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.The long, narrow peninsula ofFlorida, with Key West at its extremity, though flat and thinly populated, presents at first sight conditions likethose of Italy.The resemblance may be only superficial, but it seems probable that if the chief scene of a navalwar were the Gulf of Mexico, the communications by land to the end of the peninsula might be a matter ofconsequence, and open to attack.When the sea not only borders, or surrounds, but also separates a country into two or more parts, the controlof it becomes not only desirable, but vitally necessary.Such a physical condition either gives birth andCHAPTER 1.DISCUSSION OF THE ELEMENTS OF SEA POWER.20 The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783strength to sea power, or makes the country powerless.Such is the condition of the present kingdom of Italy,with its islands of Sardinia and Sicily; and hence in its youth and still existing financial weakness it is seen toput forth such vigorous and intelligent efforts to create a military navy.It has even been argued that, with anavy decidedly superior to her enemy's, Italy could better base her power upon her islands than upon hermainland; for the insecurity of the lines of communication in the peninsula, already pointed out, would mostseriously embarrass an invading army surrounded by a hostile people and threatened from the sea.The Irish Sea, separating the British Islands, rather resembles an estuary than an actual division; but historyhas shown the danger from it to the United Kingdom.In the days of Louis XIV., when the French navy nearlyequalled the combined English and Dutch, the gravest complications existed in Ireland.which passed almostwholly under the control of the natives and the French.Nevertheless, the Irish Sea was rather a danger to theEnglish a weak point in their communications than an advantage to the French.The latter did not venturetheir ships-of-the-line in its narrow waters, and expeditions intending to land were directed upon the oceanports in the south and west.At the supreme moment the great French fleet was sent upon the south coast ofEngland, where it decisively defeated the allies, and at the same the twenty-five frigates were sent to St.George's Channel, against the English communications.In the midst of a hostile people, the English army inIreland was seriously imperiled, but was saved by the battle of the Boyne and the flight of James II.Thismovement against the enemy's communications was strictly strategic, and would be just as dangerous toEngland now as in 1690.Spain, in the same century afforded an impressive lesson of the weakness caused by such separation when theparts are not knit together by a strong sea power.She then still retained, as remnants of her past greatness, theNetherlands (now Belgium), Sicily, and other Italian possessions, not to speak of her vast colonies in the NewWorld.Yet so low had the Spanish sea power fallen, that a well-informed and sober-minded II ollander ofthe day could claim that in Spain all the coast is navigated by a few Dutch ships and since the peace of 1648their ships and seamen are so few that they have publicly begun to hire our ships to sail to the Indies, whereasthey were formerly careful to exclude all foreigners from there.It is manifest, he goes on, that the WestIndies.being as the stomach to Spain (for from it nearly all the revenue is drawn), must be joined to theSpanish head by a sea force; and that Naples and the Netherlands, being like two arms, they cannot lay outtheir strength for Spain, nor receive anything thence but by shipping, all which may easily be done by ourshipping in peace, and by it obstructed in war. Half a century before, Sully, the great minister of Henry IV.,had characterized Spain as one of those States whose legs and arms are strong and powerful, but the heartinfinitely weak and feeble. Since his day the Spanish navy had suffered not only disaster, but annihilation;not only humiliation, but degradation.The consequences briefly were that shipping was destroyed;manufactures perished with it.The government depended for its support, not upon a wide-spread healthycommerce and industry that could survive many a staggering blow, but upon a narrow stream of silvertrickling through a few treasure-ships from America, easily and frequently intercepted by an enemy's cruisers.The loss of half a dozen galleons more than once paralyzed its movements for a year.While the war in theNetherlands lasted, the Dutch control of the sea forced Spain to send her troops by a long and costly journeyoverland instead of by sea; and the same cause reduced her to such straits for necessaries that, by a mutualarrangement which seems very odd to modern ideas, her wants were supplied by Dutch ships, which thusmaintained the enemies of their country, but received in return specie which was welcome in the Amsterdamexchange.In America, the Spanish protected themselves as best they might behind masonry, unaided fromhome; while in the Mediterranean they escaped insult and injury mainly through the indifference of the Dutch,for the French and English had not yet begun to contend for mastery there.In the course of history theNetherlands, Naples, Sicily, Minorca, Havana, Manila, and Jamaica were wrenched away, at one time oranother, from this empire without a shipping.In short, while Spain's maritime impotence may have beenprimarily a symptom of her general decay, it became a marked factor in precipitating her into the abyss fromwhich she has not yet wholly emerged.CHAPTER 1.DISCUSSION OF THE ELEMENTS OF SEA POWER.21 The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783Except Alaska, the United States has no outlying possession, no foot of ground inaccessible by land.Itscontour is such as to present few points specially weak from their saliency, and all important parts of thefrontiers can be readily attained, cheaply by water, rapidly by rail.The weakest frontier, the Pacific, is farremoved from the most dangerous of possible enemies.The internal resources are boundless as compared withpresent needs; we can live off ourselves indefinitely in our little corner, to use the expression of a Frenchofficer to the author.Yet should that little corner be invaded by a new commercial route through the Isthmus,the United States in her turn may have the rude awakening of those who have abandoned their share in thecommon birthright of all people, the sea.III.Extent of Territory.The last of the conditions affecting the development of a nation as a sea power, andtouching the country itself as distinguished from the people who dwell there, is Extent of Territory.This maybe dismissed with comparatively few words.As regards the development of sea power, it is not the total number of square miles which a country contains,but the length of its coast-line and the character of its harbors that are to be considered.As to these it is to besaid that, the geographical and physical conditions being the same, extent of sea-coast is a source of strengthor weakness according as the population is large or small.A country is in this like a fortress; the garrison mustbe proportioned to the enceinte.A recent familiar instance is found in the American War of Secession.Hadthe South had a people as numerous as it was warlike, and a navy commensurate to its other resources as a seapower, the great extent of its sea-coast and its numerous inlets would have been elements of great strength.The people of the United States and the Government of that day justly prided themselves on the effectivenessof the blockade of the whole Southern coast.It was a great feat, a very great feat; but it would have been animpossible feat had the Southerners been more numerous, and a nation of seamen
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