European Navies and the Conduct of War by Carlos Alfaro-Zaforteza Alan James Malcolm H Murfett & Carlos Alfaro Zaforteza & Malcolm Murfett

Author:Carlos Alfaro-Zaforteza,Alan James,Malcolm H Murfett & Carlos Alfaro Zaforteza & Malcolm Murfett
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis (CAM)
Published: 2018-07-01T16:00:00+00:00

Conclusions

Not long after Mahan published his seminal work, Halford Mackinder expressed a completely different point of view. Recognising the growing importance of the large, land-based giants, Russia and the United States, he predicted the relative decline of the importance of maritime power.82 Yet by the end of the nineteenth century there was little sign of any such decline. The diffusion of sea power and popular politics had led to an increase of public interest in naval and colonial affairs. Navies were seen as essential instruments of competitive imperial expansion and as status symbols, not only by the ruling elites, but also by the public. Navalism duly emerged as a significant factor in domestic politics, and the popular appeal of big ships was cleverly exploited by statesmen and other interest groups. It was largely responsible for the huge expenditure in naval construction on the eve of World War One.

In many ways, Britain’s growth as a naval power and the huge expansion of maritime trade was a double-edged sword. On one hand, it led to a profitable global network of coaling stations, dry docks, and submarine telegraph stations, together with efficient steam merchant ships, which served the world’s markets with all kinds of commodities. However, this extremely complex system, directed chiefly from the City of London, turned out to be vulnerable as well as profitable. Britain and indeed Germany, in particular, had become dangerously dependent on exports and imports from overseas. This would become apparent during the First World War, when Germany suffered desperately after becoming cut off from Atlantic routes. For Britain, the immense effort to keep supplies flowing and to maintain the blockade of Germany would seriously limit overall military capability and lead to the need for American help to avoid defeat. In some respects, Britain had become a victim of its own success. Despite its continued pre-eminence, its position as the world’s naval giant, unassailable at the beginning of the nineteenth century, had been steadily undermined by the very popularity of navies it had done so much to provoke and by the enthusiastic adoption of naval power in different ways by the other powers. With the outbreak of the Great War, the dangers of this relative decline would soon become all too real.

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