CN Trafalgar Night Address 2015
Naval Officers Club Sydney
Royal Automobile Club Sydney
23 October 21015
NINETY years after the Trafalgar campaign and Nelson’s death, Captain Alfred Mahan, United States Navy, the great American prophet of Sea Power, wrote of the Royal Navy’s part in the allied victory over Napoleon. In a telling sentence he characterised the British Fleet as being:
That far distant line of storm beaten ships upon which the Grand Army of France never looked, but which stood between it and the dominion of the world.
That simple sentence still describes the central fact about maritime power, which is that it can only be exercised when fleets are at sea. That is an indisputable and eternal truth and has not changed since the Athenians and the Persians first fought from ships two and half thousand years ago.
