Power, force, is a faculty of national life; one of the talents committed to nations by God. Like every other endowment of a complex organization, it must be held under control of the enlightened intellect and of the upright heart; but no more than any other can it be carelessly or lightly abjured, without incurring the responsibility of one who buries in the earth that which was intrusted to him for use. 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. Much is required of those to whom much is given. So viewed, the ability speedily to put forth the nation's power, by adequate organization and other necessary preparation, according to the reasonable demands of the nation's intrinsic strength and of its position in the world, 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 demonstrable that no evil exists, or threatens the world, which cannot be obviated without 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. Nor is it possible, antecedently, to bring these conditions and obligations under the letter of precise and codified law, to be administered by a tribunal; and in the spirit legalism is marked by blemishes as real as those commonly attributed to "militarism," and not more elevated. The considerations which determine good and evil, right and wrong, in crises of national life, or of the world's history, are questions of equity often too complicated for decision upon mere rules, or even principles, of law, international or other. The instances of Bulgaria, of Armenia, and of Cuba, are entirely in point, and it is most probable that the contentions about the future of China will afford further illustration. Even in matters where the interest of nations is concerned, the moral element enters; because each generation in its day is the guardian of those which shall follow it. Like all guardians, therefore, while it has the power to act according to its best judgment, it has no right, for the mere sake of peace, to permit known injustice to be done to its wards.

The present strong feeling, throughout the nations of the world, in favor of arbitration, is in itself a subject for congratulation almost unalloyed. It carries indeed a promise, to the certainty of which no paper covenants can pretend; for it influences the conscience by inward conviction, not by external fetter. But it must be remembered that such sentiments, from their very universality and evident laudableness, need correctives, for they bear in themselves a great danger of excess or of precipitancy. Excess is seen in the disposition, far too prevalent, to look upon war not only as an evil, but as an evil unmixed, unnecessary, and therefore always unjustifiable; while precipitancy, to reach results considered desirable, is evidenced by the wish to impose arbitration, to prevent recourse to war, by a general pledge previously made. Both frames of mind receive expression in the words of speakers, among whom a leading characteristic is lack of measuredness and of proportion. Thus an eminent citizen is reported to have said: "There is no more occasion for two nations to go to war than for two men to settle their difficulties with clubs." Singularly enough, this point of view assumes to represent peculiarly Christian teaching, willingly ignorant of the truth that Christianity, while it will not force the conscience by other than spiritual weapons, as "compulsory" arbitration might, distinctly recognizes the sword as the resister and remedier of evil in the sphere "of this world."

Arbitration's great opportunity has come in the advancing moral standards of states, whereby the disposition to deliberate wrong-doing has diminished, and consequently the occasions for redressing wrong by force the less frequent to arise. In view of recent events however, and very especially of notorious, high-handed oppression, initiated since the calling of the Peace Conference, and resolutely continued during its sessions in defiance of the public opinion—the conviction—of the world at large, it is premature to assume that such occasions belong wholly to the past. Much less can it be assumed that there will be no further instances of a community believing, conscientiously and entirely, that honor and duty require of it a certain course, which another community with equal integrity may hold to be inconsistent with the rights and obligations of its own members. It is quite possible, especially to one who has recently visited Holland, to conceive that Great Britain and the Boers are alike satisfied of the substantial justice of their respective claims. It is permissible most earnestly to hope that, in disputes between sovereign states, arbitration may find a way to reconcile peace with fidelity to conscience, in the case of both; but if the conviction of conscience remains unshaken, war is better than disobedience,—better than acquiescence in recognized wrong. The great danger of undiscriminating advocacy of arbitration, which threatens even the cause it seeks to maintain, 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. Witness Armenia, and witness Crete. War has been avoided; but what of the national consciences that beheld such iniquity and withheld the hand?

NOTE.—This paper was the means of bringing into the author's hands a letter by the late General Sherman, which forcibly illustrates how easily, in quiet moments, men forget what they have owed, and still owe, to the sword. From the coincidence of its thought with that of the article itself, permission to print it here has been asked and received.

NEW YORK, February 5th, 1890.

DEAR GENERAL MEIGS,—I attended the Centennial Ceremonies in honor of the Supreme Court yesterday, four full hours in the morning at the Metropolitan Opera House, and about the same measure of time at the Grand Banquet of 850 lawyers in the evening at the Lenox Lyceum.

The whole was superb in all its proportions, but it was no place for a soldier. I was bidden to the feast solely and exclusively because in 1858 for a few short months I was an attorney at Leavenworth, Kansas.

The Bar Association of the United States has manifestly cast aside the Sword of Liberty. Justice and Law have ignored the significance of the Great Seal of the United States, with its emblematic olive branch and thirteen arrows, "all proper," and now claim that, without force, Law and moral suasion have carried us through one hundred years of history. Of course, in your study you will read at leisure these speeches, and if in them you discover any sense of obligation to the Soldier element, you will be luckier than I, a listener.

From 1861 to 1865 the Supreme Court was absolutely paralyzed; their decrees and writs were treated with contempt south of the Potomac and Ohio; they could not summon a witness or send a Deputy Marshal. War, and the armed Power of the Nation, alone removed the barrier and restored to the U.S. courts their lawful jurisdiction. Yet, from these honied words of flattery, a stranger would have inferred that at last the lawyers of America had discovered the sovereign panacea of a Government without force, either visible or in reserve.

I was in hopes the Civil War had dispelled this dangerous illusion, but it seems not.

You and I can fold our hands and truly say we have done a man's share, and leave the consequences to younger men who must buffet with the next storms; but a Government which ignores the great truths illuminated in heraldic language over its very Capitol is not yet at the end of its woes.

With profound respect, W.T. SHERMAN.



THE RELATIONS OF THE UNITED STATES TO THEIR NEW DEPENDENCIES



THE RELATIONS OF THE UNITED STATES TO THEIR NEW DEPENDENCIES

In modern times there have been two principal colonizing nations, which not merely have occupied and administered a great transmarine domain, but have impressed upon it their own identity—the totality of their political and racial characteristics—to a degree that is likely to affect permanently the history of the world at large.

These two nations, it is needless to say, are Great Britain and Spain. Russia, their one competitor, differs from them in that her sustained advance over alien regions is as wholly by land as theirs has been by sea. France and Holland have occupied and administered, and continue to occupy and administer, large extents of territory; but it is scarcely necessary to argue that in neither case has the race possessed the land, nor have the national characteristics been transmitted to the dwellers therein as a whole. They have realized, rather, the idea recently formulated by Mr. Benjamin Kidd for the development of tropical regions,—administration from without.

The unexpected appearance of the United States as in legal control of transmarine territory, which as yet they have not had opportunity either to occupy or to administer, coincides in time with the final downfall of Spain's colonial empire, and with a stage in the upward progress of that of Great Britain, so marked, in the contrast it presents to the ruin of Spain, as to compel attention and comparison, with an ultimate purpose to draw therefrom instruction for the United States in the new career forced upon them. The larger colonies of Great Britain are not indeed reaching their majority, for that they did long ago; but the idea formulated in the phrase "imperial federation" shows that they, and the mother country herself, have passed through and left behind the epoch when the accepted thought in both was that they should in the end separate, as sons leave the father's roof, to set up, each for himself. To that transition phase has succeeded the ideal of partnership, more complex indeed and difficult of attainment, but trebly strong if realized. The terms of partnership, the share of each member in the burdens and in the profits, present difficulties which will delay, and may prevent, the consummation; time alone can show. The noticeable factor in this change of mind, however, is the affectionate desire manifested by both parent and children to ensure the desired end. Between nations long alien we have high warrant for saying that interest alone determines action; but between communities of the same blood, and when the ties of dependence on the one part are still recent, sentiments—love and mutual pride—are powerful, provided there be good cause for them. And good cause there is. Since she lost what is now the United States, Great Britain has become benevolent and beneficent to her colonies.

It is not in colonies only, however, that Great Britain has been beneficent to weaker communities; nor are benevolence and beneficence the only qualities she has shown. She has been strong also,—strong in her own interior life, whence all true strength issues; strong in the quality of the men she has sent forth to colonize and to administer; strong to protect by the arm of her power, by land, and, above all, by sea. The advantage of the latter safeguard is common to all her dependencies; but it is among subject and alien races, and not in colonies properly so called, that her terrestrial energy chiefly manifests itself, to control, to protect, and to elevate. Of these functions, admirably discharged in the main, India and Egypt are the conspicuous illustrations. In them she administers from without, and cannot be said to colonize, for the land was already full.

