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GEOGRAPHY, TECHNOLOGY, AND BRITISH NAVAL

STRATEGY IN THE DREADNOUGHT ERA

Jon Tetsuro Sumida

I n The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660–1783, Alfred Thayer Mahan ar-
gued that the effective deployment of naval force had determined the outcomes
of the great European wars of the eighteenth century. Many, if not most, readers
believed that this historical survey was the basis of related major arguments that
were applicable to the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The first was that
naval supremacy was the prerequisite to economic prosperity and international
political preeminence. The second was that naval supremacy could be achieved
only through the possession of large numbers of battleships, which were always
to be kept together in order to be able to contain or destroy enemy battleship
fleets. The notion of the naval supremacy of a single country based upon battle-
ships united in accordance with the principle of concentration of force thus be-
Dr. Sumida is associate professor of military and Euro- came identified as the essence of Mahanian strategic
pean history at the University of Maryland. He is the
theory. In effect, geopolitical and naval operational
author of In Defence of Naval Supremacy: Finance,
Technology, and British Naval Policy, 1889–1914, strategic lines of argument were conflated into a recipe
and Inventing Grand Strategy and Teaching Com- for policy that was supposed to be universally valid.
mand: The Classic Works of Alfred Thayer Mahan
Such an understanding of what were widely be-
Reconsidered. He has published many major articles,
including one in the Summer 2001 issue of this journal. lieved to be the two main components of Mahan’s
Professor Sumida has been a Distinguished Visiting thinking, however, was seriously flawed. In the first
Professor in the Department of Military Strategy and
Operations at the National War College. He is the chair
place, Mahan actually believed that naval supremacy
of the Department of the Army Historical Advisory in his own time and in the future would be wielded by
Committee, a member of the Leavenworth Prize com- a transnational consortium of naval powers acting in
mittee, and, for 2004–2006, the Major General Mat-
thew C. Horner Chair of Military Theory at the U.S. defense of a global system of free trade to the mutual
Marine Corps University. benefit of participating parties. Secondly, Mahan’s
treatment of the principle of concentration of force in
© 2006 by Jon Tetsuro Sumida
Naval War College Review, Summer 2006, Vol. 59, No. 3 his most popular book was heavily conditioned by the

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90 NAVAL WAR COLLEGE REVIEW

particular geographical circumstances of Great Britain and its empire. Thus while
the first proposition was addressed to the question of the nature of an inter-
national system, the second was to a very considerable degree concerned with
the character of the naval security problem of a single state. Insofar as naval pol-
icy in the industrial age was concerned, the relationship between the two argu-
ments was thus much weaker than has been supposed. As a general principle,
concentration of force was of course relevant to the maintenance of naval su-
premacy by either a single power or a coalition. But salient aspects of Mahan’s
historical case study were specific to British imperial strategic geography.
Mahan’s views on naval supremacy as a transnational phenomenon have
1
been explained elsewhere and will not receive further consideration here. His
recommended strategy for using a limited number of ships to defend interests in
2
widely dispersed seas, however, has escaped rigorous scrutiny. The present arti-
cle will analyze Mahan’s historical exposition with respect to this issue in the last
chapter of The Influence of Sea Power upon History and establish its relevance to
Britain’s naval circumstances in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centu-
ries. It will then examine the thinking of Admiral Sir John Fisher, who as service
chief of the Royal Navy was actually responsible for the formulation of British
imperial naval defense policy between 1904 and 1910, and again from late 1914
to mid-1915. Mahan and Fisher held opposing views of capital-ship design and
the utility of history as a practical guide to policy. On the other hand, the con-
centration of Britain’s main naval strength in home waters as the best method of
defending an empire with widely dispersed territories and trade routes seemed
to constitute an important area of agreement. This article will demonstrate that
Fisher’s concept of the proper application of the principle of concentration of
force to Britain’s naval circumstances in the early twentieth century was diametri-
cally the opposite of that of Mahan, in spite of strong appearances to the contrary.
It will argue, moreover, that Fisher thought this way because he believed that ad-
vances in technology had radically altered the effect of geography on strategy.

