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Page 58
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 passed 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 quantitative 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 mass. Gibraltar, the synonym of intrinsic strength, is an
illustration in point; its smallness, its isolation, and its
barrenness of resource constitute 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 entity, 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 accumulation 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 principal 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 Passage; 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 Passage.
Third, the principal 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 principal lines named, three pass 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 Passage.
The fourth route, which represents those from the Isthmus to Europe,
passes 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.
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