Sea-Power and Other Studies | Page 2

late Sir J. R. Seeley says that 'commerce was swept out of the Mediterranean by the besom of the Turkish sea-power.'[3] The term also occurs in vol. xviii. of the 'Encyclop?dia Britannica,' published in 1885. At p. 574 of that volume (art. Persia) we are told that Themistocles was 'the founder of the Attic sea-power.' The sense in which the term is used differs in these extracts. In the first it means what we generally call a 'naval power'--that is to say, a state having a considerable navy in contradistinction to a 'military power,' a state with a considerable army but only a relatively small navy. In the last two extracts it means all the elements of the naval strength of the state referred to; and this is the meaning that is now generally, and is likely to be exclusively, attached to the term owing to the brilliant way in which it has been elucidated by Captain A. T. Mahan of the United States Navy in a series of remarkable works.[4] The double use of the term is common in German, though in that language both parts of the compound now in use are Teutonic. One instance out of many may be cited from the historian Adolf Holm.[5] He says[6] that Athens, being in possession of a good naval port, could become '_einebedeutende Seemacht,' i.e. an important naval power. He also says[7] that Gelon of Syracuse, besides a large army (_Heer_), had 'eine _bedeutendeSeemacht,' meaning a considerable navy. The term, in the first of the two senses, is old in German, as appears from the following, extracted from Zedler's 'Grosses Universal Lexicon,' vol. xxxvi:[8] 'Seemachten, Seepotenzen, Latin. summae _potestates_maripotentes.' 'Seepotenzen' is probably quite obsolete now. It is interesting as showing that German no more abhors Teuto-Latin or Teuto-Romance compounds than English. We may note, as a proof of the indeterminate meaning of the expression until his own epoch-making works had appeared, that Mahan himself in his earliest book used it in both senses. He says,[9] 'The Spanish Netherlands ceased to be a sea-power.' He alludes[10] to the development of a nation as a 'sea-power,' and[11] to the inferiority of the Confederate States 'as a sea-power.' Also,[12] he remarks of the war of the Spanish Succession that 'before it England was one of the sea-powers, after it she was the sea-power without any second.' In all these passages, as appears from the use of the indefinite article, what is meant is a naval power, or a state in possession of a strong navy. The other meaning of the term forms the general subject of his writings above enumerated. In his earlier works Mahan writes 'sea power' as two words; but in a published letter of the 19th February 1897, he joins them with a hyphen, and defends this formation of the term and the sense in which he uses it. We may regard him as the virtual inventor of the term in its more diffused meaning, for--even if it had been employed by earlier writers in that sense--it is he beyond all question who has given it general currency. He has made it impossible for anyone to treat of sea-power without frequent reference to his writings and conclusions.
[Footnote 2: _Hist._ofGreece, v. p. 67, published in 1849, but with preface dated 1848.]
[Footnote 3: _Expansion_ofEngland, p. 89.]
[Footnote 4: _Influence_of_Sea-power_onHistory, published 1890; _Influence_of_Sea-power_on_the_French_Revolution_andEmpire, 2 vols. 1892; _Nelson:_the_Embodiment_of_the_Sea-power_ofGreat Britain, 2 vols. 1897.]
[Footnote 5: _GriechischeGeschichte. Berlin, 1889.]
[Footnote 6: Ibid. ii. p. 37.]
[Footnote 7: Ibid. ii. p. 91.]
[Footnote 8: Leipzig und Halle, 1743.]
[Footnote 9: _Influence_of_Sea-power_onHistory, p. 35.]
[Footnote 10: Ibid. p. 42.]
[Footnote 11: Ibid. p. 43.]
[Footnote 12: Ibid. p. 225.]
There is something more than mere literary interest in the fact that the term in another language was used more than two thousand years ago. Before Mahan no historian--not even one of those who specially devoted themselves to the narration of naval occurrences--had evinced a more correct appreciation of the general principles of naval warfare than Thucydides. He alludes several times to the importance of getting command of the sea. This country would have been saved some disasters and been less often in peril had British writers--taken as guides by the public--possessed the same grasp of the true principles of defence as Thucydides exhibited. One passage in his history is worth quoting. Brief as it is, it shows that on the subject of sea-power he was a predecessor of Mahan. In a speech in favour of prosecuting the war, which he puts into the mouth of Pericles, these words occur:-- _oimeu _gar_ouch_exousiu_allaeu_autilabeiu_amachei_aemiu_deesti _gae_pollae_kai_eu_uaesois_kai_kat_aepeirou_megagar _to_tes_thalassaeskratos. The last part of this extract, though often translated 'command of the sea,' or 'dominion of the sea,' really has the wider meaning of sea-power, the 'power of the sea' of the old English poet above quoted. This wider meaning should be attached to certain