Conspicuous result constitutes example: for imitation, if honorable; for warning, if shameful. Experience is the great teacher, and is at its best when personal; but in the opening of a career such experience is wanting to the individual, and must be sought in the record of other lives, or of other nations. The United States are just about to enter on a task of government—of administration—over regions which, in inhabitants, in climate, and in political tradition, differ essentially from themselves. What are the conditions of success?

We have the two great examples. Great Britain has been, in the main, and increasingly, beneficent and strong. Spain, from the very first, as the records show, was inhumanly oppressive to the inferior races; and, after her own descendants in the colonies became aliens in habit to the home country, she to them also became tyrannically exacting. But, still more, Spain became weaker and weaker as the years passed, the tyranny of her extortions being partially due to exigencies of her political weakness and to her economical declension. Let us, however, not fail to observe that the beneficence, as well as the strength, of Great Britain has been a matter of growth. She was not always what she now is to the alien subject. There is, therefore, no reason to despair, as some do, that the United States, who share her traditions, can attain her success. The task is novel to us; we may make blunders; but, guided by her experience, we should reach the goal more quickly.

And it is to our interest to do so. Enlightened self-interest demands of us to recognize not merely, and in general, the imminence of the great question of the farther East, which is rising so rapidly before us, but also, specifically, the importance to us of a strong and beneficent occupation of adjacent territory. In the domain of color, black and white are contradictory; but it is not so with self-interest and beneficence in the realm of ideas. This paradox is now too generally accepted for insistence, although in the practical life of states the proper order of the two is too often inverted. But, where the relations are those of trustee to ward, as are those of any state which rules over a weaker community not admitted to the full privileges of home citizenship, the first test to which measures must be brought is the good of the ward. It is the first interest of the guardian, for it concerns his honor. Whatever the part of the United States in the growing conflict of European interests around China and the East, we deal there with equals, and may battle like men; but our new possessions, with their yet minor races, are the objects only of solicitude.

Ideas underlie action. If the paramount idea of beneficence becomes a national conviction, we may stumble and err, we may at times sin, or be betrayed by unworthy representatives; but we shall advance unfailingly. I have been asked to contribute to the discussion of this matter something from my own usual point of view; which is, of course, the bearing of sea power upon the security and the progress of nations. Well, one great element of sea power, which, it will be remembered, is commercial before it is military, is that there be territorial bases of action in the regions important to its commerce. That is self-interest. But the history of Spain's decline, and the history of Great Britain's advance,—in the latter of which the stern lesson given by the revolt of the United States is certainly a conspicuous factor, as also, perhaps, the other revolt known as the Indian Mutiny, in 1857,—alike teach us that territories beyond the sea can be securely held only when the advantage and interests of the inhabitants are the primary object of the administration. The inhabitants may not return love for their benefits,—comprehension or gratitude may fail them; but the sense of duty achieved, and the security of the tenure, are the reward of the ruler.

I have understood also that, through the pages of "The Engineering Magazine," I should speak to the men who stand at the head of the great mechanical industries of the country,—the great inventors and the leaders in home development,—and that they would be willing to hear me. But what can I say to them that they do not know? Their own businesses are beyond my scope and comprehension. The opportunities offered by the new acquisitions of the United States to the pursuits with which they are identified they can understand better than I. Neither is it necessary to say that adequate—nay, great—naval development is a condition of success, although such an assertion is more within my competence, as a student of navies and of history. That form of national strength which is called sea power becomes now doubly incumbent. It is needed not merely for national self-assertion, but for beneficence; to ensure to the new subjects of the nation peace and industry, uninterrupted by wars, the great protection against which is preparation—to use that one counsel of Washington's which the anti-imperialist considers to be out of date.

I have, therefore, but one thing which I have not already often said to offer to such men, who affect these great issues through their own aptitudes and through their far-reaching influence upon public opinion, which they touch through many channels. Sea power, as a national interest, commercial and military, rests not upon fleets only, but also upon local territorial bases in distant commercial regions. It rests upon them most securely when they are extensive, and when they have a numerous population bound to the sovereign country by those ties of interest which rest upon the beneficence of the ruler; of which beneficence power to protect is not the least factor. Mere just dealing and protection, however, do not exhaust the demands of beneficence towards alien subjects, still in race-childhood. The firm but judicious remedying of evils, the opportunities for fuller and happier lives, which local industries and local development afford, these also are a part of the duty of the sovereign power. Above all, there must be constant recognition that self-interest and beneficence alike demand that the local welfare be first taken into account. It is possible, of course, that it may at times have to yield to the necessities of the whole body; but it should be first considered.

The task is great; who is sufficient for it? The writer believes firmly in the ultimate power of ideas. Napoleon is reported to have said: "Imagination rules the world." If this be generally so, how much more the true imaginations which are worthy to be called ideas! There is a nobility in man which welcomes the appeal to beneficence. May it find its way quickly now to the heads and hearts of the American people, before less worthy ambitions fill them; and, above all, to the kings of men, in thought and in action, under whose leadership our land makes its giant strides. There is in this no Quixotism. Materially, the interest of the nation is one with its beneficence; but if the ideas get inverted, and the nation sees in its new responsibilities, first of all, markets and profits, with incidental resultant benefit to the natives, it will go wrong. Through such mistakes Great Britain passed. She lost the United States; she suffered bitter anguish in India; but India and Egypt testify to-day to the nobility of her repentance. Spain repented not. The examples are before us. Which shall we follow?

And is there not a stimulus to our imagination, and to high ambition, to read, as we easily may, how the oppressed have been freed, and the degraded lifted, in India and in Egypt, not only by political sagacity and courage, but by administrative capacity directing the great engineering enterprises, which change the face of a land and increase a hundredfold the opportunities for life and happiness? The profession of the writer, and the subject consequently of most of his writing, stands for organized force, which, if duly developed, is the concrete expression of the nation's strength. But while he has never concealed his opinion that the endurance of civilization, during a future far beyond our present foresight, depends ultimately upon due organization of force, he has ever held, and striven to say, that such force is but the means to an end, which end is durable peace and progress, and therefore beneficence. The triumphs and the sufferings of the past months have drawn men's eyes to the necessity for increase of force, not merely to sustain over-sea dominion, but also to ensure timely use, in action, of the latent military and naval strength which the nation possesses. The speedy and inevitable submission of Spain has demonstrated beyond contradiction the primacy of navies in determining the issue of transmarine wars; for after Cavite and Santiago had crippled hopelessly the enemy's navy, the end could not be averted, though it might have been postponed. On the other hand, the numerical inadequacy of the troops sent to Santiago, and their apparently inadequate equipment, have shown the necessity for greater and more skilfully organized land forces. The deficiency of the United States in this respect would have permitted a prolonged resistance by the enemy's army in Cuba,—a course which, though sure ultimately to fail, appealed strongly to military punctilio.

These lessons are so obvious that it is not supposable that the national intelligence, which has determined the American demand for the Philippines, can overlook them; certainly not readers of the character of those to whom this paper is primarily addressed. But when all this has been admitted and provided for, it still remains that force is but the minister, under whose guardianship industry does its work and enjoys peaceably the fruits of its labor. To the mechanical industries of the country, in their multifold forms, our new responsibilities propound the questions, not merely of naval and military protection, but of material development, which, first beneficent to the inhabitants and to the land, gives also, and thereby, those firm foundations of a numerous and contented population, and of ample local resources, upon which alone military power can securely rest.



DISTINGUISHING QUALITIES OF SHIPS OF WAR



DISTINGUISHING QUALITIES OF SHIPS OF WAR

From the descriptions of warships usually published, it would naturally be inferred that the determination of their various qualities concern primarily the naval architect and the marine engineer. This is an error. Warships exist for war. Their powers, being for the operations of war, are military necessities, the appreciation of which, and the consequent qualities demanded, are military questions. Only when these have been decided, upon military reasons, begins the office of the technologist; namely, to produce the qualities prescribed by the sea officer. An eminent British naval architect used to say, "I hold that it is the part of the naval officers to tell us just what qualities—speed, gun-power, armor, coal endurance, etc.—are required in a ship to be built, and then leave it to us to produce the ship." These words distinguish accurately and summarily the functions of the military and the technical experts in the development of navies. It is from the military standpoint, solely, that this article is written.

