Part 6 (1/2)
We have thus the two centres round which revolve all the military study of the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico. The two sheets of water, taken together, control or affect the approaches on one side to these two supreme centres of commercial, and therefore of political and military, interest. The approaches on the other side--the interior communications of the Mississippi, that is, or the maritime routes in the Pacific converging upon the Isthmus--do not here concern us.
These approaches, in terms of military art, are known as the ”communications.” Communications are probably the most vital and determining element in strategy, military or naval. They are literally the most radical; for all military operations depend upon communications, as the fruit of a plant depends upon communication with its root. We draw therefore upon the map the chief lines by which communication exists between these two centres and the outside world. Such lines represent the mutual dependence of the centres and the exterior, by which each ministers to the others, and by severance of which either becomes useless to the others. It is from their potential effect upon these lines of communication that all positions in the Gulf or the Caribbean derive their military value, or want of value.
It is impossible to precede or to accompany a discussion of this sort with a technical exposition of naval strategy. Such definitions of the art as may be needed must be given _in loco_, cursorily and dogmatically. Therefore it will be said here briefly that the strategic value of any position, be it body of land large or small, or a seaport, or a strait, depends, 1, upon situation (with reference chiefly to communications), 2, upon its strength (inherent or acquired), and, 3, upon its resources (natural or stored). As strength and resources are matters which man can acc.u.mulate where suitable situation offers, whereas he cannot change the location of a place in itself otherwise advantageous, it is upon situation that attention must primarily be fixed. Strength and resources may be artificially supplied or increased, but it pa.s.ses the power of man to move a port which lies outside the limits of strategic effect. Gibraltar in mid-ocean might have fourfold its present power, yet would be valueless in a military sense.
The positions which are indicated on the map by the dark squares have been selected, therefore, upon these considerations, after a careful study of the inherent advantages of the various ports and coast-lines of the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf. It is by no means meant that there are not others which possess merits of various kinds; or that those indicated, and to be named, exhaust the strategic possibilities of the region under examination. But there are qualifying circ.u.mstances of degree in particular cases; and a certain regard must be had to political conditions, which may be said to a great extent to neutralize some positions. Some, too, are excluded because overshadowed by others so near and so strong as practically to embrace them, when under the same political tenure. Moreover, it is a commonplace of strategy that pa.s.sive positions, fortified places, however strong, although indispensable as supports to military operations, should not be held in great number. To do so wastes force.
Similarly, in the study of a field of maritime operations, the number of available positions, whose relative and combined influence upon the whole is to be considered, should be narrowed, by a process of gradual elimination, to those clearly essential and representative. To embrace more confuses the attention, wastes mental force, and is a hindrance to correct appreciation. The rejection of details, where permissible, and understandingly done, facilitates comprehension, which is baffled by a multiplication of minutiae, just as the impression of a work of art, or of a story, is lost amid a multiplicity of figures or of actors. The investigation precedent to formulation of ideas must be close and minute, but that done, the unbia.s.sed selection of the most important, expressed graphically by a few lines and a few dots, leads most certainly to the comprehension of decisive relations in a military field of action.
In the United States, Pensacola and the Mississippi River have been rivals for the possession of a navy-yard. The recent decision of a specially appointed board in favor of the latter, while it commands the full a.s.sent of the writer, by no means eliminates the usefulness of the former. Taken together, they fulfil a fair requirement of strategy, sea and land, that operations based upon a national frontier, which a coast-line is, should not depend upon a single place only. They are closer together than ideal perfection would wish; too easily, therefore, to be watched by an enemy without great dispersal of his force, which Norfolk and New York, for instance, are not; but still, conjointly, they are the best we can do on that line, having regard to the draught of water for heavy s.h.i.+ps. Key West, an island lying off the end of the Florida Peninsula, has long been recognized as the chief, and almost the only, good and defensible anchorage upon the Strait of Florida, reasonable control of which is indispensable to water communication between our Atlantic and Gulf seaboards in time of war. In case of war in the direction of the Caribbean, Key West is the extreme point now in our possession upon which, granting adequate fortification, our fleets could rely; and, so used, it would effectually divert an enemy's force from Pensacola and the Mississippi. It can never be the ultimate base of operations, as Pensacola or New Orleans can, because it is an island, a small island, and has no resources--not even water; but for the daily needs of a fleet--coal, ammunition, etc.--it can be made most effective. Sixty miles west of it stands an antiquated fortress on the Dry Tortugas.
