Sea-Power and Other Studies

Part 1

SEA-POWER AND OTHER STUDIES

BY ADMIRAL SIR CYPRIAN BRIDGE, G.C.B.

PREFACE

The essays collected in this volume are republished in the hope that they may be of some use to those who are interested in naval history. The aim has been to direct attention to certain historical occurrences and conditions which the author ventures to think have been often misunderstood. An endeavour has been made to show the continuity of the operation of sea-power throughout history, and the importance of recognising this at the present day.

In some cases specially relating to our navy at different periods a revision of the more commonly accepted conclusions--formed, it is believed, on imperfect knowledge--is asked for.

It is also hoped that the intimate connection between naval history in the strict sense and military history in the strict sense has been made apparent, and likewise the fact that both are in reality branches of the general history of a nation and not something altogether distinct from and outside it.

In a collection of essays on kindred subjects some repetitions are inevitable, but it is believed that they will be found present only to a moderate extent in the following pages.

My nephew, Mr. J. S. C. Bridge, has very kindly seen the book through the press.

June 1910.

CONTENTS

I. SEA-POWER. II. THE COMMAND OF THE SEA. III. WAR AND ITS CHIEF LESSONS. IV. THE HISTORICAL RELATIONS BETWEEN THE NAVY AND THE MERCHANT SERVICE. V. FACTS AND FANCIES ABOUT THE PRESS-GANG. VI. PROJECTED INVASIONS OF THE BRITISH ISLES. VII. OVER-SEA RAIDS AND RAIDS ON LAND. VIII. QUEEN ELIZABETH AND HER SEAMEN. IX. NELSON: THE CENTENARY OF TRAFALGAR. X. THE SHARE OF THE FLEET IN THE DEFENCE OF THE EMPIRE. XI. NAVAL STRATEGY AND TACTICS AT THE TIME OF TRAFALGAR. XII. THE SUPPLY AND COMMUNICATIONS OF A FLEET. INDEX.

Ten of the essays included in this volume first appeared in the EncyclopoediaBritannica, the Times, the MorningPost, the NationalReview, the NineteenthCenturyandAfter, the CornhillMagazine, and the NavalAnnual. The proprietors of those publications have courteously given me permission to republish them here.

Special mention must be made of my obligation to the proprietors of the EncyclopoediaBritannica for allowing me to reproduce the essays on 'Sea-Power' and 'The Command of the Sea.' They are the owners of the copyright of both essays, and their courtesy to me is the more marked because they are about to republish them themselves in the forthcoming edition of the Encyclopoedia_.

The paper on 'Naval Strategy and Tactics at the Time of Trafalgar' was read at the Institute of Naval Architects, and that on 'The Supply and Communications of a Fleet' at the Hong-Kong United Service Institution.

SEA-POWER

Sea-power is a term used to indicate two distinct, though cognate things. The affinity of these two and the indiscriminate manner in which the term has been applied to each have tended to obscure its real significance. The obscurity has been deepened by the frequency with which the term has been confounded with the old phrase, 'Sovereignty of the sea,' and the still current expression, 'Command of the sea.' A discussion--etymological, or even archæological in character--of the term must be undertaken as an introduction to the explanation of its now generally accepted meaning. It is one of those compound words in which a Teutonic and a Latin (or Romance) element are combined, and which are easily formed and become widely current when the sea is concerned. Of such are 'sea-coast,' 'sea-forces' (the 'land- and sea-forces' used to be a common designation of what we now call the 'Army and Navy'), 'sea-service,' 'sea-serpent,' and 'sea-officer' (now superseded by 'naval officer'). The term in one form is as old as the fifteenth century. Edward III, in commemoration of the naval victory of Sluys, coined gold 'nobles' which bore on one side his effigy 'crowned, standing in a large ship, holding in one hand a sword and in the other a shield.' An anonymous poet, who wrote in the reign of Henry VI, says of this coin:

For four things our noble showeth to me, King, ship, and sword, and powerofthesea_.

