THE INFLUENCE OF GEOGRAPHY IN NAVAL WARFARE1
GEOGRAPHY IS an essential factor in strategy and, along with history, an indispensable subject of study for statesmen, soldiers, and sailors. It is par excellence the science of government and command or, as Strabo puts it, “the science of princes and military leaders.” Geography has long been a favored study of maritime belligerents. During the age of sail, the difficulties of navigation made it of prime importance, sometimes to such an exaggerated degree as to constitute a pernicious influence on the conduct of operations. With the discovery of steam, the importance of geography was rather hastily forgotten, but the wars of the second half of the nineteenth century, with their almost uniquely coastal emphasis, restored attention to it. The new interest in geography was limited, however, to the contours and hydrographic2 characteristics of coastlines and their implications for inshore forces. There was little concern for the repercussions of geography on fleet operations, which had more or less disappeared from the scene.3 Then, around 1900, in the French navy especially, there arose a movement aimed at restoring the preeminence of the fleet,4 which momentarily eclipsed the study of geography. This brings us to the 1914 war, during which this physical element gained a deserved revenge. To make use of geography in the future, it is appropriate to seek a balance by putting that science in its proper place.
SOME HISTORICAL EXAMPLES
The Anglo-Dutch wars of the seventeenth century provide oft-cited evidence of the influence of geography on naval operations. The geography entirely favored Britain, whose coasts virtually blockaded those of Holland. To assure the passage of their convoys across the Channel, the Dutch had to consolidate their high seas fleet as an escort force, depriving it of the opportunity to conduct operations against the enemy fleet. Freeing up the fleet for battle during the military phases of the struggle meant almost complete interruption of commercial traffic, even of herring fishing in the North Sea, and consequent economic hardship. The more fortunate British escaped this constraint. Their foreign commerce traveled in safety, and the Royal Navy remained unshackled.
To remedy this disadvantageous situation, the Dutch would have needed sufficient numerical superiority to allow simultaneous fleet operations and commerce protection. Thus, their unfavorable geographical position translated in the final reckoning into an entirely detrimental balance of forces. . . .
The geographic factor evolves with politics and with the course of operations. It also modifies itself through the actions of the belligerents. We will return to this point in treating the subjects of bases and positions.
Discussions of the Crimean War often stress the unfavorable geographical conditions in which the Allies had to operate; in reality, however, the conditions were only partly disadvantageous and the balance differed according to the theater of operations. Though operating far from home, the Allied forces in the Black Sea were able to support themselves on the Turkish and Asian coasts, right at the scene of the action. Though the local coasts contained only limited resources, supplies could be shipped from Britain and France, and everything reduced itself to a not unsolvable problem of transport. Moreover, the Russian fleet remained completely inactive and made no effort to exploit the advantage of being in its home waters. It was only in the Baltic and Kamchatka that geography placed the Allies in a truly disadvantageous situation.
During the war of 1870, the physical layout undeniably hampered the French fleet from desired actions against the Prussian coast. Against her were distance, lack of bases for rest and resupply, and bad weather. Moreover, the hydographical peculiarities of the German North Sea and Baltic coasts reinforced the strength of the defense and prevented our vessels from approaching close enough to achieve any material success. Unable to win, France did not press the offensive.
The Spanish-American War is a case in which, on all the evidence, geography was singularly partial. It would have been a major achievement for the Spanish, already distinctly inferior at sea, to carry on a successful war on the other side of the Atlantic given that their adversaries were conveniently placed to exercise their power.5 If, however, the Spanish had succeeded in properly preparing Cuba and Puerto Rico with naval supplies and land defenses, the war would have been infinitely more taxing for the Americans. Their lack of a land army and the very unpleasant climatic and health conditions in Cuba would undoubtedly have long delayed the decision and, with a little bit of activity, better prepared Spanish ships could have posed a considerable problem. This example shows that one must not attribute everything to geography alone. The attitude of the combatants can tilt the balance by reinforcing or diminishing the undeniably important geographic factor.