The military function of a navy is to control the sea, so far as the sea contributes to the maintenance of the war. The sea is the theatre of naval war; it is the field in which the naval campaign is waged; and, like other fields of military operations, it does not resemble a blank sheet of paper, every point of which is equally important with every other point. Like the land, the sea, as a military field, has its important centres, and it is not controlled by spreading your force, whatever its composition, evenly over an entire field of operations, like butter over bread, but by occupying the centres with aggregated forces—fleets or armies—ready to act in masses, in various directions from the centres. This commonplace of warfare is its first principle. It is called concentration, because the forces are not spread out, but drawn together at the centres which for the moment are most important.

Concentrated forces, therefore, are those upon which warfare depends for efficient control, and for efficient energy in the operations of war. They have two chief essential characteristics: force, which is gained by concentration of numbers; and mobility, which is the ability to carry the force rapidly, as well as effectively, from the centre to any point of the outlying field where action, offensive or defensive, becomes necessary. It is essential to keep in mind both these factors, and to study them in their true mutual relations of priority, in order and in importance,—force first, mobility second; for the force does not exist for the mobility, but the mobility for the force, which it subserves. Force without mobility is useful; even though limited, as in coast fortifications; mobility without force is almost useless for the greater purposes of war. Consequently, when it is found, as is frequently the case, that one must yield somewhat, in order to the full development of the other, it is extreme mobility, extreme speed, which must give way to greater force.

This caution may seem superfluous, but it is not so; for in the popular fancy, and in the appreciation of the technical expert, and to some extent also in the official mind as well,—owing to that peculiar fad of the day which lays all stress on machinery,—mobility, speed, is considered the most important characteristic in every kind of ship of war. Let the reader ask himself what is the most pronounced impression left upon his mind by newspaper accounts of a new ship. Is it not that she is expected to make so many knots? Compared with that, what does the average man know of the fighting she can do, when she has reached the end of that preposterously misleading performance called her trial trip? The error is of the nature of a half-truth, the most dangerous of errors; for it is true that, as compared with land forces, the great characteristic of navies is mobility; but it is not true that, between different classes of naval vessels, the swiftest are the most efficient for control of the sea. Force is for that the determining element.

Keeping these relations of force and mobility constantly in mind, there is a further consideration, easily evident, but which needs to be distinctly stated and remembered. When a ship is once built, she cannot be divided. If you have on land concentrated ten thousand men, you can detach any fraction of them you wish for a particular purpose; you can send one man or ten, or a company, or a regiment. You can, in short, make of them any fresh combination you choose. With ships, the least you can send is one ship, and the smallest you have may be more than you wish to spare. From this (as well as for other reasons) arises a necessity for ships of different classes and sizes, which must be determined beforehand. The determination must be reached not merely by a priori reasoning, as though the problem were wholly new; but regard must be had to the experience of the past,—to the teaching of history. History is experience, and as such underlies progress, just as the cognate idea, experiment, underlies scientific advance.

Both history and reasoning, of the character already outlined in these papers, concur in telling us that control of the sea is exercised by vessels individually very large for their day, concentrated into bodies called fleets, stationed at such central points as the emergency demands. Our predecessors of the past two centuries called these vessels "ships of the line of battle," from which probably derives our briefer modern name "battleship," which is appropriate only if the word "battle" be confined to fleet actions.

Among the naval entities, fleets are at once the most powerful and the least mobile; yet they are the only really determining elements in naval war. They are the most powerful, because in them are concentrated many ships, each of which is extremely strong for fighting. They are the least mobile, because many ships, which must keep together, can proceed only at the rate of the slowest among them. It is natural to ask why not build them all equally fast? The reply is, it is possible to do so within very narrow limits, but it is not possible to keep them so. Every deterioration, accident, or adverse incident, which affects one involves all, as regards speed, though not as regards fighting force. In our recent war, when an extensive operation was contemplated, the speed of one battleship reduced the calculated speed of the fleet by one knot,—one sea mile per hour. But, it may be urged, will not your slowest speed be much increased, if every vessel be originally faster? Doubtless; but speed means tonnage,—part of the ship's weight devoted to engines; and weight, if given to speed, is taken from other qualities; and if, to increase speed, you reduce fighting power, you increase something you cannot certainly hold, at the expense of something at once much more important and more constant—less liable to impairment. In the operation just cited the loss of speed was comparatively of little account; but the question of fighting force upon arrival was serious.

An escape from this dilemma is sought by the advocates of very high speed for battleships by increasing the size of the individual ship. If this increase of size is accompanied by increase of speed, but not proportionately of fighting power, the measure, in the opinion of the writer, stands self-condemned. But, granting that force gains equally with speed, there is a further objection already mentioned. The exigencies of war demand at times division, as well as concentration; and, in fact, concentration, properly understood, does not mean keeping ships necessarily within sight of one another, but so disposed that they can unite readily at will,—a consideration which space forbids me more than to state. Now, a big ship cannot be divided into two; or, more pertinently, eight ships cannot be made into ten when you want two bodies of five each. The necessity, or supposed necessity, of maintaining the Flying Squadron at Hampton Roads during the late hostilities exactly illustrates this idea. Under all the conditions, this disposition was not wholly false to concentration, rightly considered; but had the ships been fewer and bigger, it could not have been made.

The net result, therefore, of the argument, supported, as the writer believes, by the testimony of history, is: (1) that a navy which wishes to affect decisively the issues of a maritime war must be composed of heavy ships—"battleships"—possessing a maximum of fighting power, and so similar in type as to facilitate that uniformity of movement and of evolution upon which concentration, once effected, must depend for its maintenance, whether during a passage or in actual engagement; (2) that in such ships, regarded as fighting factors, which is their primary function, size is limited, as to the minimum, by the advisability of concentrating as much fighting power as possible under the hand of a single captain; but, on the other hand, size is also limited, as to its maximum, by the need of retaining ability to subdivide the whole fleet, according to particular exigencies; (3) as regards that particular form of mobility called speed, the writer regards it as distinctly secondary for the battleship; that, to say the least, the present proportions of weight assigned to fighting force should not be sacrificed to obtain increase of speed. Neither should the size of the individual ships be increased merely to obtain rates of speed higher than that already shown by some of our present battleships.

Concerning that particular function of mobility which is called coal endurance,—that is, the ability to steam a certain distance without stopping to recoal,—the convenience to military operations of such a quality is evident; but it is obvious that it cannot, with the fuels now available, be possessed beyond very narrow limits. A battleship that can steam the greatest distance that separates two fortified coaling stations of her nation, with a reasonable margin above that to meet emergencies, will evidently be able to remain for a long while with the fleet, when this is concentrated to remain under reduced steam at a particular point. The recoaling of ships is a difficulty which must be met by improving the methods of that operation, not by sacrificing the military considerations which should control the size and other qualities of the vessel.

It is the belief of the writer that ten thousand tons represent very nearly the minimum, and twelve thousand the maximum, of size for the battleship. Our present battleships fall within those limits, and, although less uniform in their qualities than might be desired, they give perfectly satisfactory indications that the requisite qualities can all be had without increase of size. When more is wanted—and we should always be striving for perfection—it should be sought in the improvement of processes, and not in the adding of ton to ton, like a man running up a bill. It is the difference between economy and extravagance. Into battleships such as these should go the greater proportion of the tonnage a nation gives to its navy. Ships so designed may reach the ground of action later than those which have more speed; but when they arrive, the enemy, if of weaker fighting power, must go, and what then has been the good of their speed? War is won by holding on, or driving off; not by successful running away.

An important consideration in determining the necessary composition of a navy is the subdivision of fighting power into offensive and defensive. The latter is represented chiefly by armor, the former by guns; although other factors contribute to both. The relative importance of the two depends upon no mere opinion of the writer, but upon a consensus of authority practically unanimous, and which, therefore, demands no argument, but simple statement. Offensive action—not defensive—determines the issues of war. "The best defence against the enemy's fire is a rapid fire from our own guns," was a pithy phrase of our Admiral Farragut; and in no mere punning sense it may be added that it is for this reason that the rapid-fire gun of the present day made such big strides in professional favor, the instant it was brought to the test of battle. The rapid-fire gun is smaller than the great cannon mounted in the turrets; but, while the latter have their proper usefulness, the immensely larger number of projectiles fired in a given time, and valid against the target presented to them, makes the rapid-fire battery a much stronger weapon, offensively, than the slow-acting giants. Here is the great defect of the monitor, properly so-called; that is, the low-freeboard monitor. Defensively, the monitor is very strong; offensively, judged by present-day standards, it is weak, possessing the heavy cannon, but deficient in rapid fire. Consequently, its usefulness is limited chiefly to work against fortifications,—a target exceptional in resistance, and rarely a proper object for naval attack. It is the opinion of the writer that no more monitors should be built, except as accessory to the defence of those harbors where submarine mines cannot be depended upon,—as at San Francisco and Puget Sound. It should be added that the monitor at sea rolls twice as rapidly as the battleship, which injuriously affects accuracy of aim; that is, offensive power.

