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Page 8
The military or strategic value of a naval position depends upon its
situation, upon its strength, and upon its resources. Of the three, the
first is of most consequence, because it results from the nature of
things; whereas the two latter, when deficient, can be supplied
artificially, in whole or in part. Fortifications remedy the weaknesses
of a position, foresight accumulates beforehand the resources which
nature does not yield on the spot; but it is not within the power of
man to change the geographical situation of a point which lies outside
the limit of strategic effect. It is instructive, and yet apparent to
the most superficial reading, to notice how the first Napoleon, in
commenting upon a region likely to be the scene of war, begins by
considering the most conspicuous natural features, and then enumerates
the commanding positions, their distances from each other, the relative
directions, or, as the sea phrase is, their "bearings," and the
particular facilities each offers for operations of war. This furnishes
the ground plan, the skeleton, detached from confusing secondary
considerations, and from which a clear estimate of the decisive points
can be made. The number of such points varies greatly, according to the
character of the region. In a mountainous, broken country they may be
very many; whereas in a plain devoid of natural obstacles there may be
few, or none save those created by man. If few, the value of each is
necessarily greater than if many; and if there be but one, its
importance is not only unique, but extreme,--measured only by the size
of the field over which its unshared influence extends.
The sea, until it approaches the land, realizes the ideal of a vast
plain unbroken by obstacles. On the sea, says an eminent French
tactician, there is no field of battle, meaning that there is none of
the natural conditions which determine, and often fetter, the movements
of the general. But upon a plain, however flat and monotonous, causes,
possibly slight, determine the concentration of population into towns
and villages, and the necessary communications between the centres
create roads. Where the latter converge, or cross, tenure confers
command, depending for importance upon the number of routes thus
meeting, and upon their individual value. It is just so at sea. While
in itself the ocean opposes no obstacle to a vessel taking any one of
the numerous routes that can be traced upon the surface of the globe
between two points, conditions of distance or convenience, of traffic
or of wind, do prescribe certain usual courses. Where these pass near
an ocean position, still more where they use it, it has an influence
over them, and where several routes cross near by that influence
becomes very great,--is commanding.
Let us now apply these considerations to the Hawaiian group. To any one
viewing a map that shows the full extent of the Pacific Ocean, with its
shores on either side, two striking circumstances will be apparent
immediately. He will see at a glance that the Sandwich Islands stand by
themselves, in a state of comparative isolation, amid a vast expanse of
sea; and, again, that they form the centre of a large circle whose
radius is approximately--and very closely--the distance from Honolulu
to San Francisco. The circumference of this circle, if the trouble is
taken to describe it with compass upon the map, will be seen, on the
west and south, to pass through the outer fringe of the system of
archipelagoes which, from Australia and New Zealand, extend to the
northeast toward the American continent. Within the circle a few
scattered islets, bare and unimportant, seem only to emphasize the
failure of nature to bridge the interval separating Hawaii from her
peers of the Southern Pacific. Of these, however, it may be noted that
some, like Fanning and Christmas Islands, have within a few years been
taken into British possession. The distance from San Francisco to
Honolulu, twenty-one hundred miles--easy steaming distance--is
substantially the same as that from Honolulu to the Gilbert, Marshall,
Samoan, Society, and Marquesas groups, all under European control,
except Samoa, in which we have a part influence.
To have a central position such as this, and to be alone, having no
rival and admitting no alternative throughout an extensive tract, are
conditions that at once fix the attention of the strategist,--it may be
added, of the statesmen of commerce likewise. But to this striking
combination are to be added the remarkable relations, borne by these
singularly placed islands, to the greater commercial routes traversing
this vast expanse known to us as the Pacific,--not only, however, to
those now actually in use, important as they are, but also to those
that must be called into being necessarily by that future to which the
Hawaiian incident compels our too unwilling attention. Circumstances,
as already remarked, create centres, between which communication
necessarily follows; and in the vista of the future all discern,
however dimly, a new and great centre that must largely modify existing
sea routes, as well as bring new ones into existence. Whether the canal
of the Central American isthmus be eventually at Panama or at Nicaragua
matters little to the question now in hand, although, in common with
most Americans who have thought upon the subject, I believe it surely
will be at the latter point. Whichever it be, the convergence there of
so many ships from the Atlantic and the Pacific will constitute a
centre of commerce, interoceanic, and inferior to few, if to any, in
the world; one whose approaches will be watched jealously, and whose
relations to the other centres of the Pacific by the lines joining it
to them must be examined carefully. Such study of the commercial routes
and of their relations to the Hawaiian Islands, taken together with the
other strategic considerations previously set forth, completes the
synopsis of facts which determine the value of the group for conferring
either commercial or naval control.
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