Alfred Thayer Mahan | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | (1840-09-27)September 27, 1840 West Point, New York, U.S. |
| Died | December 1, 1914(1914-12-01) (aged 74) Washington, D.C., U.S. |
| Buried | Quogue Cemetery Quogue, New York |
| Allegiance | United States of America |
| Service | United States Navy |
| Years of service | 1859–1896 |
| Rank | .png){kind=icon} Captain Rear admiral (post-retirement) |
| Commands | USS Chicago USS Wasp USS Wachusett |
| Battles / wars | American Civil WarSpanish–American War |
| Children | Helen Evans Mahan (daughter) Ellen Kuhn Mahan (daughter) Lyle Evans Mahan (son)[1] |
| Relations | ProfessorDennis Hart Mahan (father)[2] Mary Helena Okill Mahan (mother) SirJames Jay (great-grandfather) |
| Other work | Author ofThe Influence of Sea Power upon History andThe Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution and Empire |
| Signature |  |
Alfred Thayer Mahan (/məˈhæn/; September 27, 1840 – December 1, 1914) was aUnited States naval officer andhistorian, whomJohn Keegan called "the most important American strategist of the nineteenth century."[3] His 1890 bookThe Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660–1783 won immediate recognition, especially in Europe, and with the publication of its 1892 successor,The Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution and Empire, 1793–1812, he affirmed his status as a globally-known and regarded military strategist, historian, and theorist. Mahan's works encouraged the development of largecapital ships — eventually leading todreadnought battleships — as he was an advocate of the 'decisive battle' and ofnaval blockades. Critics, however, charged him with failing to adequately explain the rise of largely land-based empires, such as theGerman orOttoman Empires, though Mahan did accurately predict both empires' defeats inWorld War I.[4][5][6] Mahan directly influenced the dominantinterwar period andWorld War II-era Japanese naval doctrine of the "decisive battle doctrine" (艦隊決戦,Kantai Kessen),[7] and he became a "household name" in Germany.[8] He also promoted American control overHawaii[9] though he was "lukewarm" in regards toAmerican imperialism in general.[10] Four U.S. Navy ships have bornehis name, as well as various buildings and roads; and his works are still read, discussed, and debated in military, historical, and scholarly circles.
Mahan was born on September 27, 1840, atWest Point, New York, toDennis Hart Mahan,[2] a professor at theUnited States Military Academy and the foremost American expert on fortifications, and Mary Helena Okill Mahan (1815–1893), daughter of John Okill and Mary Jay, daughter of SirJames Jay. Mahan's middle name honors "the father of West Point",Sylvanus Thayer. Mahan attendedSaint James School, an Episcopal college preparatory academy in western Maryland. He then studied atColumbia for two years, where he was a member of thePhilolexian Society debating club.[11] Against the wishes of his father, Mahan then entered theU.S. Naval Academy, where he graduated second in his class in 1859.[12]
After graduation he was assigned to the frigateCongress from 9 June 1859 until 1861. He then joined the steam-corvettePocahontas of the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron and participated in theBattle of Port Royal inSouth Carolina early in theAmerican Civil War.[13] Commissioned as alieutenant in 1861, Mahan served as an officer onUSS Worcester andJames Adger and as an instructor at the Naval Academy. In 1865, he was promoted tolieutenant commander, and then tocommander (1872), andcaptain (1885). As commander of theUSS Wachusett he was stationed atCallao,Peru, protecting U.S. interests during the final stages of theWar of the Pacific.[14][15]
While in actual command of a ship, his skills were not exemplary; and a number of vessels under his command were involved in collisions with both moving andstationary objects. He preferred old square-rigged vessels rather than smoky, noisy steamships of his own day; and he tried to avoid active sea duty.[16]
In 1885, he was appointed as a lecturer in naval history and tactics at theNaval War College. Before entering on his duties, College President Rear AdmiralStephen B. Luce pointed Mahan in the direction of writing his future studies on the influence of sea power. During his first year on the faculty, he remained at his home in New York City researching and writing his lectures. Though he was prepared to become a professor in 1886, Luce was given command of theNorth Atlantic Squadron, and Mahan becamePresident of the Naval War College by default (June 22, 1886 – January 12, 1889, July 22, 1892 – May 10, 1893).[17] There, in 1888, he met and befriended future presidentTheodore Roosevelt, then a visiting lecturer.[18]
Mahan's lectures, based on secondary sources and the military theories ofAntoine-Henri Jomini, became his sea-power studies:The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660–1783 (1890);The Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution and Empire, 1793–1812 (2 vols., 1892);Sea Power in Relation to the War of 1812 (2 vols., 1905), andThe Life of Nelson: The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain (2 vols., 1897). Mahan stressed the importance of the individual in shaping history and extolled the traditional values of loyalty, courage, and service to the state. Mahan sought to resurrectHoratio Nelson as a national hero in Britain and used his biography as a platform for expressing his views on naval strategy and tactics. Mahan was criticized for so strongly condemning Nelson's love affair with LadyEmma Hamilton, but it remained the standard biography until the appearance ofCarola Oman'sNelson, 50 years later.[19]
