academic work at Harvard,

except it was there that he first read British historian WilliamJames's account

of the war.7 Roosevelt's book was not, as some have thought, an expansion

of his senior thesis. Roosevelt's interest, as an undergraduate, lay in the

Natural Sciences. He was, however, a voluminous reader in every area and

enjoyed rowing and sailing in small boats on Long Island Sound. Perhaps this

is where he found his maritime inspiration. Somehow, Roosevelt managed

to squeeze his research into a life teeming with social engagements, 25-mile

hikes, his first marriage, a European honeymoon, involvement in Republican

Party politics, and his first year at Columbia Law School.

The writing was not easy, for like Cooper, Roosevelt was untrained as an historian, and unlike Cooper, he was not a literary man, used to organizing

4 Walter Muir Whitehill, "Cooper as a Naval Historian," in Mary E. Cunningham, ed. James Fenimore

Cooper: A Reappraisal (Cooperstown, N.Y., 1954), pp. 105. Among many other works, Whitehill wrote

a biography of Admiral Ernest J. King and was Chairman of the Secretary of the Navy's Advisory

Committee on Naval History for many years.

5 Cooper, History of the Navy, pp.181-182, 212-213.

6 Theodore Roosevelt, The Naval War of 1812 (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1882).

7 William James, An Inquiry into the Merits of the Principal Naval Actions between Great Britain and the United

States (London, 1816) and Naval History of Great Britain from the Declaration of War by France to the Accession of George IV, 6 vols., (London, 1822-24).
War of 1812 145

and editing vast amounts of written material. Still, he developed a method

to go with his obsession. According to David McCullough, he "forced himself

to master every nuance and technical term of seamanship ... he plowed

through everything in print on his subject, tracked down original documents,

amassed volumes of statistics on fighting ships, armaments and crews. He had

started out knowing no more on his subject than anyone else and with no

experience or training in historical research." Then, too, there were the

natural interruptions of family life. He was hard at work one afternoon, in

the library of the Roosevelt family's New York townhouse, his wife Alice

burst in on his study and cried out to her sister-in-law, "we're dining out

in twenty minutes and Teddy's drawing little ships."8 There came a time in 1881, when Roosevelt felt overwhelmed by his subject,

perhaps because of the vast amount of research he had done. He and Alice

were in Europe on their honeymoon, residing in The Hague when his worries

emerged. "I have plenty of information but I can't get it into words; I wonder

if I won't find everything in life too big for my abilities. Well, time will

tell."9 But help was near at hand in the person of Teddy's uncle, a former

U.S. Navy and Confederate States Navy officer, James D. Bulloch. 10 During

the war, he had successfully arranged for the purchase and outfitting in

Liverpool of several ships that became Confederate high seas cruisers,

including Florida, Alabama, and Shenandoah. This renowned figure suffered

notoriety after the war because of the Alabama claims arbitration, during

which the United States successfully obtained a judgement against Great

Britain for the part she had played in aiding the Southern cause. Roosevelt

spent several weeks receiving advice and sympathy in Bulloch's company.

Much encouraged, Roosevelt soon completed his work and arranged for its publication through the firm of Col. George H. Putnam, a family friend.

Coincidentally, Roosevelt "invested" $10,000 in Putnam's firm as a "silent

partner" in 1883. Whether this was a shrewd move to assist publication of

his book or simply a means of creating income is unknown.11 Roosevelt's approach to the War of 1812 is combative in instinct. From

the earliest pages, he makes it clear that he is out to square accounts with

Englishman author William James, whose history of the war he holds in

contempt for its inaccuracy and pro-British bias. Although Roosevelt's study

is not without errors, it is basically reliable. He gives the enemy his due and

strives, without entire success, to establish a fair and dispassionate view. We

see this in his evaluation ofJames: "an invaluable work, written with fullness

8 David McCullough, Mornings on Horseback (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1981), pp. 235, 247.

9 TR to [his sister] Anna Roosevelt, as cited in Pringle, Theodore Roosevelt: A Biography (New York: Harcourt,

Brace, 1931), p. 47.

10 James D. Bulloch (1823-1901), a native of Savannah, Georgia, and former U.S. Navy officer who joined

the Confederate States Navy and became the Confederacy's agent in England. His exploits are recorded

in The Secret Service of the Confederate States in Europe (2 vols., 1884).

11 Henry F. Pringle, Theodore Roosevelt (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1931), p. 64.
146 WilliamS. Dudley

and care; on the other hand, it is also a piece of special pleading by a bitter

and not over-scrupulous partisan." Unfortunately, Roosevelt found it necessary to lash out at Cooper, in a condemnation that carried through until

recent years. He acknowledged his debt to Cooper, backhandedly. James'

work, he wrote, can be "partially supplemented by Fenimore Cooper's Naval

History of the United States. The latter gives the American view of the cruises

and battles; but it is much less of an authority than James', both because it

is written without regard for exactness and because all the figures for the

American side need to be supplied from Lieutenant (now Admiral) George

E. [H.] Emmons' statistical History of the United States Navy. . . ."12 Roosevelt's study of the war is indispensable for anyone working on the

subject, but his opinion of Cooper is both unfair and inaccurate. It is one

of the few times when the question of Roosevelt's maturity becomes relevant.

It is as though he felt the necessity to denigrate his predecessor in order to

promote his own accomplishment. He wrote that "much of the material in

the Navy Department has never been touched at all. In short, no full, accurate,

and unprejudiced history of the war has ever been written. "

13 If he meant

that Cooper and others had not used Navy Department dispatches and

commanding officers' action reports, he was wrong. Cooper had access to

the printed versions in Niles' Register and other periodicals and officers'

retained copies of letters to the department. He wrote letters to survivors,

interviewed them, and his notes on these matters are contained in Yale

University's Beinecke Library. Recently, Edward K. Eckert's otherwise

informative introduction to a new edition of The Naval War of 1812 failed

to examine Roosevelt's opinion of Cooper and mistakenly calls Cooper's work

"pro-American but no more credible [than James']."14 To draw out the

comparison, Roosevelt became so exasperated with James' description of

American sailors' "fear" because they used helmets and multi-barreled guns

[probably a Chambers gun]. Roosevelt wrote: "such a piece of writing as

this is simply evidence of an unsound mind; it is not so much malicious as idiotic . . . any of James' unsupported statements about the Americans . . . are not worth the paper they are written on."15 Roosevelt had earlier

claimed Cooper was less exact and much less an authority than James. Are

we now to infer that Cooper's writings were more "unsound, "idiotic," and

worthless than James'? Roosevelt's narration and presentation of facts are sound, but in matters of opinion he partially undermines his own history of

the war.

12 Roosevelt, The Naval War of 1812, p. iv. Emmons' work, is a synthesis ofbattle results between American

public and private warships, dependent on many primary and secondary sources, including Cooper's History.

13 Roosevelt, Naval War, p. iv.

14 Theodore Roosevelt, The Naval War of 1812, Intro. & ed. Edward K. Eckert, (Annapolis, Md.: U.S. Naval Institute, Classics of Naval Literature Series, 1987), xi-xxxii, p. xiv.

15 Roosevelt, Naval War, p. 333.
War of 1812 147

On the other hand, Roosevelt's history is valuable for its attention to minor

as well as major naval actions. He based his research on original documents

sent from the Navy Department to the Astor Library for his use. Roosevelt

proceeds carefully, comparing the American and British versions of each

action; he takes issue with his sources on occasion and does not hesitate to

express his judgement of officers' actions. He is as critical of Perry for his

tactics as of Elliot for his failure to support his commodore. Commodore Sir

James Yeo is as culpable as Commodore Chauncey for avoiding a decisive

fleet action on Lake Ontario in Roosevelt's view, though Yeo was instructed

by Governor General Prevost's orders to fight defensively. Roosevelt spends

much time comparing the throw-weights of ships' batteries and numbers of

crew at the time of certain battles in order to refute James' arguments. He

also deplored the tendency of American historians to avoid censuring Captain

James Lawrence for his flawed handling of the Chesapeake in her fatal combat

with Shannon. Where the common view was one of Lawrence's

extraordinarily bad luck, Roosevelt wrote that it was simply a matter of

Shannon fighting better, regardless of the usual American excuses.16 The Naval War of 1812 was generally well-received, and it was soon adopted

as a text by the Naval War College. Written at the nadir of post-Civil War

American naval power, Roosevelt urged that the moral of the War of 1812

was lack of preparation. Had the nation been adequately prepared, the war

might have been forestalled or would have been fought with greater success on land and sea. Roosevelt was acutely conscious of the U.S. Navy's weakness

in the early 1880s and this informs his presentation. 17 According to his memoir

(1925), Roosevelt wrote The Naval War of 1812 not just for its own sake but

as a means of drawing attention to the need for a stronger navy, so the nation

could to play a significant role on the world's stage. In this sense he was a precursor of Mahan, whose own history of the War of 1812 had not been

conceived when Roosevelt's appeared.

By the time Mahan commenced work on Sea Power in its Relations to the War

of 1812 in 1902, he had already reached the pinnacle of his career. Alfred

Thayer was an 1859 graduate of the Naval Academy, a veteran of the Civil

War, and a capable sea officer, but he had early shown a preference for

writing on naval history and strategy rather than the usual routine of

command at sea. He assisted Rear Admiral Stephen B. Luce in establishing

the Naval War College at Newport and in defending it against its naval and

congressional critics.

He began to mature as a writer in the late 1870s. His first work, The Gulf

and Inland Waters, the last of Scribner's histories of the navy in the Civil War,

was published in 1883. In this book, Mahan showed his abilities as a self-taught,

16 Roosevelt, Naval War of 1812, pp. 189-190.

17 Theodore Roosevelt, An Autobiography (New York, 1925), p. 205.
148 William S. Dudley

practicing historian, by using original documentation and writing to

survivors, much as Cooper did, in order to reconcile conflicting accounts.

His book was commended by others, brought him favorable attention, and

began his remarkable career as a man of naval letters. 18 After publishing this

work, Mahan's strategic concept of sea power, for which he is so well-known,

developed rapidly. In preparing lectures for the Naval War College, Mahan

absorbed the great military writings of earlier ages, especially those ofJomini

and applied what he learned to the study of naval history in an original way.

In the early 1890s, he wrote his most famous books, The Influence ofSea Power

upon History, 1660-1783 and The Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution

and Empire. Mahan had intended at that time to publish a work on the War

of 1812 as the third in his sea power series. For various reasons, he put off

the task for almost ten years. He was called to sea duty, against his will, by

the Bureau of Navigation and put in command of the cruiser Chicago. Now

famous, he was in constant demand as a columnist and speaker on international

and naval affairs. His friendship with Theodore Roosevelt blossomed in the

mutual admiration of one navalist for another. The Spanish-American War

and its aftermath made many demands on his time and abilities, as American

sea power moved from theory to practice.

Underlying all these imperatives was Mahan's curious reluctance to

confront the War of 1812. The comment in his memoir From Sail to Steam

was apt: "I had foreseen that the War of 1812, as a whole, must be flat in

interest as well as laborious in execution; and upon the provocation of other

duty, I readily turned from it in distaste."19 When he did get started, it took

three years to obtain the result, and he was diffident about the effort even

then, as he wrote to his old friend Samuel Ashe: "I am at present at work

on the War of 1812. It is a very old story, often told, and not a brilliant episode,

nor one of which as a whole the United States can be very proud. It remains

to be seen whether I can give any such novelty of presentation as to justify

another telling."20 With this attitude, one is surprised he finished the work.

Yet he kept at it, and when the book (2 volumes) appeared, some readers

were critical. Theodore Roosevelt, whose own work preceded Mahan's by

33 years, wrote: "I was as disappointed as you with Mahan's War of 1812.

He is a curious fellow, for he cannot write in effective shape of the navy

or of the fighting of his own country."21

18 Captain W. D. Puleston, USN, Mahan: The Life and Work of Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan, USN (New

Haven: Yale University Press, 1939), pp. 56-65.

19 Alfred Thayer Mahan, From Sail to Steam: Recollections of Naval Life (New York: Da Capo Press, 1968; reprint of Harper & Bros, edition of 1907), p. 313.

20 Mahan to Samuel A. Ashe, 12 April 1903, as printed in Robert Seager and Doris D. Maguire, eds. Letters and Papers of Alfred Thayer Mahan, vol. 3, (Annapolis, Md.: U.S. Naval Institute Press), III, p. 58.

21 Roosevelt to James Roche, 7 March 1906, as printed in Elting E. Morrison and John Blum, eds. The

Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, 8 vols., (Cambridge, Mass., 1951-54), vol. 5, p. 173.
War of 1812 149

At the outset, in reading Mahan's 1812 study, one realizes that he is not

only re-writing the history of the war but also searching for justifications

of his theories of sea power. Hindsight plays a major role in this method.

He opens his study with a ponderous discussion of the legal precedents for

impressment of seamen and the economic necessity of Britain's interruption

of the American neutral trade to Napoleonic Europe. Viewed from this

distance, it appears that Mahan, in writing this study, was considering the

possibility that Britain could soon be at war with Germany.22 The United

States might again play the neutral role, an event which he, as an anglophile,

hoped to discourage.

The causes of the War of 1812, for Mahan, were entirely maritime, and

he justified the declaration ofwar against Britain considering the humiliations

borne by the United States. His criticism is most harshly aimed at Presidents

Jefferson and Madison for their ineptness in handling the diplomatic aspects

of the Chesapeake-Leopard affair of 1807, their failure to prepare for war,

and their policies of commercial retaliation. Mahan's descriptions of the

frigate engagements are brief, in contrast to his treatment of the diplomatic

entanglements before the war. One gains a much better appreciation of shipmaneuvering and the balance of the opposing forces from Roosevelt and

Cooper. Mahan admired Commodore John Rodgers's cruising strategy which

forced the British to concentrate their own relatively weak forces during the

first months of the war. Yet he is puzzled that Rodgers's combined squadron

was relatively unsuccessful in capturing enemy prizes, as compared with the

single cruising frigates Constitution and Essex.23 Mahan's correspondence with

Admiral Luce shows that Mahan despised what he considered the "useless"

spilling of blood in the high seas frigate engagements because there was no

positive strategic result for the United States.24 Mahan is at his best in demonstrating the strategic inter-relationship of

land and sea operations on Lakes Ontario, Erie, and Champlain.25 Had the

planned combined military and naval operations been skillfully and

consistently carried out, American objectives might have been attained.

Mahan is least effective in his account of the British 1813 and 1814 campaigns

in the Chesapeake and seems to have been diverted from his analysis by the

American propensity to trade with the enemy. He also suggests, without

explanation, that the campaign of Admiral Warren and Rear Admiral

22 William E. Livezey, Mahan on Seapower (Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 1947), pp. 224-225.

23 Mahan to Luce, 12 May 1903, as printed in Seager and Maguire, Letters and Papers, vol. 3, pp. 61-62.

24 Mahan to Luce, 13 January 1903, as printed in Seager and Maguire, Letters and Papers, vol. 3, p. 52 and

52n. Mahan replied to Luce's letter of 31 December 1902 which began with the sentence "It is my hope

that in your next book you will dispose of the popular delusion that "we whipped England" in the War

of 1812. See Albert Gleaves, Life and Letters of Rear Admiral Stephen B. Luce, U.S. Navy (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1925), pp. 289-290.

25 Mahan, Sea Power, in its Relations to the War of 1812, vol. 2, pp. 101, 125, 299-309, 370-382.
150 WilliamS. Dudley

Cockburn in the Chesapeake "cannot be regarded as successful."26 Although

this view could be contested by inhabitants from tidewater Maryland and

Virginia, Mahan may have been suggesting that the British should have

brought larger land forces to cut communications between Baltimore and

Philadelphia and hence New York, perhaps even repeating the invasion and

occupation of Philadelphia as in 1777.

Admiring British naval flexibility, Mahan emphasized the virtues of

preparation, the disproportionate effect a few American ships-of-the-line

might have had on British policy makers and the effectiveness of the British

blockade in 1813-14 in undermining the American economy.

In appraising the value of Mahan's predecessors, one is bound to

acknowledge the worth of all three to a comprehensive view of the naval

war. Cooper's account thrives on action, is rich in biographical detail and

strives for fairness to both sides at a time when objectivity was the exception

rather than the rule in histories of the second Anglo-American war. He, like

Roosevelt and Mahan, recognized the weakness of the American position

before the war but blamed Congress as much as presidents for that situation.

Roosevelt, using Cooper and James as foils, concentrated all his efforts on

the war, wasted little time on its antecedents (spending only half a paragraph

on Chesapeake-Leopard), and provided as much detail as possible in recounting

the ship-to-ship combats. These attributes make his work, perhaps more than

Cooper's, an essential reference for those working deeper in the subject. If

Roosevelt's study is flawed by his aggravation with William James' history,

Cooper is a good antidote in his dispassionate use of sources. He, too, was

familiar with James' inaccuracies but chose to answer them, vigorously, in a separate piece.27 Roosevelt's work has enduring value for the student of the

War of 1812, and it probably also had a lasting influence on the United States

Navy in that it permanently focused Roosevelt's attention on the issue of

preparedness.28 This preoccupation resurfaced during his terms as Civil Service

Commissioner, as Assistant Secretary of the Navy and as President of the

United States.29 Without question, the utility of Mahan's War of 1812 study is intrinsic to

his view of the conflict's larger issues and its strategic aspects, absent from

Cooper's book, though present in some degree in Roosevelt's. Strangely,

Mahan never publicly acknowledged Roosevelt's contribution as an

inspiration for his own approach to the War of 1812, although he certainly

knew the work and Roosevelt's strong views on the subject. Luce had invited

26 Ibid., pp. 171-177.

27 James Fenimore Cooper, Review of William James's Naval History of Great Britain in United States Magazine

and Democratic Review, Vol. 10, New Series, (1842), pp. 411-435 and 515-541.

28 Roosevelt, Naval War, ed. E.K. Eckert, xxxi-xxxii.

29 See Richard Turk's valuable discussion of Roosevelt and Mahan and their views on the War of 1812

in The Ambiguous Relationship: Theodore Roosevelt and Alfred Thayer Mahan ( Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood

Press, 1987), pp. 57-70, 104-105.
War of 1812 151

Roosevelt to lecture at the Naval War College, which he did in August 1888.30 Although Mahan mentions The Naval War of 1812 in a letter to Luce, it is by way of explaining that he "purposely refrained from studying his

[Roosevelt's] reasons till I shall have my independent conclusions."31 This is a curious admission, possibly reflecting Mahan's desire to distance himself

from Roosevelt's interpretation of events.