The main event of Mahan’s The Influence of Sea Power upon History was the
American Revolution. Mahan believed that this conflict was a “purely maritime
war”—that is, a dispute between two roughly equal sides over territories that
were for the most part remote from Europe. These conditions were unique in the
record of fighting between European great states in what had been the modern
period—every other war from the coming of Louis XIV to the fall of Napoleon
was about continental extension in one way or another, with military affairs thus
playing a major if not decisive role. In the American Revolution, the outcomes of
land campaigns on colonial territories depended completely upon control of
contiguous waters and ocean lines of communication. These circumstances

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SUMIDA 91

seemed particularly relevant to the likely conditions of major conflict in the late
nineteenth century, a time of great-power rivalry over extra-European colonies
and maritime commerce.
In Mahan’s account of the American Revolution, the principals were the bel-
ligerent great powers, namely, Britain, France, and Spain. The American colo-
nists and the Dutch had large interests at stake but lacked the naval strength to
play significant roles at sea. Britain’s primary strategic goal was to maintain its
colonial empire intact, that of France and Spain to weaken Britain through the
facilitation of the American rebellion and the capture of important colonial ter-
ritory for their own use. Britain, therefore, stood on the strategic defensive, and
it did so with a navy that was not large enough to control with assurance all ma-
jor theaters of operations, which included not only European waters but distant
seas off North America and India. Britain responded to these circumstances by
dividing its fleet in a way that produced naval forces both at home and abroad
that were on occasion weaker than those of its opponents. At Yorktown, the re-
sult was a British military disaster, one that ultimately prompted the peace negoti-
ations that led to American independence. In the Indian Ocean, French tactical
successes were insufficient to overthrow the British position but were large
enough to demonstrate the great potential of naval force when used with intelli-
gent aggressiveness. In the end, British losses and French and Spanish gains, while
considerable, were not decisive—that is, Britain retained its naval and mercantile
predominance. But if the American Revolution did not change the European bal-
ance of power, it did offer Mahan an opportunity to explore the application of the
principle of concentration of force to an important and difficult case.
In Mahan’s view, Britain’s strategy had been fundamentally flawed. By send-
ing large contingents to extra-European waters while necessarily keeping a sub-
stantial fleet at home to prevent invasion and protect converging trade routes,
Britain exposed its navy to defeat in detail. The chosen policy, he argued,
to be effective, calls for superior numbers, because the different divisions are too far
apart for mutual support. Each must therefore be equal to any probable combination
against it, which implies superiority everywhere to the force of the enemy actually
opposed, as the latter may be unexpectedly reinforced. How impossible and danger-
ous such a defensive strategy is, when not superior in force, is shown by the frequent
inferiority of the English abroad, as well as in Europe, despite the effort to be every-
where equal.3

The proper course given the near parity in battleship strength of the two
sides, Mahan counseled, was for Britain to have deployed a preponderant fleet in
Europe, whose job was the containment or destruction of the main French and
Spanish naval forces. These should have been watched “under all the difficulties

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92 NAVAL WAR COLLEGE REVIEW

of the situation, not with the vain hope of preventing every raid, or intercepting
every convoy, but with the expectation of frustrating the greater combinations,
4
and of following close at the heels of any large fleet that escaped.” In addition,
“the lines of communication abroad should not have been needlessly extended,
5
so as to increase beyond the strictest necessity the detachments to guard them.”
In other words, Mahan’s strategic prescription for a Britain faced by a hostile
European naval coalition and burdened with the need to defend vital interests at
home and valuable possessions abroad was to maximize strength at the center
6
and minimize strength at the periphery.
Mahan was aware that forfeiting contests abroad in the hope of achieving de-
cisive success at home, as opposed to distributing substantial strength around
the globe, could result in large losses of colonial territory and trade. “It has been
attempted to show the weakness of the one policy,” he conceded, “while admit-
7
ting the difficulties and dangers of the other.” The problem of defending a
global empire while keeping home territory secure posed a predicament. In-
toning concentration of force as a
Thus in the end the views of both the master principle was one thing; applying it
of strategic theory and that of practice were to the naval strategic circum-
confounded by the course of events. stances of Great Britain in the late
nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries was quite another when the consequences of such action could be the
loss of Egypt, South Africa, India, and Australia, and the destruction of the lu-
crative China trade. Faced with the prospect of war against France and Russia in
combination, Britain responded from 1889 with enormous building programs
that were intended to support a strategy of being strong around the world. In
1902, Britain was compelled to ally itself with Japan in order to overmatch the
growth of French and Russian naval forces in Far Eastern waters. Better relations
with France and the destruction of the Russian navy by the Japanese in 1904 and
1905 enabled Britain to reduce its naval strength in distant seas without com-
promising imperial security, in order to facilitate reforms in manning and main-
tenance and to save money. The effect was a concentration of the main strength
of the Royal Navy at home, which was also convenient given the growing naval
strength of Germany.
The buildup of the British battle fleet in home waters through the withdrawal
of heavy units in distant seas seemed to follow Mahan’s recommendations in the
last chapter of The Influence of Sea Power upon History. Admiral Sir John Fisher,
the First Sea Lord from 1904 to 1910 and also from late 1914 to the middle of
1915, was the instigator of the redeployment of the Royal Navy. Fisher’s hostility to
naval history as a guide to policy is notorious. In June 1909, his dismissal of the
practical utility of history outraged Captain Herbert Richmond. Fisher, Richmond