The general principle of the decisive superiority of offensive power over defensive is applicable throughout,—to the operations of a war, to the design of a battleship, to the scheme of building a whole navy. It is to the erroneous belief in mere defence that we owe much of the faith in the monitor, and some of the insistence upon armor; while the cry that went up for local naval defence along our coast, when war threatened in the spring of 1898, showed an ignorance of the first principles of warfare, which, if not resisted, would have left us impotent even before Spain.

Brief mention only can be given to the other classes of vessels needed by the navy. Concerning them, one general remark must be made. They are subsidiary to the fighting fleet, and represent rather that subdivision of a whole navy which is opposed to the idea of concentration, upon which the battleship rests. As already noted, a built ship cannot be divided; therefore, battleships must be supplemented by weaker or smaller vessels, to perform numerous detached and often petty services.

From this characteristic of detachment—often singly—important engagements will rarely be fought by these smaller vessels. Therefore, in them fighting power declines in relative importance, and speed, to perform their missions, increases in proportion. As their essential use is not to remain at the centres, but to move about, they are called generically cruisers, from the French word croiser,—to cross. They cross back and forth, they rove the sea,—despatch boats, lookouts, scouts, or raiders. They are the cavalry of the fleet.

Prominent among these in modern navies is the so-called "armored" cruiser,—a type to which belonged the four principal vessels of Cervera's squadron. The name itself is interesting, as indicating the inveterate tendency of mankind to straddle,—the reluctance to choose one of two opposite things, and frankly to give up the other. Armor, being an element of fighting power, belongs properly to the battleship rather than the cruiser; and in the latter, if the weight spent in armor detracts from speed or coal endurance, it contravenes the leading idea of a cruiser,—mobility. But, while the name is incongruous, the type has its place as an armored vessel, though not as a cruiser. In our service at least—where it is represented by the New York and the Brooklyn—it is practically a second-class battleship, in which weight taken from fighting power is given to enginery and to speed. The advantage arising from this is purely tactical; that is, it comes into play only when in touch with the enemy. The armored cruiser belongs with the fleet, therefore her superior speed does not tell in making passages; but when fleets are in presence, or in the relative conditions of chase and pursuit, there is an advantage in being able to throw to the front, rear, or flanks, vessels which on a pinch can either fight or fly. This, be it noted in passing, is no new thing, but as old as naval history. A squadron of fast battleships of the day, thrown to the front of a fleet to harass the flanks of the enemy, is a commonplace of naval tactics, alike of galleys and sailing ships. Off Santiago, the New York and Brooklyn were, by Admiral Sampson, placed on the flanks of his squadron. Whichever way Cervera turned he would find a vessel of speed and fighting power equal to those of his own ships. Though unequal in fighting power to a first-class battleship, many circumstances may arise which would justify the armored cruiser in engaging one, provided her own fleet was in supporting distance. From their hybrid type, and from the exceptional circumstances under which they can be used, the tonnage put into these vessels should be but a small percentage of that given to the battle fleet, to which, and not to the cruisers, they really belong.

Concerning all other cruisers, mobility, represented in speed and coal endurance, is the chief requisite. Notwithstanding occasional aberrations in the past, the development of the cruiser classes may be safely entrusted by the public to the technical experts; provided it be left to naval officers, military men, to say what qualities should predominate. Moreover, as such vessels generally act singly, it is of less importance that they vary much in type, and the need of subdivision carries with it that of numerous sizes; but battleships, including armored cruisers, are meant to work together, and insistence should be made upon homogeneousness, especially in manoeuvring qualities.

To sum up: the attention of the public should be centred upon the armored fleet, to which the bulk of expenditure should be devoted; the monitor, pure and simple,—save for very exceptional uses,—should be eliminated; the development of the true cruiser,—not armored,—both in type and in numbers, does not require great interest of the public; much of the duties of this class, also, can be discharged fairly well by purchased vessels, although such will never have the proportion of fighting power which every type of ship of war should possess. As a rule, it is undesirable that a military force, land or sea, should have to retreat before one of equal size, as auxiliary cruisers often would.



CURRENT FALLACIES UPON NAVAL SUBJECTS



CURRENT FALLACIES UPON NAVAL SUBJECTS

All matters connected with the sea tend to have, in a greater or less degree, a distinctly specialized character, due to the unfamiliarity which the sea, as a scene of action, has for the mass of mankind. Nothing is more trite than the remark continually made to naval officers, that life at sea must give them a great deal of leisure for reading and other forms of personal culture. Without going so far as to say that there is no more leisure in a naval officer's life than in some other pursuits—social engagements, for instance, are largely eliminated when at sea—there is very much less than persons imagine; and what there is is broken up by numerous petty duties and incidents, of which people living on shore have no conception, because they have no experience. It is evident that the remark proceeds in most cases from the speaker's own consciousness of the unoccupied monotony of an ocean passage, in which, unless exceptionally observant, he has not even detected the many small but essential functions discharged by the officers of the ship, whom he sees moving about, but the aim of whose movements he does not understand. The passenger, as regards the economy of the vessel, is passive; he fails to comprehend, often even to perceive, the intense functional activity of brain and body which goes on around him—the real life of the organism.

In the progress of the world, nautical matters of every kind are to most men what the transactions of a single ship are to the passenger. They receive impressions, which they mistake for opinions—a most common form of error. These impressions are repeated from mouth to mouth, and having the common note of superficial observation, they are found to possess a certain resemblance. So they serve mutually to fortify one another, and to constitute a quasi public opinion. The repetition and stereotyping of impressions are greatly forwarded by the system of organized gossip which we call the press.

It is in consequence of this, quite as much as of the extravagances in a certain far from reputable form of journalism, that the power of the press, great as it unquestionably still is, is not what it should be. It intensifies the feeling of its own constituents, who usually take the paper because they agree with it; but if candid representation of all sides constitutes a fair attempt to instruct the public, no man expects a matter to be fairly put forward. So far does this go, in the experience of the present writer, that one of the most reputable journals in the country, in order to establish a certain extreme position, quoted his opinion in one paragraph, while omitting to give the carefully guarded qualification expressed in the very succeeding paragraph; whereby was conveyed, by implication, the endorsement of the extreme opinion advocated, which the writer certainly never held.

Direct misrepresentation, however, whether by commission or by omission, careless or wilful, is probably less harmful than the indirect injury produced by continual repetition of unintentional misconceptions. The former occurs generally in the case of living, present-moment questions; it reaches chiefly those already convinced; and it has its counteraction in the arguments of the other party, which are read by the appropriate constituency. The real work of those questions of the day goes on behind the scenes; and the press affects them, not because of its intrinsic power, but only in so far as it is thought to represent the trend of thought in a body of voters. On subjects of less immediate moment, as military and naval matters are—except when war looms near, and preparation is too late—men's brains, already full enough of pressing cares, refuse to work, and submit passively to impressions, as the eye, without conscious action, takes note of and records external incidents. Unfortunately these impressions, uncorrected by reflection, exaggerated in narration, and intensified by the repetition of a number of writers, come to constitute a body of public belief, not strictly rational in its birth or subsequent growth, but as impassive in its resistance to argument as it was innocent of mental process during its formation.

The intention of the present paper is to meet, and as far as possible to remove, some such current errors of the day on naval matters—popular misconceptions, continually encountered in conversation and in the newspapers.

Accepting the existence of the navy, and the necessity for its continuance—for some starting-point must be assumed—the errors to be touched upon are:

1. That the United States needs a navy "for defence only."

2. That a navy "for defence only" means for the immediate defence of our seaports and coast-line; an allowance also being made for scattered cruisers to prey upon an enemy's commerce.

