Cyprian Arthur George Bridge

“ It may be that it was lust of wealth rather than lust of dominion that first promoted a trial of strength with Carthage. The vision of universal empire could hardly as yet have formed itself in the imagination of a single Roman. The area of Phoenician maritime commerce was vast enough both to excite jealousy and to offer vulnerable points to the cupidity of rivals. It is probable that the modern estimate of the sea-power of Carthage is much exaggerated. ”

“ Taught by the experience of the Spaniards and the Portuguese, when unimpeded by the political circumstances of the time, and provided with suitable equipment, the English displayed their energy in distant seas. It now became simply a question of the efficiency of sea-power. If efficiency was not a quality of the English sea-power, then their efforts were bound to fail; and, more than this, the position of their country, challenging as it did what was believed to be the greatest of maritime states, would have been altogether precarious. ”

“ Its outward and visible sign is a navy, strong in the discipline, skill and courage of a numerous personnel habituated to the sea, in the number and quality of its ships, in the excellence of its matériel, and in the efficiency, scale, security and geographical position of its arsenals and bases. History has demonstrated that sea-power thus conditioned can gain any purely maritime object, can protect the trade and the communications of a widely extended empire, and while so doing can ward off from its shores a formidable invader. ”

“ It is in the highest degree in probable that Great Britain could attain this end by splitting up her fleet into fragments so as to have a part of it in nearly every quarter in which the enemy may try to do her mischief. The most promising plan—as experience has often proved—is to meet the enemy when he shows himself with a force sufficiently strong to defeat him. The proper station of the British fleet in war should, accordingly, be the nearest possible point to the enemy’s force. ”

“ He dared not face the obloquy consequent on withdrawal from an enterprise on which the popular hopes had been fixed; and therefore he allowed a reverse to be converted into an overwhelming disaster. “The complete ruin of Athens had appeared, both to her enemies and to herself, impending and irreparable. But so astonishing, so rapid and so energetic had been her rally, that (a year after Syracuse) she was found again carrying on a terrible struggle ” (Grote, Hist. Greece, v. p. 354) . Nevertheless her sea-power had indeed been ruined at Syracuse. ”

“ It is serious and filled with menaces of disaster when it is held by men thought fit to administer the affairs of a nation or advise concerning its defence. The third Dutch War may not have settled directly the position of England in the maritime world; but it helped to place that country above all other maritime states—in the position, in fact, which Great Britain, the United Kingdom, the British Empire, whichever name may be given it, has retained up to the present. It also manifested in a very striking form the efficacy of sea-power. ”

“ British India for a considerable time possessed a real, and indeed highly efficient navy; but it was office red entirely and manned almost entirely by men from the old country. Moreover, it was small. The wealth of India would have sufficed to furnish a larger material element; but, as the country could not supply the personnel, it would have been absurd to speak of the sea-power of India apart from that of England. As soon as the Romans chose to make the most of their natural resources the maritime predominance of Carthage was doomed. ”

“ This being so, it is evident that the greater operation of invasion cannot be attempted, much less carried to a successful termination, by the side which cannot make head against the opposing fleet. Command of the sea is the indispensable preliminary condition of a successful military expedition sent across the water. It enables the nation which possesses it to attack its foes where it pleases and where they seem to be most vulnerable. ”

“ The Seven Years War included some brilliant displays of the efficacy of sea-power. It was this which put the British in possession of Canada, decided which European race was to rule in India, and led to a British occupation of Havana in one hemisphere and of Manila in the other. In the same war Great Britain learnt how, by a feeble use of sea-power, a valuable possession like Minorca may be lost. At the same time, the maritime trade and the' general prosperity of the kingdom increased enormously. ”

“ As the advance of Cambyses into Egypt had been flanked by a fleet, so also was that of Xerxes into Greece. By the good fortune sometimes vouchsafed to a people, which, owing to its obstinate opposition to, or neglect of, a Wise policy, scarcely deserves it, there appeared at Athens an influential citizen who understood all that was meant by the term sea-power. Themistocles saw more clearly than any of his contemporaries that, to enable Athens to play a leading part in the Hellenic world, she needed above all things a strong navy. ”

“ In any case, the British practice of fixing the station of their fleet wherever that of the enemy was, would have seriously shortened the duration of his command of the English Channel, even if it had allowed it to be won at all. Moreover, attempts to carry out a great operation of war against time as well as against the efforts of the enemy to prevent it are in the highest degree perilous.
In war the British navy has three prominent duties to discharge. It has to protect the maritime trade, to keep open the communications between the different parts of the empire and to prevent invasion. ”

“ Great Britain was, in fact, drawing too largely on the prestige acquired during the Seven Years' War, and was governed by men who did not understand the first principles of naval warfare, and would not listen to those who did. They quite ignored the teaching of the then comparatively recent wars which has been alluded to already-that the enemy's coast should be looked upon as the frontier. ”

“ Behind it, in the territory of which it guards the shores, there must be a land-force adjusted in organization, equipment and numbers to the circumstances of the country. The possession of a navy does not permit a sea-surrounded state to dispense with all fixed defences or fortification; but it does render it unnecessary and indeed absurd that they should be abundant or gigantic. The danger which always impends over the sea-power of any country is that, after being long unused, it may lose touch of the sea. ”