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SUMIDA 93

wrote in his diary, had stated that the “teachings of the past are ‘the record of ex-
8
ploded ideas’” and that “the present needs no guide, it is self-sufficient.” But Fisher
excepted Mahan from his general strictures. The two men had met and corre-
9
sponded while delegates to the Hague Peace Conference in June 1899. Mahan
seems to have made a good impression, because Fisher’s first known references
to the American’s writing came not long after. The “‘teachings of history’ have
no value for us,” he wrote to Joseph Chamberlain in November 1900, “with the
one great exception so eloquently described by Captain Mahan, Vol. II, page 118
(I know the place by heart, so can quote it!) that sea power governs the world:
‘Nelson’s far distant storm-beaten ships, upon which the Grand Army never
10
looked, stood between it and the dominion of the world.’” Fisher’s familiarity
with Mahan was not restricted to the American author’s most famous phrase.
Fisher quoted at length Mahan’s observations on the human element in war, the
disposition of navies, and much of the text surrounding the extract cited in his
letter to Chamberlain as well, in printed memoranda circulated in the Mediter-
11
ranean Fleet while he was its commander in chief, from 1899 to 1902.
Mahan both criticized and praised in print Fisher’s actions as service chief. In
1906 Mahan condemned on financial, technical, strategic, and tactical grounds
increases in battleship size, criticism that in effect amounted to an attack on the
Admiralty’s decision to build Dreadnought, a battleship that was larger, faster,
12
and more powerfully armed than any other. In 1907, on the other hand, Mahan
noted that Britain had taken steps that would soon result in the concentration of
13
nearly nine-tenths of its battleship strength in home waters. Fisher was in-
censed by the former piece, which lent powerful support to critics of his judg-
14
ment with respect to capital-ship design; he was gratified, however, by the
latter, which shielded him from charges that his agreement to the Liberal gov-
ernment’s substantial reductions in naval expenditure had significantly weak-
15
ened Britain’s ability to deal with the German battle fleet in the event of war.
Mahan’s punditry, in short, worked to Fisher’s political advantage as well as dis-
advantage. Fisher was still willing to quote Mahan with approval in 1907, even
16
after the appearance of the latter’s public criticism of large battleships.
But the shift in the deployment of the Royal Navy was a short-term response
to fortuitous circumstances and immediate fiscal incentives, not a realignment
of naval strength in conformity with the recommendations of classic naval stra-
tegic theory. The Admiralty could not rule out the possibility of a hostile three-
power naval coalition of France, Russia, and Germany, capable of threatening
17
Britain in European and extra-European seas simultaneously. Indeed, Fisher’s
administration was confronted by this very contingency at the start of his tenure
as First Sea Lord. In 1904, relations between Russia and Germany improved
dramatically, and there was reason to believe that a British declaration of war

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94 NAVAL WAR COLLEGE REVIEW

against Russia in support of Japan would provoke France to join Russia in spite
of its growing friendship with Britain. Then, in October 1904, the Russian Baltic
Fleet fired upon British trawlers in the North Sea in the belief that they were Jap-
anese torpedo craft. This event very nearly brought Britain and Russia to blows,
which would almost certainly have precipitated a general European war that
would have pitted Britain, aided only by Japan, against three continental great
18
powers. Under such circumstances, an outnumbered Royal Navy would have
been charged with the tasks of preventing seaborne invasion of the home terri-
tory while seeing to the security of
The replacement of general sea control by battle- far-flung trade routes and distant
ships with local sea denial by submarines and colonies. Fisher, who took office
distant sea control by highly mobile battle only three days after the North
cruisers reversed the Mahanian formula. Sea incident, seems to have been
confident of the Royal Navy’s
19
ability to do both jobs. Within four years, however, the combination of deep
cuts in naval spending imposed by a Liberal government bent on economy and
social reform, a sharp increase in German naval construction, and signs of a
Russian naval recovery had created the prospect in the not too distant future of a
Royal Navy that would be incapable of defending the center and the periphery
simultaneously against a hostile combination of European fleets.
But although the fiscal situation was unfavorable and the state of interna-
tional affairs uncertain, Fisher believed that strategic deliverance might soon be
at hand in the form of radical technological change. In 1908, the first battle
cruisers—vessels with the heavy armament of a battleship but the high speed
and long endurance of a cruiser—demonstrated that they could steam great dis-
tances at high speed without breakdown. In the same year, the Royal Navy re-
ceived its first submarine capable of operating effectively for long periods of
time. These events were of significance to Fisher, because in his mind battle
cruisers and submarines were going to be the basis of a fundamental change in
the British approach to imperial defense. Fisher was convinced that in the re-
stricted seas surrounding the British Isles submarines deployed in large num-
bers would be capable of acting as a barrier to invasion, because they would be
capable of inflicting heavy losses upon even heavily escorted convoys of troop-
ships. This form of operations was known as “flotilla defense.” On open seas or
in distant waters around colonial territory, where submarines could not be con-
centrated in large numbers in good time, Fisher counted upon battle cruiser
squadrons deployed by wireless instructions from the Admiralty to deal with en-
emy cruisers or battleships.
The effectiveness of such a centralized system of command and control de-
pended upon information collected and analyzed by a sophisticated intelligence

