Alfred Thayer Mahan and the Outbreak of World War One

Admiral Mahan

The renowned naval historian and strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan was still alive and kicking when the war started. He would live until the 1st of December 1914. In a 2023 ARTICLE in the Naval War College Review, Professor Kevin D. McCraine of the college took a fresh look at Mahan's observations on the war as it was developing. In his 74th year he was still perceptive and intellectually vital. McCraine summarizes some of the admiral's astute observations:

One day before Britain officially declared war, Mahan was interviewed regarding what he believed to be the origins of the war and the spark that had ignited it. His statements addressed power relationships among European states and underlying motivations instead of focusing on the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Mahan believed Austria-Hungary had expected that Serbia would refuse its ultimatum and concluded that Austria would issue such a demand only if Germany had consented; we now know this speculation to be correct, in the form of the infamous “blank check.” Mahan also theorized about the underlying factors behind the Austrian and German decisions for war. He linked Austria’s choice to unease about the Slavic peoples along its southern border, while he connected the German support of Austria to concerns over the rising power of Russia. Turning to Britain, Mahan expected intervention. The date of the interview is important in this assessment. Twenty-four hours later, Germany’s violation of Belgian neutrality would cloud assessments of Britain’s decision, but on 3 August Mahan zeroed in on the balance of power and the effects on Britain’s position as a world power if its leaders did not intervene.

During the first days of the war, Mahan speculated a great deal about navies. This should not be surprising, given the overall focus of his writings and his association with the concept of sea power. Four years before the outbreak of war, one of his contemporaries even claimed, “We may regard him as the virtual inventor of the term. . . . He has made it impossible for anyone to treat of sea-power without frequent reference to his writings and conclusions.”  His writings on sea power focused heavily on the role of navies in both peace and war and how geography influenced the environment in which naval forces operated. 

Mahan identified the North Sea as “beyond any possible doubt the chief theatre of this great naval war.”  At the outbreak of the war, that body of water contained the largest concentration of warships of any region of the world. A casual  understanding of Mahan’s theory might lead us to expect a fixation on an imminent battle between the opposing fleets in that region, pitting the British Grand Fleet and the German High Seas Fleet against each other for control of the North Sea. Some evidence even points in this direction, for Mahan, at the outset of the war, speculated, “[W]e may expect any minute, apparently, to get word of a great engagement. . . 

He believed that the sea provided Germany a possible means of escape from its resource constraints. Overseas trade supplied its industries and fed its people. “It is a question of existence for her,” claimed Mahan. “The stagnation of her carrying trade on the seas must threaten her very life, and the neutral shipping, already taxed to its limits, cannot bear the additional burdens of supplying Germany. .  .  Germany needed the resources of the globe, but these were forthcoming only if its navy could overcome Britain’s dominating geostrategic blocking position that stifled German overseas trade. The British Isles sat astride Germany’s two routes out of the North Sea to access the global maritime commons: one through the narrows of the English Channel, the other through the wider but more tempestuous passage between Scotland and Norway.

Battleships of the High Seas Fleet Underway

 

As Mahan saw the First World War begin to unfold, he concluded that the German fleet lacked the strength to obtain the political objectives that German leaders desired. “Germany, therefore, might wish to postpone action till a happy blow, or happy chance, diminish the inequality.” In the meantime, Mahan thought the Germans would avoid dividing their fleet: “It will not risk division, with the chance that in seeking to unite[,] one part may be overwhelmed by the whole British force.” Even concentrated, the German fleet stood little chance against the entire Grand Fleet.

Sadly, though, Professor McCranie reports that Mahan's public commentary ended early and abruptly. President Woodrow Wilson quickly issued the following instructions to both the Secretary of War and the Secretary of the Navy: “I write to suggest that you request and advise all officers of the service, whether active or retired, to refrain from public comment of any kind upon the military or political situation on the other side of the water.” Although he appealed for reconsideration, Mahan would not disobey the order. A life in the naval service had created too strong a loyalty for him to trespass against a presidential directive. Mahan’s son later explained that his father stopped his current writing project almost midsentence: “He obeyed the order so far that he would not even set pen to paper to write.”  

[Subsequently] President Wilson’s order forced Mahan to restrict his musings about the war to private letters to friends. In these, he kept coming back to [an]  overall argument. [that] Germany’s greatest chance for victory entailed gaining a quick triumph on land by employing its well-trained army. A failure by the kaiser to obtain a rapid victory there would allow the Entente to succeed through endurance, largely because sea power would allow Britain to harness the globe’s resources while Germany found itself contained to a small geographic region of continental Europe.

By the time Mahan died in December it was clear to him that the war would be a long one. One family member recounted, “[T]here is no doubt. . . that his death was hastened by the worry caused through not being able to show our people, as this wretched war goes on, the necessity for preparedness, by illustrating the subject from the events of the day.”

Source: "Mahan’s Theory and the Realities of the First World War—His Final Considerations on Sea Power," Naval War College Review: Vol. 76: No. 1.