longed to one of the heroes of the battle of San Antonio; & sword blade from the British frigate Rose, sunk in the Savannah river in 1779 by a squadron of French vessels commanded by Count D'Estaing who co-operated with the Americans in recovering the city of Savannah from the British; a side arm, or hanger, worn by a French soldier during the Revolutionary war; a short sword with wooden grip, presented to an Indian chief for good conduct by the first congress.

Although perhaps not strictly to be included in an article of this kind, it may not be amiss to make mention of some of the arms obtained during the Spanish-American war. Thus from Porto Rico and Cuba are exhibited swords of the municipal guard, a marine officer's sword, a general officer's sword, a noncommissioned officer's sword, a civil guard's sword, besides several machetes, sabers, cutlasses, etc., and two Toledo swords of the kind used by the militia of Porto Rico from 1650 to about 1850.

In a special case are shown a number of bolos from the Philippine islands. This is a generic word, including various kinds of weapons, such as the borong, carried by the official classes; the campilon, worn by officers of the Moro army; the punal de kris, a small dagger carried by women and children; various forms of kris, malay, bolos, or naval cutlasses of the modern Spanish form; terpilong, the official headsman's ax-sword; quinbasi, or pocket knife of the private soldier; pira, a sword used by the Moros; besides several daggers made from steel spear heads.

It would be unjust to our enlightened and generous government to close without reminding the reader that numerous other swords besides those herein mentioned have been presented by congress to military and naval heroes for gallant conduct, but it happens that they have not yet come into the national treasure house. Thus, at least fourteen swords are known to have been presented to heroes of the Revolutionary war, the Mexican war, and the Seminole insurrection.

STRATEGIC VALUE OF HER WEST INDIAN POSSESSIONS TO THE UNITED STATES.

BY W. V. JUDSON.

[William Voorhees Judson, captain corps of engineers, U. S. A.; born Indianapolis, Ind., February 16, 1865; educated Harvard, 1882; graduated West Point, 1888; graduated United States engineering school, Willets Point, N. Y.; now recorder board of engineers, U. S. A.; instructor military engineering, United States engineering school.] Copyright 1902 by American Academy of Political and Social Science

If in time of peace we must prepare for war, it becomes necessary also in time of peace to contemplate the dangers to which we may be exposed in war, for only thus shall we make our preparations adequate, and along the right lines. If in the following article emphasis is laid upon the dangers rather than the advantages of certain conditions, it is but to bring out forcibly the means by which the dangers may be averted, as well as the advantages reaped.

In its broadest sense, strategy deals with all acts, diplomatic or political, civil or military, that make ultimately for a nation's strength in war. The accepted leaders of our people expect the policy of expansion in the West Indies and elsewhere to yield great increase of trade and new opportunities for the profitable use of American capital. It is generally believed that this policy will increase our national prosperity and our influence for the world's good in the council of nations.

Before passing to the more limited case of our West Indian acquisitions, it will be well to contemplate the general but strictly military consequences of possessing islands beyond the sea. Prior to 1898 the United States was the strongest of all nations on the defensive. Our population was self sustaining and could not be reduced to submission through blockade. On account of the difficulties of ocean transport no army could land and sustain itself for a successful campaign within our borders. The European power with which most frequently we had had serious complications in the past, and which most of all nations possessed means to annoy and harass our coasts, was deterred from any hostile undertakings

through fear of losing Canada. President Cleveland could be sure that his Venezuelan message would provoke no war.

Notwithstanding our great defensive strength we should have been in a very embarrassing position if at that time we had been called upon to enforce the Monroe doctrine against Germany, France or Russia. These nations were each superior to us upon the sea, and where else against either one of them might we even have attempted a hostile blow? We must admit that our offensive military strength, except as against England in Canada, was insignificant. This certainly appears to have been a dangerous situation for a nation traditionally attached to the Monroe doctrine.

When we acquired possessions beyond the sea, we lost in great measure our splendid defensive strength, while we added to our power to strike offensive blows. At the same time that we increased our ability to sustain the Monroe doctrine, and thus reduced the probability of war due to its violations, we increased the probability of war due to other causes, for we entered into contact with the world's great powers at a greatly increased number of points.

