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.Second only to the expansion of her own was the injury to the sea powerof France and Holland, by the decay of their navies in consequence of the immense drain of the land warfare;further indications of that decay will be given later.The very neglect of Holland to fill up her quota of ships,and the bad condition of those sent, while imposing extra burdens upon England, may be considered a benefit,forcing the British navy to greater development and effort.The disproportion in military power on the sea wasfurther increased by the destruction of the works at Dunkirk; for though not in itself a first-class port, nor ofmuch depth of water, it had great artificial military strength, and its position was peculiarly adapted to annoyEnglish trade.It was but forty miles from the South Foreland and the Downs, and the Channel abreast it is butCHAPTER V.WAR OF THE SPANISH SUCCESSION, 1702-1713. SEA BATTLE OP MALAGA.100The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783twenty miles wide.Dunkirk was one of Louis' earliest acquisitions, and in its development was as his ownchild; the dismantling of the works and filling-in of the port show the depth of his humiliation at this time.But it was the wisdom of England not to base her sea power solely on military positions nor even onfighting-ships, and the commercial advantages she had now gained by the war and the peace were very great.The grant of the slave trade with Spanish America, in itself lucrative, became yet more so as the basis for animmense smuggling inter-course with those countries, which gave the English a partial recompense for theirfailure to obtain actual possession; while the cessions made to Portugal by France in South America weremainly to the advantage of England, which had obtained the control of Portuguese trade by the treaty of 1703.The North American colonies ceded were valuable, not merely nor chiefly as military stations, butcommercially; and treaties of commerce on favorable terms were made both with France and Spain.Aminister of the day, defending the treaty in Parliament, said:  The advantages from this peace appear in theaddition made to our wealth; in the great quantities of bullion lately coined in our mint; by the vast increase inour shipping employed since the peace, in the fisheries, and in merchandise; and by the remarkable growth ofthe customs upon imports, and of our manufactures, and the growth of our country upon export; in a word,by the impetus to trade in all its branches.While England thus came out from the war in good running condition, and fairly placed in that position ofmaritime supremacy which she has so long maintained, her old rival in trade and fighting was left hopelesslybehind.As the result of the war Holland obtained nothing at sea, no colony, no station.The commercialtreaty with France placed her on the same terms as England, but she received no concessions giving her afooting in Spanish America like that obtained by her ally.Indeed, some years before the peace, while thecoalition was still maintaining Carlos, a treaty was made with the latter by the British minister, unknown tothe Dutch, practically giving the British monopoly of Spanish trade in America; sharing it only withSpaniards, which was pretty much the same as not sharing it at all.This treaty accidentally became known,and made a great impression on the Dutch; but England was then so necessary to the coalition that she ran norisk of being left out by its other members.The gain which Holland made by land was that of militaryoccupation only, of certain fortified places in the Austrian Netherlands, known to history as the  barriertowns; nothing was added by them to her revenue, population, or resources; nothing to that national strengthwhich must underlie military institutions.Holland had forsaken, perhaps unavoidably, the path by which shehad advanced to wealth and to leadership among nations.The exigencies of her continental position had led tothe neglect of her navy, which in those days of war and privateering involved a loss of carrying-trade andcommerce: and although she held her head high through the war, the symptoms of weakness were apparent inher failing armaments.Therefore, though the United Provinces attained the great object for which they beganthe war, and saved the Spanish Netherlands from the hands of France, the success was not worth the cost.Thenceforth they withdrew for a long period from the wars and diplomacy of Europe; partly, perhaps, becausethey saw how little they had gained, but yet more from actual weakness and inability.After the strenuousexertions of the war came a reaction, which showed painfully the inherent weakness of a State narrow interritory and small in the number of its people.The visible decline of the Provinces dates from the Peace ofUtrecht; the real decline began earlier.Holland ceased to be numbered among the great powers of Europe, hernavy was no longer a military factor in diplomacy, and her commerce also shared in the general decline of theState.It remains only to notice briefly the results to Austria, and to Germany generally.France yielded the barrier ofthe Rhine, with fortified places on the east bank of the river.Austria received, as has been mentioned,Belgium, Sardinia, Naples, and the Spanish possessions in northern Italy; dissatisfied in other respects,Austria was especially discontented at her failure to obtain Sicily, and did not cease negotiating afterward,until she had secured that island.A circumstance more important to Germany and to all Europe than thistransitory acquisition of distant and alien countries by Austria was the rise of Prussia, which dates from thiswar as a Protestant and military kingdom destined to weigh in the balance against Austria.CHAPTER V.WAR OF THE SPANISH SUCCESSION, 1702-1713. SEA BATTLE OP MALAGA.101The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783Such were the leading results of the War of the Spanish Succession,  the vastest yet witnessed by Europesince the Crusades. It was a war whose chief military interest was on the land, a war in which fought two ofthe greatest generals of all times, Marlborough and Prince Eugene, the names of whose battles, Blenheim,Ramillies, Malplaquet, Turin, are familiar to the most casual reader of history; while a multitude of able mendistinguished themselves on the other theatres of the strife, in Flanders, in Germany, in Italy, in Spain.On thesea only one great battle, and that scarcely worthy of the name, took place.Yet looking only, for the moment,to immediate and evident results, who reaped the benefit? Was it France, whose only gain was to seat aBourbon on the Spanish throne? Was it Spain, whose only gain was to have a Bourbon king instead of anAustrian, and thus a closer alliance with France? Was it Holland, with its barrier of fortified towns, its ruinednavy, and its exhausted people? Was it, lastly, Austria, even though she had fought with the money of the seapowers, and gained such maritime States as the Netherlands and Naples? Was it with these, who had wagedwar more and more exclusively by land, and set their eyes more and more on gains on the land, or was it notrather with England, who had indeed paid for that continental war and even backed it with her troops, but whomeanwhile was building up her navy, strengthening, extending, and protecting her commerce, seizingmaritime positions, in a word, founding and rearing her sea power upon the ruins of that of her rivals, friendand foe alike? It is not to depreciate the gains of others that the eye fixes on England's naval growth; theirgains but bring out more clearly the immenseness of hers.It was a gain to France to have a friend rather thanan enemy in her rear, though her navy and shipping were ruined [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]