Sea-Power and Other Studies | Page 7

1860. A thorough comprehension of the events of the first Punic war enables us to solve what, until Mahan wrote, had been one of the standing enigmas of history, viz. Hannibal's invasion of Italy by land instead of by sea in the second Punic war. Mahan's masterly examination of this question has set at rest all doubts as to the reason of Hannibal's action.[21] The naval predominance in the western basin of the Mediterranean acquired by Rome had never been lost. Though modern historians, even those belonging to a maritime country, may have failed to perceive it, the Carthaginians knew well enough that the Romans were too strong for them on the sea. Though other forces co-operated to bring about the defeat of Carthage in the second Punic war, the Roman navy, as Mahan demonstrates, was the most important. As a navy, he tells us in words like those already quoted, 'acts on an element strange to most writers, as its members have been from time immemorial a strange race apart, without prophets of their own, neither themselves nor their calling understood, its immense determining influence on the history of that era, and consequently upon the history of the world, has been overlooked.'
[Footnote 18: R. S. Whiteway, _Rise_of_the_PortuguesePower _inIndia p. 12. Westminster, 1899.]
[Footnote 19: J. H. Burton, _Hist._ofScotland, 1873, vol. i. p. 318.]
[Footnote 20: Mommsen, i. p. 427.]
[Footnote 21: _Inf._on_Hist._, pp. 13-21.]
The attainment of all but universal dominion by Rome was now only a question of time. 'The annihilation of the Carthaginian fleet had made the Romans masters of the sea.'[22] A lodgment had already been gained in Illyricum, and countries farther east were before long to be reduced to submission. A glance at the map will show that to effect this the command of the eastern basin of the Mediterranean, like that of the western, must be secured by the Romans. The old historic navies of the Greek and Phoenician states had declined. One considerable naval force there was which, though it could not have prevented, was strong enough to have delayed the Roman progress eastwards. This force belonged to Rhodes, which in the years immediately following the close of the second Punic war reached its highest point as a naval power.[23] Far from trying to obstruct the advance of the Romans the Rhodian fleet helped it. Hannibal, in his exile, saw the necessity of being strong on the sea if the East was to be saved from the grasp of his hereditary foe; but the resources of Antiochus, even with the mighty cooperation of Hannibal, were insufficient. In a later and more often-quoted struggle between East and West--that which was decided at Actium--sea-power was again seen to 'have the casting vote.' When the whole of the Mediterranean coasts became part of a single state the importance of the navy was naturally diminished; but in the struggles within the declining empire it rose again at times. The contest of the Vandal Genseric with Majorian and the African expedition of Belisarius--not to mention others--were largely influenced by the naval operations.[24]
[Footnote 22: Schmitz, _Hist.Rome, p. 256.]
[Footnote 23: C. Torr, _Rhodes_in_AncientTimes, p. 40.]
[Footnote 24: Gibbon, _Dec._andFall, chaps. xxxvi. xli]
SEA-POWER IN THE MIDDLE AGES
A decisive event, the Mohammedan conquest of Northern Africa from Egypt westwards, is unintelligible until it is seen how great a part sea-power played in effecting it. Purely land expeditions, or expeditions but slightly supported from the sea, had ended in failure. The emperor at Constantinople still had at his disposal a fleet capable of keeping open the communications with his African province. It took the Saracens half a century (647-698 A.D.) to win 'their way along the coast of Africa as far as the Pillars of Hercules';[25] and, as Gibbon tells us, it was not till the Commander of the Faithful had prepared a great expedition, this time by sea as well as by land, that the Saracenic dominion was definitely established. It has been generally assumed that the Arabian conquerors who, within a few years of his death, spread the faith of Mohammed over vast regions, belonged to an essentially non-maritime race; and little or no stress has been laid on the extent to which they relied on naval support in prosecuting their conquests. In parts of Arabia, however, maritime enterprise was far from non-existent; and when the Mohammedan empire had extended outwards from Mecca and Medina till it embraced the coasts of various seas, the consequences to the neighbouring states were as serious as the rule above mentioned would lead us to expect that they would be. 'With the conquest of Syria and Egypt a long stretch of sea-board had come into the Saracenic power; and the creation and maintenance of a navy for the protection of the maritime ports as well as for meeting the enemy