Part 6 (2/2)
Between and separating these two groups, of primary bases and advanced posts, extends the chain of positions from Yucatan to St. Thomas. As far as is possible to position, apart from mobile force, these represent control over the northern entrances--the most important entrances--into the Caribbean Sea. No one of this chain belongs to any of the Powers commonly reckoned as being of the first order of strength.
The entrances on the north of the sea, as far as, but not including, the Anegada Pa.s.sage, are called the most important, because they are so few in number,--a circ.u.mstance which always increases value; because they are so much nearer to the Isthmus; and, very especially to the United States, because they are the ones by which, and by which alone,--except at the cost of a wide circuit,--she communicates with the Isthmus, and, generally, with all the region lying within the borders of the Caribbean.
In a very literal sense the Caribbean is a mediterranean sea; but the adjective must be qualified when comparison is made with the Mediterranean of the Old World or with the Gulf of Mexico. The last-named bodies of water communicate with the outer oceans by pa.s.sages so contracted as to be easily watched from near-by positions, and for both there exist such positions of exceptional strength,--Gibraltar and some others in the former case, Havana and no other in the latter.
The Caribbean, on the contrary, is enclosed on its eastern side by a chain of small islands, the pa.s.sages between which, although practically not wider than the Strait of Gibraltar, are so numerous that entrance to the sea on that side may be said correctly to extend over a stretch of near 400 miles. The islands, it is true, are so many positions, some better, some worse, from which military effort to control entrance can be exerted; but their number prevents that concentration and that certainty of effect which are possible to adequate force resting upon Gibraltar or Havana.
On the northern side of the sea the case is quite different. From the western end of Cuba to the eastern end of Puerto Rico extends a barrier of land for 1200 miles--as against 400 on the east--broken only by two straits, each fifty miles wide, from side to side of which a steamer of but moderate power can pa.s.s in three or four hours. These natural conditions, governing the approach to the Isthmus, reproduce as nearly as possible the strategic effect of Ireland upon Great Britain. There a land barrier of 300 miles, midway between the Pentland Firth and the English Channel--centrally situated, that is, with reference to all the Atlantic approaches to Great Britain--gives to an adequate navy a unique power to flank and hara.s.s either the one or the other, or both. Existing political conditions and other circ.u.mstances unquestionably modify the importance of these two barriers, relatively to the countries affected by them. Open communication with the Atlantic is vital to Great Britain, which the Isthmus, up to the present time, is not to the United States. There are, however, varying degrees of importance below that which is vital.
Taking into consideration that of the 1200-mile barrier to the Caribbean 600 miles is solid in Cuba, that after the 50-mile gap of the Windward Pa.s.sage there succeeds 300 miles more of Haiti before the Mona Pa.s.sage is reached, it is indisputable that a superior navy, resting on Santiago de Cuba or Jamaica, could very seriously incommode all access of the United States to the Caribbean mainland, and especially to the Isthmus.
In connection with this should be considered also the influence upon our mercantile and naval communication between the Atlantic and the Gulf coasts exercised by the peninsula of Florida, and by the narrowness of the channels separating the latter from the Bahama Banks and from Cuba. The effect of this long and not very broad strip of land upon our maritime interests can be realized best by imagining it wholly removed, or else turned into an island by a practicable channel crossing its neck. In the latter case the two entrances to the channel would have indeed to be a.s.sured; but our s.h.i.+pping would not be forced to pa.s.s through a long, narrow waterway, bordered throughout on one side by foreign and possibly hostile territories. In case of war with either Great Britain or Spain, this channel would be likely to be infested by hostile cruisers, close to their own base, the very best condition for a commerce-destroying war; and its protection by us under present circ.u.mstances will exact a much greater effort than with the supposed channel, or than if the Florida Peninsula did not exist.