3. That if we go beyond this, by acquiring any territory overseas, either by negotiation or conquest, we step at once to the need of having a navy larger than the largest, which is that of Great Britain, now the largest in the world.

4. That the difficulty of doing this, and the expense involved, are the greater because of the rapid advances in naval improvement, which it is gravely said make a ship obsolete in a very few years; or, to use a very favorite hyperbole, she becomes obsolete before she can be launched. The assertion of the rapid obsolescence of ships of war will be dwelt upon, in the hopes of contravening it.

5. After this paper had been written, the calamity to the United States ship Maine, in the harbor of Havana, elicited, from the mourning and consternation of the country, the evident tokens of other unreasoning apprehensions—springing from imperfect knowledge and vague impressions—which at least should be noticed cursorily, and if possible appeased.

First, the view that the United States should plan its navy—in numbers and in sizes of ships—for defence only, rests upon a confusion of ideas—a political idea and a military idea—under the one term of "defence." Politically, it has always been assumed in the United States, and very properly, that our policy should never be wantonly aggressive; that we should never seek our own advantage, however evident, by an unjust pressure upon another nation, much less by open war. This, it will be seen, is a political idea, one which serves for the guidance of the people and of the statesmen of the country in determining—not how war is to be carried on, which is a military question, but—under what circumstances war is permissible, or unjust. This is a question of civil policy, pure and simple, and by no means a military question. As a nation, we have always vehemently avowed that we will, and do, act justly; in practice, like other states, and like mankind generally, when we have wanted anything very badly, we have—at least at times—managed to see that it was just that we should have it. In the matter of general policy our hands are by no means clean from aggression. General Grant, after retiring from public life, maintained that the war with Mexico was an unjust war; a stigma which, if true, stains our possession of California and much other territory. The acquisition of Louisiana was as great an outrage upon the technical rights of Spain as the acquisition of Hawaii would be upon the technical rights of the fast-disappearing aborigines; and there can be little doubt that, although we did not go to war with Spain to get Florida, we made things so uncomfortable for her that she was practically forced at last to get out. It does not follow necessarily that any of these actions were wrong, even if we consider that the so-called legal rights of Mexico and Spain were set aside by the strong hand; for law is simply an invention of mankind to secure justice, and when justice, the natural rights of the greater number, is prevented by the legal, not the natural, rights of a few, the latter may be set aside, as it is at every election, where large minorities of people are forced to submit to what they consider grievous wrong. The danger incurred by overleaping law to secure what is right may be freely admitted; but no great responsibility, such as the use of power always is, can be exercised at all without some danger of abuse. However, be that as it may, there can be no question that in times past we have aggressed upon the legal rights of other states; and in the annexation of Louisiana we infringed the letter of our own Constitution. We broke the law in order to reach an end eminently beneficial to the majority of those concerned. Nevertheless, while thus aggressive on occasion, warring for offence and not for defence only, it is distinctly a good thing that we hold up the ideal, and persuade ourselves that we cherish it; that we prepare means of war only for defence. It is better honestly to profess a high standard, even if we fall from it at times, than wilfully to adopt a lower ideal of conduct.

The phrase "War for defence only" conveys, therefore, a political idea, and, as such, a proper and noble idea. Unfortunately, in our country, where almost all activities fall under two chief heads—politics and business—politics, the less sensitively organized but more forceful of the two, intrudes everywhere and masters everything. We dread standing armies. Why? Because standing armies, being organized masses of men, trained to obey capable leaders, may overcome the resistance of a people which is far greater in numbers, but unorganized. What are our politics now but organized masses of men, habituated to obey their leaders, among whom to change their vote is stigmatized as the treason of an Arnold, and between which the popular will is driven helplessly from side to side, like a shuttlecock between two battledores? Politics cleans our streets, regulates our education, and so on; it is not to be wondered at that it intrudes into the military sphere, with confidence all the greater because it is there especially ignorant. Let there be no misunderstanding, however. It is perfectly right that the policy of the country should dictate the character and strength of the military establishment; the evil is when policy is controlled by ignorance, summed up in a mistaken but captivating catchword—"for defence only."

Among all masters of military art—including therein naval art—it is a thoroughly accepted principle that mere defensive war means military ruin, and therefore national disaster. It is vain to maintain a military or naval force whose power is not equal to assuming the offensive soon or late; which cannot, first or last, go out, assail the enemy, and hurt him in his vital interests. A navy for defence only, in the political sense, means a navy that will only be used in case we are forced into war; a navy for defence only, in the military sense, means a navy that can only await attack and defend its own, leaving the enemy at ease as regards his own interests, and at liberty to choose his own time and manner of fighting.

It is to be observed also that the most beneficial use of a military force is not to wage war, however successfully, but to prevent war, with all its suffering, expense, and complication of embarrassments. Of course, therefore, a navy for defence only, from which an enemy need fear no harm, is of small account in diplomatic relations, for it is nearly useless as a deterrent from war. Whatever there may be in our conditions otherwise to prevent states from attacking us, a navy "for defence only" will not add to them. For mere harbor defence, fortifications are decisively superior to ships, except where peculiar local conditions are found. All our greatest cities on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts can be locally defended better by forts than by ships; but if, instead of a navy "for defence only," there be one so large that the enemy must send a great many ships across the Atlantic, if he sends any, then the question whether he can spare so great a number is very serious, considering the ever-critical condition of European politics. Suppose, for instance, we could put twenty battleships in commission for war in thirty days, and that we had threatening trouble with either Germany, France, Great Britain, or Russia. There is not one of these, except Great Britain, that could afford to send over here twenty-five battleships, which would be the very fewest needed, seeing the distance of their operations from home; while Great Britain, relying wholly on her navy for the integrity of her empire, equally cannot afford the hostility of a nation having twenty battleships, and with whom her points of difference are as inconsequential to her as they are with us.

It should be remembered, too, that any war which may arise with the naval nations of Europe—or with Japan, which will soon rank with them—will not be with reference to our own territories, but to our external relations. In the Monroe doctrine, as now understood and viewed in the light of the Venezuela incident, with the utterances then made by our statesmen of all parties, we have on hand one of the biggest contracts any modern state has undertaken. Nor may we anticipate from other nations the easy acquiescence of Great Britain. The way the latter sticks by Canada should warn us that we prevailed in Venezuela because the matter to her was not worth war. Great Britain is gorged with land. Her statesmen are weary of looking after it, and of the persistence with which one advance compels another. It is not so with Germany and France. The latter is traditionally our friend, however, and her ambitions, even when she held Canada, have ever pointed east rather than west. But how about Germany? It is the fashion here to proclaim the Emperor a fool, for his shibboleth is imperialistic and not republican; but if he be, it is with the folly of the age on the European Continent—the hunger for ships, colonies, and commerce, after which the great Napoleon so hankered, and upon which the prosperity of Great Britain has been built.

Ships, colonies, commerce, mean to a European nation of to-day just what our vast, half-improved, heavily tariffed territory means to us. They mean to those nations room to expand, land wherewith to portion off the sons and daughters that cannot find living space at home, widespread political and international influence, through blood affiliation with prosperous colonies, the power of which, in the sentiment of brotherhood, received such illustration in the Queen's Jubilee—one of the most majestic sights of the ages; for no Roman triumph ever equalled for variety of interest the Jubilee, in which not victorious force, but love, the all-powerful, was the tie that knit the diversities of the great pageant into one coherent, living whole. What political power is stable save that which holds men's hearts? And what holds men's hearts like blood-relationship, permitted free course and given occasional manifestation and exchange? German colonies, like unto those of Great Britain—such is the foolish day-dream of the German Emperor, if folly it be; but if he be a fool, he knows at least that reciprocal advantage, reciprocal interests, promote the exchange of kindly offices, by which has been kept alive the love between Englishmen at home and Englishmen in the colonies. He knows, also, that such advantages derive from power, from force—not force exerted necessarily but force possessed—and that force, power, depends not upon fleets and armies only, but upon positions also—war being, as Napoleon used to say, "a business of positions"—one of those pregnant phrases of the great captain upon which a man may meditate many hours without exhausting it. A state that aims at maritime power and at colonial empire, as Germany unquestionably—nay, avowedly—now does, needs not only large and widely dispersed colonies; she further needs influence upon those routes of commerce which connect together countries and colonies, and for that she wants possession of minor points, whose value is rather military than commercial, but which essentially affect the control of the sea and of the communications.