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SUMIDA 95

and communications organization known as the “War Room System.” British

battle cruisers were to be capable of defeating foreign battleships because the
former would be equipped with a new kind of fire control system that would en-
able them to hit their opponents before they could be hit in return, which sup-
posedly would make their lack of heavy armor inconsequential. The
replacement of general sea control by battleships with local sea denial by sub-
marines and distant sea control by highly mobile battle cruisers reversed the
Mahanian formula for maintaining British naval security at home and abroad
when numbers of capital ships were insufficient to be able to deploy superior
force everywhere: surface heavy units were to be concentrated on the periphery
20
rather than at the center.
In theory, a force of submarines that was strong enough to prevent the inva-
sion of Britain would cost much less than a large fleet of battleships and sup-
porting warships capable of accomplishing the same task. The great attraction
of Fisher’s vision, therefore, was that it offered an alternative to both the strategy
of fielding surface fleets that were more powerful than those of an enemy coali-
tion in all seas, which was fiscally out of reach, and the strategy of concentrating
the surface fleet in home waters, which exposed maritime lines of communica-
tion to disruption and overseas territories to seizure. Fisher was captivated by
enthusiasm for the potentially transformative effects of new technology, but the
adoption of his vision depended to a great extent upon fiscal and strategic neces-
sity forcing the hand of naval policy. In the event, however, neither factor played
out as Fisher had anticipated. In 1909, fear of German naval expansion com-
pelled the Liberal government to authorize an enormous increase in capital-ship
building. When units ordered by the Pacific dominions were added to the British
total, the effect was a program that was five times larger than the previous year.
To pay for a larger navy and an ambitious scheme of social reform, the govern-
ment implemented changes in taxation that in combination with an economic
upturn increased revenue substantially. Over the next three years, capital-ship
programs were smaller than in 1909 but still more than twice the size of 1908.
This surge of new construction was enough to make credible plans to maintain
powerful fleets both at home and abroad in the event of war.
The fiscal viability of building large armored ships in the numbers required
to implement a strategy of global numerical superiority weakened the case for
the replacement of the battleship by a combination of battle cruisers and sub-
marines. In addition, the delays in the development of gunnery instruments that
were supposed to give the Royal Navy a monopoly on long-range hitting under-
cut the argument that British battle cruisers would be able to defeat enemy battle-
ships in spite of their lack of heavy armor. This factor may have contributed to the
Admiralty’s rejection of Fisher’s call for all the capital ships of the 1909 program to

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96 NAVAL WAR COLLEGE REVIEW

be battle cruisers. As it turned out, only four of the big ships ordered were battle
cruisers, with the balance of six being battleships. By this time, Fisher’s effective-
ness as First Sea Lord had been compromised by political conflict and contro-
versy. He resigned as First Sea Lord in early 1910, and the programs of that year
and 1911 contained only one battle cruiser as opposed to four battleships. In Oc-
tober 1911, however, Winston Churchill became First Lord of the Admiralty
(that is, the civilian superior of the First Sea Lord, a naval officer). Fisher had im-
pressed Churchill in 1907, at which time he seems to have explained his ideas
21
about battle cruisers and submarines. The new First Lord began an intense cor-
respondence with Fisher upon assuming office, and for several months the re-
tired admiral had good reason to believe that his radical vision was upon the brink
of implementation. By the end of 1911, Fisher was convinced that Churchill had
been persuaded to suspend the construction of battleships in favor of battle
cruisers in the forthcoming year and to adopt his proposals for building sub-
marines in large numbers.
Fisher’s apparent capture of Churchill was the basis for what may have been
an explicit dismissal of the relevance of Mahanian thought to British naval strat-
egy. “I am in continuous and very close correspondence with Winston,” Fisher
wrote to Gerard Fiennes, a journalist, on 8 February 1912, “so I am precluded
from saying all that I desire, but so far every step he contemplates is good, and he
is brave, which is everything! Napoleonic in audacity, Cromwellian in thorough-
ness.”22 Although Churchill’s ability to act was restricted by the opposition of his
more cautious Admiralty advisers, Fisher was confident that submarines “have
23
made our supremacy more supreme than ever.” Here Fisher apparently—but
arguably only apparently—meant something other than flotilla defense. By
1912, the fact that the latest British submarines had much longer operating
ranges than their predecessors had given him grounds to savor the possibility of
sending such vessels to distant seas to protect colonies or other strategically im-
portant territory. In his letter to Fiennes, Mahan was “an extinct volcano,” be-
cause “our new submarines with over 6,000 miles radius of action, two 12-pdrs.
[pounders], and Whitehead torpedoes on the broadside, and seakeeping for
over two months, unattended and unfueled and self-sustaining, have woken up
24
vast dormant possibilities.” Fisher did not go on to discuss the ability of sub-
marines to prevent an invasion of Britain, which had been a major subject of his
25
discussions with Churchill. Disclosing the First Lord’s agreement to flotilla de-
fense to even a trusted journalist, however, would have been unwise, if not fool-
hardy, to say nothing of illegal. Speculation about a future possibility from
which certain inferences about flotilla defense might be drawn, on the other
hand, offered at least a fig leaf of discretion. Fisher’s opening caveat to his