Mahan's bias, a predilection for the British use of sea power to defend her

island kingdom and empire, has both its strengths and weaknesses in an analysis

of the American way of naval war. Mahan is applying a seventeenth-century

paradigm of fleet warfare between well-developed national polities to a nineteenth-century naval contest between mother country and former colony,

an infant republic, researched and written under the baleful influence of early

twentieth-century empire building. The hundred years naval war between

Britain and France (1715-1815) was in its final stages when the War of 1812

issued forth, brought into existence by James Madison and his Congress as the ultimate of desperate moves to satisfy national honor. The American

Revolution had not yet completed its work; it was as if Americans felt that,

ready or not, they could hold Canada hostage with Britain preoccupied in

staging the collapse of her continental rival.

The war-making demons created by the administrations of Jefferson and

Madison worked in no logical strategic manner. It is the naivete of these

gentlemen and their cohorts that has so troubled most naval historians of the

United States. If a nation depends on commerce for its national income and

commences war without a considerable naval force against a kingdom

possessing the world's largest navy, she will surely suffer the closing of her

ports and the disastrous decline of national finance. Mahan's dismay at having

to write the story of these events was produced by a psychological

predicament. As a patriotic American naval officer, he disliked writing of

national events conducted in a foolhardy manner against a worthy foe the

descendants of whom he greatly admired. In 1896, when the Venezuelan crisis

posed the possibility of another Anglo-American War, he wrote "My own

belief has long since passed . . . from faith in and ambition for my country

alone, to the same thing for the Anglo-Saxon race."32 This sentiment was

uttered nine years before the publication of his War of 1812 "Sea Power"

study. The variance of his approach from Roosevelt's is seen in Mahan's silent

dependence on William James' version of naval engagements because of his

painstaking accuracy.33 Although Roosevelt had invested considerable time

30 Turk, Ambiguous Relationship, p. 15. Turk adds that although the two men met on that occasion, "what

either man thought of the other on the basis of this initial contact remains a mystery to this day."

31 Mahan to Luce, 17 June 1903, as printed in Seager and Maguire, Letters and Papers, III, pp. 64-65.

32 Robert Seager, Alfred Thayer Mahan: The Man and His Letters (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press,

1977), p. 334.

33 Turk, Ambiguous Relationship, p. 105.
152 WilliamS. Dudley

in contradicting James' prejudiced versions of events, Mahan proceeded as

if Roosevelt had never written The Naval War of 1812*

While historians often revisit the multiple causes of the War of 1812, it

is still acknowledged that one of the most important of these was the

ideological one of national honor, and immediately following this, the

American belief in the phrases "free trade" and "freedom of the seas,"

inherited from the British. In the seagoing America of those days, these issues

were tantamount to a maritime declaration of independence. The officers and

men of the frigate Chesapeake were not the only ones who believed in the

motto on Lawrence's battle flag "Free Trade and Sailors' Rights," protesting

the seizure of American merchant vessels and seamen by British men of war.

When Mahan arrived at the point of discussing the virtues of this position,

he could not, because he was morally incapable of asserting the argument.

So convinced is he by the international politics of the late 1890s that Britain's

trade will suffer in a future Anglo-German war while Germany would benefit

from an internationally-condoned neutral trade, that he publicly and privately

advocated that the rights of neutral trading nations should not be recognized

in the Hague Conferences of 1899 and 1908.35 During the interim period,

Mahan researched, wrote, and published his Sea Power in its Relations to the War

of 1812. Its most labored part is the 280-page introductory chapter discussion

of the legal justifications for Britain's non-recognition of neutral American

trading rights during the Napoleonic Wars.36 As difficult as it was for Mahan to face the realities of the War of 1812,

he grudgingly acknowledged that it made some sense for the United States

to encourage privateering and to use her navy in commerce raiding. He noted

the success of privateers in annoying the enemy, especially during the waning

months of the war when our larger naval vessels were blockaded in port.

He acknowledged that Secretary Jones was more impressed with the faster,

more maneuverable design of the Baltimore clippers than by heavy frigates

and ships of the line that were so slow to build and difficult to man. In 1814,

Jones recommended to Congress that this be the next basic naval ship design

so that squadrons of several could operate under men such as Porter and Perry.

Had the war continued, the navy might have taken this shape in 1815.

34 There is little doubt that Mahan used both James and Roosevelt, as can be seen from internal references

in Mahan's correspondence with Rear Admiral Luce but he makes no overt citations to either historian. Some of Mahan's other printed sources are listed in an enclosure of a letter to Charles W. Stewart, Chief

Clerk of the Library and Naval War Records, Navy Department, Washington, D.C. See Seager and

Maguire, Letters and Papers of Alfred Thayer Mahan, vol. 3, 1902-1914, pp. 65-66.

35 Turk, Ambiguous Relationship, 1\-1A. In letters to Theodore Roosevelt (Dec. 27, 1904) and Elihu Root

(Apr. 20, 1906) Mahan encloses excerpts from his "forthcoming War of 1812" containing his historical arguments against the exemption of private property from capture at sea. Mahan here displays the tendency

to manipulate history for reasons of state policy in order to derail the proposed American position at the approaching Second Hague Conference. See Seager and Maguire, Letters and Papers, vol. 3, pp. 112- 113 and 157-158.

36 Seager, Mahan: The Man and His Letters, p. 569, believes this is one of the "freshest and most useful

sections of the book."
War of 1812 153

In considering the U.S. Navy's cruising strategy, Mahan rightly perceived

that more naval frigate commanders should have tried their luck in English

seas, as did Captain William Henry Allen in the brig Argus* Not enough

American commanders took so bold an approach to warfare. Witness Captain

John Smith wasting his time and his ship in months of fruitless cruising off

the Guianas in 1812-1813. Mahan spares Commodore John Rodgers whose

squadron failed to capture any significant prizes because the squadron's mere

existence had a strategic effect. In 1812, while the Rodgers' and Decatur's

combined squadrons unsuccessfully chased the frigate Belvidera, Captains

Porter and Hull captured, burned or sent in almost two dozen prizes while

cruising independently. On the other hand, when on a later cruise, Rodgers

had an ideal opportunity to raid in the chops of the channel or the Irish Sea,

he chose to avoid those busy seaways and to cruise off northern Norway to

the North Cape taking but a few desultory prizes. But, in Mahan's eyes,

despite Rodgers' "bad luck," the commodore made the right strategic move

early in the war by concentrating his ships. This forced Commodore Broke

to keep his small squadron intact in pursuit and allowed free play for a number

of American privateers and independent frigates early in the war.38 Mahan the historian did do research in original documents, but he also made

ample use of the friendly assistance of other specialists in constructing his

version of events. He consulted John Bassett Moore regarding the legalistic

argumentation on maritime rights. Rear Admiral Luce helped him with the

frigate combat actions and criticized sections of a draft dealing with these

engagements. He frequently called on John Franklin Jameson and Andrew

McLaughlin for advice in writing the work. But "at no time in spite of all

the assistance he received did Mahan succeed in effectively suspending his

anglophilic tendencies."39 The influence of Mahan's Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 was

not as great as his earlier works on European sea power. There was and is little international interest in the American "War of 1812" even though his

book appeared on the eve of the centennial of the conflict. On the other hand,

Mahan's work has been influential among many generations of American

historians of the war, for most of them are not maritime historians. They

have depended on Mahan heavily for his interpretation of events at sea while

they spent their efforts explaining and reinterpreting the Madison

administration's 'policies, military operations on land, and the political and

economic impact of the war. For some examples, a recent major work on

the War of 1812 is J.C.A. Stagg's Mr. Madison's War: Politics, Warfare and

Diplomacy in the Early Republic, 1783-1830 (1983), based heavily on

correspondence of political and military figures. But Stagg virtually ignores

37 Mahan, Sea Power, vol. 2, pp. 217-220.

38 Ibid., vol. 1, pp. 324-327.

39 Seager, Mahan, p. 567.
154 WilliamS. Dudley

naval documentation. When he needs a citation, he leans on Mahan, and the

papers of Secretary William Jones, Albert Gallatin, and James Madison and

Edward Eckert's slim monograph on Jones, The Navy Department in the War

of 1812* He never offers a qualitative comment on Mahan's approach or method and does not cite Theodore Roosevelt's The War of 1812. An older

but still better work than Stagg 's for its balance between military and naval

coverage is Reginald Horsman's The War of 1812 * In his "bibliographical

note," Horsman describes Mahan's work as "essential reading for an

understanding of this period,'* but also adds that Theodore Roosevelt's Naval

War of 1812 is particularly useful for its analysis of comparative strengths in

the various naval engagements of the war.42 The newest research on the war

will be found in Donald R. Hickey, The War of 1812: A Forgotten Conflict (1989).

Hickey prefers Roosevelt as "the best account of the war at sea" and a "judicious work" which is a good antidote to the ill-tempered standard British

account" by William James. Hickey considers Mahan's a valuable work

"though Mahan had a tendency to rework quotations from his source material

so they read better."43 In summary, Alfred Thayer Mahan's Sea Power in Its Relations to the War

of 1812 is alive and well in academe, despite any shortcomings it may have

in terms of bias and "present-mindedness." Those who use it should also

consult Roosevelt for his appreciation of tactical detail and better balance

between American and English source materials. Cooper, too, should be kept

in mind for his lively appreciation and apt expression of American naval

efforts. None of these authors provides much insight into the institutional,

administrative, logistical, or social history of the U.S. Navy of the early

republic, but this is a contemporary concern of our own time and was not

of great interest to earlier naval historians. This is the arena in which future

"Mahans" will have to make their mark.

40 For example, see Stagg, p. 325, n.74, referrence to Sea Power, vol. 2, 63-69; Stagg, p. 341, n. 135 reference

to Sea Power, vol. 2, 51-56; Stagg, p. 391, n. 12 reference to Sea Power, vol. 2, 324-328.

41 Reginald Horsman, The War of 1812 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1969).

42 See Horsman, The War of 1812, pp. 273.

43 Donald R. Hickey, The War of 1812: A Forgotten Conflict (Urbana & Chicago: Illinois University Press, 1989), p. 321.
PARTIV; ON REFLECTION
156

THE

INTEREST OF AMERICA

IN INTERNATIONAL

CONDITIONS

BY

A. T. MAHAN, D.C.L., LL.D.

Captain, United States Navy

Author of «« The Influence of Sea Power upon History/* " The

Interest of America in Sea Power," etc.

BOSTON

LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY

1910

Title page of the first edition in the Collections of the Eccles Library, Naval War College.
157

Chapter 13

Mahan on World Politics and Strategy

The Approach of the First World War,

1904-1914

John H. Mauer

Introduction

Alfred Thayer Mahan's reputation as a strategic thinker rests primarily on

his famous books on The Influence of Sea Power. Scholars examining Mahan's

writings tend to concentrate on these histories about naval operations during

the great wars between the end of the seventeenth and the beginning of the

nineteenth centuries. As a consequence, Mahan is now best remembered as a naval historian and a theorist of naval operations. 1 But this perspective on Mahan is too narrow. In addition to his contribution

to understanding naval history and operations, Mahan was a political scientist

and policy analyst. This facet of Mahan's thought can especially be seen in

his writings from the period 1900-1914, which are often only glanced at for

surveys of his writings. It is perhaps not surprising that this is the case, since

Mahan's writings are difficult to study. He was a celebrated and prolific

writer for almost a quarter of a century, and during that time he changed

his views on a number of important issues. Moreover, he failed to provide

his readers with a systematic treatment of his own views on politics and

strategy. As a consequence, his more famous early historical writings that

highlight naval operations are emphasized in examinations of his thoughts,

while his theories about international politics are relatively neglected. This

is unfortunate, because some of Mahan's most seminal thoughts were

expressed in his later writings about international politics and strategy.

To use the language of modern-day international relations theory, Mahan's

thought belongs within the realist tradition for the study of relations between

states. This tradition traces its lineage back to Thucydides, and includes such

prominent modern thinkers as Hans Morgenthau and Henry Kissinger. Indeed,

1 Philip Crowl's article in the new Makers ofModem Strategy in an example of this way of surveying Mahan's

writings. Philip A. Crowl, "Alfred Thayer Mahan: The Naval Historian," in Makers of Modem Strategy from Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age, edited by Peter Paret (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986), pp. 444-477.
158 John H. Mauer

many of Mahan's tenets about world politics and strategy are mainstays of

contemporary international relations theory, and it is useful to identify at

the outset some of the most important of these tenets.

First, Mahan saw anarchy as a distinctive attribute of world politics. Since

no supranational organization existed that could control the international

system, individual states needed to provide for their own security in a Darwinian struggle for survival. Because states struggled to find security,

Mahan was dubious of the ability of states to promote cooperation between

themselves by peaceful means. Arbitration agreements between states and the

establishment of norms for conduct in the international arena were likely to

work only so long as the issues at stake were limited. Once a state saw that

its important interests were threatened, however, international agreements

to promote cooperation could not take the place of armed force in providing

for its security. To use Kenneth Waltz's apt phrase: "Self-help is necessarily

the principle of action in an anarchic order."2 Nor did Mahan think that the

international system was likely to change in the near future. His scathing

comments on Norman Angell's The Great Illusion show how far Mahan was

from the view that great power rivalries were atavistic and suicidal and that

they stood in the way of greater international cooperation and material

progress. Mahan argued that the "entire conception of the work is itself an

illusion based on a profound misreading of human action."3 So long as human

nature remained unchanged, Mahan thought that the threat ofwar could never

be banished from international relations. In Mahan's view, the best way to

prevent war was to be so well-armed that potential adversaries would be

deterred from risking a conflict.4 Second, hierarchy was in Mahan's view a distinguishing feature of world

politics, and the international system was directed by the decisions of the great

powers. Mahan contended that the great commercial states in particular

would play a leading role in world politics because of the wealth they

generated from international trade. To Mahan, Britain's leadership of the

international political system during the nineteenth century rested in large

part on its position as the world's leading trading state and naval power.

Third, Mahan theorized from his study of history that the cause of war

and change in world politics was rooted in underlying shifts in the power

relationships between states. 5 Thus, the international system's leading states

2 Kenneth N. Waltz, Theory of International Politics (Reading, Massachusetts: Addison-Wesley Publishing

Company, 1979), p. 111.

3 See Robert Seager II, Alfred Thayer Mahan: The Man and His Letters (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1977), pp. 586-591. Hereafter cited as Seager, Mahan.

4 See Mahan's short article "Why Not Disarm?" in Robert Seager II and Doris D. Maguire, Letters and

Papers of Alfred Thayer Mahan (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1975), volume 3, pp. 685-687. Hereafter

cited as Seager and Maguire, Mahan Papers.

5 On this theme in world politics, see the two thought-provoking studies: Robert Gilpin, War and Change

in World Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981); and Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of

the Great Powers (New York: Random House, 1987).
World Politics 1904-1914 159

had in the past been challenged by more rapidly growing powers, and these

challenges carried with them the potential for war. During the period

examined by Mahan in his histories of sea power, Spain, the Netherlands,

England, and France had struggled with one another for leadership of the

international system. In the decade before the First World War, Mahan saw

the rise of Germany as the major challenger to Britain's leading position in

world politics. Indeed, Mahan considered the decline of British power in the

face of challenges from other great powers as the cardinal feature of the

international system in the early twentieth century.

Fourth, Mahan was concerned with the balance of power. It was an important

tenet of his views on world politics that the great powers needed to prevent

any one of their number from achieving hegemony within the international

system. Mahan was concerned not only with the European balance of power

but with the global equilibrium. The imperial rivalries between great powers

in Asia and Latin America were linked with the European balance in a global

system. In his assessment of power balances between states, Mahan gave

prominence to five indicators: territory, population, armed forces, commerce,

and the ability of governments to develop and carry out long-range planning

and to mobilize their country's resources. A fifth factor that was prominent in Mahan's thoughts about world politics

and strategy is that competing states adopt similar strategic doctrines and

force structures. In the early twentieth century, this principle was nicely

illustrated by the general competition between the great powers in the

building of battleships and their adoption of the strategic doctrine of battlefleet concentration. Mahan attached a great deal of importance to the

relationship between a country's foreign policy and its naval power. A great

power eager to pursue an expansionist foreign policy—or a country trying

to contain the expansion of rivals—required naval power. Thus, Mahan gave

particular attention to the great-power battleship building rivalries and the

strategic doctrines guiding the deployment of their navies in his analyses of

developments in world politics.

In this essay, I will examine Mahan's views on world politics during the

ten-year period before the outbreak of the First World War. My purpose

is to show the relationship between Mahan's theoretical understanding of

world politics and his policy prescriptions. In particular, three policy issues are examined in this essay: Mahan's assessment of Britain's declining position

in the international system, the importance of shifts in the global balance of

power for the United States, and the naval competition between the great

powers and the associated strategic doctrine of battle-fleet concentration.

Mahan on the Rise and Fall of Great Powers

Like many statesmen and political commentators of his era, Mahan thought

that world politics in the twentieth century would be characterized by a global
160 John H. Mauer

rivalry between the great powers for commercial and naval supremacy. These

struggles for empire, world power, and naval mastery were viewed by Mahan

and others as a twentieth-century replay of the wars that he had described

in his volumes on The Influence of Sea Power. During the course of these

struggles, dramatic shifts were likely to take place in the power balances

between the great powers.

In particular, Mahan was concerned with Britain's ability to hold its position in world affairs against rising great-power challengers. It was an

axiom of world politics at the turn of the century that the imperial rivalry

between Britain and Russia throughout Asia and the Middle East—the so- called "Great Game"—must sooner or later result in a diplomatic showdown

and perhaps war. A corollary to this axiom held that Britain would not be

able to contain Russia's expansion in Asia without the support of major allies.

In the United States, such prominent national leaders and commentators on

world affairs as Theodore Roosevelt, Henry Cabot Lodge, Brooks Adams,

as well as Mahan subscribed to this axiom and its corollary. This group wanted

the United States to take a more active role in world politics in support of

Britain's position. Thus, Brooks Adams, in his book America's Economic

Supremacy published in 1900, advocated that "America must more or less

completely assume the place once held by England, for the United States could

hardly contemplate with equanimity the successful organization of a hostile

industrial system on the shore of the Pacific, based on Chinese labor."6 Mahan

agreed with this assessment, arguing that the United States should align itself

with Germany and Japan to assist Britain in containing Russia. This bloc of

"Sea Powers" should seek to prevent Russia from gaining "preponderant

political control" of China.7 But this historical precursor to what after 1945

would be called a strategy of containment failed to come about. The RussoJapanese War of 1904-5 revealed that Russia's power had been overestimated.

