Clash Between Titans

Clash between titans The Norman Transcript February 25, 2006 12:15 am — For The Transcript Our oceans are so vast. There are about 70,000,000 square miles in the Pacific, some 31,000,000 in the Atlantic, more than 28,000,000 in the Indian Ocean. And there are other oceans and seas. In the Western World the Mediterranean Sea -- more than four times the size of Texas -- saw the rise of ocean transport as well as the origin of "warships" and flourishing navies. Coastal cities and islands have played a major role in this story. Sicily is a fascinating illustration. Covered with mountains and about the same size as West Virginia, Sicily is the largest island in the Mediterranean. Numerous actions and nations has conquered it -- or tried to do so. The clouds of time obscure its earliest history, although we do know the Greeks planted colonies in Sicily some seven centuries before Christ. The strategic location of Sicily made it a logical focal point for militarypolitical domination. Navies have had an important influence on the role it has played in European-African history. Many an important naval engagement has been fought near this captivating island. Many a sailor has perished nearby and many slaves and soldiers have succumbed in the area doing their imposed duties. In the middle of the 19th century the English jurist and historian Edward Creasy published his little book "The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World." It is interesting to note that only one was a naval battle -- the Defeat of the Spanish Armada. Thirty years after Creasy's essays Alfred Thayer Mahan published his lectures on "The Influence of Sea Power on History." A graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and president of the Naval War College, Mahan brought thinking about the influence of naval might to maturity. If Creasy could have written with Mahan's insight he undoubtedly would have modified his selection of battles. And certainly we would. The Battle of Midway, where the Americans turned the tide against the Japanese in World War II, would necessarily have been included. And many other naval battles have played instructively into world history. Note Tsushima, where Japan announced her powerful presence in the modern world, or Jutland where the British suffered the greater losses but checkmated the German High Seas Fleet. And there are other momentous ones. Trafalgar, which substantially ended Napoleon's threat to England; Lepante, where Christians and Turks murdered one another in the name of God; and Manila, where Admiral Dewey crushed the Spanish fleet assuring American "civilization" for the Philippines and Cuba. But few of us pay attention to the Battle of Mylae (my lee), its causes or its long-term consequences. This clash between the Carthaginians and Rome is not surprising. The result was three major wars -- the Punic Wars. Although the larger issue was political-economic dominance, the immediate causes of the first war were internal strife in Sicily, the Carthaginian control of the strait between Sicily and Italy and the prospects of fulfilling political-military ambitions. History is shot through with puzzles. An interesting one is the failure of the Romans in the early centuries to build an effective navy. The coast of Italy is over 2,600 miles in length. East, west and south are exposed to the sea and opportunities for enemy intrusion are substantially without limit. The fact is the ancient Romans were not a seagoing people; the Carthaginians were. The Phoenicians, master seamen and traders, settled Carthage, and it was the threat and example of the Carthaginians that taught the Romans the importance of a navy. The Romans had dabbled with seamanship before, but the Battle of Mylae was the great lesson. To stop the predations of the Carthaginians and their conquests on the shores of Sicily the Romans in the third century B.C. began to copy the ships of their African enemies; especially they were attracted to the quinquereme (kwin kwa rem). This was a ship propelled by five decks of oars; it carried marines who could fight on land or board other ships after dropping gang planks with spikes on them. The Romans built a fleet of more than 100 such vessels and defeated the Carthaginians at Mylae in 260 B.C. on the north shore of Sicily.

The importance of Mylae was not lost on the Romans. And other nations learned it down through the centuries. Its importance was neither the number of casualties nor the destruction of enemy material -although these are always an accompaniment of the madness of war. Reduced to its essence, the measure of Mylae's significance was the importance of sea power. In the world of realpolitik -- although centuries later -Charles II of England summed up this principle for the world's greatest seagoing nation: "It is upon the navy ... that the safety, honor, and welfare of this realm chiefly attend." Apparently among the European nations the Romans were the first to understand this lesson. Their grasp and response to Mylae changed the course of world history. Lloyd Williams is a retired educator. His column runs in The Transcript every other Saturday. Copyright © 1999-2008 cnhi, inc.