The role of geography in the Russo-Japanese War, important though it was, seems to have been exaggerated by commentators. Generally, it worked against the Russians, who had to sustain separate naval forces in the Baltic, the Black Sea, and the Far East. The Black Sea fleet was far from the action, and the union of the Baltic and Yellow Sea fleets delayed by the great distances involved. Geography does not, however, fully explain the events. It was the exigencies of European politics that prevented Russia from shifting forces from the Baltic to the Far East in time of peace, and things would have been altogether different had the Russian fleet been adequately trained and appropriately commanded. In these conditions, Rodjestvensky’s expedition would have begun much earlier and been carried out more efficiently. Rather than arriving at Tsushima in May 1905 with a random conglomeration of ships, he could have brought a fleet to the Sea of Japan in May or June 1904 while the Russian First Pacific Squadron remained virtually untouched and could blockade Japan with considerable effect. While the final result cannot be predicted, Russia’s geographical disadvantages would have been largely rectified.
Unhappily, there was no remedy to the problems that local conditions also imposed upon the Russians. The war zone was cut by Korea and the Japanese islands into two distinct theaters. To move from one to another, the Russian naval forces were obliged to used the Straits of Korea, Tsugaru, or La Pérouse (Soya), all of which were in Japanese hands. Their interior lines placed the Japanese particularly well to oppose any Russian attempt to shift theaters. This was the major obstacle to the union of the Port Arthur and Vladivostok groups after the sortie of 10 August. The Vladivostok division was surprised and defeated by Kamimura in the Korean Straits on 14 August. The Novik, having escaped from the battle and seeking to reach Vladivostok, was destroyed on 20 August in the Straits of La Pérouse. . . . The Russians would have been able to overcome these grave local obstacles only by a real superiority of forces and by undertaking energetic offensive operations.
In the North Sea in 1914, Britain benefited from the same geographical advantage against Germany that she had enjoyed in the Anglo-Dutch wars. Roughly equal in terms of fleet action, the situation gave Germany a serious disadvantage in the struggle over communications.6 The British Isles could not have been better placed to paralyze German ocean traffic and to block German ports while British communications were virtually immune to German surface action.
One knows how the Germans broke out of their North Sea prison by the use of the submarine. Modern technology thus undermined the geographical obstacles that it had initially served to aggravate. But technology solved only one part of the problem. If it provided the means with which to attack enemy communications, it was impotent to safeguard Germany’s own, which were largely paralyzed by geography.
I say “largely” only because some participants and commentators have overstated the case. It would not be correct to represent the excellent situation that Britain enjoyed during the war as uniquely a gift of geography and to ignore the contribution of the Royal Navy. The exaggeration becomes clear if one imagines what would have happened had the balance of naval forces been reversed and Germany had had naval superiority to match her superiority on land. In this case, the Germans would obviously have struggled to break free of their stifling geographical position. They would very probably have seized islands like the Orkneys or the Shetlands or even points on the British coast and achieved at least the defensive objective of assuring an open route north of Scotland to the high seas. Though unable entirely to stop British traffic, which would have continued to take advantage of the favorable situation in the west, they would have considerably hampered the cross-Channel communications of the British armies in France. And, under these circumstances, would the British forces have gone to France? Would they not have remained at home to defend against possible invasion? . . . One can see how often a shift in the balance of the fleets profoundly alters the situation in spite of the immutability of the geographic framework. However important, geography is clearly not everything.
ATLANTIC AND MEDITERRANEAN
There is certainly no better example of the influence of geography on naval operations than the demands placed on France by the separation of her two coasts by the enormous mass of the Spanish Peninsula. This state of things, though very favorable from the economic point of view, has often led us to divide our squadrons between the Atlantic and the Levant, a division with the gravest consequences for our strategy.