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SUMIDA 97

correspondent was probably a warning that his approach to the submarine

question was not exactly what it seemed.
In the short term, Fisher was to be disappointed. Royal Navy submarine pro-
curement was disrupted by disagreements within the Admiralty over design and
manufacturing. Churchill reconsidered his promise to build only battle cruisers
and in the end compromised by agreeing to the construction of higher-speed
battleships that were still considerably slower and much more expensive than the
kind of warship called for by Fisher. Also, British efforts to develop a naval long-
range gunnery system that was significantly superior to that of any foreign power
finally collapsed in 1912, which destroyed the technical premises of Fisher’s tac-
26
tical concept of the battle cruiser. In the longer term, however, adoption of the
flotilla defense component of Fisher’s radical strategy was favored by two factors.
In the first place, the construction of dreadnought battleships by potentially hos-
tile naval powers in the Mediterranean meant that Britain could no longer count
upon using its older battleships in that area. Replacing them with dreadnoughts,
however, would require increases in new construction and much higher manning
and maintenance costs that Britain could not afford. In the second place, fleet ma-
neuvers revealed that submarines were both mechanically reliable and militarily
effective, which convinced many senior naval officers of the Royal Navy that
flotilla defense of the British Isles was practicable, which in turn would free the
surface fleet—albeit made up of battleships rather than battle cruisers—for
deployment outside of home waters. For these reasons, the Admiralty in early
1914 made secret arrangements to reduce the construction of battleships and in-
crease the construction of submarines. These actions were expected to reduce na-
val spending to within the limits demanded by the Treasury. Fisher was recalled to
the Admiralty as First Sea Lord in October 1914, not long after the outbreak of
war. He immediately increased orders for submarines and, in spite of a cabinet
prohibition of large-warship construction, won approval for the construction of
27
five battle cruisers of unprecedented speed and gun power.
War gave Fisher the opportunity to implement the strategic revolution that
he had sought in peace. The strategic circumstances of the hostilities that had
begun in August 1914, however, were not those for which Fisher had planned.
His great concern—which had also been that of Mahan in the last chapter of The
Influence of Sea Power upon History—was a maritime war in which a more or less
isolated Britain had to contend with a coalition of continental naval powers pos-
sessing naval forces that were numerically equal or even superior to those of the
island nation. From the outbreak of a war the main focus of which was on land,
Britain enjoyed the support of three great maritime powers—France, Russia,
and Japan—against Germany and Austria-Hungary. Britain lacked the large
numbers of submarines that were required to implement a sea-denial strategy in

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98 NAVAL WAR COLLEGE REVIEW

home waters, on account of the prewar disruption of design and production

mentioned previously, but it did not need to do so, because allied fleets were
strong enough to control distant seas with minimal assistance from the Royal
Navy. This meant that Britain was able to concentrate its battle fleet in home wa-
ters in overwhelming strength. While the Royal Navy did not have to deal with
both major threats in home waters and distant seas with inadequate forces, it did
have to be kept strong enough to be ready to meet a German foray in strength at
any time, an exhausting task that demanded a large numerical margin of safety.
Fisher was thus alarmed in the spring of 1915 by the dispatch of substantial
naval forces to the eastern Mediterranean in support of the assault on the
Dardanelles, where losses of ships and men were heavy. In April 1915 he in-
formed Admiral Sir John Jellicoe, commander in chief of the battle fleet in the
North Sea, that he would soon be
Admiral Sir John Fisher’s hostility to naval sending him “a bit from Mahan so
history as a guide to policy is notorious. apropos” to their mutual concern
that strength at the vital strategic
center would be compromised by large detachments to a distant and therefore
28
secondary theater. There is no record of Jellicoe actually receiving the
Mahanian passage in question, but it is perhaps not a coincidence that he subse-
quently seems to have read Mahan’s The Influence of Sea Power upon History for
29
the first time.
Mahan died shortly after the outbreak of war. Fisher left office in mid-1915 in
protest over the Dardanelles and never again exercised control of the Royal Navy.
It is ironic that in his last tenure as service chief, his efforts to create the material
means of executing a strategy that concentrated heavy ships in distant seas
rather than at home were juxtaposed to a commitment to maintaining the integ-
rity of battle fleet concentration in the British Isles, and that his resignation over
the latter ended his ability to implement the former. Moreover, although Fisher
had championed the submarine as a solution to the problem of British imperial
defense, the use of submarines against merchant shipping during the First
World War nearly resulted in Britain’s defeat. Finally, the advent of a vastly more
effective method of commerce raiding in the form of the submarine raised serious
doubts about the validity of Mahan’s argument that guerre de course was incapable
30
of producing decisive success. Thus in the end the views of both the master of
strategic theory and that of practice were confounded by the course of events.