Mahan struck up a friendship with pioneering British naval historian SirJohn Knox Laughton, the pair maintaining the relationship through correspondence and visits when Mahan was in London. Mahan was later described as a "disciple" of Laughton, but the two were at pains to distinguish between each other's line of work. Laughton saw Mahan as a theorist while Mahan called Laughton "the historian".[20] Mahan worked closely withWilliam McCarty Little, another critical figure in the early history of the Naval War College. A principal developer of wargaming in the United States Navy, Mahan credited Little for assisting him with preparing maps and charts for his lectures and first book.[21]
Mahan's views were shaped by 17th-century conflicts between theDutch Republic, theKingdom of England, theKingdom of France, andHabsburg Spain, and by the naval conflicts between France and Spain during theFrench Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. British naval superiority eventually defeated France, consistently preventing invasion and an effective blockade. Mahan emphasized that naval operations were chiefly to be won bydecisive battles andblockades.[22] In the 19th century, the United States sought greater control over its seaborne commerce in order to protect its economic interests which relied heavily on exports bound mainly for Europe.
According toPeter Paret'sMakers of Modern Strategy from Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age, Mahan's emphasis on sea power as the most important cause of Britain's rise to world power neglected diplomacy and land arms. Furthermore, theories of sea power do not explain the rise of land empires, such asOtto von Bismarck'sGerman Empire or theRussian Empire.[5]
Mahan believed that national greatness was inextricably associated with the sea, with its commercial use in peace and its control in war; and he used history as a stock of examples to exemplify his theories, arguing that the education of naval officers should be based on a rigorous study of history. Mahan's framework derived from Jomini, and emphasized strategic locations (such aschoke points, canals, and coaling stations), as well as quantifiable levels of fighting power in a fleet. Mahan also believed that in peacetime, states should increase production and shipping capacities and acquire overseas possessions, though he stressed that the number of coal fueling stations and strategic bases should be limited to avoid draining too many resources from the mother country.[23]
The primary mission of a navy was to secure the command of the sea, which would permit the maintenance of sea communications for one's own ships while denying their use to the enemy and, if necessary, closely supervise neutral trade. Control of the sea could be achieved not by destruction of commerce but only by destroying or neutralizing the enemy fleet. Such a strategy called for the concentration of naval forces composed of capital ships, not too large but numerous, well-manned with crews thoroughly trained, and operating under the principle that the best defense is an aggressive offense.[24]
Mahan contended that with acommand of the sea, even if local and temporary, naval operations in support of land forces could be of decisive importance. He also believed that naval supremacy could be exercised by a transnational consortium acting in defense of a multinational system offree trade. His theories, expounded before thesubmarine became a serious factor in warfare, delayed the introduction of convoys as a defense against theImperial German Navy'sU-boat campaign during World War I. By the 1930s, the U.S. Navy had built long-range submarines to raid Japanese shipping; but in World War II, theImperial Japanese Armed Forces, still tied to Mahan, designed its submarines as ancillaries to the fleet and failed to attack American supply lines in the Pacific. Mahan's analysis of the Spanish-American War suggested to him that the great distances in the Pacific required the American battle fleet to be designed with long-range striking power.[25]
Mahan believed first, that good political and naval leadership was no less important than geography when it came to the development of sea power. Second, Mahan's unit of political analysis insofar as sea power was concerned was a transnational consortium, rather than a single nation state. Third, his economic ideal was free trade rather thanautarky. Fourth, his recognition of the influence of geography on strategy was tempered by a strong appreciation of the power of contingency to affect outcomes.[26]
In 1890, Mahan prepared a secretcontingency plan for war between theBritish Empire and the United States. Mahan believed that if theRoyal Navy blockaded theEast Coast of the United States, the US Navy should be concentrated in one of its ports, preferablyNew York Harbor with its two widely separated exits, and employ torpedo boats to defend the other harbors. This concentration of the U.S. fleet would force the British to tie down such a large proportion of their navy to watch the New York exits that other American ports would be relatively safe. Detached American cruisers should wage "constant offensive action" against the enemy's exposed positions; and if the British were to weaken their blockade force off New York to attack another American port, the concentrated U.S. fleet could capture British coaling ports inNova Scotia, thereby seriously weakening British ability to engage in naval operations off the American coast. This contingency plan was a clear example of Mahan's application of his principles of naval war, with a clear reliance on Jomini's principle of controlling strategic points.[27]
Timeliness contributed no small part to the widespread acceptance of Mahan's theories. Although his history was relatively thin, based as it was onsecondary sources, his vigorous style, and clear theory won widespread acceptance of navalists and supporters of theNew Imperialism in Africa and Asia.