Now the secrets of the Emperor and of his more confidential advisers are not all worn upon the sleeve, as might be inferred from the audacity and apparent imprudence of occasional utterances. It is known, however, not only from his words, which might be discounted, but from his acts, that he wants a big navy, that he has meddled in South Africa, and that he has on a slight pretext, but not, it may well be believed, in any frivolous spirit, seized Kiao-chou, in China. What all this means to himself can be only a matter of inference. The present writer, after inquiring in quarters likely to be well informed, has been able to obtain nothing more positive than deductions, reasonably made, by men whose business it is to watch current events in Europe; but the idea has long been forming in the minds of political thinkers, looking not only upon the moves of the political chess-board as they superficially appear in each day's news, and are dictated largely by momentary emergencies, but seeking also to detect the purpose and temperament of the players—be they men in power or national tendencies—that the German Emperor is but continuing and expanding a scheme of policy inherited from his predecessors in the government of the state. Nay, more; it is thought that this policy represents a tendency and a need of the German people itself, in the movement towards national unity between its racial constituents, in which so great an advance has already been accomplished in the last thirty years. Elements long estranged, but of the same blood, can in no way more surely attain to community of interest and of view than by the development of an external policy, of which the benefits and the pride may be common to all. True unity requires some common object, around which diverse interests may cling and crystallize. Nations, like families, need to look outside themselves, if they would escape, on the one hand, narrow self-satisfaction, or, on the other, pitiful internal dissensions. The far-reaching external activities fostered in Great Britain by her insular position have not only intensified patriotism, but have given also a certain nobility of breadth to her statesmanship up to the middle of this century.

Why, then, should not Germany, whose political unity was effected near two centuries after that of Great Britain, do wisely in imitating a policy whereby the older state has become an empire, that still travels onward to a further and greater unity, which, if realized, shall embrace in one fold remote quarters of the world? Where is the folly of the one conception or of the other? The folly, if it prove such, has as yet no demonstrable existence, save in the imaginations of a portion of the people of the United States, who, clinging to certain maxims of a century ago—when they were quite applicable—or violently opposed to any active interest in matters outside our family of States, find that those who differ from themselves are, if Americans, jingoes, and if foreigners, like the present Emperor William and Mr. Chamberlain, fools. The virtues and the powers of the British and German peoples may prove unequal to their ambitions—time alone can show; but it is a noble aim in their rulers to seek to extend their influence, to establish their positions, and to knit them together, in such wise that as races they may play a mighty part in the world's history. The ambition is noble, even if it fail; if it succeed, our posterity may take a different view of its folly, and of our own wisdom in this generation.

For there are at least two steps, in other directions than those as yet taken, by which the Emperor, when he feels strong enough at sea—he is yet scarcely in middle life—might greatly and suddenly increase the maritime empire of Germany, using means which are by no means unprecedented, historically, but which would certainly arouse vehement wrath in the United States, and subject to a severe test our maxim of a navy for defence only. There is a large and growing German colony in southern Brazil, and I am credibly informed that there is a distinct effort to divert thither, by means direct and indirect, a considerable part of the emigration which now comes to the United States, and therefore is lost politically to Germany—for she has, of course, no prospect of colonization here. The inference is that the Emperor hopes at a future day, for which he is young enough to wait, to find in southern Brazil a strong German population, which in due time may seek to detach itself from the Brazilian Republic, as Texas once detached itself from Mexico; and which may then seek political union with Germany, as Texas sought political union with the United States, to obtain support against her former owners and masters. Without advancing any particular opinion as to the advisable geographical limits of the Monroe doctrine, we may be pretty sure that the American people would wordily resent an act which in our press would be called "the aggression of a European military monarchy upon the political or territorial rights of an American republic." This also could be accompanied with the liberal denunciation of William II. which now ornaments our editorial columns; but hard words break no bones, and the practical question would remain, "What are you going to do about it?" with a navy "for defence only." If you cannot offend Germany, in the military sense of "offend"—that is, if you cannot seek her out and hurt her—how are you going to control her? In contemplation of the future contingencies of our national policy, let us contrast our own projected naval force with that now recommended to the German Reichstag by the Budget Committee, despite the many prophecies that the Emperor could not obtain his desired navy. "The Budget Committee of the Reichstag to-day adopted, in accordance with the government proposals, parts of the naval bill, fixing the number of ships to be held in readiness for service as follows: 1 flagship, 18 battleships, 12 large cruisers, 30 small cruisers, 8 coast-defence ironclads, and 13 gunboats, besides torpedo-boats, schoolships, and small gunboats."[5] That these numbers were fixed with reference to the United States is indeed improbable; but the United States should take note.

A second means of expanding Germany as a colonial power would be to induce the Dutch—who are the Germans of the lower Rhine and the North Sea—to seek union with the German Empire, the empire of the Germans of the upper Rhine, of the Elbe, and of the Baltic. This, it may be said, would be far less difficult in consummation than the scheme last suggested; for in Brazil, as in the United States and elsewhere, the German emigrant tends to identify himself with the institutions he finds around him, and shows little disposition to political independence—a fact which emphasizes the necessity of strictly German colonies, if the race, outside of Europe, is not to undergo political absorption. The difficulties or the advantages which the annexation of Holland might involve, as regards the political balance of power in Europe, and the vast Asiatic colonies of the Dutch—Sumatra, Java, New Guinea, etc.—are a consideration outside the present scope of American policy; but the transaction would involve one little incident as to which, unlike southern Brazil, a decided opinion may be expressed, and that incident would be the transference of the island of Curacao, in the West Indies, to Germany. If Curacao and its political tenure do not fall within the purview of the Monroe doctrine, the Monroe doctrine has no existence; for the island, though small, has a wellnigh impregnable harbor, and lies close beside the routes to the Central American Isthmus, which is to us what Egypt and Suez are to England. But what objection can we urge, or what can we do, with a navy "for defence only," in the military sense of the word "defence"?

The way out of this confusion of thought, the logical method of reconciling the political principle of non-aggression with a naval power capable of taking the offensive, if necessary, is to recognize, and to say, that defence means not merely defence of our territory, but defence of our just national interests, whatever they be and wherever they are. For example, the exclusion of direct European political control from the Isthmus of Panama is as really a matter of national defence as is the protection of New York Harbor. Take this as the political meaning of the phrase "a navy for defence only," and naval men, I think, must admit that it is no longer inapplicable as a military phrase, but expresses adequately the naval needs of the nation. But no military student can consider efficient a force so limited, in quantity or in quality, that it must await attack before it can act.

Now admitting this view as to the scope of the word "defence," what is the best method of defending your interests when you know that another intends to attack them? Is it to busy yourself with precautions here, and precautions there, in every direction, to head him off when he comes? Or is it to take the simpler means of so preparing that you have the power to hurt him, and to make him afraid that, if he moves, he will be the worse hurt of the two? In life generally a man who means mischief is kept in check best by fear of being hurt; if he has no more to dread than failure to do harm, no reason to apprehend receiving harm, he will make his attempt. But while this is probably true of life in general, it is notably true of warfare. The state which in war relies simply upon defending itself, instead of upon hurting the enemy, is bound to incur disaster, and for the very simple reason that the party which proposes to strike a blow has but one thing to do; whereas he who proposes only to ward off blows has a dozen things, for he cannot know upon which interest, of a dozen that he may have, the coming blow may fall. For this reason, again, a "navy for defence only" is a wholly misleading phrase, unless defence be construed to include all national interests, and not only the national territory; and further, unless it be understood that the best defence of one's own interests is power to injure those of the enemy.

In the summary of points to be dealt with has been included the opinion that offensive action by a navy may be limited to merely preying upon the enemy's commerce—that being considered not only a real injury, but one great enough to bring him to peace. Concerning this, it will suffice here to say that national maritime commerce does not consist in a number of ships sprinkled, as by a pepper-pot, over the surface of the ocean. Rightly viewed, it constitutes a great system, with the strength and weakness of such. Its strength is that possessed by all organized power, namely, that it can undergo a good deal of local injury, such as scattered cruisers may inflict, causing inconvenience and suffering, without receiving vital harm. A strong man cannot be made to quit his work by sticking pins in him, or by bruising his shins or blacking his eyes; he must be hit in a vital part, or have a bone broken, to be laid up. The weaknesses of commerce—the fatally vulnerable parts of its system—are the commercial routes over which ships pass. They are the bones, the skeleton, the framework of the organism. Hold them, break them, and commerce falls with a crash, even though no ship is taken, but all locked up in safe ports. But to effect this is not the work of dispersed cruisers picking up ships here and there, as birds pick up crumbs, but of vessels massed into powerful fleets, holding the sea, or at the least making the highways too dangerous for use. A navy so planned is for defence indeed, in the true sense that the best defence is to crush your enemy by depriving him of the use of the sea.

