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Degree

MA, Kent State University, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of History, 2009.

Abstract

This thesis will examine the American sea power tradition, the ideas expressed by U.S. Navy officers regarding the contribution the maritime services made to national power and prosperity. In particular, this study will focus on the relationship between two key components identified by Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan, historian and naval theorist, in his 1890 classic, The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660-1783: the nation’s naval service and its merchant marine. In doing so, this thesis will explore the power-political and mercantile-commercial dimensions of the American sea power tradition formulated in the four decades before World War I and the influence of those dimensions on Admiral William S. Benson, wartime chief of naval operations (CNO) and postwar member of the United States Shipping Board (USSB). Naval historiography centers the American sea power tradition on Mahan. However, his emphasis on the necessity of a large battle fleet and of a large merchant marine was not original, and he deemphasized the merchant marine’s importance over time. Instead, he contributed to a “tradition of thought” regarding these services a decade before his 1890 book. Admiral Benson is depicted in naval historiography as a nationalist and anti-British because of his position at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 and his protectionist policies while chairman of the USSB. What is missing in the historiography of Benson is how this multi-generational intellectual tradition shaped his ideas during his varied careers. Benson’s support of a strong navy and a merchant marine not only came from Mahan, but from other sources in his generation. The context that created these ideas changed, but those ideas were modified to be used in the given situations by Benson and his contemporaries during and after World War I. This study divides the period of the 1880s to the 1920s into three distinct but overlapping eras. The late 1870s to late 1890s composed the first era, consisting of a rapid commercial expansion and “new empire” colonialism, and an obsolete navy with a continental view of defense. The late 1890s to 1919 presented a change in American naval policy as the changing great power rivalry of Europe demanded a large navy and a merchant marine for defense. The 1920s was an era of peace and armament limitation led by the Washington Conference on the Limitation of Armaments. Benson became worried that American naval preparedness would be jeopardized by the armament limitation treaty. The sea power tradition influenced Benson’s views as he sought to preserve the war-built merchant marine for national defense.

Subject Headings

American history; Armed forces; History; Military history

Keywords

American sea power; U.S. Navy; American merchant marine; William S. Benson; Alfred Thayer Mahan; Bradley A. Fiske

Advisor

Dr. Clarence Wunderlin, Jr. (Advisor)

Pages

183p.

Document number: kent1258055271
Permalink: http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1258055271

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