Homer Lea The Valor of Ignorance, Harper & Brother: New York, 1909, 344 pp.
[Loren A. Bowman, July 1910; Erick N. Nyberg, embossed and signed the front pages; Kelyn Roberts, 2010]
[p. 271] Chap. 9
As the defenselessness of Washington and Oregon is the due primarily to the failure on the part of the Republic to recognize the changes that modern science and invention have brought about in increasing the possibilities of invasion, and in altering to a corresponding degree the manner and means of defending seaboard states, so is the undefended condition of southern California due to the same general reasons.
These two localities, forming the extreme flanks of the Pacific coast, are equally remote from the main centers of the Republic, separated therefrom by deserts and mountain chains. And while the forts of the north are without value, not only on account of their worthlessness, but because of their remoteness from any avenue of invasion, southern California is without even the delusive dependence of such fortifications.
We have shown how simple, and yet how decisive, is the conquest of Washington and Oregon, how quickly it can be accomplished by Japan without even the probability of a battle; yet the seizure of southern California presents less difficulties than are to be found in the Northern States.
Southern California is less in area than one-half of the state of Oregon, but of this area three-fourths belong to deserts and mountains, while only a portion of the remaining one-fourth is inhabited. The cities and cultivated areas are all adjacent to the sea, so that over ninety per cent of the entire population dwells within thirty miles of the ocean, while 94.25 per cent of the total wealth lies within this same distance of the sea.
The seizure of southern California is simplified by an increased concentration of wealth and population in a single seaboard county, where is to be found two-thirds of the entire population of this territory and more than two thirds of its wealth. This delimitation of the strategic area is finally reduced to the environs of a single city, so that the conquest of the southern flank of the Pacific coast is relegated to and depends upon the seizure of the city of Los Angeles. Within this city alone is to be found more than half of the entire population and wealth of southern California. It constitutes the political, economic and railroad center of this entire territory. All other cities, communities and industries are dependent upon it. If every city in this region except Los Angeles were seized by the enemy, southern California would still remain, militarily, politically and economically a part of the Republic; but if Los Angeles passed into possession of an invading force, the whole of southern California would fall though not another blow were struck. There is not a city nor community in this region that can exist for any portion of time after Los Angeles is in the possession of the enemy, though no hostile demonstrations were made against them. There is not a town, nor even a rural community, that is self-dependent nor interdependent, but are, as a whole, suburban to Los Angeles.
San Diego in a military sense, politically and economically, is without relative importance. This city, as all other towns in southern California, is just a distant suburb of Los Angeles, connected to it by a single strand of railway. With the severance of this artery of trade, whether it occurs a mile north of San Diego or at Los Angeles, one hundred and twenty-seven miles distant, is immaterial--the fate of that city is the same. With the enemy in control of the ocean, the isolation of San Diego is complete. Like ancient Carthage, it is built where the sea and desert meet. Westward is the ocean; eastward, southward and northeastward, just beyond its environs, reclaimed from the deserts, rise hillsides as barren as those that are beyond the Valley of Tombs.
The single line of railroad, which is this city's means of communication, runs northward along the coast for a distance of seventy-four miles, within four hundred to nine hundred yards of tide water. Thus a single vessel can blockade this city by land and by sea. So complete is the geographical and strategic isolation of San Diego that a rampart of Gibraltar would not increase its military significance nor add a single element to the defense of southern California. Its capitulation will be brought about by ignoring its existence. This, under similar conditions, has happened many times before in the wars of man.
Though Los Angeles constitutes, as will be seen, the single strategic point upon which depends the security of southern California, no effort, up to the present time, has been made to render it secure from attack. One regiment can now occupy the city with impunity. The only effort made toward its defense has been the advocacy of fortifying Point Fermin at the entrance of San Pedro Harbor. This proposal but demonstrates that to which we have already called attention, the prevailing ignorance concerning modern warfare.
We have heretofore shown the general state of deterioration inherent in the existent fortifications of the Republic, together with the depleted condition of the Coast Artillery, a state of decadence that has resulted in rendering useless four-fifths of the guns already emplaced. Until there is a complete reorganization of the Republic's military system, it is not only useless to construct new fortifications, but in so doing the nation is involving in new dangers to which we have already called attention.