These are capable of being made a useful adjunct to Key West, but at present they scarcely can be so considered. Key West is 550 miles distant from the mouth of the Mississippi, and 1200 from the Isthmus.
The islands of Santa Lucia and of Martinique have been selected because they represent the chief positions of, respectively, Great Britain and France on the outer limits of the general field under consideration. For the reasons already stated, Grenada, Barbadoes, Dominica, and the other near British islands are not taken into account, or rather are considered to be embraced in Santa Lucia, which adequately represents them. If a secondary position on that line were required, it would be at Antigua, which would play to Santa Lucia the part which Pensacola does to the Mississippi. In like manner the French Guadeloupe merges in Martinique. The intrinsic importance of these positions consists in the fact that, being otherwise suitable and properly defended, they are the nearest to the mother-countries, between whom and themselves there lies no point of danger near which it is necessary to pa.s.s. They have the disadvantage of being very small islands, consequently without adequate natural resources, and easy to be blockaded on all sides. They are therefore essentially dependent for their usefulness in war upon control of the sea, which neither Pensacola nor New Orleans is, having the continent at their backs.
It is in this respect that the pre-eminent intrinsic advantages of Cuba, or rather of Spain in Cuba, are to be seen; and also, but in much less degree, those of Great Britain in Jamaica. Cuba, though narrow throughout, is over six hundred miles long, from Cape San Antonio to Cape Maysi. It is, in short, not so much an island as a continent, susceptible, under proper development, of great resources--of self-sufficingness. In area it is half as large again as Ireland, but, owing to its peculiar form, is much more than twice as long. Marine distances, therefore, are drawn out to an extreme degree.
Its many natural harbors concentrate themselves, to a military examination, into three princ.i.p.al groups, whose representatives are, in the west, Havana; in the east, Santiago; while near midway of the southern sh.o.r.e lies Cienfuegos. The shortest water distance separating any two of these is 335 miles, from Santiago to Cienfuegos. To get from Cienfuegos to Havana 450 miles of water must be traversed and the western point of the island doubled; yet the two ports are distant by land only a little more than a hundred miles of fairly easy country.
Regarded, therefore, as a base of naval operations, as a source of supplies to a fleet, Cuba presents a condition wholly unique among the islands of the Caribbean and of the Gulf of Mexico; to both which it, and it alone of all the archipelago, belongs. It is unique in its size, which should render it largely self-supporting, either by its own products, or by the acc.u.mulation of foreign necessaries which naturally obtains in a large and prosperous maritime community; and it is unique in that such supplies can be conveyed from one point to the other, according to the needs of a fleet, by interior lines, not exposed to risks of maritime capture. The extent of the coast-line, the numerous harbors, and the many directions from which approach can be made, minimize the dangers of total blockade, to which all islands are subject. Such conditions are in themselves advantageous, but they are especially so to a navy inferior to its adversary, for they convey the power--subject, of course, to conditions of skill--of s.h.i.+fting operations from side to side, and finding refuge and supplies in either direction.
Jamaica, being but one-tenth the size of Cuba, and one-fifth of its length, does not present the intrinsic advantages of the latter island, regarded either as a source of supplies or as a centre from which to direct effort; but when in the hands of a power supreme at sea, as at the present Great Britain is, the questions of supplies, of blockade, and of facility in direction of effort diminish in importance. That which in the one case is a matter of life and death, becomes now only an embarra.s.sing problem, necessitating watchfulness and precaution, but by no means insoluble. No advantages of position can counterbalance, in the long-run, decisive inferiority in organized mobile force,--inferiority in troops in the field, and yet much more in s.h.i.+ps on the sea. If Spain should become involved in war with Great Britain, as she so often before has been, the advantage she would have in Cuba as against Jamaica would be that her communications with the United States, especially with the Gulf ports, would be well under cover. By this is not meant that vessels bound to Cuba by such routes would be in una.s.sailable security; no communications, maritime or terrestrial, can be so against raiding. What is meant is that they can be protected with much less effort than they can be attacked; that the raiders--the offence--must be much more numerous and active than the defence, because much farther from their base; and that the question of such raiding would depend consequently upon the force Great Britain could spare from other scenes of war, for it is not likely that Spain would fight her single-handed. It is quite possible that under such conditions advantage of position would more than counterbalance a _small_ disadvantage in local force. ”War,” said Napoleon, ”is a business of positions;” by which that master of lightning-like rapidity of movement a.s.suredly did not mean that it was a business of getting into a position and sticking there. It is in the utilization of position by mobile force that war is determined, just as the effect of a chessman depends upon both its individual value _and_ its relative position. While, therefore, in the combination of the two factors, force and position, force is intrinsically the more valuable, it is always possible that great advantage of position may outweigh small advantage of force, as 1 + 5 is greater than 2 + 3. The positional value of Cuba is extremely great.