Even in its present form the term is not of very recent date. Grote speaks of 'the conversion of Athens from a land-power into a sea-power.' In a lecture published in 1883, but probably delivered earlier, the late Sir J. R. Seeley says that 'commerce was swept out of the Mediterranean by the besom of the Turkish sea-power.' The term also occurs in vol. xviii. of the 'Encyclopædia Britannica,' published in 1885. At p. 574 of that volume (art. Persia) we are told that Themistocles was 'the founder of the Attic sea-power.' The sense in which the term is used differs in these extracts. In the first it means what we generally call a 'naval power'--that is to say, a state having a considerable navy in contradistinction to a 'military power,' a state with a considerable army but only a relatively small navy. In the last two extracts it means all the elements of the naval strength of the state referred to; and this is the meaning that is now generally, and is likely to be exclusively, attached to the term owing to the brilliant way in which it has been elucidated by Captain A. T. Mahan of the United States Navy in a series of remarkable works. The double use of the term is common in German, though in that language both parts of the compound now in use are Teutonic. One instance out of many may be cited from the historian Adolf Holm. He says that Athens, being in possession of a good naval port, could become 'einebedeutende Seemacht,' i.e. an important naval power. He also says that Gelon of Syracuse, besides a large army (Heer), had 'eine bedeutendeSeemacht,' meaning a considerable navy. The term, in the first of the two senses, is old in German, as appears from the following, extracted from Zedler's 'Grosses Universal Lexicon,' vol. xxxvi: 'Seemachten, Seepotenzen, Latin. summae potestatesmaripotentes.' 'Seepotenzen' is probably quite obsolete now. It is interesting as showing that German no more abhors Teuto-Latin or Teuto-Romance compounds than English. We may note, as a proof of the indeterminate meaning of the expression until his own epoch-making works had appeared, that Mahan himself in his earliest book used it in both senses. He says, 'The Spanish Netherlands ceased to be a sea-power.' He alludes to the development of a nation as a 'sea-power,' and to the inferiority of the Confederate States 'as a sea-power.' Also, he remarks of the war of the Spanish Succession that 'before it England was one of the sea-powers, after it she was the sea-power without any second.' In all these passages, as appears from the use of the indefinite article, what is meant is a naval power, or a state in possession of a strong navy. The other meaning of the term forms the general subject of his writings above enumerated. In his earlier works Mahan writes 'sea power' as two words; but in a published letter of the 19th February 1897, he joins them with a hyphen, and defends this formation of the term and the sense in which he uses it. We may regard him as the virtual inventor of the term in its more diffused meaning, for--even if it had been employed by earlier writers in that sense--it is he beyond all question who has given it general currency. He has made it impossible for anyone to treat of sea-power without frequent reference to his writings and conclusions.

There is something more than mere literary interest in the fact that the term in another language was used more than two thousand years ago. Before Mahan no historian--not even one of those who specially devoted themselves to the narration of naval occurrences--had evinced a more correct appreciation of the general principles of naval warfare than Thucydides. He alludes several times to the importance of getting command of the sea. This country would have been saved some disasters and been less often in peril had British writers--taken as guides by the public--possessed the same grasp of the true principles of defence as Thucydides exhibited. One passage in his history is worth quoting. Brief as it is, it shows that on the subject of sea-power he was a predecessor of Mahan. In a speech in favour of prosecuting the war, which he puts into the mouth of Pericles, these words occur:-- oimeu garouchexousiuallaeuautilabeiuamacheiaemiudeesti gaepollaekaieuuaesoiskaikataepeiroumegagar totesthalassaeskratos. The last part of this extract, though often translated 'command of the sea,' or 'dominion of the sea,' really has the wider meaning of sea-power, the 'power of the sea' of the old English poet above quoted. This wider meaning should be attached to certain passages in Herodotus, which have been generally interpreted 'commanding the sea,' or by the mere titular and honorific 'having the dominion of the sea.' One editor of Herodotus, Ch. F. Baehr, did, however, see exactly what was meant, for, with reference to the allusion to Polycrates, he says, classemaximumvaluit_. This is perhaps as exact a definition of sea-power as could be given in a sentence.

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