Russia's defeat, however, did not mean that Britain's position was secure from challengers. In place of Russia, Germany's rise as a great naval power

and Japan's success over Russia heightened Mahan's concern about the balance

of power in Europe and Asia. Thus, far from being united in purpose, the

coalition of Britain, Germany, Japan, and the United States, which Mahan

had proposed in The Problem of Asia, was actually made up of rival great

powers. In particular, Germany had emerged by 1908 in Mahan's eyes as the

most serious challenger to Britain's position in world politics. "The rivalry

between Germany and Great Britain today," Mahan told his readers, "is the

danger point, not only of European politics, but of world politics as

6 Quoted in Howard K. Beale, Theodore Roosevelt and the Rise of America to World Power (New York: Collier Books, 1962 edition), pp. 226-227. On Roosevelt's views that the United States might be drawn into a war with Russia, see ibid., pp. 263-4, and Seward W. Livermore, "The American Navy as a Factor in World Politics, 1903-1913," The American Historical Review, volume 63 (July 1958), p. 877.

7 See A.T. Mahan, The Problem of Asia and Its Effect upon International Policies (Port Washington, New York:

Kennikat, 1970 edition), passim. Mahan's book Problem of Asia first appeared in 1900.
World Politics 1904-1914 161

well. . . . No such emphasized industrial and maritime competition between

two communities has arisen since the time of Cromwell and the later Stewart

kings, when England wrested from Holland her long possessed commercial

supremacy, supported by a navy until then unconquered.

"

8 What political and strategic indicators led Mahan to this assessment? One

factor was Germany's rapidly rising population and industrial production. To

Mahan, Germany's dramatic demographic and industrial growth meant that

it would demand overseas territories as an outlet for its growing population

and as markets for its products. But perhaps the single most important

indicator that triggered Mahan's alarm about Germany was that country's

naval challenge to Britain. Germany's stated program of naval construction

and its decision to follow the lead of Britain and the United States in building

"all-big-gun" or dreadnought battleships showed the seriousness of the

German challenge. Mahan pointed out: "The huge development of the

German Navy within the past decade, and the assurance that the present rate

of expenditure—over 20,000,000 annually—will be maintained for several

years to come, is a matter of great international importance."9 Mahan saw

an intimate connection between Germany's industrial growth, rise as a naval

power, and drive for imperial expansion. As Mahan put it, there is "an

inevitable link in the chain of logical sequence: Industry, markets, control

[of overseas territories], navy, bases."10 The famous 1909 "naval panic" in Britain, in particular, heightened

Mahan's concern about Germany's foreign policy goals. Prompted by the

naval panic in Britain, Mahan tried to alert his American readers to the

political significance of the growing German battle fleet in an article for

Collier's Weekly, entitled: "Germany's Naval Ambition: Some Reasons Why

the United States Should Wake Up to the Facts About the Kaiser's BattleshipBuilding Program—Great Britain's Danger Exaggerated, But Not Her

Fright." He reminded his readers of the German involvement in Venezuela

in 1902—"a condition almost sure to arise" again—and warned that Germany

would "have the whip hand" in a future crisis if it possessed "a decisively

superior navy." Mahan asked whether the Monroe Doctrine should be

"dependent upon the uncertain indulgence of a foreign state, which is notoriously thirsting for colonization in the supposed interest of racial

development?" Only by building "a navy adequate to prevent such

humiliation" could the United States be prepared for the crisis to come.

According to Robert Seager, in the years between 1909, when he sounded

the tocsin in "Germany's Naval Ambitions" for Collier's Weekly, and his death

8 A.T. Mahan, The Interest of America in International Conditions (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1918

edition), pp. 163-164. This book first appeared in 1910.

9 Admiral A.T. Mahan, "Britain and the German Navy," The Daily Mail, July 4, 1910.

10 Mahan, Interest of America in International Conditions, p. 87.
162 John H. Mauer

on 1 December 1914, Mahan acted as "a journalistic Paul Revere" alerting

his English-speaking audience "to the fact that the Germans were coming."11 Germany's naval and colonial ambitions led Mahan to advocate that the

United States support Britain in defeating this challenge. Why did Mahan

champion this course for U.S. foreign policy? Mahan might have

recommended, for example, that the United States attempt to play Britain

and Germany off against each other. This is what Germany's foreign policy

attempted to do at the turn of the century when Britain and Russia were

rivals in Asia. By attempting to hold the balance of power between London

and Saint Petersburg, Prince Bernhard von Bulow, Germany's foreign

secretary and later chancellor, wanted to increase German prestige and

influence in world politics. 12 But instead of suggesting that the United States

do likewise and seek to exploit the growing Anglo-German antagonism,

Mahan advocated that it help Britain contain German expansion. Why did

Mahan, whose writings reveal such a pronounced Darwinian character, not

call for the United States to take advantage of Britain's embarrassment and

help partition the British empire, thereby establishing the United States as the leading world power? Answering these questions helps shed some light

on Mahan's theories about world politics.

First, Mahan believed that cultural and ideological affinities promoted

cooperation between Britain and the United States. Britain's heritage was

part of America's history. One consequence of these common traditions was

that the governments in both countries were committed to promoting "the

liberty of the individual."13 This acted to dampen their rivalry.

Second, Mahan did not see where Britain represented a threat to the United

States. To Mahan, Britain was a satiated power, which was not likely to

challenge the United States in the Western Hemisphere. Britain's actions in

acquiescing in the control of the Panama Canal by the United States

demonstrated this proposition. 14 Moreover, Canada was "open to land attack,"

11 Captain A.T. Mahan, "Germany's Naval Ambitions: Some Reasons Why the United States Should Wake

Up to the Facts About the Kaiser's Battleship-Building Program—Great Britain's Danger Exaggerated,

But Not Her Fright," Collier's Weekly, volume 43 (April 24, 1909), pp. 12-13; Seager, Mahan, p. 468. On

the Venezuelan Crisis of 1902-3 between the United States and Germany, see Beale, Theodore Roosevelt and the Rise to World Power, pp. 357-358; and Seward W. Livermore, "Theodore Roosevelt, the American

Navy, and the Venezuelan Crisis of 1902-1903," The American Historical Review, volume 51 (April 1946), pp. 452-471.

12 On Bulow's foreign policy, see Peter Winzen, B'ulows Weltmachtkonzept: Untersuchungen zur Fruhphase

seiner Aussenpolitik, 1897-1901 (Boppard am Rhein: Harald Boldt, 1977), passim; and Klaus Wormer, Russland and Deutschland: Studien zur Britischen Weltreichpolitik am Vorabend des Ersten Weltkriegs (Munich; Wilhelm Fink,

1980), pp. 64-140.

13 Mahan, Interest of America in International Conditions, pp. 93-101.

14 On Anglo-American relations in this period, see Bradford Perkins, 2The Great Rapprochement: England and the United States, 1895-1914 (New York: Atheneum, 1968); Kenneth Bourne, Britain and the Balance of Power in North America, 1815-1908 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967); Samuel F. Wells, Jr., "British Strategic Withdrawal from the Western Hemisphere, 1904-1906," Canadian Historical Review,

volume 49 (December 1968), pp. 335-356; and Stephen R. Rock, Why Peace Breaks Out: Great Power

Rapprochement in Historical Perspective (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1989), pp. 24-

63.
World Politics 1904-1914 163

and thus Britain possessed a vulnerability that the United States could exploit

to check British ambitions. 15 Britain, then, had already conceded hegemony

to the United States in the Western Hemisphere and was playing the main

role in upholding the balance of power throughout Europe and Asia.

Third, in Mahan's opinion, the rapid collapse of British power would result

in the strengthening of Germany's position. Unlike Britain, Germany was

in Mahan's opinion aggressive, expansionist, and seeking new colonies. The

growth of German power might result in a challenge the United States'

position in the Western Hemisphere.

Given these considerations, Mahan argued that the United States was better

off strengthening Britain's position than in undermining it. Indeed, if the

United States aligned itself with Britain, it would be in a better position to

contain German expansion. Faced by this alignment, Germany might even

be deterred from seizing colonies in the Western Hemisphere, so long as the

United States developed a powerful fleet.

Mahan's sympathies for Britain were not uncommon for naval officers of

this era. The General Board of the Navy, for instance, suggested a naval

alliance with Great Britain directed against Germany. In a letter to Secretary

of the Navy Charles Bonaparte, dated September 28, 1906, the General Board

warned that Germany would strike to seize colonies in the Western

Hemisphere as soon as her fleet was ready. Since British leaders were also

alarmed by German naval and colonial expansion, the General Board advised

the Roosevelt administration to consider an understanding with Britain along

the lines of the Anglo-Japanese Alliance of 1902: if the United States faced

only Germany, Britain would remain benevolently neutral; but if Germany

attacked with the aid of an ally, Britain would enter the war on the side

of the United States. The General Board believed such an agreement would

deter Germany from attacking across the Atlantic because their own home

coasts would then be denuded of battleships and open to British attack. In

the General Board's opinion: "The two English speaking nations seem

detained to exert a great influence on the further progress of the world, and

the conduct of war."16 But a formal alliance was outside the bounds of practical politics within

the United States, and Mahan urged instead a foreign policy of tacit

cooperation with Britain. This alignment entailed that the United States build

a powerful navy, while at the same time eschewing any policy of provoking

a naval competition with Britain. It is important to note that Mahan did not

urge that the United States acquire a battle fleet as large as that maintained

by Britain. What Mahan wanted was for the United States to direct its

energies to keeping abreast of Germany in modern battleships. Given

15 Mahan, Interest oj America in International Conditions, p 162.

16 Admiral George Dewey to Bonaparte, September 28, 1906, General Board Letterpress, General Board

Papers.
164 John H. Mauer

Germany's naval ambitions, the cost of achieving even this goal was going

to be substantial. Mahan also advocated that the United States mass its force

of battleships on the east coast, where it could be more readily assembled

to defeat a German move to seize territory in the Western Hemisphere.

Mahan sought to impress upon American readers the threat posed by the

German battle fleet for the security of the United States. He warned, again

and again, that the growth of the German battle fleet was rapidly overturning

Britain's naval supremacy. In 1910, in The Interest of America in International

Conditions, Mahan told his fellow countrymen that they could not remain

unconcerned to this German challenge to Britain because it might prove

successful. Americans must ask themselves "whether they can afford, to

exchange the naval supremacy of Great Britain for that of Germany; for this

alternative may arise." Once the European balance was overturned, "a

German navy, supreme by the fall of Great Britain, with a supreme German

army able to spare readily a large expeditionary force for over-sea operations,

is one of the possibilities of the future."17 In Naval Strategy, published in 1911, Mahan drew attention to the importance

of the decline of British power for the United States. "The power to control

Germany does not exist in Europe," he wrote, "except in the British Navy;

and if social and political conditions in Great Britain develop as they now

promise, the British Navy will probably decline in relative strength, so that

it will not venture to withstand the German on any broad lines of policy,

but only in the narrowest sense of immediate British interests . . . for it seems

as if the national life of Great Britain were waning at the same time that

of Germany is waxing." Mahan argued that "it is this line of reasoning which

shows the power of the German Navy to be a matter of prime importance

to the United States." Germany might be able to use its fleet as a political

lever to keep Britain and the United States from acting in concert with each

other to maintain the existing balance of power. By separating Britain from

the United States, Germany might seize an opportunity to acquire territory

in the Western Hemisphere. 18 For Mahan, then, it was essential that Britain and the United States attempt

to defeat Germany's naval challenge. But Mahan was not sanguine that either

Britain or the United States—despite his estimation that they possessed

superior economic resources— would be able to keep ahead of Germany in

this naval rivalry. Mahan was concerned that governments representative of

the people might not be able to pursue a viable long-term strategy. Despite

their superior resources, Britain and the United States appeared incapable

of harnessing them. Germany's government, on the other hand, seemed to

Mahan to be better able to mobilize the resources of the country to support

17 Mahan, Interest of America in International Conditions, pp. 161-162.

18 Captain A.T. Mahan, Naval Strategy Compared and Contrasted With the Principles and Practice of Military

Operations on Land (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1911), p. 110.
World Politics 1904-1914 165

its foreign policy aims. "The two English-speaking countries," Mahan wrote,

"have wealth vastly superior, each separately, to that of Germany; much more

if acting together. But in neither is the efficiency of the Government for

handling the resources comparable to that of Germany." Mahan argued that

"the habits of individual liberty in England or America [do not] accept, unless

under duress, the heavy yoke of organization, of regulation of individual

action, which constitutes the power of Germany among modern states."19 Mahan, then, questioned whether democratic governments would be able to

make and carry out a long-term strategic plan.20

It was Mahan's fear that the United States would not build a sufficient

number of modern battleships to match the German program. Mahan

lamented in 1909:

The German Navy will in 1912—in three years—have a stronger battle fleet in A[U]-

B[ig]-G[un] ships than we. What then shall we say, upon what shall we rely, if she, on occasion arising, defy us in the Monroe Doctrine? How do we propose to keep that

national idol on its feet without a superior navy?21 Mahan's anxiety that Germany was rapidly outstripping the United States

in naval strength was shared by the U.S. Navy's General Board. The General

Board argued that the United States needed to maintain a condition of at

least rough parity with Germany's battle fleet. But this standard of naval

strength was unlikely to be obtained in a future clash, so long as the United

States did not keep pace with Germany in the building of capital ships.

The result of losing the naval arms race with Germany might be German

colonial gains in the Western Hemisphere. For the readers of The New York

Times on 2 April 1912, Mahan even devised peace terms that Germany would

impose on the United States at the conclusion of some future war:

What terms? Well, to name three principal, omitting others: the surrender of the

Panama Canal, the admission of Asiatic labor immigration, and the abandonment of

the Monroe Doctrine. These may be stated as (1) the surrender of a vital link in our

coastwise communications, the principal end for which the Canal was undertaken; (2)

the constitution of a population predominately Asiatic on the Pacific slope west of the

Rocky Mountains—a new race problem; and (3) the suppression of a national policy,

the salutary aim of which has been to exclude foreign wars from propagation to the

American Hemisphere.22 When war engulfed Europe in the summer of 1914, Mahan worried that

this prediction might soon come about if Germany defeated her enemies. He

told interviewers from The New York Evening Post:

19 Mahan, Naval Strategy, p. 109; and Mahan, Interest of America in International Conditions, p. 163. Given

Germany's chaotic decision making structure in this period, Mahan's view that Germany possessed these

attributes of governmental efficiency is dubious.

20 On this theme, see Mahan's hard-hitting piece "Britain and the German Navy," in The Daily Mail.

21 Mahan to Charles W. Stewart, March 19, 1909, Seager and Maguire, Mahan Papers, volume 3. pp. 290-

2.

22 Seager and Maguire, Mahan Papers, volume 3, p. 453.
166 John H. Mauer

If Germany succeeds in downing both France and Russia, she gains a respite by land,

which may enable her to build up her sea power equal, or superior to that of Great

Britain. In that case the world will be confronted by the naval power of a state, not,

like Great Britain, sated with territory, but one eager and ambitious for expansion,

eager also for influence. This consideration may well affect American sympathies.

To one of his English correspondents, Mahan expressed the fear "that if

Germany wins by a big margin she is likely to be nasty to us [in the United

States]. "» Thus, Mahan's sympathies for Britain in the World War were clear

at the time of his death. Moreover, he deeply resented the Wilson

administration's gag order, which prevented him from arguing the case for

containing German power.24

Battleship Building and Naval Concentration

The concentration of naval forces into powerful battle fleets was a distinguishing feature of early twentieth century strategic theory and war

planning. In Germany, for example, a critical component of Tirpitz 's strategy

was the concentration of Germany's battleship in home waters. By

concentrating Germany's most powerful warships, Tirpitz aimed at increasing

their operational readiness and magnifying their political impact.25 The United

States and Britain followed and also took steps to concentrate their

battleships.26 In the United States, the Naval War College played a critical role in

promoting the strategy of naval concentration. A study prepared by naval

officers attending the summer conference of the Naval War College in 1903

recommended that the United States concentrate all its battleships in naval

bases and ports on the east coast. The study made clear that the strategic

rationale for this concentration was the need to match Germany's battle fleet.

Since all of Germany's battleships were massed in the North Sea, while the

United States had three of its battleships in the Pacific, an American battle

fleet in the Caribbean would amount to only 70 percent of the German

strength in battleships at the outbreak of hostilities. This disparity in numbers

meant that the German battle fleet would probably win the critical initial

engagements in any future war. To restore the naval balance, the War College

study recommended:

23 Seager and Maguire, Mahan Papers, volume 3, pp. 551-669.

24 Seager, Mahan, p. 689, note 31.

25 On Tirpitz 's strategy, see Paul Kennedy, "Strategic Aspects of the Anglo-German Naval Race," in Strategy and Diplomacy, 1870-1945; Eight Studies (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1983), pp. 127-160.

26 For the debate in the United States about naval concentration, see John H. Maurer, "American Naval

Concentration and the German Battle Fleet, 1900-1918," TheJournal of Strategic Studies, volume 6, number

2 (June 1983), pp. 147-181. Britain's naval concentration is analyzed in R.F. Mackay, "The Admiralty,

the German Navy, and the Redistribution of the British Fleet, 1904-1905," Mariner's Mirror, volume 56

(1970), pp. 341-346; Paul M. Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of British Naval Mastery (Atlantic Highlands, New

Jersey: The Ashfield Press, 1983 edition), pp. 205-237.
World Politics 1904-1914 167

The battle fleet should at all times be concentrated in the Atlantic. . . . Habitual

concentration is Blues's [that is, the United States] only safeguard unless the battle fleet

is at least one and one-half times the strength of Black's [Germany]. It is particularly

noticeable that such concentration is the policy of Black and of all other great powers

except Great Britain, which maintains a small battleship squadron in the East. The War College made this recommendation even though the entire Pacific

would be without a single American battleship.27 The War College recommendation calling for the withdrawal of all

American battleships from the Pacific ran into strong opposition from some

members of the General Board of the U.S. Navy. To resolve this dispute over

the distribution of the Navy's battleships, the Board debated the proposals

of the War College study between 20 November and 4 December 1903.

