Through the Lens of Sea Power and Maritime Strategy: Alfred T. Mahan and Julian S. Corbett on the Napoleonic Wars
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.25071/2561-5467.1162Keywords:
Napoleonic Wars, Sea Power, Maritime Strategy, Julian S. Corbet, Alfred T. MahanAbstract
Both Alfred T. Mahan and Julian S. Corbett used the Napoleonic Wars to provide concrete illustrations of their theoretical arguments. This should not be surprising. When the two wrote at the dawn of the twentieth century, the Napoleonic Wars were the most recent great power conflict with a significant naval element. Though both explained the wars through a combination of naval, land, diplomatic, and economic tools of power, Mahan and Corbett weighted these instruments differently. This reflected Mahan’s theory of sea power and Corbett’s ideas about maritime strategy. Understanding how they explained the Napoleonic Wars and interpreted the outcome allows for a stronger understanding of their arguments and agendas while serving as a powerful corrective to land power-centric interpretations of those wars.
Alfred T. Mahan et Julian S. Corbett ont tous deux invoqué les guerres napoléoniennes comme illustrations concrètes de leurs arguments théoriques. Cette constatation n’a pas de quoi surprendre. Lorsque les deux auteurs étaient actifs à l’aube du 20e siècle, les guerres napoléoniennes étaient le plus récent conflit entre grandes puissances qui comprenait un élément naval important. Bien que Mahan et Corbett aient expliqué les guerres à l’aide d’une combinaison de visions navales, terrestres, diplomatiques et économiques du pouvoir, ils ont pondéré ces questions de différentes façons qui reflétaient la théorie de la puissance maritime de Mahan et les idées de Corbett sur la stratégie maritime. En apprenant à connaître leurs explications des guerres napoléoniennes et leurs interprétations des résultats, l’on peut mieux comprendre leurs arguments et leurs raisonnements qui servent d’excellent correctif aux interprétations axées sur la puissance terrestre de ces guerres.
References
Armstrong, Benjamin F, ed. 21st Century Mahan: Sound Military Conclusions for the Modern Era. Annapolis: Naval Institute, 2013.
Bridge, Cyprian. Sea-Power and Other Studies. London: Smith, Elder, 1910.
Cavell, S.A. “A Second Naval War: The Immediate Effects of the American War on Royal Navy Operations, 1812-13.” In The Trafalgar Chronicle. New Series 5. Edited by Judith E. Pearson, Sean Heuvel, and John Rodgaard. Great Britain: Seaforth, 2020, 161-174.
Churchill, Winston S. The World Crisis. Vol. 1. Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, 1923.
Clausewitz, Carl von. On War. 3 vols. Translated by J.J. Graham. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner, 1911.
Corbett, Julian S. The Campaign of Trafalgar. London: Longmans, Green, 1910.
Corbett, Julian S. Corbett Papers. Combined Operations Lecture, Undated. Corbett Papers, Box 2. Liddell Hart Centre Archives, King’s College, London, United Kingdom.
Corbett, Julian S. Corbett Papers (CBT). National Maritime Museum (NMM), Greenwich, United Kingdom.
Corbett, Julian S. England in the Seven Years’ War: A Study in Combined Strategy. 2 vols. London: Longmans, Green, 1907.
Corbett, Julian S. “Methods and Discussion,” The Naval Review 8 (1920), 322-324.
Corbett, Julian S. “Napoleon and the British Navy after Trafalgar.” The Quarterly Review 471 (April 1922), 238-255.
Corbett, Julian S. ed. Private Papers of George, Second Earl Spencer: First Lord of the Admiralty, 1794–1801. Vols. 1 and 2. London: Navy Records Society, 1913–1914.
Corbett, Julian S. Some Principles of Maritime Strategy. London: Longmans, Green, 1911. Reprint, Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1988.
Corbett, Julian S. The Successors of Drake. London: Longmans, Green, 1900.