The effect of the peninsula is to thrust our route from the Atlantic to the Gulf 300 miles to the southward, and to make imperative a base for control of the strait; while the case is made worse by an almost total lack of useful harbors. On the Atlantic, the most exposed side, there is none; and on the Gulf none nearer to Key West than 175 miles,[2] where we find Tampa Bay. There is, indeed, nothing that can be said about the interests of the United States in an Isthmian ca.n.a.l that does not apply now with equal force to the Strait of Florida. The one links the Atlantic to the Gulf, as the other would the Atlantic to the Pacific. It may be added here that the phenomenon of the long, narrow peninsula of Florida, with its strait, is reproduced successively in Cuba, Haiti, and Puerto Rico, with the pa.s.sages dividing them. The whole together forms one long barrier, the strategic significance of which cannot be overlooked in its effect upon the Caribbean; while the Gulf of Mexico is a.s.signed to absolute seclusion by it, if the pa.s.sages are in hostile control.
[2] There is Charlotte Harbor, at 120 miles, but it can be used only by medium-sized vessels.
The relations of the island of Jamaica to the great barrier formed by Cuba, Haiti, and Puerto Rico are such as to const.i.tute it the natural stepping-stone by which to pa.s.s from the consideration of entrance into the Caribbean, which has been engaging our attention, to that of the transit across, from entrance to the Isthmus, which we must next undertake.
In the matters of entrance to the Caribbean, and of general interior control of that sea, Jamaica has a singularly central position. It is equidistant (500 miles) from Colon, from the Yucatan Channel, and from the Mona Pa.s.sage; it is even closer (450 miles) to the nearest mainland of South America at Point Gallinas, and of Central America at Cape Gracias-a-Dios; while it lies so immediately in rear of the Windward Pa.s.sage that its command of the latter can scarcely be considered less than that of Santiago. The a.n.a.logy of its situation, as a station for a great fleet, to that for an army covering a frontier which is pa.s.sable at but a few points, will scarcely escape a military reader. A comparatively short chain of swift lookout steamers, in each direction, can give timely notice of any approach by either of the three pa.s.sages named; while, if entrance be gained at any other point, the arms stretched out towards Gallinas and Gracias-a-Dios will give warning of transit before the purposes of such transit can be accomplished undisturbed.
With such advantages of situation, and with a harbor susceptible of satisfactory development as a naval station for a great fleet, Jamaica is certainly the most important single position in the Caribbean Sea.
When one recalls that it pa.s.sed into the hands of Great Britain, in the days of Cromwell, by accidental conquest, the expedition having been intended primarily against Santo Domingo; that in the two centuries and a half which have since intervened it has played no part adequate to its advantages, such as now looms before it; that, by all the probabilities, it should have been reconquered and retained by Spain in the war of the American Revolution; and when, again, it is recalled that a like accident and a like subsequent uncertainty attended the conquest and retention of the decisive Mediterranean positions of Gibraltar and Malta, one marvels whether incidents so widely separated in time and place, all tending towards one end--the maritime predominance of Great Britain--can be accidents, or are simply the exhibition of a Personal Will, acting through all time, with purpose deliberate and consecutive, to ends not yet discerned.
Nevertheless, when compared to Cuba, Jamaica cannot be considered the preponderant position of the Caribbean. The military question of position is quant.i.tative as well as qualitative; and situation, however excellent, can rarely, by itself alone, make full amends for defect in the power and resources which are the natural property of size--of ma.s.s. Gibraltar, the synonym of intrinsic strength, is an ill.u.s.tration in point; its smallness, its isolation, and its barrenness of resource const.i.tute limits to its offensive power, and even to its impregnability, which are well understood by military men.
Jamaica, by its situation, flanks the route from Cuba to the Isthmus, as indeed it does all routes from the Atlantic and the Gulf to that point; but, as a military ent.i.ty, it is completely overshadowed by the larger island, which it so conspicuously confronts. If, as has just been said, it by situation intercepts the access of Cuba to the Isthmus, it is itself cut off by its huge neighbor from secure communication with the North American Continent, now as always the chief natural source of supplies for the West Indies, which do not produce the great staples of life. With the United States friendly or neutral, in a case of war, there can be no comparison between the advantages of Cuba, conferred by its situation and its size, and those of Jamaica, which, by these qualities of its rival, is effectually cut off from that source of supplies. Nor is the disadvantage of Jamaica less marked with reference to communication with other quarters than the United States--with Halifax, with Bermuda, with Europe. Its distance from these points, and from Santa Lucia, where the resources of Europe may be said to focus for it, makes its situation one of extreme isolation; a condition emphasized by the fact that both Bermuda and Santa Lucia are themselves dependent upon outside sources for anything they may send to Jamaica. At all these points, coal, the great factor of modern naval war, must be stored and the supply maintained. They do not produce it. The mere size of Cuba, the amount of population which it has, or ought to have, the number of its seaports, the extent of the industries possible to it, tend naturally to an acc.u.mulation of resources such as great mercantile communities always entail. These, combined with its nearness to the United States, and its other advantages of situation, make Cuba a position that can have no military rival among the islands of the world, except Ireland.