Captain Charles S. Sperry, President of the Naval War College, argued that

the concentration in the Atlantic should take place. Rear Admiral Henry

Taylor presented the opposing view that the current battleship deployment

in the Pacific had to be maintained. Great-power rivalry throughout the Far

East—especially the acute tension then existing between Russia and Japan

Taylor argued, made it unwise for the United States at that moment to move

its battleships out of the region. This clash between strategic dogma and

foreign policy considerations could not be resolved, and instead the debate

ended in a compromise. While the General Board recognized that "the proper

military policy, taken as a general principle ... is the concentration of all

battleships in the Atlantic," it advised that "under present conditions, vis.,

the imminence of war between Russia and Japan, the presence of a battle

squadron in the East is necessary; and so long as the very unsettled condition

shall continue in the East, the detail of not less than three battleships in the

Pacific is advisable." On 5 December 1903, Secretary of the Navy William

H. Moody accepted the Board's recommendation on the deployment of

battleships.28 As part of this debate, Admiral Taylor asked Mahan to give his opinion

of the Naval War College's proposed shift of all United States' battleships

to the Atlantic. Although it arrived too late to be used in the General Board's

debate on deployment, Mahan agreed with Secretary Moody's decision to

retain a squadron of battleships in the Pacific, even though this ran counter

to the strategic principle of naval concentration. Mahan argued that

international political conditions required that the United States retain a strong squadron in the Pacific. At the end of 1903, Mahan did not consider

Germany to represent much of a threat to the Western Hemisphere. But

Russia's actions in the Far East seemed to portend a war in the Pacific. Mahan

argued that the United States must be ready to protect its interests if war

27 "Solution, Problem of 1903," pp. 34, 35, 65, Record Group 12, Naval War College Archives.

28 Proceedings, November 20-December 4, 1903; Admiral George Dewey to Secretary of the Navy,

December 5, 1903, General Board Papers, File 420-1.
168 John H. Mauer

occurred, hence the requirement for a squadron in the Pacific.29 What this

episode highlights is that Mahan did not at this time hold the principle of

battle-fleet concentration to be a strategic imperative. Instead, international

political considerations and not operational doctrines were the driving force

behind naval deployments.

The major war in the Far East that Mahan and the General Board foresaw

began on February 8, 1904, when Japan attacked without warning the Russia

fleet based at Port Arthur. The experience of the Russo-Japanese War

highlighted the strategic importance of battle-fleet concentration. At the

war's beginning, the battleships of the Russian Navy were distributed between

its fleets in the Baltic Sea and Black Sea, as well as in the Far East. By the

time the Baltic Fleet of seven battleships had reached the Far East (only to

be defeated in the Tsushima Straits), the seven battleships of Russia's Pacific

Fleet had already been destroyed in Port Arthur. This had all been

accomplished by a Japanese fleet that never numbered more than six

battleships. Had it not been for the dispersion of its naval forces, the Russian

Navy would have possessed greater than a two-to-one advantage in

battleships—a crushing superiority. Russia's error in the initial deployment

of its naval forces was taken to heart by naval planners in other countries.30 This lesson was not lost on naval planners in the United States. Even before

the Russo-Japanese War had ended, the 1905 summer conference at the Naval

War College renewed the call to mass all of the battleships possessed by the

United States in the Atlantic: "The battle fleet should at all times be

concentrated in the North Atlantic. The policy of concentration is paramount.

Concentration is the policy of all the great powers." Only with the fleet in

the Atlantic would it be possible to defeat an advancing German force "near

the edge of the Caribbean before Black has had an opportunity to coal his

battleships and tune them up to battle speed after the long passage, and before

Black has been able to establish and fortify a temporary shelter for his

transports."31 With Russian naval power effectively destroyed, Secretary

Charles J. Bonaparte agreed with the War College that all battleships should

be in the Atlantic. In his annual report for 1905, Bonaparte called the

dispersion of the Navy's battleships "injurious" to the nation's security. "The

business of the fleet is to fight," the report continued, "and anything which

interferes with the training for that purpose detracts from the attainment of

that object." Without any further debate, Bonaparte ordered the withdrawal

of American battleships from the Far East during the summer of 1906.32

29 Seager and Maguire, Mahan Papers, volume 3, pp. 79-80.

30 For these naval actions, see Denis Warner and Peggy Warner, The Tide at Sunrise: A History of the Russo- Japanese War, 1904-1905 (New York: Charterhouse, 1974), passim.

31 "Solution, Problem of 1905," Part II, pp. 8-9, and Part III, p. 29, Record Group 12, Naval War College

Archives.

32 William R. Braisted, The United States Navy in the Pacific, 1897-1909 (New York: Greenwood Press, 1969), pp. 188-190.
World Politics 1904-1914 169

President Roosevelt fully supported the concentration of the United States

battleship strength into a single fleet located in the Atlantic. In a letter to

Assistant Secretary of the Navy Truman H. Newberry, Roosevelt argued that

if "any one lesson is taught by the Russo-Japanese War, and indeed by naval

history generally, it is that in the effort to protect even two important points

a division of force may mean the failure to protect either and the final loss

of the war." Because the Russians had divided their naval forces before the

war, Roosevelt explained, they "were obliged to wait until the Japanese had

destroyed their Pacific battle fleet, and then to see them destroy the Atlantic

[that is, Baltic] battle fleet when it got out there [to the Far Eastern theater

of war]." Roosevelt wanted to make certain that a similar fate did not befall

the United States in some future conflict in the Atlantic or the Pacific. He

told Newberry: "I do not intend to run the slightest risk of any such

disaster. ... I want our fleet to be a unit."33 Mahan also believed that Russia's experience in the war with Japan

contained a lesson for the United States. In an article for National Review in

March 1906, he noted that the number of battleships in the Russian Navy

"outweighed decisively" those available to Japan. By foolishly dividing their

battleship strength, Russia's leaders had permitted the Japanese victories at

sea. Mahan feared that "an irresolute or militarily ignorant Administration"

in the United States might repeat the Russian blunder and "divide the

battleship force into two divisions, the Atlantic and the Pacific." If a war

suddenly occurred, "with the fleet divided between the two oceans, one half

may be overmatched and destroyed, as was that of Port Arthur; and the

second, on coming, prove unequal to restore the situation, as befell

Rozhestvensky. " Americans must "understand the simple principle that an

efficient military body depends for its effect in war— and in peace—less upon

its position than upon its concentrated force." Mahan concluded by clearly

expounding the lesson he wanted his readers to learn:

Concentration protects both coasts. Division exposes both. It is of vital consequence

to the nation of the United States that its people contemplating the Russo-Japanese War,

substitute therein, in their apprehension, Atlantic for Baltic, and Pacific for Port Arthur.

So they will comprehend as well as apprehend.34 Thus, by the end of the Russo-Japanese War, Mahan had converted to the

international strategic dogma of battle-fleet concentration.

The strategic issue of battleship deployments acquired some urgency in the

fall of 1906, when a diplomatic crisis caused by the decision of the San

Francisco School Board to segregate Japanese students threatened to erupt

into a conflict between the United States and Japan. Since the United States

battle fleet was now located in the Atlantic, the Japanese Navy would not

33 Roosevelt to Newberry, quoted in Newberry to Rear Admiral J.P. Merrell, August 8, 1907, General

Board Papers, File 420-1.

34 A.T. Mahan, "Retrospect Upon the War Between Japan and Russia,
170 John H. Mauer

face any significant opposition until it could be shifted to the Pacific— an

operation that would take at least three months.35 With the heightened threat

of war with Japan, stories began appearing in American newspapers saying

that the Roosevelt administration intended to divide the battle fleet and send

a squadron of battleships back into the Pacific. One article, reporting that

four battleships would go to the Pacific, prompted Mahan to write a letter

to President Roosevelt warning against such a move. "In case of a war with

Japan what can four battleships do against their navy? In case of war with

a European power, what would not the four battleships add to our fleet

here?"36 Roosevelt wanted no lesson from Mahan about the principles of naval

strategy. The president indignantly replied:

Don't you know me well enough to believe that I am quite incapable of such an act of utter folly as dividing our fighting fleet? I have no more thought of sending four

battleships to the Pacific while there is the least possible friction with Japan than I have

of going there in a rowboat myself.37 This brief exchange of letters between Mahan and Roosevelt shows how

deeply ingrained the dogma of naval concentration had become in the two

men.

But not everyone in the United States subscribed to the necessity of

strategic concentration. Roosevelt could not simply ignore the call from

inhabitants of the west coast and their representatives in Congress, as well

as the opinion of respected advisers, such as the influential General Leonard

Wood and Army Chief of Staff General J. Franklin Bell, that a force of

battleships was essential to protect American territory in the Pacific from

a Japanese offensive. Even from within the Navy there appeared some

sentiment for moving battleships back to the Pacific. The likelihood of war

and the weakness of United States' naval power in the Pacific led the officers

attending the summer conference at the Naval War College in 1907, for

example, to rank Japan for the first time ahead of Germany on its list of

potential enemies. The General Board itself declared that "our interests in

the Atlantic and Pacific ocean are each such as to require protection by a

battle fleet, and, the distance between these oceans being so great as to

preclude the possibility of a single fleet giving adequate protection to both,

the military interests of the United States require that we should possess two

fleets, one in each ocean.

,, The General Board did not mean this to imply

that it was "departing from the principle of fleet concentration," only that

35 On the difficulties of moving the United States' battle fleet to the Pacific, see Michael E. Vlahos, "The

Naval War College and the Origins of War Planning Against Japan," Naval War College Review, volume

33 (July-August 1980), pp. 23-41.

36 Letter Mahan to Roosevelt, dated January 10, 1907. Seager and Maguire, Mahan Papers, volume 3, p. 202.

37 Elting E. Morison, editor, The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1951-

1954), volume 5, pp. 550-551. Hereafter cited as Morison, Roosevelt Letters.
World Politics 1904-1914 171

they wanted to "emphasize the inadequacy of the present fleet to meet the

demands upon it, and to indicate the direction towards which our building

program should tend." There was little hope, however, that the Congress

would appropriate the funds to build the General Board's "two-ocean" navy.38 While the battleship concentration would not be disrupted, the danger of

war with Japan seemed greater than a German threat in the Atlantic. To put

this problem in modern parlance, the Board had to meet commitments in two

oceans with a one ocean fleet. To resolve this debate on where to place

battleships, a paper compromise was reached in a report issued by the Joint

Army and Navy Board on 21 February 1908. Concentration would continue,

but the battle fleet would be deployed in the "region where the greatest

danger exists." The main task now confronting naval planners was how,

before the completion of the Panama Canal, to move the fleet from the

Atlantic to the Pacific. Those favoring concentration had to demonstrate that

the battle fleet could be moved from one ocean to the other in a reasonably

short period of time. Yet it was by no means clear whether this "swing

strategy" would work. To Roosevelt, it "became evident . . . from talking

with naval authorities, that in event of war they would have a good deal

to find out in the way of sending the fleet to the Pacific." Roosevelt's solution

was to "send the fleet on what would practically be a practice voyage. ... I want all failures, blunders, and shortcomings to be made apparent in time

of peace and not in time of war." This decision to give the fleet a "practice

voyage" to the Pacific was later expanded into the famous cruise of "The

Great White Fleet" around the world.39 But the calls to disrupt naval concentration did not die down with the

movement of the battle fleet to the Pacific. In June 1908, when the fleet was

still on the west coast, one member of the General Board, Captain Sydney

A. Staunton, prepared a memorandum calling for the deployment of 16

battleships in the Pacific, while keeping only nine older battleships in the

Atlantic. Staunton argued that the presence of this force in the Pacific would

deter Japan from attacking the United States and its possessions. While no

further action was immediately taken on this proposal, in February 1909, less

than two weeks before the incoming Taft administration took office, the

General Board agreed with Staunton that the defense of United States'

territory in the Pacific required a large force of battleships. At a meeting

on 20 February 1909, the General Board decided that the United States now

possessed enough battleships to form a separate battle fleet for the Pacific.

38 Braisted, Navy in the Pacific, 1897-1909, pp. 199-239; and Rear AdmiralJohn P. Merrell to Acting Secretary

of the Navy Truman Newberry, August 2, 1907, and Merrell to Newberry, August 15, 1907, General

Board Papers, File 420-1.

39 General Board memorandum for the guidance of the naval members of the Joint Board, February 18, 1908, General Board Papers, File 420-1; Morison, Roosevelt Letters, volume 5, p. 709; for a recent account of the fleet's voyage, see James R. Reckner, Teddy Roosevelt's Great White Fleet (Annapolis: Naval Institute

Press, 1988), passim.
172 John H. Mauer

Four days later, this decision was duly passed on to Secretary of the Navy

Truman Newberry. Meanwhile, the Senate was also making recommendations on battleship deployments. To satisfy the west coast demands for naval

protection, the Senate amended an appropriations bill to say that "there shall

be kept, as far as practicable, one-half of the Navy ... on the Pacific coast

at all times."40 During his last weeks in office, Roosevelt defended the principle of

concentration that he had championed since the beginning of his presidency.

On 18 February 1909, in a letter to George Foss, chairman of the Committee

on Naval Affairs in the House of Representatives, the president wrote that

modern wars could begin with one side endeavoring "to strike a crippling

blow before the actual declaration of war. ... To divide our fleet between

two oceans would be to invite attack, and if attack were made, to insure

disaster." With the help of Foss, Roosevelt saw the House drop the Senate

amendment.41 Those who favored concentration, such as Mahan, feared that once

Roosevelt was no longer in office the battleships would be divided into two

fleets. On 2 March 1909, Mahan sent an urgent appeal to Roosevelt to warn

Taft not to divide the fleet. "Will it be in any sense improper," Mahan wrote,

"that you should give a last earnest recommendation to Mr. Taft on no account

to divide the battleship force between the two oceans." The popular outcry

to divide the battle fleet was "a nightmare" to Mahan.42 Prompted by Mahan's appeal, Roosevelt wrote his famous strategic

testament to Taft. "One closing legacy," Roosevelt wrote. "Under no

circumstances divide the battleship fleet between the Atlantic and Pacific

Oceans prior to the finishing of the Panama Canal. " Indeed, Roosevelt advised

Taft: "obey no direction of Congress and pay heed to no popular sentiment,

no matter how strong, if it went wrong in such a vital matter as this."43 Mahan remained concerned, however, that the "suicidal recommendation"

to divide the battle fleet might nonetheless be adopted. And, indeed, a group

of naval officers, led by Captain Staunton and Commander Clarence S. Williams of the General Board, continued to agitate for a battle fleet for

the Pacific during Taft's term of office. In a memorandum for the General

Board, Williams called the "present plan of keeping all our battleships in

the Atlantic . . . illogical and dangerous." He proposed instead that a force

of 20 battleships should be transferred to the Pacific. The officers attending

the 1910 summer conference of the Naval War College agreed with Williams'

assessment that "conflicts of sentiment and interest, race questions and trade

40 Memorandum by Captain Sydney A. Staunton, June 23, 1908; General Board Proceedings, February

20, 1909; Dewey to Newberry, February 24, 1909, General Board Papers, File 420-1; and George T. Davis,

A Navy Second to None (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1971), pp. 190-191.

41 Davis, Navy Second to None, pp. 190-191.

42 Seager and Maguire, Mahan Papers, volume 3, p. 290.

43 Morison, Roosevelt Letters, volume 5, p. 1543.
World Politics 1904-1914 173

rivalries, appear much more likely to arise in the Pacific than elsewhere.**

All 39 officers at the conference called for the establishment of a battle fleet

in the Pacific. In addition, these officers argued that the growth of AngloGerman antagonism greatly reduced the chance of a German attack on the

United States. "Like two bar magnets of equal strength placed side by side

with poles reversed," their report read, "each with all its force clinging fast

to the other and the two thus joined together forming one single mass

incapable of serious disturbing influence exterior to that mass; so today, firmly

locked together, appear the British and German fleets.'* To many naval

officers, the Japanese threat in the Pacific was far greater than that posed

by Germany.44 The General Board as a whole did not agree with these recommendations.

Although the General Board's members could not agree on whether the

United States would face first Germany or Japan in the next war, they did

agree that Germany represented the "more formidable*' enemy. If the

Germans attacked while a portion of the battle fleet was away in the Pacific,

the General Board declared the naval situation "almost hopeless" for the

United States. Despite still further attempts by Staunton to station a battle

fleet in the Pacific, concentration against the German battle fleet remained

the strategic fulcrum of United States naval planning.45 Ofcourse, given Mahan's views about the threat posed by German imperial

and naval ambitions, he considered concentration of the battle fleet in the

Atlantic as a naval necessity if the United States was to have any chance of

staving off defeat in a war with Germany. Whenever asked for his views

on this issue, Mahan did not waver in his conviction about the necessity of

concentration. Since he feared that a fickle and ignorant public might pressure

an administration into dividing the fleet, Mahan made repeated efforts to

publicize his views on strategy.

Thus, when the two Republican Senators from California, George C.

Perkins and Frank P. Flint, solicited the opinion of the respected naval

historian and commentator on what was the proper distribution of America's

battleships, Mahan replied: "The division of the battle fleet into halves,

separated by the whole distance between our Atlantic and Pacific

coasts ... is contrary to all sound military practice . . . the military necessity

of sustained concentration is as absolutely certain as anything can be." Much

as Tirpitz argued that the best way to promote and protect Germany's

interests world-wide was by building a battle fleet for the North Sea, Mahan

contended that naval concentration provided for the security of the United

44 Memorandum by Commander C.S. Williams, March 16, 1910, General Board Papers, File 420-1; Committee Reports on questions submitted to the Conference, Record Group 12, Naval War College

Archives.