Regarded solely as a naval position, without reference to the force thereon based, Jamaica is greatly inferior to Cuba in a question of general war, notwithstanding the fact that in Kingston it possesses an excellent harbor and naval station. It is only with direct reference to the Isthmus, and therefore to the local question of the Caribbean as the main scene of hostilities, that it possesses a certain superiority which will be touched on later. It is advisable first to complete the list, and so far as necessary to account for the selection, of the other points indicated by the squares.
Of these, three are so nearly together at the Isthmus that, according to the rule before adopted, they might be reduced very properly to a single representative position. Being, however, so close to the great centre of interest in the Caribbean, and having different specific reasons const.i.tuting their importance, it is essential to a full statement of strategic conditions in that sea to mention briefly each and all. They are, the harbor and town of Colon, sometimes called Aspinwall; the harbor and city of Cartagena, 300 miles to the eastward of Colon; and the Chiriqui Lagoon, 150 miles west of Colon, a vast enclosed bay with many islands, giving excellent and diversified anchorage, the sh.o.r.es of which are nearly uninhabited. Colon is the Caribbean terminus of the Panama Railroad, and is also that of the ca.n.a.l projected, and partly dug, under the De Lesseps scheme. The harbor being good, though open to some winds, it is naturally indicated as a point where Isthmian transit may begin or end. As there is no intention of entering into the controversy about the relative merits of the Panama and Nicaragua ca.n.a.l schemes, it will be sufficient here to say that, if the former be carried through, Colon is its inevitable issue on one side. The city of Cartagena is the largest and most flouris.h.i.+ng in the neighborhood of the Isthmus, and has a good harbor. With these conditions obtaining, its advantage rests upon the axiomatic principle that, other things being nearly equal, a place where commerce centres is a better strategic position than one which it neglects. The latter is the condition of the Chiriqui Lagoon. This truly n.o.ble sheet of water, which was visited by Columbus himself, and bears record of the fact in the name of one of its basins,--the Bay of the Admiral,--has every natural adaptation for a purely naval base, but has not drawn to itself the operations of commerce. Everything would need there to be created, and to be maintained continuously. It lies midway between Colon and the mouth of the river San Juan, where is Greytown, which has been selected as the issue of the projected Nicaragua Ca.n.a.l; and therefore, in a peculiar way, Chiriqui symbolizes the present indeterminate phase of the Isthmian problem. With all its latent possibilities, however, little can be said now of Chiriqui, except that a rough appreciation of its existence and character is essential to an adequate understanding of Isthmian conditions.
The Dutch island of Curacao has been marked, chiefly because, with its natural characteristics, it cannot be pa.s.sed over; but it now is, and it may be hoped will remain indefinitely, among the positions of which it has been said that they are neutralized by political circ.u.mstances.
Curacao possesses a fine harbor, which may be made impregnable, and it lies unavoidably near the route of any vessel bound to the Isthmus and pa.s.sing eastward of Jamaica. Such conditions const.i.tute undeniable military importance; but Holland is a small state, unlikely to join again in a general war. There is, indeed, a floating apprehension that the German Empire, in its present desires of colonial extension, may be willing to absorb Holland, for the sake of her still extensive colonial possessions. Improbable as this may seem, it is scarcely more incomprehensible than the recent mysterious movements upon the European chess-board, attributed by common rumor to the dominating influence of the Emperor of Germany, which we puzzled Americans for months past have sought in vain to understand.