Fortifications for the entrance of San Pedro Harbor [p. 275] possess no intrinsic or relative importance as regards the defense of Los Angeles. They belong, not to the land defenses of this region, but to the naval, and their erection presupposes the presence of an active fleet in these waters. San Pedro may be made a naval base, but beyond that it possesses no defensive value whatsoever. The purpose of such fortifications are specific--the defense of the harbor itself, or a fleet based upon it. The sphere of actual defense belonging to such fortifications is determined by a semicircle, the radii of which are the effective range of their guns. Modern harbor fortifications are not self-defensive. Their protection depends upon either a fleet of sufficient strength to prevent the enemy from gaining a foothold on any portion of the coast, whether adjacent to or distant from the fortifications to be attacked.
We have already shown the impossibility of naval defense for the Pacific coast whenever the American navy is in the Atlantic prior to the beginning of hostilities, or whenever the American fleets in the Pacific are inferior to the entire Japanese navy. The fortifications of San Pedro presupposes a navy many times larger than at present; the size of the fleets in the Pacific, and their efficiency, being determined by Japanese naval development.
Fortification at San Pedro, without a fleet relatively as strong as that of the enemy, are useless. [p. 276] As Los Angeles is the objective point, landings will be made upon the closest available seaboard. And in a military sense San Pedro is twice as far form Los Angeles as Santa Monica Bay. This harbor, moreover, is so contracted that the danger of submarine mines and torpedoes would, under all circumstances, prohibit its utilization by the Japanese until the harbor itself and the surrounding country passed into their control. Santa Monica Bay, on the other hand, gives a free seaboard of over twenty miles in extent--adjacent to the environs of Los Angeles.
So long as this city forms the objective of invading armies their forces will not, under any circumstances, land within twenty miles of San Pedro harbor, and the forts at that point must, regardless of their strength, capitulate whenever Los Angeles is seized. To hold these proposed fortifications against a land attack would require as great an army as might, in the beginning, delay the invasion of southern California. Once an enemy gains the shores of Santa Monica Bay, San Pedro must, owing to the peculiar topological features of the peninsula, either fall to an inferior force or be defended on a continuous front of a number of miles.
Extending across the San Pedro peninsula almost east and west is a range of barren hills, similar to [p. 277] those north of Port Arthur, with an irregular crest, exceeding a thousand feet in height and nearly twelve miles in length. Sixteen hundred yard north of the proposed fortifications the contour rises to two hundred and eighty feet; at three thousand yards, the elevation is five hundred feet; at five thousand yards the elevation increases to nine hundred feet; while at six thousand five hundred yards is the crest of the ridge, fourteen hundred feet above the proposed batteries. The ridge continues westward to Santa Monica Bay, so that any attack upon the forts defending San Pedro would be by that bay, the enemy moving eastward and occupying this range of hills. Once these heights are seized the harbor and forts would be rendered untenable. The base of an attack on San Pedro is identical with that of an advance on Los Angeles--the Bay of Santa Monica.
As the whole of southern California will pass into the hands of an invading force once Los Angeles is occupied, all means employed for the defense of this region must be directed toward the security of this city, its environs and communications.
So extensive is the seaboard by which Los Angeles can be attacked, and so close is the city to the sea, that the only means --once command of the sea is lost-- which can insure it from capture is to prepare before war systematically and thoroughly such [p. 278] means for the defense of the entire seaboard by mobile armies as modern warfare demands. Isolated fortifications, small and inefficient forces, will not only hinder nor even delay the conquest of this region a single day, but will, on the other hand, results in useless destruction of life and devastation of the country.
We have called attention to the brevity of modern wars in general and naval movements in particular; how, within a few weeks, after war is declared, concurrent with the seizure of the Philippines, Hawaii and Alaska, will the conquest of Washington and Oregon be consummated. In the same manner and within three months after hostilities have been begun, other armies will land upon the seaboard of southern California.
The question that now rises naturally in the thoughts of the reader is, What will the United States be doing during these three months? Instantly the mind is crowded, not alone with the speculations of victory, but with the vague grandeur of a nation's hope. The Old Lamp is rubbed and vast armies are suddenly mobilized; armaments are brought out of hidden recesses; great generals are made in the twinkling of an eye; then winged, these legions take their flight across the mountains and deserts of the West. But what will actually take place in the Republic after war is declared is so well known as to make it unnecessary to again refer to the confusion, ignorance, peculation and complete lack of every [p. 279] form of military preparation, armaments, supplies or means of securing them.
To conduct a war on the Pacific coast against the forces of Japan, this Republic is a present less prepared and less capable than it has ever been prior to any war undertaken by it in the past. Due to the scorn of consequence, to the vanity of ignorance and indifference toward military preparation, no force can be place on the seaboard of southern California either within three months or nine months that would delay the advance of the Japanese armies a single day.
