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.The lesson of both is the same; nations, like men,however strong, decay when cut off from the external activities and resources which at once draw out andsupport their internal powers.A nation, as we have already shown, cannot live indefinitely off itself, and theeasiest way by which it can communicate with other peoples and renew its own strength is the sea.CHAPTER V.WAR OF THE SPANISH SUCCESSION, 1702-1713. SEABATTLE OP MALAGA.During the last thirty years of the seventeenth century, and all the strifes of arms and diplomacy, there hadbeen clearly foreseen the coming of an event which would raise new and great issues.This was the failure ofthe direct royal line in that branch of the House of Austria which was then on the Spanish throne; and theissues to be determined when the present king, infirm both in body and mind, should die, were whether thenew monarch was to be taken from the House of Bourbon or from the Austrian family in Germany; andwhether, in either event, the sovereign thus raised to the throne should succeed to the entire inheritance, theEmpire of Spain, or some partition of that vast inheritance be made in the interests of the balance of Europeanpower.But this balance of power was no longer understood in the narrow sense of continental possessions; theeffect of the new arrangements upon commerce, shipping, and the control both of the ocean and theMediterranean, was closely looked to.The influence of the two sea powers and the nature of their interestswere becoming more evident.It is necessary to recall the various countries that were ruled by Spain at that time in order to understand thestrategic questions, as they may fairly he called, now to be settled.These were, in Europe, the Netherlands(now Belgium); Naples and the south of Italy; Milan and other provinces in the north; and, in theMediterranean, Sicily, Sardinia, and the Balearic Isles.Corsica at that the belonged to Genoa.In the westernhemisphere, besides Cuba and Porto Rico, Spain then held all that part of the continent now divided amongthe Spanish American States, a region whose vast commercial possibilities were coming to be understood; andin the Asian archipelago there were large possessions that entered less into the present dispute.The excessiveweakness of this empire, owing to the decay of the central kingdom, had hitherto caused other nations,occupied as they were with more immediate interests, to regard with indifference its enormous extent.Thisindifference could not last when there was a prospect of a stronger administration, backed possibly byalliances with one of the great powers of Europe.CHAPTER V.WAR OF THE SPANISH SUCCESSION, 1702-1713. SEA BATTLE OP MALAGA.92 The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783It would be foreign to our subject to enter into the details of diplomatic arrangement, which, by shifting aboutpeoples and territories from one ruler to another, sought to reach a political balance peacefully.The cardinalpoints of each nation's policy may be shortly stated.The Spanish cabinet and people objected to any solutionwhich dismembered the empire.The English and the Dutch objected to any extension of France in the SpanishNetherlands, and to the monopoly by the French of the trade with Spanish Americas both which they feared asthe results of placing a Bourbon on the Spanish throne.Louis XIV.wanted Naples and Sicily for one of hissons, in case of any partition; thus giving France a strong Mediterranean position, but one which would be atthe mercy of the sea powers, a fact which induced William III.to acquiesce in this demand.The Emperor ofAustria particularly objected to these Mediterranean positions going away from his family, and refused tocome into any of the partition treaties.Before any arrangement was perfected, the actual king of Spain died,but before his death was induced by his ministers to sign a will, bequeathing all his States to the grandson ofLouis XIV., then Duke of Anjou, known afterward as Philip V.of Spain.By this step it was hoped to preservethe whole, by enlisting in its defence the nearest and one of the most powerful States in Europe, nearest, ifare excepted the powers ruling the sea, which are always near any country whose ports are open to their ships.Louis XIV.accepted the bequest, and in so doing felt bound in honor to resist all attempts at partition.Theunion of the two kingdoms under one family promised important advantages to France, henceforth deliveredfrom that old enemy in the rear, which had balked so many of her efforts to extend her frontiers eastward.Asa matter of fact, from that time, with rare breaks, there existed between the two kingdoms an alliance, theresult of family ties, which only the weakness of Spain kept from being dangerous to the rest of Europe.Theother countries at once realized the situation, and nothing could have saved war but some backward step onthe part of the French king.The statesmen of England and Holland, the two powers on whose wealth thethreatened war must depend, proposed that the Italian States should be given to the son of the Austrianemperor, Belgium be occupied by themselves, and that the new king of Spain should grant no commercialprivileges in the Indies to France above other nations
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