With a friendly United States, isolation is impossible to Cuba.
The aim of any discussion such as this should be to narrow down, by a gradual elimination, the various factors to be considered, in order that the decisive ones, remaining, may become conspicuously visible.
The trees being thus thinned out, the features of the strategic landscape can appear. The primary processes in the present case have been carried out before seeking the attention of the reader, to whom the first approximations have been presented under three heads. First, the two decisive centres, the mouth of the Mississippi and the Isthmus. Second, the four princ.i.p.al routes, connecting these two points with others, have been specified; these routes being, 1, between the Isthmus and the Mississippi themselves; 2, from the Isthmus to the North American coast, by the Windward Pa.s.sage; 3, from the Gulf of Mexico to the North American coast, by the Strait of Florida; and, 4, from the Isthmus to Europe, by the Anegada Pa.s.sage.
Third, the princ.i.p.al military positions throughout the region in question have been laid down, and their individual and relative importance indicated.
From the subsequent discussion it seems evident that, as ”communications” are so leading an element in strategy, the position or positions which decisively affect the greatest number or extent of the communications will be the most important, so far as situation goes. Of the four princ.i.p.al lines named, three pa.s.s close to, and are essentially controlled by, the islands of Cuba and Jamaica, namely, from the Mississippi to the Isthmus by the Yucatan Channel, from the Mississippi to the Atlantic coast of America by the Strait of Florida, and from the Isthmus to the Atlantic coast by the Windward Pa.s.sage.
The fourth route, which represents those from the Isthmus to Europe, pa.s.ses nearer to Jamaica than to Cuba; but those two islands exercise over it more control than does any other one of the archipelago, for the reason that any other can be avoided more easily, and by a wider interval, than either Jamaica or Cuba.
Regarded as positions, therefore, these two islands are the real rivals for control of the Caribbean and of the Gulf of Mexico; and it may be added that the strategic centre of interest for both Gulf and Caribbean is to be found in the Windward Pa.s.sage, because it furnishes the ultimate test of the relative power of the two islands to control the Caribbean. For, as has been said before, and cannot be repeated too often, it is not position only, nor chiefly, but mobile force, that is decisive in war. In the combination of these two elements rests the full statement of any case. The question of position has been adjudged in favor of Cuba, for reasons which have been given. In the case of a conflict between the powers holding the two islands, the question of controlling the Windward Pa.s.sage would be the test of relative mobile strength; because that channel is the shortest and best line of communications for Jamaica with the American coast, with Halifax, and with Bermuda, and as such it must be kept open. If the power of Jamaica is not great enough to hold the pa.s.sage open by force, she is thrown upon evasion--upon furtive measures--to maintain essential supplies; for, if she cannot a.s.sert her strength so far in that direction, she cannot, from her nearness, go beyond Cuba's reach in any direction. Abandonment of the best road in this case means isolation; and to that condition, if prolonged, there is but one issue.
The final result, therefore, may be stated in this way: The advantages of situation, strength, and resources are greatly and decisively in favor of Cuba. To bring Jamaica to a condition of equality, or superiority, is needed a mobile force capable of keeping the Windward Pa.s.sage continuously open, not only for a moment, nor for any measurable time, but throughout the war. Under the present conditions of political tenure, in case of a war involving only the two states concerned, such a question could admit of no doubt; but in a war at all general, involving several naval powers, the issue would be less certain. In the war of 1778 the tenure, not of the Windward Pa.s.sage merely, but of Jamaica itself, was looked upon by a large party in Great Britain as nearly hopeless; and it is true that only a happy concurrence of blundering and bad luck on the part of its foes then saved the island. It is conceivable that odds which have happened once may happen again.
THE END.
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