Irrespective of armament and ante-bellum preparation, however, we find other conditions that would prevent the mobilization of an army in southern California capable of defending it against invasion and conquest.
The maximum force that can be mobilized in the Republic immediately following a declaration of war is less than one hundred thousand men, of whom two-thirds are militia. This force, made up of more than forty miniature armies, is scattered each under separate military and civil jurisdiction, over the entire nation. By the time these heterogeneous elements are gathered together, organized into proper military units and made ready for transportation to the front, the states of Washington and Oregon will have been invaded and their conquest made complete by a vastly superior force.
At this stage the nation is brought face to face [p. 280] with the weakness inherent in republican forms of government during war--the supremacy of popular control over military movements.With the seizure of the Philippines, Hawaii and Alaska, the excitement and clangor in the nation would be very great; but with the invasion and conquest of two states forming an integral part of the Union, the tide of patriotism and of wrath would well still higher and the populace would be satisfied with nothing less than an immediate advance against the Japanese. Being ignorant or indifferent as to the military efficiency of Japan or war even constitutes it, vain in their valor and in the victories of the past of the past, the entire country, from the most remote hamlet to the Congress of the nation, would urge the diversion of the mobilized forces against the Japanese occupying Washington and Oregon.
Whether popular demand would succeed in diverting the American forces in the direction of these states or not is immaterial as far as the present strategic situation is concerned, for it is certain that they would not be turned to the extreme southern flank of the Pacific coast, placing them in a position almost as remote from the invading armies as if they had not been moved west of the Mississippi, still leaving the whole coast, except for a small area, exposed to invasion. If popular opinion did not prevail or the forces were not retained in the East, the only point upon which they could concentrate, as stated before, would be San Francisco. If mobilized [p. 281] there prior to the invasion of southern California, this flank would still remain defenseless, inasmuch as these forces could not move five hundred miles to the southward, without diverting the Japanese attack upon San Francisco and exposing the most strategic point on the Pacific coast to capture. This would permit the union of the Japanese armies seizing San Francisco with those occupying Washington and Oregon, relegating the American position to an extreme and strategically unimportant flank.
The probabilities of the American armies being directed against the Japanese forces in Washington and Oregon through the force of popular agitation presents this apparently anomalous condition, that the larger the American armies are at the time of invasion--regardless of what portion of the coast it may be--the more certain are these forces to be directed against that point. Two factors determine this:
(1) The numerical equality or superiority of the first Japanese expedition over the entire American land forces, preventing an American army of corresponding strength from being sent against it simultaneously with the despatch of similar forces against other probable points of invasion.
(2) The power of popular opinion to direct the available military establishment against the invading forces, regardless of the general military situation or strategic considerations.
[p. 282] Japan, to make this condition constant, needs but to have the strength of her first column proportionate to that of the entire American forces, which would be relatively small as regards her military establishment, even if the American standing army were five times its present size. So long as the existent military system continues in the Republic there can be no adequate defense of any single portion of the Pacific coast within a year after declaration of war, nor the three spheres within as many years.
Three or four months after war is declared will find Japan in occupation of all insular possessions, Washington and Oregon with an American army of less than one hundred thousand men either assembling in the East, moving against the Japanese in the North or concentrating at San Francisco.
Japan, landing an army on the shores of southern California at this time, would occupy, without opposition, the strategic center of this region on the following day, and the conquest of southern California would be, in a practical sense, complete.
We now come to the consideration of the most important phase of the military occupancy of southern California by Japan. It has nothing to do with the intrinsic worth of this region, neither its economic, nor political significance, but appertains alone to its strategic value, its necessity for and capacity of defense against subsequent efforts on the part of this Republic to reconquer the Pacific States.
[p. 283] There are only three avenues by which armies can gain entrance to the Pacific coast from the eastern portion of the United States, and southern California constitutes one of these avenues, hence the possession of this region early in the war is essential to Japanese control and security.
The conformation of this section is peculiarly adapted to effective defense from the Pacific side. The sea-coast from Mexico to Point Conception is an elongated, irregular crescent, and with but isolated exceptions--as the valley holding the towns and orange orchards of San Bernardino, Riverside and Redlands--the inhabitable area follows the sea-line and extends back but a few miles. North and eastwards of this oasis region are four principal mountain ranges: the San Jacinto, San Bernardino, San Gabriel and Tehachapi, with the crest-line ranging from five to eleven thousand feet. Beyond these mountains are deserts, lava beds and Valleys of Death.