Whenever Britain was our enemy and Spain either neutral or hostile, only good fortune allowed the reunion of our widely separated forces. Sometimes, the attempt ended in a serious disaster. The movements necessary to join our forces in the face of a superior British fleet concentrated at Ushant and Gibraltar against our Mediterranean group were always perilous. In 1689, Tourville, coming from Toulon, only managed to reach Brest through masterly exploitation of a fortuitous southwest wind. In 1690, Châteaurenault,7 who led the Mediterranean contingent before the Beachy Head campaign, reached his destination only because he had the good fortune to shake off the pursuit of Killigrew,8 who had been placed at Gibraltar to intercept him. On other occasions, France has not been so lucky, and the arrival of the Mediterranean vessels was so delayed by distance and contrary winds that it was necessary to commence operations in the Channel without them. During the Second Anglo-Dutch War, the Dutch had to fight the Four Days Battle9 without waiting for the arrival of the Due du Beaufort. Similarly, Tourville gave battle at the Hogue without d’Estrées,10 who did not reach Brest until the very day of the battle.11 In 1759, the attempt to pass from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic Ocean ultimately led to de la Clue’s complete defeat at Lagos. . . .12
In these conditions, a forward concentration, the unification of troops near the enemy, has proved a singularly dangerous idea, and it would have been much simpler to concentrate at the rear by sending the Atlantic detachment to meet that of the Mediterranean. The process, though full of disadvantages on land, is admissible in naval war. Unlike on land, where it involves giving up territory to the enemy, concentration at the rear merely, and only momentarily, cedes water and the brief interruption of certain communications. The meeting of Tourville and d’Estrées occurred in the Mediterranean without any trouble in 1693. Similarly, during the War of American Independence, the concentration of French and Spanish forces took place on the Spanish coast, either off Ferrol or Cadiz, in 1779, 1781, and 1782 before the combined fleets cruised the Channel. Political factors undoubtedly contributed to these decisions, but they proved very successful from a strategic point of view.
The geographical situation during the last war differed from these earlier cases because an essential factor had altered in our favor. Spain had become our ally, and the Iberian Peninsula offered ports and bases to facilitate the movement of our forces around its periphery and to address the needs of our ships. The difference is vital, as we learned during the wars of the Revolution and Empire. The Spanish alliance allowed Bruix safely to conduct his campaign of 1799 between Brest and the Mediterranean, and every Napoleonic combination of 1805 was based on the possibilities of movement around the Spanish littoral.13
These Spanish geographical and political factors have hardly diminished in importance over time and continue to be almost as important to naval strategy as in the past. The peninsula is always in the same place and remains almost as great a barrier as ever. It is easy to imagine how grave our situation would be if, while we were engaged in a European war against an enemy to the east, we had Spain for an enemy as well. Not only would the movements and concentrations of our fleets be rendered extremely difficult, but our communications, Mediterranean as well as Atlantic, would be threatened from the Spanish coast itself, from the Canaries, and, especially, from the Balearics, which nature has so disagreeably placed on the routes that link Marseille with Algiers and Oran. The conflict would be singularly difficult, if not hopeless from the start.
One sees how much interest we would have, in such a conflict, in ensuring that Spain was with us or, at least, not against us. Her neutrality alone would be a great prize for France. On the other hand, our enemy, whoever he be, cannot but strongly desire to draw Spain into his camp or, failing that, at least to obtain the use of her well-situated ports as bases for his forces. These obviously were the secret motives that inspired the treaty between Italy and Spain of 7 August 1926. . . . If its contents and results were less complete than Rome would have liked, it was a step towards greater aspirations. Here, policy was led by geography and put itself at her service. It was because of geography that everything that happened in Madrid had such great importance for both sides. If there is a sector in which one can not afford to err, it is this one.
Our diplomacy must maintain good relations with Spain so as to prevent our enemies from plotting against us there. An easy task! Nothing divides France and Spain; rather, their collaboration in the Riff in 1925 showed how solid their mutual interests are. Only the Tangiers question remains to be settled. While it is not clear what France had to gain from opposing Spanish wishes on this subject, from a maritime point of view, the great dangers we would run and still run by making an enemy of this power are obvious. . . .
The Tangiers affair offered France a profitable opportunity at a very low price. It is too bad that we failed to understand that the integrity of our maritime communications in wartime was worth the insignificant sacrifice involved in this advantageous transaction.14 I apologize for this political parenthesis, to which geography led me naturally and imperiously.15
A MEDITERRANEAN CASE
The importance of geography is equally clear from examining the conditions of a Franco-Italian war. Not that anyone in France favors such a war, which would come about only if we were attacked, if Fascist imperialism were to pass from threats to acts, but this altogether speculative and theoretical case is very interesting in the study of the influence of geographical factors.16
The theater of operations, the Mediterranean’s western basin, is a very limited area in which the belligerents possess numerous bases. Their cruises can be very short; the region is particularly suited to quick raids and to operations by fast ships of moderate size. The proximity of the opposing positions lends itself to amphibious operations. As an extended peninsula with long coastlines, Italy is very vulnerable to naval action, but France is no better off since her combined coastal perimeter in Languedoc, Provence, Corsica, and North Africa equals that of the Italian shores of the Western Mediterranean.