“ He said that the English wanted a larger share of the trade enjoyed by the Dutch. It was quite in accordance with the spirit of the age that the Dutch should try to prevent, by force, this want from being satisfied. Anything like free and open competition was repugnant to the general feeling. The highroad to both individual wealth and national prosperity was believed to lie in securing a monopoly. ”

“ Meanwhile the Confederates could make no reply on the water except by capturing merchant vessels, by which the contest was embittered, but the course of the war remained absolutely unaffected. The great numbers of men under arms on shore, the terrific slaughter in many battles of a war in which tactical ability, even in a moderate degree, was curiously uncommon on both sides, and the varying fortunes of the belligerents, made the land campaigns far more interesting to the ordinary observer than the naval. ”

“ Whether Tourville deliberately meant his movement to cover an invasion or not, invasion would almost certainly have followed complete success on his part; otherwise, his victory would have been without any valuable result. Torrington saw that as long as he could keep his own fleet intact, he could, though much weaker than his opponent, prevent him from doing serious harm. Though personally not a believer in the imminence of invasion, the English admiral knew that “ most men were in fear that the French would invade.” ”

“ The result of the combats at Chioggia, though fatal to it in the long run, did not at once destroy the naval importance of Genoa. A remarkable characteristic of sea-power is the delusive manner in which it appears to revive after a great defeat. The Persian navy occasionally made a brave show afterwards; but in reality it had received at Salamis a mortal wound. Athens seemed strong enough on the sea after the catastrophe of Syracuse; but, as already stated, her naval power had been given there a check from which it never completely recovered. The navy of Carthage had had similar experience ”

“ The control of these waters was the object of prolonged and memorable struggles, for on it—as the result showed—depended the empire of the world. From very remote times the consolidation and expansion, from within outwards, of great continental states have had serious consequences for mankind when they were accompanied by the acquisition of a coast-line and the absorption of a maritime population. ”

“ The truth is that its opponent, the French navy, was never so thoroughly a sea-going force as it was in the War of American Independence; and never so closely approached the British in sea experience as it did during that period. Great Britain met antagonists who were very nearly, but fortunately not quite, as familiar with the sea as she was; and she never found it so hard to beat them, or even to avoid being beaten by them. ”

“ As in modern times the fate of India and the fate of North America were determined by sea-power, so also at a very remote epoch sea-power decided whether or not Hellenic colonization was to take root in, and Hellenic culture to dominate, central and northern Italy as it dominated southern Italy, where traces of it are extant to this day. A moment's consideration will enable us to see how different the history of the world would have been had a Hellenized city grown and prospered on the Seven Hills. ”

“ As Mahan says, “To secure to one’s own people a disproportionate share of the benefits of sea commerce 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 apparent wealth of Spain was believed to be due to the rigorous manner in which foreigners were excluded from trading with the Spanish oversea territories. The skill and enterprise of the Dutch having enabled them to force themselves into this trade, they were determined to keep it to themselves. ”

“ It is now established that the superiority in these details, which the Americans certainly enjoyed, was not great, and not of itself enough to account for their victories. Of course, if superiority in mere matériel, beyond a certain well-understood amount, is possessed by one of two combatants, his antagonist can hardly escape defeat; but it was never alleged that size of ship or calibre of guns-greater within reasonable limits than the British had-necessarily led to the defeat of British ships by the French or Spaniards. ”

“ The great, occasionally interrupted, and prolonged contest between Rome and Carthage was a sustained effort on the part of one to gain and of the other to keep the control of the western Mediterranean. So completely had that control been exercised by Carthage, that she had anticipated the Spanish commercial policy in America. Struggle between Rome and Carthage. The Romans were precluded by treaties from trading with the Carthaginian territories in Hispania, Africa and Sardinia. ”

“ We of the present generation are at last aware of the significance of naval defence, and know that, if properly utilized, it is the best security against invasion that a sea-surrounded state can enjoy. ”

“ The battle of Sluys in 1340 rendered invasion of England as impracticable as did that of La Hogue in 1692, that of Quibéron Bay in 1759 and that of Trafalgar in 1805; and it permitted, as did those battles, the transport of troops to the continent to support Great Britain's allies in wars which, had she not been strong at sea, would have been waged on the soil of her country. ”

“ It is neither patriotic nor intelligent to minimize the American successes. Certainly they have been exaggerated by Americans and even by the British. To take the frigate actions alone, as being those which properly attracted most attention, the captures in action amounted to three on each side, the proportionate loss to the Americans, considering the smallness of their fleet, being immensely greater than to the British. ”

“ It conveyed a hint-and quite consciously-to all whom it might concern that the speculations were “ under-written ” by the whole sea-power of England. The forces of more than one state had been used to protect its maritime trade from the assaults of enemies in the Mediterranean or in the Narrow Seas. They had been used to ward off invasion and to keep open communications across not very extensive areas of water. In the 16th century they were first relied upon to support distant commerce, whether carried on in a peaceful fashion or under aggressive forms. ”

“ In the first and greatest of the contests waged by the nations of the East against Europe—the Persian wars—sea-power was the governing factor. Until Persia had expanded to the shores of the Levant the European Greeks had little to fear from the ambition of the great king. The giians conquest of Egypt by Cambyses had shown how Wars of the Greeks and Persians. formidable that ambition could be when supported by an efficient navy. With the aid of the naval forces of the Phoenician cities the Persian invasion of Greece was rendered comparatively easy. ”