2

[Abstract Capt Mahan's
lectures, 1896]

1.

Captain Mahan delivered a course of lectures upon Strategy,
clearly and forcibly setting forth the great truths of the Art of
War. The course this year comprised those ^lectures^ of the year before,
though rewritten and with many changes and additions. The whole
course was divided into two series; the subject of the first of these
series being "The Strategic Features of the Caribbean".

In this the lecturer pointed out that the whole theater of
interest in the Caribbean may be included in a symmetrical figure,
an isoceles triangle with the corners lopped off. The base of
this triangle is a line joining Pensacola and St. Thomas, 1600 miles
long. Lines join Pensacola with the Passes of the Mississippi
and St. Thomas and St. Lucia; these lines form the lopped off corners.

These corners are then joined to the apex at Panama forming
there an angle a little larger than a right angle.

The line from the Passes to Panama is 1300 ^miles^, and the line from
St. Lucia to Panama is a little less than, or 1200 miles long.

This triangle includes, or very nearly includes all the chief
points of interest in this locality; that is, the Mississippi, Key
West, Havana, Cienfuegos, Santiago de Cuba, Samana Bay, St. Thomas
Kingston, Chiriqui, Lagoon, Colon, Gaudaloupe and St. Lucia; and it
will be noticed, ^in passing^ that the first class powers, as the United States
and Great Britain, are separated by a chain of points belonging
to the inferior or third class powers.