Italy has, moreover, the advantage that the Tyrrhenian Sea, set off by the Corsica-Sardinia-Sicily barrier, constitutes a relatively closed sea. Two of the three passages connecting it to the west, the strait between Corsica and Elba and the Strait of Bonifacio,17 are difficult, and only the third, between Sicily and Sardinia, can be traversed easily. It will always, therefore, be very risky for enemy forces to penetrate deeply into the Tyrrhenian Sea except for operations of short duration. Moreover, this relatively protected water provides Italy with a coastal passageway extending from the Gulf of Taranto to the Gulf of Genoa. Unlike the Tyrrhenian Sea, however, the Gulf of Genoa is largely open to enemy action from the west.
Corsica is an island position of capital importance. It surveys the three nearby passages and permits a timely warning of movements by Italian forces using them. Its western coast provides useful bases for enemy forces. Its salient position gives Corsica an offensive value of the first order against a significant part of the Italian coast but exposes it, on the other hand, to converging attacks.
Sardinia provides similar advantages for Italy. Protecting the Tyrrhenian Sea, it offers excellent bases of departure for Italian naval and air forces against French north-south communications. . . .
The northern part of Tunisia is particularly well placed for naval and air surveillance of the nearest coasts of Sardinia and Sicily, of the entrance to the Tyrrhenian Sea, and of the Malta Channel but is, therefore, an obvious target for enemy attack. For a raid against French communications with North Africa, the Italian forces have three lines of approach and retreat based on Spezia (to the north of Corsica), La Maddalena (through the Strait of Bonifacio), and Cagliari (to the south of Sardinia). This multiplicity of directions for maneuver gives the Italians great flexibility.
The geographical conditions of the western Mediterranean are eminently favorable for the use of air power. The basin can be entirely covered by reconnaissance aircraft, while the Italian littoral from Vintimille to Civita Vecchia, as well as La Maddalena (northern Sardinia), is within range of bombers from Nice or Corsica. Inversely, Corsica and all of the Provençal ports east of the Rhone are within the field of action of Italian airplanes leaving from fields near the frontier. Northern Tunisia can be reached by aircraft from Sicily or Sardinia. Bone and Philippeville (both in Algeria) are within range of airplanes based at Cagliari. The Italians have the important advantage of having bases at Naples, Messina, Augusta (Sicily), and Taranto that are beyond the range of French land-based aircraft, while Toulon and Bizerte (Tunisia) are within the Italian sphere of action.
Much of the Italian coast from Cape Passaro to Cape Santa Maria di Leuca looks to the Ionian Sea. Relatively far from the principal theater of operations, it is difficult to reach for French forces leaving from their closest point of access, Tunisia. The Italians, on the other hand, have so many well-appointed bases at Augusta, Messina, Taranto, Tripoli, and Cyrenaica and important observation points at Pantellaria and Lampedusa that it would be difficult for an enemy to undertake a sustained action in the basin, which is a zone of obvious Italian predominance. The Italian monopoly is even more evident in the Adriatic.
The communications routes of the respective nations are particularly striking. Those of France that begin at the North Sea, the Channel, and the Adriatic are protected by nature herself.18 Our relations with northern Europe, Britain, Spain, the two Americas, Morocco, West Africa, etc., would hardly be affected by the outbreak of war. For once, geography benefits us, paying reparation owed for difficulties suffered over the long span of our history.
The Mediterranean will be a different matter. French communications with Algeria and Tunisia, very threatened by enemy flank attacks, will have to be moved, perhaps shifted west of the Balearics, so that their terminal points will not be east of Marseille and Algiers. Our communications with the eastern Mediterranean will be more precarious because of Italy’s predominance in the central Mediterranean and her possession of positions in Tripoli, Cyrenaica, and the Dodecanese that flank our routes. Only with difficulty will we ensure our relations with the Levant, in particular with that damned19 Syria, the dead weight of our strategy in that region. Since our traffic through Suez to the Far East and the Indian Ocean will have not only to run the Mediterranean gauntlet but meet additional threats in the Red Sea from Italian positions in Eritrea, indispensable commerce will probably have to be routed around the Cape.