The same probable neutrality must be admitted for the remaining positions that have been distinguished: Mujeres Island, Samana Bay, and the island of St. Thomas. The first of these, at the extremity of the Yucatan Peninsula, belongs to Mexico, a country whose interest in the Isthmian question is very real; for, like the United States, she has an extensive seaboard both upon the Pacific and--in the Gulf of Mexico--upon the Atlantic Ocean. Mujeres Island, however, has nothing to offer but situation, being upon the Yucatan Pa.s.sage, the one road from all the Gulf ports to the Caribbean and the Isthmus. The anchorage is barely tolerable, the resources _nil_, and defensive strength could be imparted only by an expense quite disproportionate to the result obtained. The consideration of the island as a possible military situation does but emphasize the fact, salient to the most superficial glance, that, so far as position goes, Cuba has no possible rival in her command of the Yucatan Pa.s.sage, just as she has no compet.i.tor, in point of natural strength and resources, for the control of the Florida Strait, which connects the Gulf of Mexico with the Atlantic.
Samana Bay, at the northeast corner of Santo Domingo, is but one of several fine anchorages in that great island, whose territory is now divided between two negro republics--French and Spanish in tongue. Its selection to figure in our study, to the exclusion of the others, is determined by its situation, and by the fact that we are seeking to take a comprehensive glance of the Caribbean as a whole, and not merely of particular districts. For instance, it might be urged forcibly, in view of the existence of two great naval ports like Santiago de Cuba and Port Royal in Jamaica, close to the Windward Pa.s.sage, through which lies the direct route from the Atlantic seaboard to the Isthmus, that St. Nicholas Mole, immediately on the Pa.s.sage, offers the natural position for checking the others in case of need. The reply is that we are not seeking to check anything or anybody, but simply examining in the large the natural strategic features, and incidentally thereto noting the political conditions, of a maritime region in which the United States is particularly interested; political conditions, as has been remarked, having an unavoidable effect upon military values.
The inquiry being thus broad, Samana Bay and the island of St. Thomas are ent.i.tled to the pre-eminence here given to them, because they represent, efficiently and better than any other positions, the control of two princ.i.p.al pa.s.sages into the Caribbean Sea from the Atlantic. The Mona Pa.s.sage, on which Samana lies, between Santo Domingo and Puerto Rico, is particularly suited to sailing-vessels from the northward, because free from dangers to navigation. This, of course, in these days of steam, is a small matter militarily; in the latter sense the Mona Pa.s.sage is valuable because it is an alternative to the Windward Pa.s.sage, or to those to the eastward, in case of hostile predominance in one quarter or the other. St. Thomas is on the Anegada Pa.s.sage, actually much used, and which better than any other represents the course from Europe to the Isthmus, just as the Windward Pa.s.sage does that from the North American Atlantic ports. Neither of these places can boast of great natural strength nor of resources; St.
Thomas, because it is a small island with the inherent weaknesses attending all such, which have been mentioned; Samana Bay, because, although the island on which it is is large and productive, it has not now, and gives no hope of having, that political stability and commercial prosperity which bring resources and power in their train.
Both places would need also considerable development of defensive works to meet the requirements of a naval port. Despite these defects, their situations on the pa.s.sages named ent.i.tle them to paramount consideration in a general study of the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico. Potentially, though not actually, they lend control of the Mona and Anegada Pa.s.sages, exactly as Kingston and Santiago do of the Windward.
For, granting that the Isthmus is in the Caribbean the predominant interest, commercial, and therefore concerning the whole world, but also military, and so far possessing peculiar concern for those nations whose territories lie on both oceans, which it now severs and will one day unite--of which nations the United States is the most prominent--granting this, and it follows that entrance to the Caribbean, and transit across the Caribbean to the Isthmus, are two prime essentials to the enjoyment of the advantages of the latter.
Therefore, in case of war, control of these two things becomes a military object not second to the Isthmus itself, access to which depends upon them; and in their bearing upon these two things the various positions that are pa.s.sed under consideration must be viewed--individually first, and afterwards collectively.
The first process of individual consideration the writer has asked the reader to take on faith; neither time nor s.p.a.ce permits its elaboration here; but the reasons for choosing those that have been named have been given as briefly as possible. Let us now look at the map, and regard as a collective whole the picture there graphically presented.
Putting to one side, for the moment at least, the Isthmian points, as indicating the end rather than the precedent means, we see at the present time that the positions at the extremes of the field under examination are held by Powers of the first rank,--Martinique and Santa Lucia by France and Great Britain, Pensacola and the Mississippi by the United States.
Further, there are held by these same states of the first order two advanced positions, widely separated from the first bases of their power; namely, Key West, which is 460 miles from Pensacola, and Jamaica, which is 930 miles from Santa Lucia. From the Isthmus, Key West is distant 1200 miles; Jamaica, 500 miles.