Mahan and Fisher disagreed about capital-ship design and the utility of history
as a guide to formulating naval policy, but the main difference between their
ways of thinking about strategy was over the best means of defending the British
empire in a maritime war. Both dealt with the same geographical dilemma,

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SUMIDA 99

which was the need to dominate home waters and distant seas with a navy that
was not large enough to be sufficiently strong in both places at once. Mahan be-
lieved that the geographical facts of life in the industrial era were the same as in
the age of sail, namely, that distance mattered because it prevented fleets in dis-
parate seas from being mutually supporting; this being the case, Britain had no
choice but to keep its main naval strength at home to defend vital interests while
minimizing deployments abroad. Fisher, on the other hand, was convinced that
the advent of new technology would enable Britain to finesse what had previ-
ously seemed to be an unchangeable geographic reality—that distance did not
matter in the same way it had, because flotilla defense at home would free all
Britain’s surface warships for service abroad, where they could be deployed effi-
ciently by the “War Room System” and wireless communications to defend in-
terests that were, if not vital, still extremely important. In short, where Mahan
called for concentration at the center, Fisher contended that it could be achieved
at the periphery.
This fundamental difference in strategic approach was never debated in pub-
lic, because important information about critical technological issues—such as
naval gunnery, new methods of command and control, and submarine design—
was kept secret. Moreover, the highly visible course of Anglo-German naval an-
tagonism and subsequent confrontation in the North Sea during the First World
War made it easy to assume that Fisher was concerned with the balance of naval
power in home waters to the exclusion of all else, which was not the case. Until
the internal policy making of the Admiralty was laid bare by recent scholarship,
sound consideration of how Mahan’s thinking on geography and strategy as ren-
dered in the last chapter of The Influence of Sea Power upon History was affected by
31
technological change in his own time was impossible. Even then, inattentive-
ness to detail and analytical nuance in Mahan’s text precluded proper handling
of the question. Mahan’s treatment of the subject of concentration of force was
not so much an enunciation of a general principle as an examination of its appli-
cation to a difficult case. Indeed, the story Mahan told in the finale of his most
famous book was a cautionary tale with a counterfactual speculative conclusion,
not an account of success caused by right conduct that proved a rule. His main
purpose was to engage a strategic quandary, not purvey strategic bromides. The
power of his conclusions in his own time was attributable to the fact that the es-
sential characteristics of the historical situation investigated had remained ap-
plicable to Britain and could easily be transposed to address America’s need to
defend two widely separated coastlines.32 In the last chapter of The Influence of
Sea Power upon History, as in so much of Mahan’s other writing, comprehension
of his strategic argument depended upon coming to precise terms with his his-
torical narrative.

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100 NAVAL WAR COLLEGE REVIEW

Mahan’s recommendation that Britain concentrate its battle fleet in home

waters when confronted by a hostile coalition with naval strength numerically
equal to or greater than its own was logically compelling within the realm of op-
erational theory, but from a larger practicable point of view as shaped by politics
and economics it was highly unpalatable. The negative consequences of expos-
ing valuable peripheral interests to enemy attack were so great that Fisher re-
sorted to a radical technological alternative, which was supposed to have
allowed Britain to concentrate its main strength at the periphery without jeop-
ardizing vital interests at the center. As it turned out, the implementation of
Fisher’s scheme was delayed by