We now come to the assertion that if the United States takes to itself interests beyond the sea—of which Hawaii is an instance—it not only adds to its liabilities, which is true, but incurs an unnecessary exposure, to guard against which we need no less than the greatest navy in the world.

It might be retorted that, willy-nilly, we already, by general national consent, have accepted numerous external interests—embraced under the Monroe doctrine; and that, as regards Hawaii, many even who reject annexation admit that our interests will not tolerate any other nation taking those islands. But how shall we enforce even that limited amount of interest if any other power—Great Britain, Germany, or Japan—decide to take, and the islanders acquiesce? In such cases we should even be worse off, militarily, than with annexation completed. Let us, however, put aside this argument—of the many already existing external interests—and combat this allegation, that an immense navy would be needed, by recurring to the true military conception of defence already developed. The subject will thus tend to unity of treatment, centring round that word "defence." Effective defence does not consist primarily in power to protect, but in power to injure. A man's defence against a snake, if cornered—if he must have to do with it—is not to protect himself, but to kill the snake. If a snake got into the room, as often happens in India, the position should not be estimated by ability to get out of the room one's self, but by power to get rid of the snake. In fact, a very interesting illustration of the true theory of defence is found in a casual remark in a natural history about snakes—that comparatively few are dangerous to man, but that the whole family is protected by the fear those few inspire. If attacked by a dog, safety is not sought chiefly in the means of warding him off, but by showing him the means possessed of hurting him, as by picking up a stone; and with a man, where an appeal lies to the intelligence, the argument from power to injure is peculiarly strong. If a burglar, thinking to enter a room, knows that he may—or will—kill the occupant, but that the latter may break his leg, he will not enter. The game would not be worth the candle.

Apply this thought now to the United States and its naval needs. As Great Britain is by very far the greatest naval power, let us take her to be the supposed enemy. If we possessed the Hawaiian Islands, and war unhappily broke out with Great Britain, she could now, if she desired, take them without trouble, so far as our navy is concerned; so could France; so possibly, five years hence, could Japan. That is, under our present conditions of naval weakness, either France or Great Britain could spare ships enough to overcome our force, without fatally crippling her European fleet; whereas, were our navy half the size of the British, she could not afford to send half her fleet so far away from home; nor, if we had half ours in the Pacific and half in the Atlantic, could she afford to send one-third or one-fourth of her entire navy so far from her greater interests, independent of the fact that, even if victorious, it would be very badly used before our force was defeated. Hawaii is not worth that to Great Britain; whereas it is of so much consequence to us that, even if lost, it would probably be returned at a peace, as Martinique and Guadeloupe invariably have been to France. Great Britain would not find its value equivalent to our resentment at her holding it. Now the argument as to the British fleet is still stronger as to France, for she is as distant as Great Britain and has a smaller navy. The argument is different as regards Japan, for she is nearer by far than they, only half as far again as we, and that power has recently given us an intimation which, if we disregard, we do so in face of the facts. Her remonstrance about the annexation of Hawaii, however far it went, gave us fair warning that a great naval state was about to come into being in the Pacific, prepared to watch, and perhaps to contest, our action in what we thought our interests demanded. From that instant the navy of Japan becomes a standard, showing, whether we annex the islands or not, a minimum beneath which our Pacific fleet cannot be allowed to fall, without becoming a "navy for defence only," in the very worst sense.

This brief train of reasoning will suggest why it is not necessary to have a navy equal to the greatest, in order to insure that sense of fear which deters a rival from war, or handicaps his action in war. The biggest navy that ever existed cannot all be sent on one mission, in any probable state of the political world. A much smaller force, favorably placed, produces an effect far beyond its proportionate numbers; for, to quote again Napoleon's phrase, "War is a business of positions." This idea is by no means new, even to unprofessional men; on the contrary, it is so old that it is deplorable to see such fatuous arguments as the necessity of equalling Great Britain's navy adduced against any scheme of external policy. The annexation of Hawaii, to recur to that, may be bad policy for many reasons, of which I am no good judge; but, as a naval student, I hesitate not to say that, while annexation may entail a bigger navy than is demanded for the mere exclusion of other states from the islands—though I personally do not think so—it is absurd to say that we should need a navy equal to that of Great Britain. In 1794 Gouverneur Morris wrote that if the United States had twenty ships of the line in commission, no other state would provoke her enmity. At that time Great Britain's navy was relatively more powerful than it is now, while she and France were rivalling each other in testing the capacity of our country to stand kicking; but Morris's estimate was perfectly correct, and shows how readily a sagacious layman can understand a military question, if only he will put his mind to it, and not merely echo the press. Great Britain then could not—and much more France could not—afford to have twenty ships of the line operating against her interests on the other side of the Atlantic. They could not afford it in actual war; they could not afford it even in peace, because not only might war arise at any time, but it would be much more likely to happen if either party provoked the United States to hostility. The mere menace of such a force, its mere existence, would have insured decent treatment without war; and Morris, who was an able financier, conjectured that to support a navy of such size for twenty years would cost the public treasury less than five years of war would,—not to mention the private losses of individuals in war.

All policy that involves external action is sought to be discredited by this assertion, that it entails the expense of a navy equal to the greatest now existing on the sea, no heed being given to the fact that we already have assumed such external responsibilities, if any weight is to be attached to the evident existence of a strong popular feeling in favor of the Monroe doctrine, or to Presidential or Congressional utterances in the Venezuela business, or in that of Hawaii. The assertion is as old as the century; as is also the complementary ignorance of the real influence of an inferior military or naval force in contemporary policy, when such force either is favored by position, or can incline decisively, to one side or the other, the scales in a doubtful balance. To such misapprehensions we owed, in the early part of this century, the impressment of hundreds of American seamen, and the despotic control of our commerce by foreign governments; to this, the blockading of our coasts, the harrying of the shores of Chesapeake Bay, the burning of Washington, and a host of less remembered attendant evils. All these things might have been prevented by the timely maintenance of a navy of tolerable strength, deterring the warring powers from wanton outrage.

In the present day the argument that none but the greatest navy is of any avail, and that such is too expensive for us to contemplate—as it probably is—is re-enforced by the common statement that the ship built to-day becomes obsolete in an extremely short time, the period stated being generally a rhetorical figure rather than an exact estimate. The word "obsolete" itself is used here vaguely. Strictly, it means no more than "gone out of use;" but it is understood, correctly, I think, to mean "become useless." A lady's bonnet may become obsolete, being gone out of use because no longer in fashion, though it may still be an adequate head-covering; but an obsolete ship of war can only be one that is put out of use because it is useless. A ship momentarily out of use, because not needed, is no more obsolete than a hat hung up when the owner comes in. When a ship is called obsolete, therefore, it is meant that she is out of use for the same reason that many old English words are—because they are no longer good for their purpose; their meaning being lost to mankind in general, they no longer serve for the exchange of thought.

In this sense the obsolescence of modern ships of war is just one of those half-truths which, as Tennyson has it, are ever the worst of lies; it is harder to meet and fight outright than an unqualified untruth. It is true that improvement is continually going on in the various parts of the complex mechanism which constitutes a modern ship of war; although it is also true that many changes are made which are not improvements, and that reversion to an earlier type, the abandonment of a once fancied improvement, is no unprecedented incident in recent naval architecture and naval ordnance. The revulsion from the monitor, the turreted ship pure and simple, to the broadside battery analogous to that carried by the old ships of Farragut and Nelson, is one of the most singular and interesting changes in men's thoughts that the writer has met, either in his experience or in his professional reading. The day can be recalled when the broadside battleship was considered as dead as Cock-Robin—her knell was rung, and herself buried without honors; yet, not only has she revived, but I imagine that I should have a very respectable following among naval officers now in believing, as I do, that the broadside guns, and not those in the turrets, are the primary battery of the ship—primary, I mean, in fighting value. Whatever the worth of this opinion,—which is immaterial to the present contention,—a change so radical as from broadside battery to turreted ships, and from the latter back to broadside, though without entirely giving up turrets, should cause some reasonable hesitancy in imputing obsoleteness to any armored steamship. The present battleship reproduces, in essential principles, the ships that preceded the epoch-making monitor—the pivot guns of the earlier vessels being represented by the present turrets, and their broadsides by the present broadside. The prevalence of the monitor type was an interlude, powerfully affecting the development of navies, but making nothing obsolete. It did not effect a revolution, but a modification—much as homoeopathy did in the "regular practice."