Davey, James. In Nelson’s Wake: The Navy and the Napoleonic Wars. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015.
Freedman, Lawrence. Strategy: A History. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013.
Gooch, John. “Maritime Command: Mahan and Corbett.” In Seapower and Strategy. Edited by Colin S. Gray and Roger W. Barnett. Annapolis: Naval Institute, 1989. 27-46.
Heckscher, Eli F. The Continental System: An Economic Interpretation. Edited by Harald Westergaard. London: Oxford, 1922.
Heuser, Beatrice. The Evolution of Strategy: Thinking War from Antiquity to the Present. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511762895
Kaplan, Robert D. “America’s Elegant Decline.” The Atlantic. November 2007.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2007/11/america-s-elegant-decline/306344/
Lambert, Andrew. The British Way of War: Julian Corbett and the Battle for National Strategy. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2021. DOI: https://doi.org/10.12987/9780300262421
Lambert, Andrew, ed. Letters and Papers of Professor Sir John Knox Laughton 1830-1915. Aldershot: Navy Records Society, 2002.
Laughton, John Knox. “Study of Naval History.” Journal of the Royal United Service Institution 40 (July 1896), 795-820. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/03071849609416248
Mahan, Alfred T. From Sail to Steam: Recollections of Naval Life. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1907.
Mahan, Alfred T. “The Hague Conference of 1907 and the Question of Immunity for Belligerent Merchant Shipping.” In Some Neglected Aspects of War. Boston: Little, Brown, 1907. 157-193.
Mahan, Alfred T. The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660–1783. Boston: Little, Brown, 1890. Reprint, New York: Dover, 1987.
Mahan, Alfred T. The Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution and Empire, 1793–1812. 2 Vols. 2nd ed. Boston: Little, Brown, 1893.
Mahan, Alfred T. The Life of Nelson: The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain. 2nd rev. ed. Boston: Little, Brown, 1899. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/1833792
Mahan, Alfred T. Naval Strategy Compared and Contrasted with the Principles and Practice of Military Operations on Land. Boston: Little, Brown, 1911. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/1834394
Mahan, Alfred T. “Possibilities of an Anglo-American Reunion.” North American Review 159 (1894): 551-563.
Mahan, Alfred T. Sea Power in Its Relations to the War of 1812. 2 vols. Boston: Little, Brown, 1905.
Mahan, Alfred T. Types of Naval Officers: Drawn from the History of the British Navy. London: Sampson Low, Marston, 1902.
Marder, Arthur J., ed. Fear God and Dread Nought: The Correspondence of Admiral of the Fleet Lord Fisher of Kilverstone. 3 Vols. London: Jonathan Cape, 1952-1959.
Maurer, John. “Alfred Thayer Mahan and the Strategy of Sea Power.” In The New Makers of Modern Strategy from the Ancient World to the Digital Age. Edited by Hal Brands. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2023, 169-192. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv3142v29.12
McCranie, Kevin D. Mahan, Corbett, and the Foundations of Naval Strategic Thought. Annapolis: Naval Institute, 2021.
McCranie, Kevin D. “The War of 1812 in the Ongoing Napoleonic Wars: The Response of Britain’s Royal Navy.” The Journal of Military History 76 (October 2012), 1067-1094.
Mikaberidze, Alexander. The Napoleonic Wars: A Global History. New York: Oxford University Press, 2020.
Muir, Rory. Britain and the Defeat of Napoleon, 1807-1815. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996.
Richardson, John M. A Design for Maintaining Maritime Superiority. ver. 1.0. January 2016. https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/AD1002755.pdf
Seager II, Robert and Doris D. Maguire, eds. Letters and Papers of Alfred Thayer Mahan. 3 vols. Annapolis: Naval Institute, 1975.
Sumida, Jon Tetsuro. Inventing Grand Strategy and Teaching Command: The Classic Works of Alfred Thayer Mahan Reconsidered. Washington: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 1997. DOI: https://doi.org/10.56021/9780801858000
