Peter Padfield

Updated Sunday 15 May, 2011 12:18 PM

Just how related is world power to naval power? Peter Padfield, a modern day Mahan, argues that ‘Thalassocracies’, which are sea-based political systems and states, are inherently mixed-up, independent, cantankerous, self-asserting and thus liberal and democratic entities, unlike land-based, autocratic, non-commercial empires. He further contends that the naval powers are more innovative than the land powers. In his two books, Maritime Supremacy and the Opening of the Western Mind and Maritime Power and the Struggle for Freedom, Padfield explores the development of world naval power from the Spanish armada to the end of Napoleon’s empire. In both volumes, Padfield argues that there is a connection between, on the one hand, free thought, commerce and the rule of law and, on the other, geography and sea power. Authoritarian, land-based regimes simply could not tolerate the restlessness and entrepreneurship that went along with trading and exploring and escaping by sea.

Padfield’s work follows similar lines to Kennedy’s. Padfield reasons that Britain spread its influence and saw off nations such as France and Spain because it was a naval power with superior financial and constitutional arrangements. As an island, Britain depended on trade and its merchants required a navy to protect them. The navy was expensive, so a central bank - the Bank of England - was needed to raise the debt to pay for it. A decent, uncorrupted taxation system, based on the consent of Parliament rather than the capricious whim of a monarch, was also required. On the other side, He presents the French Revolution and Napoleon in a radical light as essentially regressive, Britain, for better or worse, as the progressive herald of modern liberties. The reader is placed on the gun deck, amid the cannon, smoke, blood and death, or alongside the great leaders, Pitt, Nelson, Wellington or Napoleon Bonaparte.

I’m not sure I entirely agree with Padfield in places. The foes of Britain were themselves involved with internal or external matters. France, apart from the American Revolution, always had to fight a combination of British sponsored powers, while Britain moved the scales to ensure that a balance was maintained. It should be interesting to see how Padfield dissects the end of the First World War, which did not follow those rules, and led to Britain's darkest hour. None of the continental powers could support a large, modern navy, as well as an army. The one exception to this rule, America, had internal problems and no lust for foreign adventure. Notice how, when American power became apparent, Britain was willing to imperil its own interests to avoid war.

Britain may have been one of the most democratic nations existing at that time. However, Britain was unable to adjust its system enough to give the colonial subjects a sufficient interest in maintaining the empire. In 1777, in 1850, in 1940, the colonials would be barely willing to assist the empire, leading to it taking mortal blows. Further, the democratic nature of Britain made it difficult to build a modern army when it was needed, leading to chronic shortage of troops. Britain’s navy was helpless on dry lands, jokes about ‘submarines at Tunbridge Wells’ notwithstanding.

Britain also had a healthy dose of luck. Napoleon, Hitler, Wilhelm, Philip, Louis and Washington (and the continental congress) all failed to understand how seapower needed to be used. While they did have people who did, they were rarely heard or misunderstood. Padfield describes how Napoleon ordered barges suitable for canal work for the transit across the channel, an enterprise that would have led to complete disaster unless the Royal Navy was somehow destroyed first.

Further, the combined navies of Europe outnumbered and out-concentrated the British. However, they were either unwilling or unable to cooperate together, the Danes, for example, lost their fleet to a bold attack by Nelson, and many of the navies that were willing to cooperate were in terrible condition. Both the Spanish and French navies were in terrible condition, which the Spanish navy never quite recovered from. The American navy ships enjoyed qualitative superiority over most equivalent British designs, which were not aided by British overconfidence and arrogance. However, the sheer number of British ships destroyed the American merchant trade and made the small victories seem truly futile, no matter how the press raved or ranted, depending on which side of the Atlantic.

If there’s one problem that really stands out, its that the book is very ambitious, which sometimes makes it confusing. Padfield didn't want to write just a political/social history of the maritime powers and he didn't want to write just a naval history or to compare and contrast the maritime powers and the continental powers, he wanted to combine the two types of history. This leads to confusion as rather than weaving all the material together; Padfield alternates chapters on naval campaigns with chapters on political/social developments in Spain, France, Britain, the Netherlands, and Colonial America. This constantly disrupts the flow of the book: just as you have settled down to concentrate on a sea battle, the author switches to a chapter on political infighting or government financing. However, the books do reward several rereadings and chapter skipping so that you can gather all the threads.