Given the rapid technological changes underway in propulsion (from coal to oil and fromreciprocating engines to turbines), ordnance (with better fire directors, and new high explosives), and armor and the emergence of new craft such asdestroyers andsubmarines, Mahan's emphasis on the capital ship and the command of the sea came at an opportune moment.[24]
Mahan's name became a household word in theImperial German Navy after KaiserWilhelm II ordered his officers to read Mahan, and AdmiralAlfred von Tirpitz (1849–1930) used Mahan's reputation to finance a powerfulHigh Seas Fleet.[28] Tirpitz, an intense navalist who believed ardently in Mahan's dictum that whatever power rules the sea also ruled the world, hadThe Influence of Sea Power Upon History translated into German in 1898 and had 8,000 copies distributed for free as a way of pressuring theReichstag to vote for theFirst Navy Bill.[8]
Tirpitz used Mahan not only as a way of winning over German public opinion but also as a guide to strategic thinking.[29] Before 1914, Tirpitz completely rejectedcommerce raiding as a strategy and instead embraced Mahan's ideal of a decisive battle of annihilation between two fleets as the way to win command of the seas.[8] Tirpitz always planned for the German High Seas Fleet to win theEntscheidungsschlacht (decisive battle) against the BritishGrand Fleet somewhere in "the waters betweenHelgoland and theThames", a strategy he based on his reading ofThe Influence of Sea Power Upon History.[8]
However, thenaval warfare of World War I proved completely different than German planners, influenced by Mahan, had anticipated because the Royal Navy avoided open battle and focused onblockading Germany. As a result, after theBattles of Heligoland Bight andDogger Bank, AdmiralHugo von Pohl kept most of Germany's surface fleet at itsNorth Sea bases. In 1916, his successor,Reinhard Scheer, tried to lure the Grand Fleet into a Mahanian decisive battle at theBattle of Jutland, but the engagement ended in a strategic defeat.[30] Finally as the German army neared defeat in theHundred Days Offensive, the German Navy's high command, without informing the government, tried to mobilize the fleet for a decisive engagement with the Royal Navy. The sailors rebelled in theKiel mutiny, instigating theGerman Revolution of 1918–1919 which toppled theHohenzollern monarchy.[31]
Mahan and British First Sea LordJohn Fisher (1841–1920) both addressed the problem of how to dominate home waters and distant seas with naval forces unable to do both. Mahan argued for a universal principle of concentration of powerful ships in home waters with minimized strength in distant seas. Fisher instead decided to use submarines to defend home waters and mobile battlecruisers to protect British interests.[32]
Though in 1914, French naval doctrine was dominated by Mahan's theory of sea power, the course ofWorld War I changed ideas about the place of the navy. The refusal of the German fleet to engage in a decisive battle, theDardanelles expedition of 1915, the development ofsubmarine warfare, and the organization of convoys all showed theFrench Navy's new role in combined operations with theFrench Army. The Navy's part in securing victory was not fully understood by French public opinion in 1918, but a synthesis of old and new ideas arose from the lessons of the war, especially by AdmiralRaoul Castex (1878–1968), who synthesized in his five-volumeThéories Stratégiques the classical and materialist schools of naval theory. He reversed Mahan's theory that command of the sea precedes maritime communications and foresaw the enlarged roles of aircraft and submarines in naval warfare.[33]
The Influence of Seapower Upon History, 1660–1783 was translated into Japanese[34] and was used as a textbook in theImperial Japanese Navy (IJN). That usage strongly affected the IJN's plan to endRussian naval expansion in the Far East, which culminated in theRusso-Japanese War of 1904–05.[35] It has been argued that the IJN's pursuit of the "decisive battle" (Kantai Kessen) contributed toImperial Japan's defeat inWorld War II,[36][37] because the development of the submarine and theaircraft carrier, combined with advances in technology, largely rendered obsolete the doctrine of the decisive battle between fleets.[38] Nevertheless, the IJN did not adhere strictly to Mahanian doctrine because its forces were often tactically divided, particularly during theattack on Pearl Harbor and theBattle of Midway.
