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Mahan AT

Name: Alfred Thayer Mahan

Achievements: Linked seapower and geopolitics

Born: September 27, 1840; West Point, New York

Died: December 1, 1914; Naval Hospital in Washington DC. Aged 74.

Field & Discipline: Military; Education; Geopolitics

Language: English.

Father: Dennis Hart Mahan

Mother: Mary Helena Okill

Siblings: Unknown

Spouse: Ellen Lyle Evans (m. 1872)

Children: Unknown

Education: St James School, Columbia College New York (1854-6); United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland (1856-9)

Major Work:  

“The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660-1783” (1890)

“The Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution and Empire, 1793-1812” (1892)

Life & Times:

Mahan was born at West Point, NY in 1840, where his father, Dennis Hart Mahan, was dean of the faculty and professor of civil and military engineering at the United States Military Academy.

The elder Mahan was the author of two minor military classics, Field Fortifications, and The Rise and Progress of Tactics, and was personally responsible for the military indoctrination of hundreds of cadets who would command both Union and Confederate troops in the Civil War. The major source of his writings and teachings was the Swiss strategist [borrowed ideas of] Jomini*.

In 1852, aged 12, Mahan went to board at St James School in Hagerstown, MD, and in 1854, he enrolled in Columbia College, New York City.   After 2 years at Columbia, the young Mahan, against his father's advice, enlisted in the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, MD, and 3 years later, in 1859, graduated second in his class.

In 1862 came the Civil War, which, for Mahan, meant mostly uneventful patrols off the Confederate coasts.  He did, however, spend a few weeks as instructor of seamanship at the Naval Academy, temporarily moved to Newport, Rhodes Island, where he was briefly under the command of Stephen B. Luce, later to become his mentor.

When the war ended, Mahan was 26 years old and a Lieutenant Commander.  His high rank inspired him stay in the Navy, despite his misgivings, for the next 20 years, by which time he had achieved rank of Commander on the staff of the Naval Academy, serving in navy yards and aboard ship on the Asiatic Station and off the west coast of South America.

When he took over the naval war college in 1886, Mahan lectured on chiefly British naval history and strategy and his tiny staff gave instruction in army tactics and strategy, international law, logistics, naval gunnery and tactics, the strategic significance of the Caribbean, and naval hygiene.

One important event for Mahan personally was the arrival of [a pal of] Theodore Roosevelt* in September 1887.  Roosevelt visited Newport in order to lecture on the "True Conditions of War of 1812".  This meeting inaugurated a lifelong friendship between the two, resulting in Mahan’s position as advisor to the Navy during the Spanish War.

Meanwhile, Mahan was trying to organise his first lectures into book form, and in 1890 he published ‘The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660-1783’, but not before he had narrowly escaped orders from the Bureau of Navigation to return to sea duty.

Mahan's two most influential books, The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660-1783 and The Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution and Empire, 1793-1812, published 1890 and 1892 respectively, together come to more than 1,300 pages, devoted chiefly to the naval history of Britain from 1660 to 1812.

Their central theme is simple.  In every  phase of the prolonged contest between France and England, from 1668 to the fall of Napoleon, command of the sea by naval domination, or lack of it, determined the outcome. 

Both books were avidly read in Great Britain and Germany, where they greatly influenced the build-up of naval forces in the years prior to World War I.

Mahan's principle belief was that "the stoppage of commerce compels peace".  By this, he means that whoever controls commerce on the sea will win the war, and that the primary function of navies is control of maritime commerce through command of the sea.

Such principles of war had already been elucidated by Jomini in his twenty seven volumes of military history, covering the wars of Frederick the Great and of the French Revolution and Napoleon.  This provided Mahan with ample data for drawing analogies between military and naval operations, especially so from one volume, The Art of War, which offered in succinct form the fundamental principles he was seeking.

Mahan then borrowed the ingredients of Jomini's art of war, adopting the principle of concentration, the strategic value of the central position and interior lines, and the close relationship between logistics and combat.  This formed the framework of his own system of naval strategy, insisting that concentration was "the predominant principle" of naval warfare.

By the time he left to take command of USS Chicago in 1893 Mahan’s course of instruction at Newport was well established.   Mahan was now becoming well known, where The Influence of Sea Power upon History was received with great acclaim in Britain, and when Mahan brought the Chicago into Southampton in late July 1893 he came ashore to great reception. Then, and on the ship's return visit in 1894, he was entertained by [met] Queen Victoria*.

Back in the US, Mahan lectured at the Naval War College in 1895 and again in 1896, the year he retired from active service. Now he could devote almost full time to his writings, which proved to be voluminous, and for which he was well remunerated.

He received honorary degrees from Harvard (1896), Yale (1987), Columbia (1900), and McGill (1909) universities, and from Dartmouth College (1903). The American Historical Association elected him as president in 1902. 

In 1906 an Act of Congress advanced all retired navy Captains whom had served in the Civil War to the rank of Rear Admiral on the retired list.  Mahan accepted the promotion, but kept the title "Captain" as his nom de plume.

With the outbreak of World War I, on 6 August, 1914, all officers, active or retired, were ordered by President Woodrow Wilson, to refrain from any public comment on the war, much to Mahan's chagrin.

Three and a half months later, on 1 December 1914, Mahan died of heart failure at the Naval Hospital in Washington. 

Extra Connections: Met [met] Churchill* 

His work related to that of [work related to] Mackinder*

Assessment: In his capacity as advisor, he influenced the manoeuvres of many nation's naval institutions and in his capacity as teacher, he provoked serious thought into the concepts, tactics, and opportunities of the use of navies to achieve world power.

Oneliner: AT Mahan, American naval historian and strategist

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