Italy’s communications situation is somewhat symmetrical to ours. Her communications with northern Europe, the two Americas, with West Africa through the Straits of Gibraltar will without doubt completely disappear. This will be a very serious hindrance to Italy, for four-fifths of her imports come by way of Gibraltar. On the other hand, most of her coastal and Adriatic trade will survive, since both follow routes protected by geography. Finally and most important, Italy will retain easy communications with the eastern Mediterranean, the Black Sea,20 and the seas beyond Suez, whither travel a third of the ships departing from her ports.21
In sum, as is natural, the communications of the two countries will be blocked on the front facing the enemy but unimpeded on the protected side (the Atlantic for France and the eastern Mediterranean for Italy).
Such, in theory, will be the shape of the conflict from the physical point of view. It goes without saying that we pray sincerely that this study will remain an exercise for mental recreation and a geographical pastime and that France and Italy remain united in the common defense of western civilization, a future challenge overriding all of the problems of the present day.22
GEOGRAPHY AND THE DEFENSIVE
The situation that we have just studied is only a verification of the general principle that a war involving the attack and defense of communications is conditioned to the utmost degree by geography. Geography furnishes or withholds positions from which commerce raiders can base their action. It can give a means of establishing a blockade. It can permit special procedures such as the rerouting of suspicious vessels and their examination in friendly ports. The 1914 war demonstrates all of these possibilities, most of them to the advantage of the Allies. Conversely, it also shows how certain communications, such as those of Germany in the Baltic, are protected by geography from enemy action.
Geography explains the mindless and incomprehensible hostility that many Britons have evidenced towards France since the last war. If some of them consider France, one does not know why, to be Germany’s heir as the disruptive continental power, for others France has simply resumed her ancient role as the nation whose geographical situation makes her a special threat to British communications, a threat now exacerbated by the existence of aircraft and submarines. It is a matter not of our intentions but of geography. . . .
The geography of the littoral, that is to say, its hydrographic character, can serve the defender by protecting his coastal communications and hiding them from the actions of the attacker. Outer islands belonging to the defender constitute positions of defense behind which coastal traffic can circulate in more secure conditions. It is the same when the belligerent possesses internal channels or navigable canals. Reefs and shallow water can render the same service. . . . These advantages can be achieved elsewhere by: (1) rationally managing the terrain; (2) establishing minefields and various obstructions; and (3) placing artillery at important points. . . .
The influence of geography on the general situation of communications has repercussions for the fleets because the number of forces that they have to detach to attack enemy communications and to defend their own will increase to the extent that geography places them at a disadvantage.
GEOGRAPHY AND TECHNICAL PROGRESS
The influence of geography on operations is not a constant but evolves with technical change. In the era of sail, ships could go anywhere, their range of action limited only by supplies of food, munitions, and water. But the steam engine that freed them from the wind reduced the range of action by introducing dependence on the resupply of fuel. Combat vessels now had a leash, even a veritable chain. Naval vessels had to make their presence felt in the brief period before having to break off to coal. Certain regions were now too far away unless one had well-placed local bases. Technical change allowed geography to reassert itself more imperiously than ever. . . .
Ships are not the only elements affected by this; aviation faces similar restrictions. Since one can never transport more than a limited number of airplanes on an aircraft carrier, the greatest part of the air power acting in a given theater will be land-based and constrained by distances from airfields to targets. . . .
In former days, underwater topography was of importance only for navigation. If greater than about ten meters, water depth was of no interest for operations, except, possibly, when evaluating opportunities to anchor against a contrary current (as in the Channel). Now everything is changed. Water depth affects strategy because of its consequences in employing submarines, mines, and underwater obstacles. Alongside the “horizontal geography” of the position and contours of land masses, one has seen the birth of a very important “vertical geography.” During the last war, Germany supplied her submarines in the Channel with minute details about the precise nature of the sea bottom in different places, the currents at different depths, the places where vessels could safely rest on the bottom, etc. The Allied blockade was facilitated by the shallow water that allowed the Allies to place mines in the Pas de Calais and sow the huge Anglo-American minefield from the Shetlands to Norway.
Another technical factor has noticeably altered certain aspects of geography—the great speed of modern surface ships and aircraft. Unchanged when measured in linear kilometers, the physical arena has shrunk considerably in terms of duration of travel. Formerly, distances dilated or contracted by chance according to the effect of contrary or favorable winds. A voyage over the same stretch of water could be shortened for a ship traveling in one direction but simultaneously lengthened for one going in the other. The new temporal calculation is homothetic, however, since all of the dimensions vary in the same way.23 Under these conditions, certain geographical accidents have a different value than they would have had formerly, and the problems that they raise are perhaps easier to solve. The Iberian Peninsula still impedes our naval travel between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, but we have at our disposal more effective remedies than those of our fathers. Today, the voyage from Brest to Toulon, which in 1799 took Bruix seventeen days in one direction and forty-one in the other, would require only four days at the not extraordinary speed of twenty knots. The convergence of forces leaving from Toulon and Brest, formerly impeded by difficulties and delays, can now occur in forty-eight hours in the Gibraltar—St. Vincent region.