There is, of course, a line on one side of which the term "obsolete" applies, but it may be said that no ship is obsolete for which fighting-work can be found, with a tolerable chance—a fighting chance—of her being successful; because, though unequal to this or that position of exposure, she, by occupying an inferior one, releases a better ship. And here again we must guard ourselves from thinking that inferior force—inferior in number or inferior in quality—has no chance against a superior. The idea is simply another phase of "a navy equal to the greatest," another military heresy. A ship under the guns of one thrice her force, from which her speed cannot carry her, is doubtless a lost ship. She may be called even obsolete, though she be the last product of naval science, just from a dock-yard. Before such extreme conditions are reached, however, by a ship or a fleet, many other factors than merely relative force come into play; primarily, man, with all that his personality implies—skill, courage, discipline,—after that, chance, opportunity, accidents of time, accidents of place, accidents of ground,—the whole unforeseeable chapter of incidents which go to form military history. A military situation is made up of many factors, and before a ship can be called obsolete, useless to the great general result, it must be determined that she can contribute no more than zero to either side of the equation—or of the inequality. From the time she left the hands of the designers, a unit of maximum value, throughout the period of her gradual declension, many years will elapse during which a ship once first-rate will be an object of consideration to friend and foe. She will wear out like a garment, but she does not necessarily become obsolete till worn out. It may be added that the indications now are that radical changes of design are not to be expected shortly, and that we have reached a type likely to endure. A ship built five years hence may have various advantages of detail over one now about to be launched, but the chances are they will not be of a kind that reverse the odds of battle. This, of course, is only a forecast, not an assertion; a man who has witnessed the coming and going of the monitor type will forbear prophecy.

Now, as always, the best ships in the greatest number, as on shore the best troops in the greatest masses, will be carried as speedily as possible, and maintained as efficiently as possible, on the front of operations. But in various directions and at various points behind that front there are other interests to be subserved, by vessels of inferior class, as garrisons may be made up wholly or in part of troops no longer well fitted for the field. But should disaster occur, or the foe prove unexpectedly strong, the first line of reserved ships will move forward to fill the gaps, analogous in this to the various corps of reserved troops who have passed their first youth, with which the Continental organizations of military service have made us familiar. This possibility has been recognized so well by modern naval men that some even have looked for decisive results, not at the hands of the first and most powerful ships, but from the readiness and number of those which have passed into the reserve, and will come into play after the first shock of war. That a reserve force should decide a doubtful battle or campaign is a frequent military experience—an instance of superior staying power.

There is no reason, therefore, to worry about a ship becoming obsolete, any more than there is over the fact that the best suit of to-day may be that for the office next year, and may finally descend to a dependent, or be cut down for a child. Whatever money a nation is willing to spend on maintaining its first line of ships, it is not weaker, but stronger, when one of these drops into the reserve and is replaced by a newer ship. The great anxiety, in truth, is not lest the ships should not continue valid, but lest there be not trained men enough to man both the first line and the reserve.

Here the present article, as at first contemplated, would have closed; but the recent disaster to the Maine has produced its own crop of sudden and magnified apprehensions. These, to the professional mind, are necessarily a matter of concern, but chiefly because they have showed the seeds of a popular distrust before sown in men's minds. As evinced, however, they too are fallacies born of imperfect knowledge. The magnitude of the calamity was indisputable; but the calm self-possession of the nation and of the better portion of the press, face to face with the possible international troubles that might ensue, contrasted singularly with the unreasoned imaginations that immediately found voice concerning the nature and dangers of battleships. The political self-possession and dignity reposed upon knowledge—not, indeed, of the eventual effect upon our international relations—but knowledge, bred of long acquaintance with public affairs, that, before further action, there must be investigation; and that after investigation, action, if it must follow, would be taken with due deliberation. So men were content to wait for justice to pursue its even course.

But the fact that such an appalling catastrophe had befallen one battleship fell upon the minds imperfectly informed in naval matters, and already possessed by various exaggerated impressions, loosely picked up from time to time. Men knew not what to think, and so thought the worst—as we are all apt to do when in the dark. It is possible that naval officers, being accustomed to live over a magazine, and ordinarily to eat their meals within a dozen yards of the powder, may have a too great, though inevitable, familiarity with the conditions. There is, however, no contempt for them among us; and the precautions taken are so well known, the remoteness of danger so well understood, that it is difficult to comprehend the panic terror that found utterance in the remarks of some men, presumably well informed on general matters. It is evidently a very long and quite illogical step to infer that, because the results of an accident may be dreadful, therefore the danger of the accident occurring at all is very great. On land, a slight derangement of a rail, a slight obstacle on a track, the breaking of a wheel or of an axle, may plunge a railroad train to frightful disaster; but we know from annual experience that while such accidents do happen, and sometimes with appalling consequences, the chance of their happening in a particular case is so remote that we disregard it. At sea, every day of every year for centuries back, a couple of hundred warships—to speak moderately—have been traversing the ocean or lying in port, like the Maine, with abundance of powder on board; and for the last quarter of a century very many of these have been, and now are, essentially of the type of that unfortunate vessel. The accident that befell her, if its origin be precisely determined, may possibly impose some further precaution not hitherto taken; but whatever the cause may prove to have been, it is clear that the danger of such an event happening is at no time great, because it is almost, if not quite, unprecedented among the great number of warships now continuously in service. Similarly, on the seas, the disasters to the Ville du Havre, to the Oregon, and, only three years ago, to the Elbe, show the terrific results of collision, to which every ship crossing the ocean is liable. Collisions between vessels less known than those named are of weekly occurrence. Yet no general outcry is raised against the general safety of the transatlantic liners. People unconsciously realize that, where accidents are so infrequent, the risk to themselves in the individual case is slight, though the results, when they happen, are dreadful. Men know instinctively that the precautions taken must be practically adequate, or safety would not be the almost universal rule which it is.

It should be remembered, too, that the present battleship is not a sudden invention, springing up in a night, like Jonah's gourd, or newly contrived by a council sitting for the purpose, like a brand-new Constitution of the French Revolution. The battleship of to-day is the outcome of a gradual evolution extending over forty years. Its development has been governed by experience, showing defects or suggesting improvements; and the entire process has been superintended by men of the highest practical and scientific intelligence, naval architects and seamen, constantly exchanging ideas, not only with their own countrymen, but, through the scientific publications of the day, with the whole world. What Ruskin said of the old ship of the line is still more true of the modern battleship: no higher exhibition of man's creative faculties is probably anywhere to be found. In view, therefore, of its genesis, and of the practical results of yearly cruisings, the battleship in its service of peace is entitled to the confidence we give to the work of competent men in all departments; nor should that confidence be withdrawn because of a single occurrence, if the Maine prove to have fallen victim to internal accident. If, on the other hand, her destruction proceeded from an external cause,—that is, if she fell as ships fall in war,—it may safely be said that, in actions between ships, no means of injury now in use on shipboard could effect the instantaneous and widespread destruction manifested in her case, unless by a shell finding its way to her magazine. This is a remote possibility, though it exists; but when it comes to fighting, men must remember that it is not possible to make war without running risks, and that it is highly improbable that one-tenth as many seamen will die from the explosion of their own magazines, so occasioned, as from the direct blow of the enemy's projectiles.

NOTE.—Since this article was written, in January, 1898, it has become known that the attitude of Japan towards the United States, regarded as a power of the Pacific, has been reversed, and that—as already remarked in the preface to this volume—her leading statesmen, instead of resenting the annexation of Hawaii, now welcome cordially the advance of the United States to the Philippines. This change, occurring as it has within four years, affords a striking indication of the degree to which the attention of mankind has been aroused by the character of Russia's progress in northeastern Asia, and upon the Pacific, as well as of the influence thereby exerted upon the currents of men's thoughts, and upon international relations.

FOOTNOTES:

[5] From a telegram from Berlin of March 2, 1898.



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