45 Dewey to the Secretary of the Navy, November 17, 1910, and Secretary of the Navy George von

Lengerke Meyer's endorsement, November 17, 1910; memorandum by Staunton, April 16, 1912, and

memorandum by Dewey, June 26, 1912, General Board Papers, File 420-1.
174 John H. Mauer

States not only in the Atlantic, but also for areas where no battleships were

stationed. "The people of the Pacific slope might feel themselves safer with

half the battle fleet in their harbors," Mahan counseled Perkins, "but actually

they would be in greater peril, because they would have conditions favoring

the destruction of our entire navy, in detail."46 The young assistant Secretary of the Navy in the Wilson administration,

Franklin D. Roosevelt, also wrote Mahan in the spring of 1914 to enlist his

support in the public campaign for continuing naval concentration. It was

Roosevelt's opinion that, with the opening of the canal, "a great deal of

pressure [would be] brought to bear—political and sectional—to have the

Fleet divided, and to have one half kept on the Pacific and one half on the

Atlantic." After visiting the west coast, Roosevelt "was struck by the total

lack of any correct conception of fleet operations." But he thought the

"people can be educated, but only if we all get together ahead of time and

try to show the average 'man in the street' the military necessity of keeping

the Fleet intact." He urged Mahan to write "an article or articles" on the

issue, since his "voice will carry more conviction than that of anybody else."47 Mahan complied with Roosevelt's request in an article entitled "The

Panama Canal and the Distribution of the Fleet," published in The North

American Review. Mahan reiterated his conviction that "concentration should

be the controlling factor in peace dispositions,—should be the normal state

then,—is evident from the rapidity with which modern wars develop, and

from the political fact that, when relations are strained, significant movements

may precipitate hostilities." Even the opening of the Panama Canal did not

relieve the United States of battleship concentration: "The Canal modifies

the previous situation by minimizing all the difficulties of transfer [from one

ocean to another], but it does not change the dictate as to concentrate/'48 To Mahan, the outbreak of war in Europe confirmed the wisdom of naval

concentration in the likely theater of war during peacetime. Indeed, he urged

on Franklin D. Roosevelt "that the fleet should be brought into immediate

readiness, and so disposed as to permit of very rapid concentration."49 Of course, the dogma of battleship concentration was not unique to the

United States, but is a distinguishing feature of naval thought in this era. All

the principal naval powers— Britain, Germany, and Japan, as well as the

United States—refused to commit what was considered "an act ofutter folly"

46 Seager and Maguire, Mahan Papers, volume 3, pp. 371-372.

47 Franklin D. Roosevelt to Mahan, May 28, 1914, Assistant Secretary of the Navy Collection, Box 137,

Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, New York. It should be noted that this extremely interesting

correspondence between Mahan and Franklin D. Roosevelt is not reproduced in Seager and Maguire, Mahan

Papers, but published in Richard W. Turk, The Ambiguous Relationship (New York: Greenwood Press, 1987), pp. 109-172.

48 A.T. Mahan, "The Panama Canal and the Distribution of the Fleet," The North American Review, volume

200, number 706 (September 1914), pp. 409, 411.

49 Mahan to Roosevelt, August 3, 1914, Assistant Secretary of the Navy Collection, Box 137, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, New York.
World Politics 1904-1914 175

(as Theodore Roosevelt called it) and divide their battle fleet. Naval

competition with Germany had compelled American naval leaders to copy

Tirpitz's battleship concentration. Indeed, some turn-of-the-century naval

reformers, like Rear Admiral Henry Taylor and Rear Admiral Bradley Fiske,

wanted to go much further in copying German military methods by creating

a General Staff to be the "brains" of the Navy. Of course, the United States

was not unique in attempting to adopt German military institutions and

strategic dogmas to their own circumstances. In this era Britain also massed

battleships against Germany and adopted a Naval War Staff to be the strategic

guide for the Royal Navy. As one historian has observed about French military

reform after 1870: "in military matters, modernity acquired a distinctly

teutonic aspect, and Germany was regarded as the tutor of Europe."50 The

same could be said about naval concentration in the decade before the First

World War. Thus, Tirpitz's battleship concentration triggered a strategic

chain reaction as the other major naval powers did likewise.

Indeed, Mahan was a rather late convert to the dogma of concentration.

Whereas the Naval War College was advocating battleship concentration by

the summer of 1903 in response to German naval developments, Mahan still did not subscribe to the principle. But the concatenation of shocks, caused

by the Russo-Japanese War, the war scare with Japan in 1906, and the rapid

rise of German naval power, caused Mahan to change his views. Once

converted, however, Mahan became an ardent believer and advocate of naval

concentration. From 1906 on, Mahan argued with all the eloquence and force

he could muster in the debate over naval concentration. His writings helped

encourage statesmen and naval planners around the world that naval

concentration was the correct strategy. Mahan played an important role, then,

in developing an international strategic style for the deployment of naval

power.

Conclusion

Mahan made a signal contribution in his later years by helping to inform

his fellow countrymen about world politics and strategy. He attempted to

highlight the importance of the balance ofpower for the security of the United

States. Mahan argued that the United States needed to play a role—indeed,

an increasingly important role—in upholding the balance ofpower on a global

scale.

In Mahan's view, the United States would face new external challenges

from rival great powers in the twentieth century. Mahan was warning his

American readers that "the age of free security"—to use C. Vann

50 Allan Mitchell, " 'A Situation of Inferiority': French Military Reorganization After the Defeat of 1870,"

American Historical Review, volume 86 (February 1981), p. 49.
176 John H. Mauer

Woodward's apt phrase—was passing away.51 The security of the United

States could no longer depend, as it largely did during the nineteenth century,

on latent military power buttressed by the natural moat formed by the

Atlantic and Pacific oceans and the icebound wastes of the Arctic. Instead,

the United States was moving from an era ofinexpensive security to expensive

insecurity—from the "age of free security" to the age of "the national

security state. " The signal contribution made by Mahan during the last decade

of his life in educating the American public and its leaders about world politics

and strategy should not be overlooked in the study of his writings.

51 C. Vann Woodward, "The Age of Reinterpretation," American Historical Review, volume 66 (October

1960), pp. 11-19.
177

Chapter 14

Mahan and American Naval Thought

Since 1914

George H. Quester

There are many ways to remember Mahan, and to assess his impact on

the United States Navy. One could, for example, focus entirely or primarily

on his 1890 The Influence ofSea Power Upon History,1 the book which won Mahan

instant fame, the work which surely is the most often read; or one could

instead factor in all the other publications and advice Mahan proffered

thereafter. Even if one focused mainly on this book whose centennial we are now celebrating, moreover, we could stress one part ofits message or another;

and we would then have to wonder whether all these parts hang together

so perfectly.

Becoming a classic of military strategic writing perhaps inevitably requires

that conflicting interpretations be possible, so that opposing sides to an

argument can quote an author back and forth, so that students can derive

stimulation by puzzling over the exact meaning of one chapter or another.

To be very straightforward in military writing, or perhaps in any other

writing, may leave one too easily understood, and hence soon enough passed

over as "pedestrian," as offering something which "we all knew already."

Such an interpretation of the achievement of classic status would surely

apply to Clausewitz2 (whom Mahan does not introduce and cite in developing

his 1890 arguments), and to Jomini3 (to whom Mahan indeed does assign a great deal of credit).4 It applies as well to Douhet5 and Mackinder,6 and to

others whom we have to read and reread. And it also applies to Alfred Thayer

Mahan.

Alfred Thayer Mahan, The Influence of Sea Power Upon History (Boston: Little Brown, 1890).

Carl von Clausewitz, On War (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press translation, 1976).

Antoine Henri Jomini, The Art of War (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press reprint, 1972).

Mahan, op tit., pp. 18-19. Giulio Douhet, The Command of the Air (New York: Coward McCann translation, 1942). See Halford J. Mackinder, Democratic Ideals and Reality (New York: Norton, 1962).
178 George H. Quester

This chapter will thus attempt to lay out several layers of argument that

could be credited to Mahan, some less controversial and others more so, some

inevitably congenial to any advocate of naval armaments and others a little

more confusing or bothersome. After such layers of argument have been

outlined, the policies of the U.S. Navy in the twentieth century would then

be compared with these arguments, to ask where Mahan should be credited

with influence, and where he can not.

Mahan*s Arguments, I: The Importance of Naval Power

It surely is undeniable that Mahan comes out repeatedly and consistently

as a believer in the effectiveness of naval power. Mahan may disagree on

some other important points with Sir Julian Corbett,7 but The Influence of Sea

Power Upon History, and virtually all Mahan's other writings, would indeed

join with Corbett in stressing this central theme, that the dominance of the

seas will very much influence the general power distribution of the world.

It is thus hardly surprising that midshipmen of the U.S. Naval Academy

would be introduced approvingly to the writings of Mahan, or that Admiral

Gorchkov, as commander of the Soviet fleet in the 1960s and 1970s, would

cite Mahan as an expert on naval strategy.8 The message is that fleets are worth buying, that naval power is worth having, since its possession by others

can threaten our freedoms and social systems, and since its possession by our

side can further many or all of the causes of which we approve.

Kaiser Wilhelm thus cited Mahan's writings approvingly to all his own

naval officers and entourage, arranging for a German translation very soon

after The Influence of Sea Power Upon History was published, noting that he,

upon first reading it (the Kaiser was quite fluent in English), was "devouring"

it9 (some of the American naval officers I know have responded that they

had less appetite than the Kaiser in this regard).

The Kaiser wanted to build a large German fleet, perhaps to challenge and

sink the British fleet some day on "der Tag"; more probably he hoped merely

to play some kind of balance-of-power game on the high seas, whereby the

riskflotte ("risk fleet") would be so large that the British would not dare attack

it, lest they be too weakened in the process for confrontations with other

fleets around the world.10 (This was an iteration, of course, of the logic of

the balance of power always endorsed by the British so much on land, where

weaker states counted on each other to engage and draw down the strength

of any potential hegemon. Britain approved of the balance-of-power on land,

but not on the seas.)

7 Sir Julian Corbett, Principles of Maritime Strategy (London: Conway Maritime Press, 1911).

8 Admiral Sergei Gorchkov, The Sea Power of the State (Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press

translation, 1977).

9 On the Kaiser's response to Mahan, see William E. Livezey, Mahan on Sea Power (Norman: University

of Oklahoma Press, 1981), pp. 67-75.

10 See Jonathan Steinberg, Yesterday's Deterrent (New York: MacMillan, 1966).
Naval Thought Since 1914 179

If one wishes a flat-out contradiction of this "navalist" part of Mahan 's argument, it would not come from Corbett (who certainly agrees on the

importance of an investment in naval power, and will also be assigned reading

for midshipmen around the world, albeit not as often as Mahan), but rather

from the writings of Halford Mackinder, who saw the real source of military

and political power now being not the seas, but rather the center of the

Eurasian landmass.

Mahan's Arguments, II: The Importance of Counterforce Offensives

Beyond stressing the value ofnaval power, Mahan, in his 1890 classic, comes

out almost doctrinaire in arguing that the first and most important goal of

any serious navy must be to sink the opposing navy, thereby to establish a "command of the sea." This is what we would label counterforce operations

in today's jargon of air strategy, operations designed not to inflict pain on

an enemy, but to strike from his hands the ability to inflict pain on us, or

his ability to attack our forces, etc.

There are indeed always several explanations for any such stress on

counterforce, and it is not difficult to find predecessors for this kind of an

approach in military writing; but few sound as doctrinaire on the question

as Mahan did here.

First of all, among the explanations, there is something orderly and tidy

about stressing the elimination of one's opposite number in counterforce

combat, for (once one has established himself as having the only navy, or the

only army, or the only air force) one can then at leisure provide support for

a sister military service, or impose pressure on the opposing side's civilian

population and government.

"Erst die arbiet, dann das spiel" is an old German saying pounding

Protestant thrift into children, "First the work, and then the play." First make

a success of your business, and only then buy your wife a fur coat. First win

the contest of establishing the capital goods, i.e. command of the sea, and

then shift to the production of consumer goods, exercising political power

over the other side's material welfare.

Second, it is more moral to aim at military targets instead of civilian, and

more consistent with traditions of western culture and philosophy. One does

not violate the laws of war when one aims to sink an enemy battleship; one

is in more trouble with these laws, or with the chaplain, when one aims to

kill civilians by bombarding a city, or even when one sinks ships carrying

food or medicine.

Third, we more persuasively bring home the value of a navy to one's own

public when we stress over and over again how important a target the

opposing navy is, how much damage it might do to us, how much it might

facilitate their grasping for power. Air forces thus sell more of their own

equipment to taxpayers by stressing how much the opposing air force needs
180 George H. Quester

to be aimed at, and tank generals can sell more tanks by touting the menace

of the enemy's armored forces.

Reaching for a total counterforce victory requires taking the offensive, of

course, and not being content to sit on the defensive, which in turn probably

requires expenditures for a larger and more ambitious force on our side, all

the more consistent with advocacy of expansion in this particular field of

preparation.

Mahan, if read literally in The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, urges that

no attacks be undertaken on the enemy's commercial shipping or on his coastal

cities while the enemy's fleet remains in being, since all resources should be

concentrated on first destroying that fleet:

It is not the taking of individual ships or convoys, be they few or many, that strikes

down the money power of a nation; it is the possession of that overbearing power on

the sea which drives the enemy's flag from it, or allows it to appear only as a fugitive;11 He makes a passing reference to the immorality of such countervalue

campaigns; Mahan here had to reflect somewhat the traditions and feelings

of his fellow Americans, on whether neutral shipping and non-military

cargoes should be exempt from attack or confiscation whenever a naval power

like Britain had gotten into a war.

"The evidence seems to show that even for its own special ends such a mode of war

is inconclusive, worrying but not deadly; it might almost be said that it causes needless

suffering."12 But Mahan's more major thrust seems rather to be that such countervalue

approaches would be ineffective, compared to the returns of aiming first and

foremost to win a totality of naval power. John Paul Jones in the American

Revolution, and the Constitution ("Old Ironsides") of the War of 1812, may

thus have been important parts of a tradition of American naval bravery and

competence that Mahan wished to reinforce, but the lessons of such operations

were all wrong, as Nelson's defeat of Napoleon's fleet at Trafalgar illustrated

the only really meaningful kind of naval exploit.

Sinking the enemy fleet would of course very often require an attack, and

Mahan was thus inclined to espouse a taking of the offensive. If the defense

had any advantages in naval warfare, these were factors that would simply

have to be overridden, typically by the exploitation of mobility and the

massing of the larger numbers. Above all, the principle of concentration

needed to be applied here. Mahan credited his thoughts on this to Jomini

among others, recommending that we (who always think in the counterforce

terms of who has a fleet left at the end of engagements) do better if we keep

our fleet concentrated, while tricking or luring the enemy into leaving his

forces divided.

11 Mahan, op. cit., p. 121.

12 Ibid., p. 119.
Naval Thought Since 1914 181

Mahan is among the many military writers who are much more often cited

than read. Someone picking up the 1890 classic today is often disappointed

by the ponderousness of the book, by the very long paragraphs, and the excess of detail. Bernard Brodie and others have argued that the U.S. Navy was

much influenced by Mahan,13 but typically in a more cryptic series of

aphorisms or axioms supposedly extracted from the theorist's writings.

Among these axioms, the most immediately relevant to the point we are

sorting out here would be "don't divide the fleet."

Mahan would himself have disclaimed any originality for this proposition,

with its elementary stress on concentration of force, //the only task for the

moment was winning the counterforce contest, that of retaining a fleet and

eliminating the enemy's fleet, keeping one's fleet together indeed made sense,

and it might have made sense as well for, and been mouthed by all the British

naval commanders between Trafalgar and 1890.

Mahan is committed to counterforce, and to concentration, and to seeking

out the enemy fleet to sink it in order to win a decision. As such, he is committed to the taking of the offensive. In a 1905 book, Mahan notes that

the defensive may have advantages at sea, just as on land, but he overrides

this with the factor of mobility and massing, arguing that it is no use "to

get there first, unless, when the enemy in turn arrives, you have . . .the

greater force."14

It is this particularly doctrinaire line of argument (which Mahan only very

partially modified in later writings) that Corbett contradicted. Corbett begins

by noting that the naval technology of the new twentieth century might favor

the defensive, making a Nelsonian offensive and the winning of a total

command of the sea impossible. One may thus have no choice but to begin

countervalue operations before any total counterforce victory has been

accomplished, since the latter may not at all be attainable. 15 Corbett goes further, moreover, to argue that naval and military power

become meaningless unless countervalue operations and a punishment of the

opposing side's civilian population are an integral part of all this. 16 While

Mahan initially reflected the American tradition of supporting freedom of

the seas for neutral shipping and for non-military goods even during wartime,

an important part of Corbett 's argument was driven by the fears that the

rules of international law which the Americans and the continental European

powers had been proposing before World War I might constrain too much

the application of British naval power.

It is important to note that Mahan, in the two decades between his

achievement of fame as a naval strategist and his death at the outbreak of

13 For example, Bernard Brodie, War and Politics (New York: MacMillan, 1973), pp. 449-450.

14 Alfred Thayer Mahan, Lessons of the War With Spain (Boston: Little Brown, 1899), p. 181.

15 Corbett, op. cit., pp. 87-89.

16 Ibid., pp. 90-95.
182 George H. Quester

World War I, moved away from his moral objections to counter-commerce

warfare and from his disparagement of its military effectiveness. 17 At least three factors could plausibly have been at play here in moving

Mahan from the absolute priority he had voiced in The Influence of Sea Power

Upon History for counterforce warfare, and to come out in opposition to the

traditional American commitment to the freedom of the seas. He even

endorsed the wisdom of the 1756 British orders in Council which had so much

infuriated the Americans in 1812.

First, the same British "navalist" audience that had applauded Mahan's

basic emphasis on sea power must have been telling him that they were

concerned about restrictions on what targets they could attack.

Second, Mahan might have envisaged the United States Navy as growing

to a preponderance comparable to what the British fleet had mounted in the

past, and his country might then want to be free to impose such blockades

of its own, disturbing the commerce of its enemies.

And third, discounting for the mutual flattery that was so visibly at work

between Mahan and the British, and for any double-standards as the United

States grew in power, it must have struck Mahan that he had overstated his case. One can make a reputation by staking a position too clearly and baldly,

so that readers see a new and different cutting edge. Yet, the subsequent

discussion will require blurring amendments and recognition of the

intertwining confusions.

While Mahan acknowledged more and more the importance of

countervalue attacks on commerce, he nonetheless did not recant his statement

of priority for the destruction of the opposing fleet. To go that far, to admit,

as Corbett had admitted, that there might be no gain in seeking to destroy

the enemy fleet, would have been to recede to having nothing distinctive to

offer.

As noted, we could in fairness remember Mahan entirely by The Influence

of Sea Power Upon History, for this is surely his most widely read and quoted

work. If we are to consider instead the influence of his total work, there

is much more subtlety and complexity to be found on the issue of whether

opposing commerce is to be viewed as an important and legitimate target. Yet

even Mahan could not deviate so totally from his initial 1890 statement so

as to make commerce the first priority target.

