Sea-Power and Other Studies | Page 7

Roman Commonwealth perceived that all their coast-fortifications
and coast-garrisons would prove inadequate unless the war-marine of
the state were again placed on a footing that should command
respect.'[20] It is a gloomy reflection that the leading men of our own
great maritime country could not see this in 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