The Navy as a Fighting Machine | Page 2

No instance can be found of a sovereign state
without its appropriate armed force, to guard its sovereignty, and
preserve that freedom from external control, without which freedom it
ceases to exist as a sovereign state.
The armed force has always been a matter of very great expense. It has
always required the anxious care of the government and the people.
The men comprising it have always been subjected to restraint and
discipline, compelled to undergo hardships and dangers greater than
those of civil life, and developed by a training highly specialized and
exacting.
The armed force in every state has had not only continuous existence
always, but continuous, potential readiness, if not continuous
employment; and the greatest changes in the mutual relations of nations
have been brought about by the victory of the armed force of one state
over the armed force of another state. This does not mean that the
fundamental causes of the changes have been physical, for they have
been psychological, and have been so profound and so complex as to
defy analysis; but it does mean that the actual and immediate
instrument producing the changes has been physical force; that physical
force and physical courage acting in conjunction, of which conjunction
war is the ultimate expression, have always been the most potent

instruments in the dealings of nations with each other.
Is there any change toward peaceful methods now?
No, on the contrary; war is recognized as the most potent method still;
the prominence of military matters is greater than ever before; at no
time in the past has interest in war been so keen as at the present, or the
expenditure of blood and money been so prodigal; at no time before has
war so thoroughly engaged the intellect and energy of mankind.
In other words, the trend of the nations has been toward a clearer
recognition of the efficacy of military power, and an increasing use of
the instrumentality of war.
This does not mean that the trend of the nations has been regular; for,
on the contrary, it has been spasmodic. If one hundred photographs of
the map of Europe could be taken, each photograph representing in
colors the various countries as they appeared upon the map at one
hundred different times, and if those hundred photographs could be put
on films and shown as a moving-picture on a screen, the result would
resemble the shifting colored pieces in a kaleidoscope. Boundaries
advanced and receded, then advanced again; tribes and nations moved
their homes from place to place; empires, kingdoms, principalities,
duchies, and republics flourished brilliantly for a while, and then went
out; many peoples struggled for an autonomous existence, but hardly a
dozen acquired enough territory or mustered a sufficiently numerous
population to warrant their being called "great nations." Of those that
were great nations, only three have endured as great nations for eight
hundred years; and the three that have so endured are the three greatest
in Europe now--the French, the British, and the German.
Some of the ancient empires continued for long periods. The history of
practical, laborious, and patient China is fairly complete and clear for
more than two thousand years before our era; and of dreamy,
philosophic India for almost as long, though in far less authentic form.
Egypt existed as a nation, highly military, artistic, and industrious, as
her monuments show, for perhaps four thousand years; when she was
forced by the barbarians of Persia into a condition of dependence, from

which she has never yet emerged. The time of her greatness in the arts
and sciences of peace was the time of her greatest military power; and
her decline in the arts and sciences of peace accompanied her decline in
those of war. Assyria, with her two capitals, Babylon and Nineveh,
flourished splendidly for about six centuries, and was then subdued by
the Persians under Cyrus, after the usual decline. The little kingdom of
the Hebrews, hardy and warlike under Saul and David, luxurious and
effeminate under Solomon, lasted but little more than a hundred years.
Persia, rising rapidly by military means from the barbarian state, lived a
brilliant life of conquest, cultivated but little those arts of peace that
hold in check the passions of a successful military nation, yielded
rapidly to the seductions of luxury, and fell abruptly before the
Macedonian Alexander, lasting less than two hundred and fifty years.
Macedonia, trained under Philip, rose to great military power under
Alexander, conquered in twelve years the ten most wealthy and
populous countries of the world--nearly the whole known world; but
fell to pieces almost instantly when Alexander died. The cities of
Greece enjoyed a rare pre-eminence both in the arts and sciences of
peace and in military power, but only for about one hundred and