The Great White Fleet: Naval Renaissance and the Quest for Prestige

摘要

The 14,000 Sailors aboard the fleet were seen off by thousands of spectators, including President Theodore Roosevelt, who watched aboard the presidential yacht, Mayflower. The voyage was Roosevelt's brainchild. Initially, his stated purpose was to test the abilities of the ships and crews to execute a coordinated, long-distance voyage to the West Coast. The Panama Canal was still seven years from completion so the fleet entered the Pacific by going around South America. The route was the reverse of Oregon's triumphant 1898 dash from the West Coast to the Eastern Seaboard in response to the sinking of Maine in Havana Harbor. Once the fleet reached San Francisco, it was revealed to the public that the ships would attempt to circle the globe. Sources differ on when Roosevelt decided on the circumnavigation, in no small part because the president later gave a number of contradictory accounts of the timing of his decisions. The uncertainty was a reflection of Roosevelt's multiple and changing motives. Besides testing the Navy's abilities, it was clear that he also intended for the voyage to be a show of strength to Japan. Tensions between the two countries were high since a series of anti-immigration measures were passed in California. The movement of sixteen major warships into the Pacific, the first time in American history that the Navy was concentrated in that ocean, was an unambiguous show of resolve to Japan, which had been gaining power and influence throughout the Pacific since its defeat of Russia less than three years earlier. Finally, but by no means least in importance, there was a desire to use the feat to increase the Nation's prestige, and to serve notice to the world that the United States was now among the top naval powers.