The main event of Mahan’s The Influence of technical difficulties and service
opposition and made irrelevant
Sea Power upon History was the American
by the actual course of events in
Revolution. Mahan believed that this conflict
the short run; over the longer term
was a “purely maritime war.”
one of its main components, the
submarine, was transformed into
a dire threat to British trade routes. Fisher’s recipe for imperial naval defense at a
cost that Britain could afford, therefore, while plausible, was difficult to put in
place, inappropriate to changed circumstances, and encouraged the develop-
ment of new technology that became highly dangerous.
Readers interested in the national security dilemmas of the present day may
learn something of value from considering certain salient features of the
just-told story. First, any attempt to apply classical strategic theory to current
defense issues should take into account the specific intent of the author, espe-
cially with regard to the historical context of supporting argument and the ef-
fects of qualifying and contingent suppositions. Second, the applicability, if not
the validity, of even “immutable principles of strategy” may be affected critically
by technological change. Third, the complexity, difficulty, and above all, incon-
stancy of strategic problems are likely to upset plans based upon either adher-
33
ence to sanctified principles or the creation of technological panaceas. And
lastly, it is in the nature of things that in the real world, even the best efforts of
the best may be tried and found wanting.

NOTES

An earlier version of this article was prepared 1. See Jon Tetsuro Sumida, Inventing Grand
for a conference, “Explorations in Strategy, Strategy and Teaching Command: The Classic
Geography, and Technology,” held at the Na- Works of Alfred Thayer Mahan Reconsidered
val War College in March 2001. (Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center

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SUMIDA 101

Press/Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1997); “Alfred 11. Admiral Sir John Fisher, “Extracts from Con-
Thayer Mahan, Geopolitician,” in Geopolitics, fidential Papers: Mediterranean Fleet, 1899–
Geography and Strategy, ed. Colin S. Gray and 1902,” pp. 14, 79–84, 99–100, Fisher Papers,
Geoffrey Sloan (London: Frank Cass, 1999); FISR 8/1, F.P. 4702, Roskill Archive Centre,
and “New Insights from Old Books: The Case Churchill College, Cambridge. Also excerpts
of Alfred Thayer Mahan,” Naval War College in Lord Fisher, Records, pp. 96–98. For the
Review 54, no. 3 (Summer 2001), pp. 100–11. view that Fisher was heavily influenced by
2. For a typical example of the tendency to state Mahan’s writing, see Ruddock F. Mackay,
Mahan’s position on concentration of force Fisher of Kilverstone (Oxford, U.K.: Claren-
without reference to the historical exposition don, 1973), pp. 263–66, 287.
in The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 12. A. T. Mahan, “Retrospect upon the War be-
see Arthur J. Marder, From the Dreadnought tween Japan and Russia,” National Review
to Scapa Flow: The Royal Navy in the Fisher (May 1906), reprinted in Mahan, Naval Ad-
Era 1904–1919 (London: Oxford Univ. Press, ministration and Warfare: Some General Prin-
1961–70), vol. 1, p. 9. ciples with Other Essays (Boston: Little,
3. Alfred Thayer Mahan, The Influence of Sea Brown, 1908); and “Reflections, Historic and
Power upon History, 1660–1783 (Boston: Little, Others, Suggested by the Battle of the Sea of
Brown, 1890), p. 534. Japan,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings 32
(June 1906), pp. 447–71.
4. Ibid., p. 532.
13. A. T. Mahan, “The True Significance of the
5. Ibid., p. 529. Pacific Cruise,” Scientific American, 7 Decem-
6. This conclusion is supported by a leading ber 1907, reprinted in Mahan, Naval Admin-
modern authority, for which see David Syrett, istration and Warfare, pp. 309–53.
The Royal Navy in European Waters during 14. Fisher to Tweedmouth, 5 October 1906, in
the American Revolutionary War (Columbia: Marder, ed., Fear God and Dread Nought, vol.
Univ. of South Carolina Press, 1998), pp. 2, pp. 96–97.
167–68.
15. Marginal note by Fisher on a copy of his letter
7. Mahan, The Influence of Sea Power upon His- to King Edward VII, 14 March 1908; Fisher
tory, p. 534. to Arnold White, 30 August 1908; Fisher to
8. Arthur J. Marder, Portrait of an Admiral: The Reginald McKenna, 31 March 1909; Fisher
Life and Papers of Sir Herbert Richmond to Gerard Fiennes, 14 April 1910; Fisher to
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, Viscount Esher, 15 July 1912; all in Marder,
1952), p. 52. ed., Fear God and Dread Nought, vol. 2, pp.
168 note, 192, 240, 322, and 474, respectively.
9. Mahan to Fisher, 21 June 1899, and Mahan to
See also Lord Fisher, Memories (New York:
Fisher, 18 July 1899, in Robert Seager II and
George H. Doran, 1920), pp. 22–23, 50–51,
Doris D. Maguire, eds., Letters and Papers of
187, and 214.
Alfred Thayer Mahan (Annapolis, Md.: Naval
Institute Press, 1975), vol. 2, pp. 639–41, 16. Fisher to John Leyland, 22 September 1907,
643–45. in Marder, ed., Fear God and Dread Nought,
vol. 2, p. 136. For Mahan’s admiration, in a
10. Fisher to Chamberlain, 10 November 1900,
private letter, of Fisher’s reforms as First Sea
in Alfred J. Marder, ed., Fear God and Dread
Lord, see Fisher to Arnold White, 13 Novem-
Nought: The Correspondence of Admiral of the
ber 1909, in ibid., vol. 2, p. 278.
Fleet Lord Fisher of Kilverstone (London:
Cape, 1952), vol. 1, p. 165. See also Fisher to 17. Great Britain, Admiralty, The Building
James Thursfield, 21 July 1902, in ibid., vol. 1, Programme of the British Navy (15 February
p. 255; “Notes by Sir John Fisher on New 1906), pp. 8–9 and 37, FISR 8/8, F.P. 4715,
Proposals for the Information of Committee Roskill Archive Centre, Churchill College,
of Seven” (14 May 1904), in P. K. Kemp, ed., Cambridge. As late as in 1911, Fisher ex-
Papers of Sir John Fisher (London: Navy Rec- pressed adamant opposition to the close rela-
ords Society, 1960–64), vol. 2, p. 18; and Lord tions with France, for which see Fisher to J. A.
Fisher, Records (New York: George H. Doran, Spender, 25 October 1911, in Marder, ed.,
1920), p. 135. Fear God and Dread Nought, vol. 2, p. 398.