Whether the gain of offensive and loss of defensive strength leave us with a balance to the good is, in a measure, an indeterminate problem, the unknown quantities being indicated in the following questions:

1. Who will be our antagonist?

2. What preparations shall we make, in peace, to reap advantages from our new conditions?

In a war to-day with a great commercial power, equal or inferior to us in naval strength, we should undoubtedly find our acquisitions a distinct gain. But in a war with a power of considerably greater naval strength we should find that we had but acquired points vulnerable to attack, and several burning problems now agitating the public mind would be speedily solved by our opponent.

The relation of sea power to over sea possessions may be briefly stated in the light of history and of European policies. Of the five great European powers Russia alone has pursued a policy that enables her to ignore the command of the sea. With unorganized and inferior peoples upon her eastern and

southeastern borders, she has been able to extend her limits by the absorption of contiguous continental territory whose inhabitants are quickly assimilated. Why did Russia part with the Kurile islands in 1875, and with Alaska in 1867, if it was not to divest herself of distant possessions, recognized as sources of weakness to a nation whose military strength lay upon the land? And what isolated possessions does she now maintain vulnerable to British attack? It seems written upon the wall that, when land communication between Russia and India shall possess military advantages over water communication between Great Britain and India, the day of British rule in India shall pass.

Compare, further, the courses of the Spanish and Boer wars. Spain was vulnerable because of her outlying possessions. Her navy was not far inferior to ours, and her trained army was many times larger, yet Spain was overwhelmed in four months in battles that occurred far from the Spanish peninsula. On the other hand the Boers, with no navy and with but a handful of men, sustained themselves for nearly three years against an antagonist almost infinitely stronger, because the Boer territorial possessions were compact, and distant from the enemy's base.

Napoleon conquered Egypt in 1799, but the defeat of the French fleet at Aboukir drove him back to France. And why did Napoleon sell Louisiana to the United States but because that master of strategy recognized it as a source of weakness to France?

Another example is seen in the conduct of British military operations in 1781. In the month of March of that year De Grasse sailed westward with thirty six ships of the line, a sufficient force to give the allies command of the sea on the American coast. In the same month an English fleet sailed from Portsmouth under Admiral Darby. If the latter fleet had gone to North America, the command of the sea there would have been Great Britain's, Cornwallis need not have surrendered at Yorktown, and we might have been British subjects to-day. Why did not Darby sail for North America? Because Gibraltar in that event would have fallen. It was at that moment suffering from the horrors of a pro

tracted siege, and famine and disease were about to cause its surrender. In that war England did not have perfect command of the sea over the combined Dutch, French and Spanish navies, and she found her outlying possessions, even Gibraltar itself, a source of weakness. In Beatson's Memoirs occurs the following: "A question was very much agitated in and out of Parliament, namely, whether the interception of the French fleet under the Count de Grasse should not have been the first object of the British fleet under Darby....It would have insured the safety of the British West Indies.... and the campaign in North America might have had a very different termination."

Mahan, referring to the same question, says: "The conclusion continually recurs. Whatever may be the determining factors in strifes between neighboring continental systems, where a question arises of control over distant regions, politically weak,-whether they be crumbling empires, anarchical republics, colonies, isolated military posts or islands below a certain size,-it must ultimately be decided by naval power, by the organized military force afloat, which represents the communications that form so prominent a feature in all strategy....Upon this will depend the control of the Central American isthmus, if that question take a military coloring."

The fact must be emphasized that all authorities agree upon this one point, that neither fortifications nor men can hold for more than a short time any possession distant from the primary base, unless the line of communications be kept open. And to keep the line of communications open means to obtain and retain the command of the sea.

Colonel Sir George Clarke, a great British strategist, has written an account of our recent war with Spain from which the following is quoted: "On the other hand, Spain was committed to the defense of Cuba, which, as in all such cases, was possible only if maritime communications with the mother country could be maintained. Writing in June, 1897, Captain Mahan referred to the pre-eminent intrinsic advantages of Cuba, or rather of Spain in Cuba; but these advantages could be turned to account only if naval supremacy in West Indian waters could be asserted. Assuming the