Improvements in wireless communication facilitate such operations by permitting the participants to remain in radio contact and to coordinate their movements. Forces are no longer isolated from one another; their thoughts, if not their bodies, have overcome geography.
ACTION OF THE LAND ON THE SEA
The influence of geography in naval war makes itself felt throughout the entire domain of maritime communications. It affects the struggles of fleets both indirectly by its action against communications and directly through its impact on bases and positions, movement, and possibilities for uniting forces.24
Geography’s impact changes with time and technical progress, but equally for everyone. Its effect can be exacerbated or mitigated by the condition of the belligerent’s mobile forces and by his ability to make more or less good use of them. Fundamentally, the influence of geography is nothing other than the action of the land on the sea.
From the strategic point of view, the land exercises power over the sea as if the continents overflowed the oceans as oil spreads over water. Awareness of the resources that the land can give to certain belligerents leads one to speak of a “command” of the sea imposed by the geography of specific regions.25 To characterize this situation, people have used expressions like “zone of control,” “zone of influence,” or “zone of preponderance,” formulas that more or less happily describe the influence of the land on the sea. The mind, however, insists on the preeminence of the fleet and begrudges the admission that geography might undermine its domination. If my force is superior to that of the enemy, I can go into the zone in question and force the enemy to retreat into port and remain there. How, then, can one speak of his “preponderance” in that zone when it is I who reigns there as master? Indeed, this will be the state of affairs for some period of time. Eventually, however, I shall have to return to my bases to revictual, effect repairs, and clean the hullls of my ships. If these bases are badly placed and too far from the zone in question, that is, if geography is unfavorable to me, I shall be absent for a considerable period of time. As soon as I have turned on my heels, the enemy, who is at home and supported by facilities I lack, will reenter the theater of action and dominate it during my absence. Even in my presence, he may be able to accomplish some operation that would have been impossible without some collusion between the earth, the coast, the depths, etc. He will have opportunities forbidden to me. It is in this sense that one must understand the terms “control” and “preponderance.”
The influence of the land on the sea is not, then, an empty one. It has been increased, moreover, by technical developments. In the days of sail, the superior fleet could maintain its preeminent situation, even on the coasts of a belligerent having a geographical advantage, much longer than at present. Because his range of action was limited, his mastery had a more permanent character. One need only think of the British fleet during the Revolution and Empire.
Certain new inventions, like the torpedo boat and the submarine, increase the influence of the land because they are most effective in the neighborhood of their coastal bases. Since fleets will avoid them as if they emanated a special repulsive force, they reduce the ability of the superior surface fleet to approach enemy shores.26 Aviation also increases geography’s role. Because aircraft carriers do not allow an equal response, whoever holds the land has the advantage in the air. Mines are similar because they are used in shallow waters, which tend to be found near land.
Consequently, the preeminent fleet, once the master of the sea, enjoys a much less favorable situation than in the past. Wherever geography favors the enemy, it is handicapped by concerns of resupply and by the enemy’s torpedoes, submarines, air power, and mines.27 Future fleets will emulate the British during the last war, who, acting as if the German coasts had advanced into the middle of the North Sea, refrained from applying their special formula of “moving their frontiers to the enemy coast.” With ships of the line, at least, one will have to proceed by means of rapid and intermittent raids, and only the ships of light or moderate tonnage will inherit the favored situation of the past. If not totally paralyzed, one will nonetheless be considerably hampered and limited to special kinds of operations.
Finally, bizarre as it may seem, the land plays a greater role than before in operations, especially in the area of communications. The great transmission stations, upon which one constantly calls to ensure communications with the vessels, exist on land, and only there can one operate the special stations for interception, direction finding, and transmissions to submarines. Intelligence services also must do the bulk of their work on land.
