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Diplomacy and War Plans in the United States, 1890–19171

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

J. A. S. Grenville
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Extract

In 1890 America was at peace, the golden age appeared to be at hand; unfettered by the miseries of European strife, in prosperous rather than splendid isolation, the American people confidently looked forward to an even more exciting future. But a new age of danger was rapidly approaching; the nineteenth-century conditions of American safety—geographical isolation, the British fleet, as it turned out, the ‘hostage’ of Canada in American hands, and the balance of power in Europe—were passing away. The era which had seen the new world fattening on the follies of the old was coming to an end; soon the follies of the old world impinged on the peace and prosperity of the new. Within three decades the contest for world power fought out in Europe, and the rise of the youngest of the great nations, Japan, was to endanger the safety of the United States. Yet few Americans recognized the full import of these changes and the need for fresh policies.

Type
Research Article
Information
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society , Volume 11 , December 1961 , pp. 1 - 21
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1961

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References

page 2 note 1 The first book to do this, although not all the essential documents were available to the author, is William R. Braisted's scholarly and excellent study, The United States in the Pacific, 1897–1909 (University of Texas Press, 1958). W. Schilling's Admirals and Foreign Policy., 1913–1919(unpublished Yale University Ph.D. thesis, 1956), is also useful.

page 6 note 1 For Mahan's views on these points see especially his The Interest ofAmerica in Sea Power Present and Future (Boston, 1897).

page 4 note 1 War with Spain 1896. General Consideration of the War, the Results desired, and the consequent kind of operations to be undertaken. Plan by W. W. Kimball, Lt. U.S. Navy, Staff Intelligence Officer, June 1, 1896. Navy Department, National Archives, Washington. See also Braisted, ibid.

page 6 note 1 Garraty, John A., Henry Cabot Lodge, (New York, Knopf, 1953), p. 197Google Scholar.

page 6 note 2 Garraty, op. cit., p. 199.

page 7 note 1 See Grenville, J. A. S., ‘Great Britain and the Isthmian Canal, 1898–1901’, American Historical Review, lxi (1955)Google Scholar.

page 9 note 1 Harold, and Margaret, Sprout, The Rise of American Naval Power, (Princeton University Press, 1946), p. 247Google Scholar.

page 11 note 1 Records of the Joint Army and Navy Board, National Archives, Washington, 9 Dec. 1903, 19 Dec. 1903.

page 11 note 2 General Board Correspondence, United States Navy Department, 25 Nov. 1905, for a summary of strategic policy on this point and for the reaction of the State Department to naval demands.

page 13 note 1 Joint Army and Navy Board, 6 Nov. 1907, 29 Jan. 1908, 31 Jan. 1908, 19 Feb. 1908.

page 13 note 2 General Board Correspondence, 24 Feb. 1909. Joint Army and Navy Board, 5 Mar. 1908, 8 Nov. 1909.

page 16 note 1 War Plan Orange, War Portfolios, United States Navy Department.

page 17 note 1 War Plan Black, War Portfolios, United States Navy Department.

page 18 note 1 War Plan Black, War Portfolios, United States Navy Department.

page 19 note 1 General Board Correspondence, 6 Aug. 1915.

page 19 note 2 Ibid., 29 Aug. 1917.

page 19 note 3 Ibid., memorandum on General Policy 9 Nov. 1915, Josephus Daniels Papers, National Archives, Washington.

page 20 note 1 Army War Plans, National Archives, Washington, reference to folios Canada, Great Britain, and Japan.

page 20 note 2 Army War Plans, reference to folio Germany, memorandum, 3 Feb. 1917.