Mahan's Arguments, III: America Succeeding Britain

Putting Mahan's analysis and arguments together, one then gets to a somewhat complicated confusing bottom-line on what he envisaged as the

American role in the future, viz-a-viz Great Britain. If Americans were to

be enjoined to learn more from Nelson than from John Paul Jones, did this

See Bernard Semmel, Liberalism and Naval Power (Boston; Allen and Unwin, 1986), pp. 90-98.
Naval Thought Since 1914 183

mean that they were to challenge the descendants of Nelson, just as Tirpitz

wanted? As Mahan favored the offensive over the defensive, he was much

more consistent with notions of hegemony and monopoly than of any balanceof-power at sea. Yet how could one expect any smooth transition from one

hegemony to another?

The British after Trafalgar had a fleet larger than all the other navies of

the world combined. 18 In the latter part of the Nineteenth Century, they still had a declared policy of maintaining a fleet larger in size than the next two

fleets of the world combined. The United States in 1916, two years after

Mahan's death, with Germany and Britain and all the European powers deeply

involved in World War I, proclaimed an intention to build "a navy second

to none."19 If Britain could ever turn away from the German naval menace,

this surely would have to be read as an explicit American challenge to all

that British naval policy had stood for.

On this third question, of exactly how the United States was to imitate

Britain, Mahan does not settle into any one clear answer. Certainly, he

favored American naval expansion. Certainly, he also regarded Britain as a power with which the United States should very naturally have friendly

relations. But the building of a modern battle fleet was classically the way

that one got into tensions with Britain.

One version of Mahan's analysis would suggest some quiet transition

whereby Britain simply lost the energy or the will to maintain the command

of the seas, and the United States assumed this role. Another version might

see the emergence of some sort of joint condominium, with Mahan even at

points being pressed to comment on the possibility of a political union of the

English-speaking world. And a third possibility, of course, amounted to an

English-speaking version of "der Tag," whereby a war might eventually

break out between the United States and Britain. When an Anglo-American

crisis erupted in 1895 over Venezuela, Mahan noted that he would certainly

regret having to fight the British, but that he very naturally would have to

do so if his country's interests required it. 20 Mahan did not suggest any kind of balance-of-power partitioning of the

seas, as Tirpitz and the Kaiser had in their more moderate moments envisaged

for Germany in the North Sea, indeed, this actually occurred in the Twentieth

Century, as dreadnought battleships and the need for coaling stations

(contrary to all of Mahan's strategic drift noted above) tended to reinforce

the defensive, making every fleet around the world relatively stronger when

it was close to its home ports and coaling stations.

18 On the overarching implications of this accomplishment, see Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of British Naval Power (London: Allen Lane, 1976), chapter 6.

19 19. See Harold and Margaret Sprout, The Rise of American Naval Power: 1776-1918 (Princeton, New

Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1939), pp. 334-344.

20 Such statements are quoted in W.D. Puleston, The Life and Work of Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan (New

Haven: Yale University Press, 1939), pp. 169-171.
184 George H. Quester

The British reception for Mahan's writings was extremely complimentary,

as he was to receive honorary degrees in the same week from Oxford and

Cambridge, and was lionized by all the authorities of the British

establishment. Was this only because Mahan's writings were so complimentary to Britain and things British? Or was it instead that British

naval analysts saw serious dangers to their own position if the Americans

became too enthusiastic about naval power, about joining in the world naval

game in a way which would threaten Britain's hegemony?

The exchange of compliments probably related to deeper issues than the

formality of making a potential trouble-maker feel good, and thereby perhaps

co-opting him. Mahan expressed admiration not only for British naval

prowess, but also for its commitment to liberal democracy, in which Britons

and Americans could share. He worried whether naval power could be

maintained by so free a society, noting that some serious contradictions were

possible.21 Britain, at the turn of the century, was moreover discovering that it might

inevitably have to give up her goal of being able to defeat all of her possible

enemies on the sea, or frustrating them on land by the application ofsea power.

She was discovering that she might have to choose among possible enemies,

settling grievances with some, perhaps settling with all but the most

worrisome, Germany. Despite the protests of Foreign Office specialists, the

British made concessions to the United States, actually committed themselves

to an entangling alliance with Japan (which in effect handed over the regional

naval preponderance in Japanese waters to the Japanese], then made

concessions to Russia, and to France, all because the growth of the German

fleet, the plausible German preponderance in land power, and the nature of

German diplomacy, had now identified Berlin as the principal enemy.22 All of this may have made it much easier for the United States and Britain

to get along, as Mahan desired that they should. Yet this political change

was at the same time driven by developments in naval technology and naval

strategy that were almost the opposite of what Mahan had preached as his

major propositions. Corbett made the very telling point that, short of

achieving a total command of the sea for one's self, one could at least

profitably deny an adversary such command of all the sea.23 It was Corbett 's emphasis on the defensive in naval combat,24 and on the likely unattainability

of a total command of the sea that explains the British reluctant acceptance

of a Japanese preponderance aroundJapan, and of an American preponderance

in the western hemisphere.

21 See The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, pp. 51, 58, 64.

22 On this period, see Steven Rock, Why Peace Breaks Out (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina

Press, 1989).

23 Corbett, op. cit., pp. 33-36.

24 Ibid., p. 87.
Naval Thought Since 1914 185

Did Mahan thus rejoice, or feel sad, when the British at last removed their

Caribbean fleet, because of the more pressing need for maintaining naval force

massed in European waters? Many American naval officers were quite pleased

at this development.25 In the years after Mahan's death, some of the same

officers speculated about a naval war between Britain and the United States.

Mahan, as we have noted, could not have been enthusiastic about such

prospects.

Impact on the U.S. Navy, I: Expansion

It is obvious that the first of Mahan's major propositions would always

have been the very most congenial to his colleagues in the U.S. Navy, for

whatever else it was, his body of theory amounted to a plea for a much greater

investment in the naval service. No matter if he was, in effect, deprecating

the significance of John Paul Jones, he was certainly highlighting the future

significance of an Admiral Dewey.

Historians differ in assessing whether Mahan's writings were significant

in convincing the American public that navies were now necessary, or whether he was merely a symptom of the times. A revisionist historian like

Walter Lafeber would point to the closing of the frontier at about the same

time as the Naval War College was founded, and would thus see capitalism

as thrashing about to find markets, somehow to avoid the destabilizing

possibilities of over-production and unemployment.26 By this measure, it was

inevitable that the U.S. Navy would grow, with another theorist like Mahan

coming along if he had not.

Most ofus would not accept quite such a materialistic or deterministic view

of the evolution of events. To be an atomistic liberal is inevitably to find

intellectual events somewhat less preordained than, for example, a Marxist

would find them. If Mahan had not captured the attention and imaginations

of so many Americans, the fleet might well not have grown as much as it did in the 1890s, and thereafter.27 The United States similarly would have been

less inclined to acquire naval bases and coaling stations through the Caribbean

and out into the Pacific, and would not have been as ready to endorse

Theodore Roosevelt's acquisition of the Panama Canal Zone.

The United States in the days of Jefferson and Madison had striven

unsuccessfully to design special kinds of fighting ships which could function

only close to its coasts, in an early version of "defensive defense," posing

no threat to any foreign shores, but defending its own. But the same country

would in the administration of Woodrow Wilson (also no militarist, eager

25 On the final withdrawal of British naval forces from the Caribbean, see Kenneth Bourne, Britain and

the Balance of Power in North America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967).

26 Walter Lafeber, The New Empire (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1963).

27 For an extended discussion of the growth of the U.S. Navy, see Walter J. Herrick, The American Naval

Revolution (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1966).
186 George H. Quester

until the end to keep the United States out of World War I), commit itself

to building an ocean-spanning Dreadnought navy "second to none."28 It may

be impossible to sort out the counter-factual situation of what naval

expenditures would have been like if Mahan had never decided to write about

the subject, but it certainly seems plausible that he should be credited with

a considerable impact and influence here.

Impact on the 17.5. Navy, II: The Counterforce Emphasis

When we turn then to the more complicated and controversial portions

of Mahan's strategic message, we might find a much more mixed influence

on the U. S. Navy. Did this U.S. Navy, when it at last entered World War

I on the side of Britain, bring with it any strategic insights that could be traced

to Mahan? To the extent that there were disagreements with the British about

how to fight the war against Germany, the American input might have been

seen as just the opposite of what Mahan's advice had been.

As we assess the impact of Mahan's theory on American naval thinking,

we must note that Sir Julian Corbett is sometimes credited or blamed for

having had a profound impact on British thinking as World War I began.

Critics accused him of making the British less willing to take the offensive

as Nelson would have done, for supplying the theoretical underpinnings of

the British policy which was disappointing to those who remembered more

glorious victories by simply waiting at the entrances to the North Sea, in

order to strangle German maritime commerce.29 Earlier in the century, when the German fleet first began to emerge as a menace, there had been serious discussion in British naval circles of

"Copenhagening" the German fleet, ofpreemptively attacking before it could

be brought to completion, much as Nelson (indeed two times, in 1801 and

1807) had launched preventive attacks on the Danish fleet at Copenhagen

which was about to be merged into the fleets available to Napoleon.30 Such

a preventive-war attack on the German fleet was rejected, not because it was immoral, but because closer study of the new shape of naval warfare,

amid coastal fortifications and torpedo boats and mine-fields, suggested that

the attacker no longer had any advantage when he plunged into enemy waters,

even if the German fleet had only partially been completed. There were now

more powerful advantages for the defensive whenever a fleet was close to

its home ports as was illustrated in another way by the total defeat of the

Russians by the Japanese at Tsushima.

28 This defensive inclination of U.S. naval planning before the War of 1812, and then Wilson's naval shift to battleships, are discussed in Sprout and Sprout, op. cit., pp. 50-72 and 332-346.

29 These indictments of Corbett are discussed in D. M. Schurman, The Education of a Navy (Chicago:

University of Chicago Press, 1965), pp. 179-192.

30 See Semmel, op cit., p. 128.
Naval Thought Since 1914 187

From 1914 to 1917, the British fleet could not follow the advice implicit

in what Mahan had written, but had to be content with blockading German

commerce, while frantically countering the German submarine attack on her

own commerce. For month after month, especially in 1916 and 1917, the

"naval" aspect of World War I, an aspect on which the war might even have

been decided, took a form which Mahan's writings had not prepared anyone.

No one had anticipated the threat that German U-boats might sink so much

commercial shipping that Britain might have to leave the war.

Mahan's 1890 claim to fame was based on the advice that one should shrug

off enemy attacks on one's own commerce during a war, and should not be

enthusiastic about attacking the commerce of the adversary. The real makeweight would be the contest between the two side's capital ships. Yet, with

the singular exception of the Battle of Jutland, at the end of May in 1916,

no such counterforce combat was really undertaken, as each side feared the

consequences of taking the offensive, while each waited for the other side

to attack. Whether they had lost their Nelsonian flair for the attack and the

initiative because of Corbett's theories, or simply because of the raw dictates

of military reality, the British were consigned to keep their fleet in being

for the moment, still largely concentrated in case the opportunity for battle

with the Germans were to present itself, but with such opportunity not really

coming.

The earliest fear of the British Admiralty with regard to German

submarines was consistent with such a fixation on the power of the combat

fleet. The British temporarily had to desert their more southerly bases until

proper protection against submarine attack could be arranged. The Germans

had similarly envisaged the first use of their U-boats as directed against

combat ships, as when a single submarine caught three small British cruisers,

The Hogue, Aboukir and Cressy, unprepared for such attack, and sank all three.

Yet, after the British had revised their protective tactics here, the most

promising target for the U-boats soon turned out to be the Allied and neutral

merchant shipping carrying goods to Britain and France. It was these attacks

that, in the end, brought the United States into the war; it was these attacks,

despite the strategic assumptions of Mahan that threatened to inflict a defeat

on Britain.

Was the American impact on allied naval calculations then to bring Mahan's theories on the importance of offensive counterforce operations into play?

It was indeed more the opposite. The net thrust of U.S. advice was that the

British organize convoy operations for merchant ships, and to assign to such

convoys, destroyers and other surface warships drawn away from the main

battle fleet concentrations.31

31 On the American pressure for a convoy system, see Sprout and Sprout, op. cit., pp. 359-368.
188 George H. Quester

Such a convoy strategy turned the tide in the end, so that submarine

successes fell and fewer ships going to Britain were sunk. The German

expectation that the war could be won by an economic strangulation of

Britain, and American entry into the war shrugged off, was thus disproved.

An important immediate impact of the American entry into the war was the

provision of additional destroyers for anti-submarine duties. Another

important impact was the addition of American naval strategic advice, but

not the advice that would have been derived from Mahan.

The United States officially entered World War I, not because it liked

the British better than the Germans, or even because it was comparing the

long-term German naval threat with whatever threats one could anticipate

from Britain, but because of its moral objections to German attacks on highseas commerce. Here we might have to attribute a less-than-total influence

to Mahan on his countrymen. As noted, Mahan by the mid-1 890s had begun

to challenge his own country's moral commitment to the freedom of the seas, endorsing the British Navy's complaints that too much political leverage

might be given away in the circumscription of what could be attacked.

President Woodrow Wilson was adamant on this question throughout

World War I, resenting British interference with American and neutral

commerce, and making "freedom of the seas" a major issue at the Versailles

Conference. At the same time, he moved ahead with expansions of the

American fleet—precisely to apply pressure to Britain on this issue. 32 Mahan in 1890 had disparaged counter-commerce warfare because counterfleet warfare seemed more important and promising to him. Wilson may also

have spoken for his countrymen in 1916 and in 1919 in condemning countercommerce warfare as immoral. Yet for how much longer would this be an

American attitude? Barely two decades. If Mahan had begun scoffing at

freedom of the seas in 1892, the U.S. would be unanimous on this in 1942.

The United States was not to be involved again in naval combat again until

Pearl Harbor. In World War II, it outbuilt the Japanese fleet in both

battleships and in aircraft carriers. Quite fortunately the United States lost

none of its aircraft carriers at Pearl Harbor and discovered in the end that

it had less use for the battleships than for carriers. The Japanese offensive

at Pearl Harbor would have done Nelson (and Mahan) proud, analogous as

it was to "Copenhagening." The aircraft carrier had indeed been perceived

by Yamamoto, and by carrier specialists in the United States, as renewing

the advantages of the offensive.

Dreadnought-type battleships had favored the defensive, as demonstrated by

the counterforce stalemate that had dominated the North Sea from 1914 to

1918, and as demonstrated earlier by the Japanese victory at Tsushima. If there

32 Wilson's application of naval options at Versailles is outlined in Harold and Margaret Sprout, Toward

a New Order of Sea Power (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1943), pp. 62-72.
Naval Thought Since 1914 189

had been a major crisis between Japan and the United States in 1921, when

the battleship was basically still the only tested capital ship, it is by no means

certain that Japan would have felt a need to take the military initiative, or

to launch any kind of sneak attack timed to coincide with the delivery of

a declaration of war. The introduction of the aircraft carrier had changed

all this. In effect, new life was infused into Mahan's theories on the nature

of naval warfare, as it was certainly always better to have one's own airplanes

over the decks of the enemy fleet, than the reverse. While lacking in larger numbers of aircraft carriers and battleships, the

United States Navy in World War II had one other weapon to deploy in

facing the Japanese advance: the submarine. She used this weapon very

effectively against Japan from the outset, indeed more effectively than the

Germans anti-British campaigns in either World War. U.S. submarines

sought to sink Japanese naval vessels, but, as in the German experience, they

had more and easier successes going after Japanese merchant shipping. While

the United States had entered World War I in protest against Germans

unrestricted submarine warfare, it was ironic that the United States Navy

was directed, on the day after Pearl Harbor, to engage in such unrestricted

submarine warfare against Japan.

Apart from issues of civilization and a moral regard for the rights of

civilians, this departure, and the substantial accomplishments of the U.S.

submarine attacks in greatly reducing the flow of food and oil and other

materials back to Japan across the Pacific, raises a question about the impact

of Mahan, the strategic theorist, on the U.S. Navy? The answer again seems

fairly clear. This element of the war was more analogous to the exploits of

John Paul Jones and U.S. commerce raiders in the War of 1812, than to the

dramatic fleet actions of Nelson.

In the end, the U.S. Navy won its portion of World War II in the Pacific

by a combination of counterforce and countervalue actions. In the Atlantic,

it repeated its accomplishment in World War I, getting another round of

convoys across to keep Britain alive and able to participate in the war.

The Navy also played a major role in assisting ground forces. Amphibious

operations, involving the U.S. Army or the U.S. Navy's own Marine Corps,

were conducted far more effectively than those of the British in World War

I, as the invasions of Italy and Normandy and the island-hopping across the

Pacific were crucial to the defeat of the Axis powers. Such assistance to one's

partners a shore never had the moral problems associated with attacking cities or merchant ships, but they relate to similar problems of priority. The thrust

of Mahan's emphasis on sinking the enemy's fleet was that it should be done

early or even first. All the benefits of command of the sea, in terms of assisting

sister services or dictating peace terms, could be extracted afterwards, at

leisure.
190 George H. Quester

In an analogous World War II situation, the U.S. Army Air Force was

often accused by the Army Ground Forces of being too intent on winning

command of the air, so that it neglected the needs for ground support.

Believers in * 'strategic' ' air power could always respond that in the long run the destruction of the German Air Force would pay dividends for all the sister

services, as well as for dictating peace terms to the enemy which would have

to confront such a monopoly of air power. The U.S. Army Air Force is often

described, somewhat inconclusively, as having been influenced by the theories

of Douhet. It might be noted, to close our loop here, that Douhet's paragraphs

about the proper approach to control of the air sometimes read as if they

had been copied from Mahan, with the word "air" simply substituted over

and over again for "sea." But could the U.S. Navy be accused of neglecting

such sister-service support, when it was indeed so much engaged in

amphibious operations? In at least one instance, it could.

For it is in the inherent juxtaposition of priorities, whether to concentrate

on winning total control over the seas, or whether to implement and exploit

one's existing strength at sea, that we come to what Bernard Brodie cited

so often as a mindless U.S. Navy commitment to a maxim derived from Mahan

(derived indeed from centuries ofmemories of grand fleet actions), the maxim

of "don't divide the fleet."33 We refer here to the Battle of Leyte Gulf, where

U.S. Army units had been landed and still needed the support of landing craft,

and of smaller escort aircraft carriers for close air support, but where reports

came in that the main Japanese fleet was approaching from one direction or another for a last grand round of combat.

Concentrating on defeating that Japanese battle fleet indicated to Admiral

Halsey that he should keep his own fleet concentrated, rather than leaving

some units to protect the ships supporting the landing, and taking only a portion of his fleet out in search of the enemy. Yet even a portion of the

U.S. force might have been sufficient to defeat the Japanese battle units. The

consequence of keeping too much force thus bunched together was that the

Japanese fleet was able to penetrate to the scene of the Leyte landings, and

was almost able to inflict major damage on the ships supporting the U.S. Army

forces ashore.