Thus, looking at new elements of naval war including fuel resupply, torpedoes, submarines, mines, aviation, and wireless communication, one concludes that the influence of the land on the sea has significantly increased with technical progress. This is one of the principal reasons why one cannot transpose unaltered into our epoch certain methods or processes of the past. . . .28
GEOGRAPHIC STUDY OF A THEATER OF OPERATIONS
Clearly one cannot elaborate on any plan of operations without profound study of the relevant theater. . . . Admiral Mahan excelled at geographical analyses of this kind but presented them in a particularly indigestible form. In fact, his emphasis on such study is, after the notion of the importance of the fleet, the most remarkable feature of his work. This special side of naval strategy appeared to him early with clarity. He succeeded in giving the fleet and the terrain their appropriate respective weights, although the two factors are ordinarily treated as contradictory.
In a series of articles appearing from 1893 to 1904 and united in a work called The Interest of America in Sea Power, Mahan outlines several case studies of primary importance for American naval policy.29 He first examines the Pacific from the point of view of American interests. Exhaustive evaluation of routes and distances leads him to stress the great military value of the Hawaiian Islands, which, in any case, leaps to the eyes after a single glance at the map.
Mahan then occupies himself with the Caribbean, an American Mediterranean none of whose islands belong to a serious continental power. . . . He traces the major Caribbean routes linking Europe and the Atlantic coast of the United States and identifies the points that permit command of these routes. The Mississippi Delta, Pensacola, Key West, Santa Lucia, Martinique, Cuba, Jamaica, and the Isthmus of Panama draw particular attention. Of these, the Mississippi, Cuba, and Panama seem by far the most important. Under the control of a foreign power, Cuba and Jamaica threaten to interfere with American communications, but the United States could free herself from Jamaica’s geographic influence and even dominate the British possession if she were master of Cuba or if Cuba were independent and solidly allied with the United States.
One sees how Mahan’s geographic studies, a reflection of the preoccupations of his country and his time, directly inspired the contemporary naval policy of the United States and oriented American expansion in these regions. The coincidence of dates is revealing. The study of the northern Pacific was in 1890 and the occupation of the Hawaiian Islands, which the United States did not want in 1881, occurred in 1898. The study of the Caribbean Sea was in 1897 and the Spanish-American War, more or less provoked by the Americans who were still far in their thought from the Kellogg Pact, in 1898. Spain was chased from Cuba and Puerto Rico, doubtless on the basis of the principle, dear to Mahan, of “the expropriation of incompetent races.” Next America took control over the isthmus and canal of Panama, and the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty of 1900 gave her free access to the former British coast.30 The purchase of the French company’s rights rendered the Americans financial masters of the canal, and the 1904 constitution of the Republic of Panama gave them political supremacy. Finally, in 1914, they reduced Haiti to vassalage. At present, the United States looks towards Central America and a future Nicaraguan Canal.31
Some contemporary Americans do not find this sufficient. The Army and Navy Journal of 25 November 1922 argues America’s need to possess not only the canal itself but its advanced posts, the islands now held by European powers. Amiable financial agreements have already been negotiated for the Danish West Indies, but it remains to persuade Britain, Holland, and France to cede their possessions. The American journal offers an ingenious argument. If these nations are at peace with the United States, the islands are of no value to them. In war, the islands pose a grave threat to the Americans but could not, in American hands, threaten the metropolitan territories of Britain, Holland, or France. The Bermudas, Trinidad, and Jamaica seem especially irritating to Uncle Sam, more so because the British fleet has no serious European enemy and its activities in the Caribbean impinge on American’s self-proclaimed sphere of interest. . . .
In our day, other authors have also treated the geographic elements of different possible conflicts. Before the 1914 war both the British and the Germans studied the North Sea theater. Admiral Bernotti’s Guerra Marittima analyzed once again the situation of the Germans and the British in the North Sea during the last war.32 Previously, in his work Il potere marittimo nella grande guerra, he had, as we have seen, considered in detail the situation of the eastern Mediterranean in a war involving Italy, and our example reminds us of the importance of such a geographical study in developing any plan of action in that theater.
1. Raoul Castex, Théories stratégiques, vol. 3 (Paris: Société d’Editions Géographiques, Maritimes et Coloniales, 1931): 137–81.
2. Castex uses the word “hydrographic” in the strict sense of charting water depth.
3. But Castex notes below that Mahan’s Influence was a seminal discussion of geography as a fundamental element of sea power.
