Page:Heresies of Sea Power (1906).djvu/20

 4 ments and of that support which could have been supplied.

Thus far one particular case; but if we allow it too much weight, if we seek too carefully for similar instances in which the accepted influence of Sea Power may perhaps have only an imaginary value, we are undoubtedly in danger of forming conclusions as dangerous as if we accept blindly such dogmas as 'Sea Power won the Second Punic War,' or that 'The ships of Nelson at Trafalgar won the battle of Waterloo.' Rather, is it essential that we keep ever before us the fact that where an island is concerned Sea Power assumes a totally different meaning and importance to that which it possesses where continental issues are at stake. The Second Punic War was in sum and substance an entirely military campaign, and therefore is totally distinct from any war in which the British or Japanese empires could be concerned, or (save in the case of operations against Mexico and similarly negligible affairs) the United States. Between these Powers and all possible enemies the water lies. Because that water exists, they, both for attack and defence of commerce require Sea Power to a degree not experienced by most of the sea-empires of the past.

With nations that have controlled the sea in the past,—Athens, Phoenicia, Rome, Carthage, Genoa, and even the island Venice—the same conditions never obtained. Because they never obtained, may it logically be argued that, even were the teaching of history