God and Sea Power by Geissler Suzanne

Author:Geissler, Suzanne
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-6125-1844-2
Publisher: Naval Institute Press
Published: 2015-10-14T16:00:00+00:00

Mahan in his fifties (U.S. Naval Institute Photo Archive)

It is certainly something, not unparalleled but I fear rare, not only to have had twenty five years of happiness, but to find that the end is better than the beginning; that although youth is gone, at no time have things been so entirely well with us. For myself at least the indisposition to live my life over again is not from dissatisfaction with the past, but from firm enjoyment of the present. I should be inclined from my experience to say it is quite logical to put the golden wedding last—the golden age is last.12

Mahan also received an honorary LLD from Yale on June 30. As he had already received an LLD from Harvard, he remarked tongue-in-cheek to the family lawyer, “My law knowledge will soon be immense.”13

As the Cuban crisis worsened and diplomatic relations with Spain deteriorated in the winter and spring of 1898, Mahan went ahead with plans to take his family to Europe for a vacation. He even withdrew Lyle early from his senior year at Groton so that he too could come. While doing so he assured “the Rector,” Endicott Peabody, how pleased he was “with the growth and development of Lyle’s character and moral turn” which showed “the wholesome influence exerted by yourself and your associates.”14 Mahan must have been pleased with Lyle’s academic work, too, as he had been accepted by Columbia University and would enter in the fall.15

Mahan had planned the vacation for a long time. It was to last six months, and as Lyle recalled, his father had “mapped out exactly” the itinerary.16 The trip was scheduled to begin on March 26, but with war with Spain seemingly imminent after the sinking of the USS Maine on February 15, 1898, Mahan wondered if he ought to go. He might be recalled to active duty or his services might be needed in some other capacity. He was told by the Navy Department that there was no need to cancel the trip.17

Mahan, who has so often been maligned as an imperialist and a warmonger, took a calm attitude toward the sinking of the Maine. In a letter to his British friend, Colonel J. B. Sterling, he wrote, “The thought of treachery is not admissible until proved, and I myself do not see any indication of it as yet.”18 Only a week after the sinking Mahan gave a speech in Princeton to the New Jersey Chapter of the Society of the Cincinnati, advising them to “be very cautious in forming hasty conclusions in reference to such things as this disaster. People are liable to jump at conclusions at a great national crisis like this which might involve them seriously.”19

Theodore Roosevelt, then occupying the key position of Assistant Secretary of the Navy, sought Mahan’s views constantly and the two had a lengthy correspondence (some of which has been lost). Although Warren Zimmermann in First Great Triumph claims that “Mahan’s views in reply were as hawkish as his own [Roosevelt’s],” that does not actually seem to be the case.

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