ABSTRACT
The advent of the reciprocating steam engine as a practical means of propulsion for vessels upon the water initiated a chain reaction that revolutionized naval warfare. Thus by the early 1860s, with the appearance of the revolutionary iron-hulled British Warrior, the day of the wooden capital ship had definitely passed. The battle fleet was a basic instrument of coercion and prestige—a necessary and integral part of the aggressive foreign policy that Alfred Thayer Mahan felt must inevitably be pursued by an industrialized United States. Mahan made it clear, however, that the usefulness of the projected American steam armada remained contingent upon certain strategic prerequisites, the fulfillment of which were part and parcel of his master plan. The youthful and ambitious fleets of Germany and Japan, impressed as they were by the Royal Navy and its battleships, found Mahan particularly fascinating.