4. The French School.
5. One can make an analogous observation with regard to a war between the United States and Japan in Asian waters. A glance at the map reveals the difficulties to be encountered by the Americans (author’s note).
6. Wegener would object to the distinction. Because the High Seas Fleet could not bring the Grand Fleet to battle by threatening British shipping, “the Helgoland Bight was, is, and remains a dead angle in a dead sea,” VAdm. Wolfgang Wegener, The Naval Strategy of the World War. Translated with an introduction by Holger Werwig (Annapolis, 1989): 22.
7. François Louis Rousselet, Marquis de Châteaurenault (1637–1716).
8. Admiral Henry Killigrew (died 1712).
9. The Four Days Battle of 1–4 June 1666 ranged from the Dutch coast to the mouth of the Thames. Admiral Monk, now the Duke of Albemarle, divided his forces, sending Rupert’s squadron down the Channel to prevent the French from joining their Dutch allies. The Dutch and, eventually, the French had the better of this extremely hard-fought battle.
10. Marshal Jean d’Estrées commanded Tourville’s rearguard at Beachy Head but was prevented by weather from joining his superior in time for Barfleur-Le Hogue, Etienne Taillemite, Dictionnaire des marins français (Paris, 1982): 114.
11. It is fair to add that Tourville also failed to wait for Villette and La Porte before sailing for the central Channel. Villette joined him three days before the battle, and La Porte never went beyond Brest (author’s note).
12. By Admiral Boscawen on 18–19 August 1759.
13. That these naturally disappeared in 1808 reveals the serious mistake committed by Napoleon in provoking war with Spain (author’s note).
14. “When a frontier separates two countries whose interests are not opposed, the government should at least seek the neighbor’s benevolent neutrality by supporting its interests,” Colonel Culmann, Stratégie, 416 (author’s note).
15. Castex rarely writes so prescriptively.
16. Admiral Bernotti treated part of this question in his important work II potere marittimo nella grande guerra (Livorno, 1920): 535–45. See also Captain Bertonnelli, Il nostro mare (Florence, 1929) (author’s note).
17. Between Corsica and Sardinia.
18. The Adriatic is out of place here.
19. Castex explains the adjective below, 299–301.
20. Hence fascism’s current policy towards the Soviets, which can seem illogical from other points of view (author’s note).
21. In this passage it is not only a matter of Italian or French shipping but of neutrals, with whom it will be much more difficult to deal (author’s note).
22. Castex refers not to Hitler’s Germany but either Russia or, in the longer term, Asia.
23. This second use of the notion of homothetic reduction makes more sense than that of chapter 11.
24. Geography affects not only military but social and political actions. A state of affairs like that in Russia [the Soviet union] has survived only because it has been protected by distance, that is, by geography, against moral, economic, and military reaction from outside. In other regions of Europe, “this human cancer” would probably soon have been eliminated. Witness Bela Kun’s adventure in Hungary (author’s note).
25. See above, chapter 5 (author’s note).
26. Thus, with the advent of the torpedo, the French Jeune Ecole somewhat hastily invented a coastal war destined in theory to replace war on the high seas forever; the sudden increase in the shore’s power has somewhat unhinged people (author’s note).
27. Consider, for example, the difficulties that a French fleet would encounter in cooperating in the defense of the east coast of Corsica (author’s note).
28. The influence of the land will become preponderant if the strange and novel American theory of freedom of the seas should be adopted because that theory would have the effect of limiting hostilities to the territorial waters of belligerents (author’s note). Discussions of narrow seas and meteorology (pages 165–75) are omitted.
29. Translated by M. Izoulet, professor at the Collège de France, under the rather imprecise title Le salut de la race blanche et l’empire des mers (author’s note). “Imprecise” to say the least.
30. Actually dated 1901, the treaty allowed the United States to build an isthmian canal.
31. They have even proposed establishing a protectorate over the republics in this region, launching a financial appeal to this end in 1927. In the course of a grand tour of Central America, the Secretary of State for War visited all of the points in Honduras, Guatemala, Costa Rica, and Nicaragua suitable for naval bases. For this purpose, Cuba has already ceded Guantánamo, Panama Colón, and Nicaragua Fonseca Bay and the Corn Islands. See J. Crockaert, La Méditerranée américaine, French translation (Paris, 1929), and Léon Rollin, Sous le signe de Monroe, 1930 (author’s note).
32. Castex, Théories, vol. 1, 50–59 (author’s note).