Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Germany's High Sea Fleet, in the World War
Anglo-saxon and the German conceptions of the world. On the former side is the claim to the position of unrestricted primacy in sea power, to the dominion of the seas, to the prerogative of ocean trade and to a levy on the treasures of all the earth. We are the first nation of the World is the dogma of every Englishman, and he cannot conceive how others can doubt it.
English history supplies the proof of the application - just as energetic as inconsiderate - oi this conception. Even one of the greatest eulogists of the English methods in naval warfare - bwhich best re?ect English history - the American, Captain Mahan, made famous through his book, The In?uence of Sea Power upon History, characterises it in his observations on the North American War of Independence, which ended in 1783's To quote again the [french] summary before given, their [the Allies - America, France and Spain] object was 'to avenge their respective injuries, and to put an end to that tyrannical Empire which England claims to maintain upon the ocean.' The revenge they had obtained was barren of benefit to themselves. They had, so that generation thought, injured England by liberating America; but they had not righted their wrongs in Gibraltar and Jamaica. The English ?eet had not received any such treatment as would lessen its haughty self-reliance, the armed neutrality of the Northern Powers had been allowed to pass fruitlessly away, and the English Empire over the seas soon became as tyrannical and more absolute than ever.
Still, England has in process of time understood how to create an almost universal recognition of its claim. Its whole policy, based on the authority of its Fleet and the favourable situation of the British Isles, has always been adapted to the principle that all that may contribute ad majorem gloriam Britannias is of ad vantage also to the progress of mankind.
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