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102 NAVAL WAR COLLEGE REVIEW

For the uneasy relations of Britain and Russia Fiennes, The Ocean Empire: Its Dangers and
throughout the period, see Keith Neilson, Brit- Defence (London: A. Treherne, 1911).
ain and the Last Tsar: British Policy and Russia, 25. Lambert, Fisher’s Naval Revolution, pp. 245–46.
1894–1917 (Oxford, U.K.: Clarendon, 1995).
26. See Jon Tetsuro Sumida, In Defence of Naval
18. G. W. Monger, The End of Isolation: British Supremacy, pp. 220–35, and “A Matter of
Foreign Policy 1900–1907 (London: Thomas Timing: The Royal Navy and the Tactics of
Nelson, 1963), pp. 164–75. See also Fisher to Decisive Battle, 1912–1916,” Journal of Mili-
Lady Fisher, 1 November 1904, in Marder, tary History 67 (January 2003), pp. 85–136.
ed., Fear God and Dread Nought, vol. 2, p. 47.
27. Lambert, Fisher’s Naval Revolution, pp. 245–
19. Fisher to the Earl of Selborne, 29 October 46. See also Paul G. Halpern, The Mediterra-
1904, in Marder, ed., Fear God and Dread nean Naval Situation 1908–1914 (Cambridge,
Nought, vol. 2, p. 46. Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1971).
20. See Jon Tetsuro Sumida, In Defence of Naval 28. Fisher to Jellicoe, 2 April 1915, in Marder, ed.,
Supremacy: Finance, Technology, and British Fear God and Dread Nought, vol. 3, p. 183.
Naval Policy, 1889–1914 (Boston: Unwin
Hyman, 1989); Nicholas A. Lambert, Sir John 29. Richmond diary entry, 15 May 1917, in
Fisher’s Naval Revolution (Columbia: Univ. of Marder, Portrait of an Admiral, p. 251.
South Carolina Press, 1999), and “Strategic 30. Mahan, Influence of Sea Power upon History,
Command and Control for Maneuver War- pp. 539–40.
fare: Creation of the Royal Navy’s ‘War
31. See Sumida, In Defence of Naval Supremacy,
Room’ System, 1905–1915,” Journal of Mili-
and Lambert, Fisher’s Naval Revolution.
tary History 69 (April 2005), pp. 361–410.
32. Mahan, “The Value of the Pacific Cruise of
21. Jon Sumida, “Churchill and British Sea Power,
the United States Fleet,” in Naval Administra-
1908–29,” in Winston Churchill: Studies in
tion and Warfare, pp. 310, 319–20.
Statesmanship, ed. R. A. C. Parker (London:
Brassey’s, 1995), p. 7. 33. See Jon Tetsuro Sumida, “Pitfalls and Pros-
pects: The Misuses and Uses of Military His-
22. Fisher to Fiennes, 8 February 1912 [emphasis
tory and Classical Military Theory in the
original], in Marder, ed., Fear God and Dread
‘Transformation’ Era,” in Rethinking the
Nought, vol. 2, p. 430.
Principles of War, ed. Anthony D. McIvor
23. Ibid. (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 2005),
24. Ibid. For Fiennes’s knowledge of the battle- pp. 127–40.
cruiser aspect of Fisher’s scheme, see Gerard

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