Just as focusing on the possibility of a fleet action had caused the British

to postpone too long convoying merchant ships in World War I, such a fleet

concentration risked the safety of the ships at Leyte Gulf supporting another

very important part of the war. If Mahan played a role in making the

concentration of force seem even more axiomatic and unassailable as a

principle, it might be checked off as another illustration of his influence on

the U.S. Navy. But it would be an example criticized more than praised.

33 See Bernard Brodie, Strategy in the Missile Age (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University press, 1959), pp. 14, 25, 128, 352-353, and Brodie, War and Politics, pp. 449-450.
Naval Thought Since 1914 191

The principle of concentration of force is a very old one, enshrined by

Jomini and by others. It is a principle that Mahan would hardly have claimed

to have originated. The writings of F. W. Lanchester lay out a more elegantly

mathematical derivation and illustration of the same principles.34 Yet Mahan,

if he added anything to the discussion, certainly amplified the emphasis on

concentration of force.

Influence on the U.S. Navy, III: Conflict With Britain?

The American commitment to building battleships, and "a navy second

to none," persisted at the end of World War I, and this might be regarded

as quite consistent with Mahan's first principles. For a time, it brought rounds

of speculation, in Newport and Washington and other places, about future

naval battles between Britain and the United States.35 The 1921 Washington

Naval Conference, wherein the Harding Administration stunned the world

with some total-surprise disarmament initiatives which would have done

Gorbachev proud,36 ended this kind of speculation. In the process, it lead to

the termination of the Anglo-Japanese alliance, and for a time to a feeling

that naval competition could be phased out around the world.

Was the prospect of a naval war between the two English-speaking powers

ever real? Perhaps there was something even as early as the 1895 U.S.

ultimatum to Britain about the border dispute between Venezuela and British

Guiana.37 In retrospect, however, one tends to agree with Mahan. These two

nations were destined to have a "special relationship,

,, rather than going to

war again as in 1812. The logics of cooperation or conflict needed to be sorted

out, and Mahan certainly was relevant to such a sorting.

Mahan, in The Influence of Sea Power Upon History and in his later writings,

attached great significance to the liberal impulses of republican government

and political democracy which were so much at the center of the American

system, and which had also come to govern Britain by the end of the

Nineteenth Century. Mahan's worries about whether such societies being too

averse to war and to things military, to command the seas and their adjacent

domains for such liberal values, applied to both these powers. While endorsing

a few of the racist sentiments about "white man's burden" which so much

influenced all of the western elites at the turn of the century, Mahan did not

base his expectations of Anglo-American cooperation or understanding

primarily on racial or ethnic characteristics, He emphasized rather more the

liberal traits, traits which excluded rather than included the Germans.

34 F.W. Lanchester, "Mathematics in Warfare," reprinted in James E. Newman, ed., The World of Mathematics (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1956), Vol.4, pp. 2138-2157.

35 For examples of such speculation, see Sprout and Spout, Toward a New Order of Sea Power, pp. 77-87.

36 Harding's initiatives here are described in Mark Sullivan, The Great Adventure at Washington (Garden

City, New York: Doubleday, Page and Co., 1922).

37 See Rock, op. cit., chapter 2.
192 George H. Quester

It has now become fashionable again, at the end of the 20th century, to

contemplate whether political democracies can ever go to war with each

other.38 It is difficult to find an example of such a war, with the nominal British

declaration of war on Finland in World War II not really sufficing (a

declaration which the United States did not match). It was central to

Woodrow Wilson's project for the League of Nations to assume that nations

which were governed by free elections would not be inclined to go to war

with each other. Just as it is central to Marxist belief to assume that nations

governed by Marxist regimes can not go to war with each other. The example

of Vietnam and Cambodia obviously imposes a severe strain on their theory.

Americans favoring the spread of democracy after World War II would have

shared this assumption, and probably still share it. 39 Mahan's theories of how

the United States might join or surpass Britain in naval power also seemed

to accept this proposition.

Yet Mahan's theories of power, and naval power, thus do not mesh with

his observations about national character and liberal democracy, as he was

quite ready to admit. Perhaps it has been a fluke, and only a fluke, that no

two democracies have come to violent conflict. Surely India and Pakistan

might go to war, even if Pakistan is democratically governed, and surely the

same might apply between Israel and any democratically-governed Arab

state. The United States went into the years of World War I with battle plans

drawn up for a range of wars with all the major powers: "Plan Black" for a war with Germany, "Plan Orange" for a war with Japan, "Plan Red" for

war with Britain. All of such plans were circumscribed by American ideology,

in that they had to presuppose a foreign invasion of American territory. If

anyone were thus, in the aftermath of World War I, to argue that only "Plan

Black" could have been real, he would have to take account of how totally

unrelated this plan was to be to the actual American participation in combat

against Germany, since no German amphibious force had ever stormed ashore

along the Atlantic Coast. Indeed, given that Britain at least had the Canadian

beachhead as an invasion platform, to be worried about by the Washington

planners, this war plan would have looked the more plausible. Since Britain

still had an alliance in effect with Japan until 1921, this made the American

plans for war with Japan merge with the possibility of a war with Britain.

How real could any of this had been? If Mahan had remained alive, would

he not have written it all off as errant nonsense? But how much did the theories

and policies put forward by Mahan make such war planning more realistic or unrealistic?

38 See Michael W. Doyle, "Kant, Liberal Legacies, and Foreign Affairs," Philosophy and Public Affairs Vol.

12, nos. 3,4 (Summer, Fall, 1983), pp. 205-235, 323-353.

39 For a much discussed contemporary example, see Francis Fukayama, "The End of History," The National

Interest, no. 16 (Summer, 1989), pp. 3-18.
Naval Thought Since 1914 193

The speculation about an Anglo-American naval war after 1919 are

interestingly matched in the planning done by the Royal Air Force for the

air defense of Britain from 1919 until 1933. The problem for the RAF was

always how to defend London and other British cities against air attack, but

the enemy upon which all focus was directed was always France.40 France

and Britain came very close to war in 1898 over the crisis at Fashoda, when

both were indeed already political democracies (another close call for the

theory by which democracies do not war on each other), but what would

have been the grounds for a later war? The French occupation of the Ruhr

in 1923 brought an upgrading of alert among British planners, as British

sympathies veered away from France and toward the Weimar Republic, but

was an Anglo-French war possible?

One can in the same years find Canadian war plans for a possible war with

the United States, and U.S. war plans for a war with Britain involving

Canada.

Perhaps it is in the nature of apprenticeships for staff planners that we have

war plans for every possible contingency, even for wars against other

democracies. But perhaps it is less abstract than this, as the realities of power

dictate that the United State should resent and worry about British naval

preponderance, just as Britain would have to resent and worry about

American challenges, deliberate or inadvertent, to that preponderance.

This leads us into a slightly more complicated question of what American

attitudes would have had to be, the attitudes of the U.S. Navy and U.S.

government and general public, with regard to the balance of power at sea. The analogy between the land and the sea can mislead one here.

On land, one tends to favor the balance of power, in that one does not

want all the other territory or population of a continent to be united and

coalesced into one military unit, but rather prefers to see a number of units

checking each other. Britain thus always welcomed, and worked to maintain,

a division of the military power of the European continent; and the United

States, from a greater distance, also welcomed this division. In effect, under

the balance-of-power system, every power might like to attain hegemony

for itself; but each of these powers would also more normally be a de facto

partner for most of the others in opposing any state which seemed to be

moving toward hegemony.

But how does this transplant to the oceans? The German goal, under Tirpitz

and the Kaiser, was to develop the same balance-of-power mechanism for

the seas; and Berlin counted upon the Americans and the Japanese and Russians

and French to be de facto partners in this project of cutting British naval power

down to size. But would Japan have preferred a division of the seas among

40 British air defense plans of the 1920s are detailed in Basil Collier, The Defence of the United Kingdom

(London: H.M.S.O., 1957).
194 George H. Quester

other naval powers, and would the United States have preferred such a division? Or might each of these states bizarrely have preferred British naval

hegemony to a balance-of-power situation on the high seas?

One does not live on the sea, and one can tolerate a foreign hegemony

over the sea without suffering very much disruption of one's own lifestyle

along its shores. If there is a lively conflict on the high seas, moreover, this

may disrupt commerce and fishing, etc., much more than if there was a hegemonic domination of the seas by a single power. A competition on the

high seas may also bring about a competition among the naval powers for

on-shore coaling stations and naval bases. These enclaves would indeed be

irritating to those who had to live along these shores.

Neither the United States government nor the United States Navy would

have welcomed the appearance of German and French naval units in the

western hemisphere, even if these could have been seen as a check and

distraction for the British fleet, which had so long been the only plausible

enemy for the U.S. Navy. The Japanese, similarly, did not welcome the

emergence of German and Russian and French naval bases along the coast

of China. Even if such great-power rivalry offered possibilities of playing

one state off against the other, the influence on local life and politics of these

on-shore enclaves was too troublesome. The Monroe Doctrine certainly

geared Americans to be very alert and resistant to any German attempt to

replicate the Tsingtao seizure along the coasts of Latin America.

The United States may thus have simply been accustomed to British naval

power, preferring the devil it knew to the devil it did not know. More

importantly, it preferred British hegemony to the prospects of a naval power

contest among the European states in the Western Hemisphere. Yet, when

the British withdrew their Caribbean fleet in the first decade of this century,

the reaction of Mahan's colleagues was not to mourn the loss, but to welcome

this change. The United States Navy, with Mahan providing the prompting,

would not have minded displacing the British in the Caribbean or the Western

Hemisphere, and perhaps in other corners of the world.)

As noted, the Washington Naval Conference of 1921 is remembered as one

of the major successes of disarmament, in that significant numbers of

battleships were actually scrapped by the United States and Britain, as well

as by France, Italy and Japan. Cynics and skeptics can note that the battleship

was the capital ship upon which this disarmament was focused, while the

aircraft carrier was not as constricted. They will note also that Japan was

not bent on a permanently peaceful path by these arrangements.41 Yet, if anything else were to be doubted, the conference sealed the end

of any speculation about an Anglo-American naval war. Perhaps it was the

41 For a somewhat critical assessment of the Washington and London naval conferences, see Raymond

O'Connor, Perilous Equilibrium (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1962).
Naval Thought Since 1914 195

emergence of Nazi Germany, and Imperial Japan, and then Soviet Russia,

that so transfixed the two English-speaking powers that they could never find

the time to consider a naval war with each other. The United States took

Britain's place on the high seas. By 1945, she had in effect matched the British

accomplishment after Trafalgar, having a larger fleet than all the world's

other fleets combined. Perhaps we would have to turn to the political rather

than military insights of Mahan here. As he had quite correctly suggested,

these two states were destined to be friends, regardless of what more abstract

geo-politics or power considerations would have predicted. The "navalists"

in both Britain and the United States, i.e. those who took the first parts of

Mahan's message most seriously, were all indignant with the provisions of

the Washington Treaty.

One can find one more issue juxtaposing the contradictory aspects of

Mahan's predictions. When the United States acquired a string of bases in

the western hemisphere in 1940, in exchange for giving some over-age

destroyers to Britain, few Americans regarded this as a clever advancement

of American power at the expense of Britain (although a few British Foreign

Office advisers told Churchill to see it that way, only to be overruled). Most

saw the destroyers as a way of helping out Britain when it was to be sorely

tried by Hitler's U-boats, with the bases being useful as an excuse to transfer

the ships, by the terms of American neutrality.

In shaping the attitudes of the U.S. Navy, and of Americans in general,

Mahan could have been quoted on either side of this "debate," but he would

have come down personally on the same side as the 1940 Americans.
196

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197

Chapter 15

Mahan, Russia, and the Next 100 Years

Clark G. Reynolds

"History has proved," said Mahan, "that a purely military sea power can

be built up by a despot, as was done by Louis XIV; but . . . experience showed

that his navy was like a growth which having no root soon withers away."1 Holger Herwig in his excellent paper has demonstrated that Imperial and

Nazi Germany suffered similar fates as Louis' bid for supremacy at sea. Ken

Hagan asks what might be the implications of the German experience for

our own time and the future—meaning the Soviet Union. What indeed?

Mahan's analytical framework offers important clues.

Mahan warned that no nation could be superior both on land and at sea; the expense has been too great for every power which has attempted it. "History," he declared in another telling dictum, "has conclusively

demonstrated the inability of a state with even a single continental frontier

to compete in naval development with one that is insular. . . ."2 This held

true for the France of Louis XIV and Napoleon and for Wilhelmian and

Hitlerite Germany, each confronted and eventually defeated by powerful

coalitions of continental powers and English or Anglo-American naval might.

So it was for Imperial Russia.

On this May Day 1990, after a year of momentous political change in

Eastern Europe which has heralded the fizzling out of the Russo-American

Cold War, it is altogether appropriate that we look to Mahan for possible

explanations of the Gorbachev phenomenon: dramatic military retrenchment,

political-economic restructuring (perestroika), and socio-cultural openness

(glasnost).

Mahan viewed the tsarist Russia of his day as a continental power oriented

completely to the defensive. In his 1911 book Naval Strategy, Mahan saw

1 Alfred Thayer Mahan, The Influence ofSea Power upon History, 1660-1783 (London: Sampson Low, Marston,

1890), p. 88.

2 Mahan, "Advantages of Insular Position," a 1902 essay excerpted in Allan Westcott, ed., Mahan on Naval

Warfare (London: Sampson Low, Marston, 1919), p. 315. See also Margaret Tuttle Sprout, "Mahan:

Evangelist of Sea Power," in Edward Mead Earle, Makers ofModem Strategy (New York: Atheneum reprint,

1966), pp. 425, 444.
198 Clark G. Reynolds

Russia's Navy as no more than a "fortress fleet," the warships tied down

in the passive role of augmenting coastal fortifications. For him this was "a

dominant conception in Russian military and naval thought."3 To this view

I extend the time frame to eight centuries of a fundamentally defensive

strategic posture, unbroken from earliest times down to the present.4 Much debate about Russian naval strategy, starting with Bob Herrick's fine

book over twenty years ago,5 has been generated in light of the Russian

submarine and surface fleets of the Admiral S. G. Gorshkov era between the

late 1950s and the 1980s and topped by the current commissioning of attack

aircraft carriers.

The obvious question before us is whether or not Soviet General Secretary

(and, as of 1989, President) Mikhail Gorbachev ever read Mahan. Or, if he

did, did he misread Mahan and fall into the same trap as the despotic "Sun

King," the Kaiser, and the Fuhrer? Or, which is probably the case, has he simply

faced up to the hard reality of experience that, as Mahan understood, no great

continental power could afford to wield supremacy simultaneously on land

and at sea, and, today, in the air and space as well.

During the past year, 1989-90, the Soviet Union has for all intents and

purposes not only called off the Cold War, but has begun to crumble from

within: its economy, its control over ethnic minorities, its frustrated youth

and intelligentsia rejecting the old gods of communism, and its very people

fed up with unfulfilled promises for economic prosperity as they finally join

the global revolution of rising expectations. Gorbachev cannot solve these

manifold challenges to the existence of the Soviet state unless he cuts back

on arms. History abounds with examples ofcontinental states seeking military

retrenchment which select the navy as the first target for cutbacks. And, yet,

the initial step was to discard the Warsaw Pact landward buffer states as expendable. Can the surface fleet be far behind? For apparently, the ReaganLehman naval offensive (as well as "Star Wars," the Strategic Defense

Initiative), that saber-rattling Maritime Strategy of a 600-ship U.S. Navy

aimed at assaulting Russia's northern flank in time of war, created a challenge

Russia could not match economically. This offensive may well turn out to

have been a key element of the bloodless American victory in the Cold War.

Furthermore, even the Red Army, dishonored by the Afghanistan debacle,

is under the budgetary knife.

3 Mahan, Naval Strategy Compared and Contrasted with the Principles and Practice of Military Operations on Land

(London: Sampson Low, Marston, 1911), pp. 383-401, excerpted in Westcott, pp. 256-275.

4 Clark G. Reynolds, "Eight Centuries of Continental Strategy: Imperial and Soviet Russia," in Reynolds,

History and the Sea: Essays in Maritime Strategy (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1989), pp. 196-223. An excellent description of the defensive Russian "parade" fleet of 1839 may be found in the observations of a French traveller: Phyllis Penn Kohler, ed., Journey for Our Time: The Russian Journals of

the Marquis de Custine (Washington: Gateway, 1987), pp. 52-64.

5 Robert Waring Herrick, Soviet Naval Strategy: Fifty Years of Theory and Practice (Annapolis: U.S. Naval

Institute, 1968).
The Next Hundred Years 199

These are of course mere events which, considered by themselves, could

well turn out to be temporal. Rulers change, policies can be reversed, wars

declared. Nor can Cold War caution be easily eradicated.

This is where a close examination of Mahan's broad historical theories can

shed light on the depths of the Russian dilemma.

To understand these theories, we can thank Captain Wayne Hughes for

his incisive paper redefining Mahan's nomenclature. What Mahan called

"principles," his six "principal conditions affecting the sea power ofnations,"

are not principles at all, according to Hughes. Principles are guides for action.

Hughes ably demonstrates that Mahan's six points are actually trends and

constants, descriptive of a nation's character and history. Mahan's actual

principles were elucidated only when he tried to convince his own country

to exploit its constants and trends to become a nation capable of commanding

the seas. The essential constants that a nation requires to become a major sea power

are three, Mahan explained:

1. "production, with the necessity of exchanging products,"

2. "shipping, whereby the exchange is carried on," including warships to guarantee

that exchange, and

3. "colonies, which facilitate and enlarge the operations ofshipping and tend to protect

it by multiplying points of safety," that is, overseas bases. Despite variations, trends, in policy, "the history of the seaboard nations has

been less determined by the shrewdness and foresight of governments than

by conditions [that is, constants] of [geographical] position, extent,

configuration, [as well as] number and character of their people—by what

are called, in a word, natural conditions."6 By applying these 'constant' natural conditions to the Soviet Union of 1990,

one hundred years after Mahan articulated them, the new 'trends' in Russia

become clear:

1. Production. What Mahan surely meant was a flourishing economy

able to produce manufactured industrial good and raw materials that would

not only adequately supply the general population but would be competitive

on the open international market. The Soviet Union has clearly failed in this

regard, today devoting, we now know, at least 25 percent of its gross national

product to military expenditures and thereby stifling civilian commercial

production. Furthermore, Russia is turning to Western economic experts for

advice.

