THE COMMAND OF THE MEDITERRANEAN.
THEpaper which Captain Mahan contributes to the July number of the National Review is one of the ablest of his many remarkable contributions to the science of naval strategy. Its subject matter is of vital importance to all members of the British Empire, for it is nothing less than an attempt to lay down the essential conditions which should govern our naval strategy and the disposition of our naval squadrons. Captain Mahan has much of moment to say as to the command of the North Sea and of the Channel, but the point with which we desire to deal to-day concerns, not them, but the Mediterranean. He holds that it is necessary to the safety of the Empire that we should command the Mediterranean. We cannot doubt that he is right. He bases his contention on two main considerations. First, the chief unsolved political problems of the present time lie in the Far East, and through the Mediterranean the lines of communication with the Far East must pass. Next, the chief European Powers are deeply concerned with the Mediterranean. We found in the great war with France that the com- mand of the Mediterranean was essential to our naval supremacy. Yet at that time we had no direct interests in the Mediterranean. There was no Suez Canal, and we had not taken possession of Egypt. France, again, bad not acquired the northern coast of Africa, and Italy as a Great Power did not exist. If the Mediterranean was important then, it is ten times as important now. But though we entirely agree with Captain Mahan as to the importance of keeping a firm hold on our communications with the Far East, we think that if he had chosen he could have very greatly increased the strength of his arguments. The rising Power of the world, both naval and commercial—i.e., Germany—is becoming deeply interested in the Mediter- ranean. Her people talk less about it than about China, but that is perhaps the surest sign of their interest. There are, in truth, no German aspirations more tenaciously held in high quarters than those concerned with Asia Minor and the Levant. It is in order to further those aspirations that Germany has built up her diplomatic position in Constantinople, that she has spread her Bank agencies and commercial houses over Asia Minor, and that she is so energetically engaged in pushing her railway enterprises in those regions. Germany is already a great power in the Levant, and means to be a greater. But Germany is our rival, the Power which looks to building up an Empire on the ruins of our own. She may not hate us, but she thinks we are going to pieces, and means to secure our inheritance. If she saw a good opportunity for accelerating that process of decay in which she so firmly believes, she would not scruple to use it,—arguing, no doubt, that if she did not give the coup de gnice, some one else would. That being so, Germany wants to be watched and kept well in hand, and nowhere can we do that work better than in the Mediterranean. Germany in a few years will be much more vulnerable in the Levant than in the North Sea, where her land strength makes her on the defensive side fairly secure. Again, should the Austrian Empire break up, and the Pan-German scheme of a Reichs-Port on the Adriatic be realised, the possibility of controlling Germany through the Mediterranean will be greatly increased. We find in recent developments in South Africa yet another argument for the command of the Mediterranean. At present most of the South African trade goes round the Cape because Cape Colony has been able to exercise so important an influence on the railways. When, however, things finally settle down in South Africa, the facts of geography will assert themselves, and the transport required by the vast industrial development that will take place in the Transvaal will be carried on by the short land route. The ports of our new possessions will be Delagoa Bay, Durban, and possibly East London. But for Delagoa Bay and Durban the ultimate sea route must be through the Mediterranean and the Canal, and not round the Cape. This fact is bound to enhance the im- portance of the Mediterranean. The growth of the Australian Commonwealth and of New Zealand will have the same effect. In fact, all that tends to increase the importance of the Transvaal, Australia, and New Zealand must tend to increase the importance of the Mediterranean to the British Empire. Another factor of immense influence working in this direction will be the growth of the local importance of Egypt. Hitherto we have regarded Egypt of importance chiefly as a halfway-house to India. But Egypt is destined to become per se, and quite apart from her geographical position, a most valuable portion of the British Empire. She is already a rich possession, and when the great public works built by us are in full working order the internal prosperity of the Land of the Nile is likely to be something beyond any Oriental precedent. Even the Soudan when the railway from Suakin'. yid, Kassala to the interior is finished will prove much less of a financial burden than at present. Lastly, when in another sixty years Egypt has practically paid off her public Debt, and the entire property in the Suez Canal has fallen in like a London leasehold house, as it will, it will be difficult to place any limits to the material development of Egypt.
In truth, British interests and responsibilities of all kinds tend to concentrate in the Mediterranean, and we should be making a capital error in the arts of politics and of strategy if we let go our hold on the Middle Sea. But though we believe that we are bound to make the necessary effort to secure the command of the Mediterranean by the only methods compatible with our desire—i.e., by the creation Of a mobile force larger than that of any possible rival, and by maintaining naval bases at Gibraltar and Malta of the strongest possible kind—we consider that we ought to be careful to assert our command of that sea in the way which will be least injurious to France. She is not our real rival. and we should do our best to prove this to her. Such a task is fortunately not beyond our power. The chief matter as regards the Mediterranean on which France is sensitive is the future of Morocco. If we make France believe that we intend to stand in her way as regards Morocco, we shall always feel her enmity. If, on the other hand, we agree to her having the freest possible hand in the Empire of Morocco, provided that she does not take any part of the coast from Melilla to Sebu, but allows that fragment of the Shereeffian Empire to fall to Spain, we shall be able to avoid wounding French sensibilities.
France is after all not so very anxious to see Germany supreme in Asia. Minor and the Levant, and. if she under- stands that we are far more anxious to control Germany than to threaten herself she is not likely to be over-anxious as to our naval force. It will never be used aggressively against herself.
Before we leave Captain Mahan's interesting paper, we must say a word as to the advice which he incidentally gives the Australian Colonies in the matter of Imperial naval defence. In effect he bids them remember that they will not obtain the best security by coast-defence ships and localised squadrons, but only by a mobile force. We entirely agree. This is just the advice we ventured to give the Australians when we suggested that they might very likely find it necessary to defend Australia in the Mediterranean. But though we are quite as firm as the firmest naval strate- gist on this point, we cannot agree that it necessitates the Colonies hiring their defence from us by a mere money contribution. On the contrary, ive hold that the best way of getting the Colonies to realise the true nature of sea-power is for them to build and. man 'sea-going Navies of their own. Captain Mahan, we are glad to see, does not apparently regard this notion as forbidden. He leaves the question entirely open. For ourselves, we hold that in the long run naval power rests on the naval spirit existing in the Empire that seeks naval power. But Canada, Australia, and New Zealand will never attain to that naval spirit which is the life-breath of maritime empire if they hire their naval protection in Britain or merely pay in money. They will only foster the naval spirit by having sea-going Ships of their own, for whose upkeep and equipment their own statesmen and their own people take the fullest responsi- bility. When Australians man and officer ships paid for by Australian money, we shall see dockyards and Naval Reserves and naval bases of real value spring up in Australia. Mere money subsidies to the Home Admiralty will never create the spirit on which naval power rests. It is because we are so intensely convinced of the importance of sea-power to the Empire, and of the sea spirit, that we want to see Canadian, Australian, New Zealand, and South African Squadrons, for which the four free nations of the Empire are responsible, even though they place them in far-distant waters to learn their business and to lake their share in creating and maintaining the command of the sea for the British Empire.
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