Mahan believed that if the United States were to build anIsthmian canal, it would become a Pacific power, and therefore it should take possession ofHawaii to protect theWest Coast.[39] Nevertheless, his support forAmerican imperialism was more ambivalent than is often stated, and he remained lukewarm aboutAmerican annexation of the Philippines.[40] Mahan was a major influence on theRoosevelt family. In addition to Theodore, he corresponded with Assistant Secretary of the NavyFranklin D. Roosevelt until his death in 1914. During World War II, Roosevelt would ignore the late Mahan's prior advice to him that theCommonwealth of the Philippines could not be defended against anImperial Japanese invasion, leading to a futile defense of the islands against theJapanese Philippines campaign.[41]
Between 1889 and 1892, Mahan was engaged in special service for theBureau of Navigation, and in 1893 he was appointed to command the powerful newprotected cruiserChicago on a visit to Europe, where he was feted. He returned to lecture at the War College and then, in 1896, he retired from active service, returning briefly to duty in 1898 to consult on naval strategy during theSpanish–American War.
Mahan continued to write, and he received honorary degrees fromOxford,Cambridge,Harvard,Yale,Columbia,Dartmouth, andMcGill. In 1902, Mahan popularized the term "Middle East," which he used in the article "The Persian Gulf and International Relations," published in September in theNational Review.[42]
As a delegate to the1899 Hague Convention, Mahan argued against prohibiting the use ofasphyxiating gases in warfare on the ground that such weapons would inflict such terrible casualties that belligerents would be forced to end wars more quickly, thus providing a net advantage for world peace.[43]
In 1902, Mahan was elected president of theAmerican Historical Association, and his address, "Subordination in Historical Treatment", is his most explicit explanation of his philosophy of history.[44]
In 1906, Mahan became rear admiral by anAct of Congress that promoted all retired captains who had served in theAmerican Civil War. At the outbreak ofWorld War I, he published statements favorable to the cause of theAllies, but in an attempt to enforce American neutrality, PresidentWoodrow Wilson ordered that all active and retired officers refrain from publicly commenting on the war.[45]
Mahan was reared as anEpiscopalian and became a devout churchman withHigh Church sympathies. For instance, late in life he strongly opposed revision of theBook of Common Prayer.[46] Nevertheless, Mahan also appears to have undergone a conversion experience about 1871, when he realized that he could experience God's favor, not through his own merits, but only through "trust in the completed work of Christ on the cross."[47] Geissler called one of his religious addresses almost "evangelical, albeit of the dignified stiff-upper-lip variety."[48] And Mahan never mentioned a conversion experience in his autobiography.
In later life, Mahan often spoke to Episcopal parishes. In 1899, atHoly Trinity Church inBrooklyn, Mahan emphasized his own religious experience and declared that one needed a personal relationship with God given through the work of theHoly Spirit.[49] In 1909, Mahan publishedThe Harvest Within: Thoughts on the Life of the Christian, which was "part personal testimony, part biblical analysis, part expository sermon."[50]
Mahan died inWashington, D.C., ofheart failure on December 1, 1914, a few months after the outbreak of World War I.
Alfred Thayer Mahan married Ellen Lyle Evans (born November 27, 1851) in June 1872. Together, they had two daughters and one son; Helen Evans Mahan, born August 6, 1873; Ellen Kuhn Mahan, born July 10, 1877; and Lyle Evans Mahan, born 12 February 1881. Lyle Mahan alleged that his mother and father inherited several modest fortunes, though he admits that between maintaining multiple households (the Mahans owned at least two homes for most of their lives) and funding his sisters' and his own educations, they were not immensely wealthy. Lyle would go on to be a successful attorney and financier, and named his only son AlfredThayer Mahan II (born 1905, died 1985).[54]
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In1901, analternate history byRobert Conroy, the main character is a youngUnited States Army officer named Patrick Mahan, a fictitious nephew of Admiral Mahan, who himself appears briefly in the story as well.
InHarry Turtledove'sSouthern Victory, another alternate history, Mahan is frequently mentioned but never appears. He is spoken of as having beenPresident of the United States from 1889 to 1897, and the Mahan Bedroom is a famous room in thePowel House inPhiladelphia, analogous to the actualLincoln Bedroom in theWhite House. As President, Mahan prevented the construction of a Confederate shipping canal in Nicaragua and opined that the main problem with republics is that "over time, the voters are apt to get tired of paying for what their country needs to defend itself".
The protagonist inG.C. Edmondson's novelThe Ship that Sailed the Time Stream frequently mentions Mahan and/or Mahan's ghost as an exclamation.
InThe Riddle of the Sands,Erskine Childers has his character Davies "aimlessly fingering a volume of Mahan".
Notes
Primary sources
| Military offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | President of the Naval War College 1886–1889 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | President of the Naval War College 1892–1893 | Succeeded by |