2. Shipping. In this regard, Soviet Russia has succeeded, with a vast

merchant marine, seagoing fishing factories, and a powerful navy. But against

the overall trading might of the United States, Japan, Western Europe, and

the ubiquitous "flag of convenience" merchant fleets headquartered in New

6 Mahan, Influence, p. 28.
200 Clark G. Reynolds

York City, Russian overseas trade is not a dangerous threat. Indeed, the Soviet

Union has learned the efficacy ofcooperating with the West in cartels, abiding

by international law, and siding with other great powers against Third World

countries to keep the sea lanes open. Morflot, the state shipping agency, even

hires Western nationals to manage its foreign offices. And the Soviet Navy

is focused not on trade defense but on protecting the coast and on nuclear

deterrence. The Russian Merchant Marine is exposed.

3. Colonies. The political character of "colonies" have changed since

Mahan's day, when they were owned by European powers. Their economic

and strategic characteristics have not. Today, the world runs on Washington

time. Economic giants Japan and Germany (only the western half until 1990

but now heading toward reunification) were conquered and transformed into

strategic-economic "colonies" of the United States during and after World

War II. Britain and Western Europe, rejuvenated by the Marshall Plan, and

much of the Third World, liberated from political colonial rule, have also

been absorbed into this global "empire." The United States has worldwide

naval bases and trading depots which would have dazzled Mahan. Russia has

enjoyed none of this (granted, she utilizes overseas bases as in Cuba and

Vietnam for stopovers and even trades at many great maritime centers, but

these are mere ports of call, enjoyed by all trading nations under the strategic

umbrella of the Pax Americana).

4. Points 1, 2, and 3 equal a fourth constant, about which Mahan skirted

and on whichJohn Maurer touches in his paper: Democracy. For Mahan's model

was Great Britain of the late Seventeenth, Eighteenth, and early Nineteenth

Centuries, a model inherited by the United States in the 20th: democratic

societies based on a liberal middle class of free enterprise merchants, bankers,

and professional people. In a word, capitalists. Mahan had trouble with this

'constant' because of his admiration of the French through Jomini and the

Napoleonic military examples taught by Mahan's father at West Point,

especially Colbert 's forced maritime enterprises (merchantmen, colonies, navy)

of the late seventeenth century. Even the French have had difficulty in

defining themselves, waffling through their turbulent history between being

a continental empire and a republic. But neither France nor Russia ever settled

on a dominant middle class of merchants, each relying instead on a two-class

socio-economic-political system of aristocratic landowners and peasantworkers which is the mark of an agrarian rather than trading-industrial

society.

Britain and America, in spite of fluctuating 'trends' in their history in which

they have occasionally strayed into continental aspirations on land, both have

shared a maritime 'constant.' In time of war, they have depended largely on

continental allies to win on land while they commanded the seas (and the

air in this century).
The Next Hundred Years 201

To conclude, then, it appears that Gorbachev, whether or not he ever read,

much less understood, Mahan's historical theories, has realized that just

shipping is not enough. To survive and to prosper among the family of nations

in a free-market, democratic world, Soviet Russia must accept the economic

constants of capitalism and global trade by restructuring Soviet institutions:

perestroika. And it must accept the concomitant necessity of free political

expression and open self-criticism: glasnost. To make these things possible,

the Soviet budget must be rechanneled from exorbitant military expenditures

to commercial pursuits. Gorbachev has already taken the first step by giving

up his strategic colonies on Russia's borders, the Warsaw Pact nations. Can

the dismantling of the expensive Soviet Navy be the second step?

Assuming, then, that the United States has won the Cold War by asserting

Mahan's constants of global sea power, what 'principles ' of action can guide

us in the post-Cold War era? Mahan hinted at many of them, but the most

articulate historical philosopher of such strategic and tactical matters was his

brilliant British contemporary, Sir Julian Corbett. Let us hope that the Naval

War College, in order to rediscover those principles, will examine both these

savants of sea power anew in light of such a postwar strategic scenario.

The prospects for the future are exciting indeed, and we students of Mahan

may well wish we could reconvene here in Newport 100 years hence to reflect

on how well a triumphant democratic America and a restructured Soviet

Russia will have fit into Mahan's historical scheme in the new era now

beginning.
202

Mahan with his grandson, A.T. Mahan II.
203

Chapter 16

Under the Influence:

A Hundred Years and Around the World

George W. Baer

We must keep in mind that certain of Mahan's ideas changed over time,

and certain stayed pretty constant, and we must keep straight which are which. There are several Mahans, and many Mahanians. The proponent in

1890 of naval power as a creature of commerce, had in a few years, become

an imperialist for whom naval strength had an autonomous political

importance. Luce, who put him on his original course, noted the shift. In 1897

he wrote of Mahan's third book, The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present

and Future: "Mahan has allowed the views of a naval strategist to dominate

those of the political economist. . . . Sea power, in its military sense, is the

off-spring, not the parent of commerce."1 We have to look at context as well

as text. John Maurer helps us with the broad political constants in his

discussion of structural constraints to Mahan's world view.

Mahan's pessimism seemed to extend to his view of human nature and the

acceptance of war. Lyle Mahan's recollections of his father which John

Hattendorf very ably edited leaves us with the impression of a cold fish father, or at least an unhappy and reticent son. Chaplain Leslie's study of Mahan's

religion confirms why Lyle saw more of his father's austerity and his rectitude

than his affect or his emotion. Mahan appears in his Roman guise here, more

engaged by rational theology in its public exercise than the more emotional

possibilities of the Christian religion. Of course, his confidence that the

expansion of western civilization was the plan of Providence was shared by

the prominent, western imperialists. Professor Quester is right to point out

that Mahan's theory of power, his fusion of political and strategic elements,

fits at best uneasily, even at the turn of the century, with American liberal

constitutional democracy, or even the tenets of Clausewitz.

1 Quoted by John D. Hayes, "The Influence of Modern Sea Power, 1945-1970," U.S. Naval Institute

Proceedings (May 1971), pp. 279-280. The correct citation is The Critic, January 1898, for which see John

D. Hayes and John B. Hattendorf, eds., The Writings of Stephen B. Luce (Newport: Naval War College,

1975, pp. 216-217.
204 George W. Baer

But it does fit very well what Maurer described as Mahan's neo-realism.

What struck me in Commander Leslie's paper, as it does with most of the

'neo-realists' I read, was Mahan's anxiety. "The world of civilized

Christianity" stands out-numbered by the expanding civilizations ofAsia. The

West must either convert them, or perish "under a flood of outside invasion."

The offensive-defensive strategy Mahan proposed, to gain time by organizing

the West's material forces before embarking on an evangelical crusade, turns

out to be less of Pericles and his funeral oration or Kennan and his X article,

that is, stay true, trust in time and convert by example but more like a crusader's NSC-68: act or lose.

Professors Herwig and Dingman, Dr. Scheina, and Captain Montenegro

tackled the vastly complicated matter of identifying an intellectual food chain

for the transmission of a naval strategy. They wisely remind us that the

adoption of sea power concepts was contingent. That was true in Japan,

Germany, Latin America, and, I would say, in the United States as well.

Mahan and his colleagues, Luce and Taylor at the Naval War College,

Secretaries Tracy and Herbert at the Navy Department, and navalists like

Roosevelt and Lodge, sought no less than to change the strategic culture of

the United States, and the operations of the Navy. They wanted the ships

that protected the United States to get out of harbors. They wanted them

to mass their force in offensive forward deployment. They wanted an ocean

going fleet. The offensive battle fleet, they said, was the only means of

maritime defense in the modern age, a fleet that would protect both from

invasion and commerce depredation. What the British did in the War of 1812

must not happen again.

To convert the Navy's strategy and to get the ships for the new doctrine

of offensive sea control demanded a popular and professional consensus, one

not unlike, in different contexts, that support which Dingman and Herwig

show navalists sought abroad. In 1890 Mahan chose the phrase 'the influence

of sea power' to rally public support. That phrase, more than his books, was

the decisive rhetorical contribution to the campaign, so long as it was read

as implying a forward deployed offensive battle fleet. Mahan needed an

arresting slogan precisely because contemporary American experience did fit into his theory of history or his strategy for an offensively employed capital

ship fleet. In 1890 most Americans did not think of the United States as dependent on its maritime interests, or vulnerable to maritime attacks.

A particular strategic conjunction was Mahan 's main conceptual

innovation, his combination of a purpose (protection of what he asserted was

America's inevitably threatened maritime position) and a naval operation (an

offensive, forward deployed concentrated battle fleet for a particular kind

of sea control strategy). This strategic combination, however, was

conjectural. There is no necessary connection between a maritime or insular

culture, or a continental one for that matter, and a particular style of naval
Under the Influence 205

operations. Everything depends on time and place, the ends and the means.

Navies are artificial, and they are contingent. Mahan himself, as Luce noted,

ultimately admitted to the political autonomy of naval force, of sea power

as naval strength. In 1890 Mahan had written: "The necessity of a navy, in

the restricted sense of the word, springs . . . from the existence of a peaceful

shipping, and disappears with it, except in the case of a nation which has

aggressive tendencies, and keeps a navy merely as a branch of the military

establishment."2 In 1911, at the end of Naval Strategy, Mahan wrote:

More and more it becomes clear, that the functions of navies is distinctly military and

international, whatever their historical origins in particular cases. The Navy of the

United States, for example, took its rise from purely commercial considerations.

External interests cannot be confined to those of commerce. There may be political

as well as commercial; may be political because commercial . . .; may be political

because military . . . may be political because of national prepossessions and

sympathies. . . . The United States . . . needs a navy both numerous and efficient even if

no merchant vessel again flies the United States flag. [In short] a navy may

be necessary where there is no shipping.3 There are also continuities. Mahan and the Mahanians moved from

commerce to empire as the basis for their argument about sea power, and

they defined sea power as naval strength. At the same time their plan of

operations remained constant: to meet the enemy as far from American shores

as possible, for a decisive battle between battle fleets. Everything about the

new naval system led to and followed from that proposition.

It interested me how the Army accepted this. In the 1890s it cast its harbor

protection philosophy in Mahanian terms. Lieutenant General John Schofield,

formerly Commanding General, wrote in 1897:

In a country having the situation of the United States, the navy is the aggressive arm

of the national military power. . . . For this purpose entire freedom of action is essential. . . . Hence arises one of the most important functions of land defense: to give

the aggressive arm secure bases of operation at all the great seaports where navy-yards

or depots are located.4 This was meant to create what TR was to call "a foot-loose fleet,"

supporting the strategy of offensive sea control, and ultimately power

projection, which became first the basis ofnaval, and then American, strategic

culture.

Dingman searched carefully for evidence of direct causal connections

between Japan's creation of a fleet strategy and Mahan's. He found none,

2 A.T. Mahan, The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1890), pp. 26-

27.

3 A.T. Mahan, Naval Strategy (Boston: Little, Brown, 1918), pp. 445-447.

4 Quoted in Graham A. Cosmas, An Army for Empire: The United States Army in the Spanish-American War

(Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1971), p. 38.
206 George W. Baer

although there were plenty of parallels. Both the United States and Japan,

and Germany too, as Professor Herwig shows, imitated. The new navalism

in each country had to be taken as an act of faith in convincing the people.

It did not spring indigenously from a nation of people who sat around on

docks tying knots and imagining battle fleet tactics. In each case the new

navalism was derived. Naval ideas, as well as navies, are more artificial than

Mahan allowed. Or perhaps ideas follow technology and politics in the form

that evolutionists call punctuated equilibrium. In an era of imitation, such

as the 1890s, one can easily imagine a Mahanian who never read Mahan. In

America, Mahan's countervalue offensive massed force as originally a deterrent, for a defensive political purpose.

What is interesting is how long the strategic and structural configurations

lasted.

It certainly influenced Japan. By the late 30s, with the war against China,

a case can be made, as Clark Reynolds has, that Japan was a continental power,

with the military divided between the Army's attention to the continental

north and the Navy's to the maritime and imperial south. What is interesting

here, and which perhaps Professor Dingman lets slip by in reference to "sheer

force of events," is the autonomy the Navy arrogated to itself and the

persistence of its respect for the big battle solution. These were double blinds.

The whole point of the Navy's southern advance, on this argument, was to

get the resource base by which the beleaguered Army could win in China.

Yet a sense of separateness, exemplified by its ideas of sea power and

confidence in its barrier strategy, led the Navy to go it alone. The Army

did not, until too late, give it the support it needed to maintain the island

strongholds. Even worse, its Mahanian vision ofdecisive battle and sea control

led it to neglect protection of its maritime commerce, the point of the whole

enterprise. Japanese naval strategy was controlled by the sheer force of ideas,

after all. Tripitz and Scheer were too, as Professor Herwig shows. They had a hard

row to hoe, to convince the Germans that they needed a high seas fleet. The

contradiction is apparent in Professor Herwig's discussion, where he argues

that Tirpitz used Mahan in a quasi-official capacity, but was evidently so uncertain of his stand, or his resource base, that he "had an imperial decree

issued prohibiting public discussion of the basic tenets of German naval

developments." There is something fundamentally wrong here. However

artificial naval developments might be, there is something awfully wrong with

a sea power philosophy that cannot go public or a naval strategy that cannot

stand up to professional criticism. No matter how shrewd Tripitz was, he

blinded himself. But perhaps not quite, for it appears that the Germans used

Mahan as a public relations device, not as a guide to naval strategy. Certainly

one would not have called it a "luxury fleet" if the true conditions of a maritime state existed, according to Mahan's conjunctural definition of sea
Under the Influence 207

power. The problem was, as Herwig showed, the conjunction did not in fact

exist.

Without doubt, Professor Hughes is entirely correct in insisting that tactical

analysis is a side of strategy. Of course strategy is a coin with more than

two sides. In considering military efficiency one must look at purpose as well

as action, at capacity as well as operation, and, always, at these dimensions

with regard to the enemy. What is important is to look at the matter ofcombat

as a whole.

Now, Mahan's effort to find historical principles did indeed run him into

trouble. The all-big gun-many gun controversy with Sims, volume of weight

versus volume of fire, is an example. When I look closer, I must say I conclude

that Mahan probably did not think this was much of an issue. He did have

history on his side, including the Yalu and Santiago. He did want to keep

up morale with close encounter, but he conceded the point to Sims as soon

as the evidence of big-gun, long-range accuracy was in. What was important,

and on which fundamental power they both agreed, offensive concentration

at the decisive point. It is true that Mahan often comes out looking like a technological ostrich with his head stuck in a history book on this matter.

It was good to see Professor Hughes' qualifications about Sims' own use of

evidence, and the openness of the debate, had Mahan cared to pursue it further.

The key point is that both agreed it was only a functional matter: how best

to build the decisive weapon for the decisive battle.

Hughes is right on the mark in the distinctions he makes in his discussion

of blockades. Every tactic or strategy must be constantly subjected to the

analytic perspectives he proposes. As to the discussion of trends, I suspect

Hughes is singing to the choir that is here today. Historians seek context as second nature, or should, and although they might not use the term trends,

they do what Hughes prescribes. I acknowledge in the audience today

historians like Jon Sumida who showed British naval strategy had to be

understood through the interaction of preferences, or trends, in the realms

of administration, finance, technology, policy, and personality, and David

Rosenberg who showed the connection of trends in nuclear weapons

development to naval strategy and to the Navy's institutional self-definition,

and Norman Friedman who has shown us the intimate relationship of

technology and operational possibilities. Modern scholarship is far more alert

than Mahan was to changes in modern warfare. Mahan was president of the

American Historical Association, but he was not good at keeping up with

trends, other than those which he declared, as principles. In this sense, we

respond to Mahan as his own trendsetter.

There is one point I want especially to note in Professor Quester's paper.

He shows the difficulties the British and Americans faced, especially in the

1920s, in moving from a Mahanian notion of absolute sea control to a balanceof-power on the seas. What strikes me is how the process of adjustment to
208 George W. Baer

an approximation of a balance of power came about. Ray O'Connor can

remind us that the Navy thought there was no true 'yardstick,' but in popular,

and political terms, agreement was made possible by Mahanian notions of

sea control which were widely accepted, if perhaps misunderstood, and which

rested on the idea of symmetry. The arms treaties were the mechanisms

through which ratios, and hence a naval balance, was reached. And of

contemporary importance, we may be seeing at the present time just such

a process at work again, by which arms limitation treaties, which might come

to include, as the Soviets want, some form ofnaval treaty, are used to establish a new relationship of strategic strengths which could otherwise only be found

in battle or concession.

If so, we will see some radical changes in U.S. naval strategy, and we will

need some Admiral William Pratts and Admiral Bill Wylies to remind us

that sea power is not just absolute naval strength, that naval power is in fact

provisional, and that a nation's maritime interests, which are necessarily part

of international relations, may be protected and advanced by ways other than

by absolute control of the sea. "The relationship between national and naval

policy is one that is not always fully understood." Sea power and naval

strength are not entirely synonymous terms," Pratt wrote after the

Washington Conference. The Navy, he wrote, "is first, the statesman's tool,

and second, the warrior's weapon." "Sea power and naval strength," Pratt

concluded, "are not always synonymous terms."5 This view cost Pratt many

friends in the Navy, but it was true then and it is true today.

I conclude with reference to Admiral Wylie's address last night. Admiral

Wylie is one of our foremost strategic conceptualizers, who has insisted that

we never cease from looking at strategy whole. He reminds us of two

fundamental facts. One is that sea power is not a policy in itself, but a basis

for policy, according to the interests and situation of the country, and

comprising many dimensions, only one of which, although it is an essential

one, is naval strength. Secondly, if naval strength has to be used to an end,

sometimes that end is sea control. People associate that with Mahan.

Sometimes, it is projecting power from the sea on to the land. People associate

that with Corbett. The truth is, as Norman Friedman reminds us in his recent

book, this is a false dichotomy. Sea control and power projection ashore are associated and complementary. That was true in maritime strategy before

1890, as in the second Punic War, and it was true in 1890 when the purpose

of the fleet ultimately was to assure blockade and access, or the reverse, and

it is true for us today.

5 Rear Admiral W.V. Pratt, "Naval Policy and its Relation to World Politics," U.S. Naval Institute

Proceedings (July 1923), pp. 1073, 1083-1084, and, Gerald W. Wheeler, Admiral William Veazie Pratt, U.S. Navy (Washington: Department of the Navy, 1974), pp. 185-186.