Entrance into southern California is gained by three passes--the San Jacinto, Cajon, and Saugus, while access to the San Joaquin Valley and central California is by the Tehachapi. It is in control of these passes that determines Japanese supremacy on the southern flank of the Pacific coast, and it is in their adaptability to defense that determines the true strategic value of southern California to the Japanese.
[p. 284] Los Angeles forms the main centre of these three passes, and lies within three hours by rail of each of them, while San Bernardino, forming the immediate base of forces defending Cajon and San Jacinto passes. is within one hour by rail of both passes.
The mountain-chains encompassing the inhabited regions of southern California might be compared to a great wall thousands of feet in height, within whose enclosures are those fertile regions which have made the name of this state synonymous with all that is abundant in nature. These mountains, rugged and inaccessible to armies from the desert side, form an impregnable barrier except by the three gateways mentioned.
Standing upon Mt. San Gorgonio or San Antonio one can look westward and southward down upon an endless succession of cultivated fields, towns and hamlets, orchards, vineyards and orange groves; upon wealth amounting to hundreds of million; upon a fair and luxuriant a region as is ever given man to contemplate; a region wherein shall be based the Japanese forces defending those passes. To the north and east across the top of this mountain-wall are forests, innumerable streams, and abundance of forage. But suddenly at the outward rim all vegetation ceases: there is a drop--the desert begins.
The Mojave is not a desert in the ordinary sense [p. 285] of the word, but a region with all the characteristics of other lands, only here Nature is dead or in the last struggle against death. Its hills are volcanic scoria and cinders, its plains bleak with red dust; its meadows covered with a desiccated and seared vegetation; its springs, sweet with arsenic, are rimmed, not by verdure, but with the bones of beast and man. Its gaunt forests of yucca bristle and twist in its winds and brazen gloom. Its mountains, abrupt and bare as sun-dried skulls are broken with canyons that are furnaces and gorges that are catacombs. Man has taken cognizance of this deadness in his nomenclature. There are Coffin Mountains, Funeral Ranges, Death Valleys, Dead Men's Canyons, dead beds of lava, dead lakes, and dead seas. All here is dead. This is the ossuary of Nature; yet American armies must traverse it and be based upon it whenever they undertake to regain southern California. To attack these fortified places from the desert side is a military undertaking pregnant with greater difficulties than any ever attempted in all the wars of the world.
The value of Japan's strategic position in southern California is not alone determined by the limited area of the inhabitable region and its adjacency to the sea, nor the concentration into a single sea-board county of two-thirds of its wealth and population, but is due to the strategic advantages afforded by [p. 286] the location of the Cajon, San Jacinto, and Saugus passes, their proximity to Los Angeles and to one another, the shortness of their interior lines, and the location of their fortified positions in mountains not only inaccessible to armies from the east, but, while their redans point out upon a desert, their rear rests immediately upon one of the most fertile sections of the Republic.
The strategic position of the American forces attacking these passes presents the reverse of these conditions. While the Japanese fortifications are built among and enclose an abundance of resources of every kind, the American armies must attack these positions with forces resting upon a desert that is not only without resources, but is without water sufficient to supply a single regiment within striking distance of these passes.
If an attempt were made to force the San Jacinto Pace, the nearest water adequate for the needs of an army is in the Imperial Valley, one hundred and thirty miles distant. If the Cajon were to be attacked, the nearest water available for the use of an army is the Colorado River, two hundred and twenty miles distant. If an attempt were made to force the Tehachapi, the nearest water-supply is two hundred and sixty miles away.
In modern warfare the increased effective use of gun-fire gives forces established in semi-permanent fortifications the advantage to the extent that the attacking forces must be several times stronger, according [p. 287] to the character of the defenses and the efficiency of the troops manning them. Considering the opposing forces equally efficient, there would be to every hundred thousand Japanese a minimum force of several hundred thousand Americans. But the Japanese would possess still another strategic advantage that would increase this disproportion to an almost exaggerated degree. Their interior lines, connecting these passes and uniting them on the main base at Los Angeles, are so contracted that a small force can accomplish, on account of the rapidity of transportation, what would otherwise require a great army.
For the Japanese to transfer a train of troops or munitions from Cajon to the San Jacinto Pass would require but two hours, while a change on the same front by the attacking forces would necessitate several days. Only forty-odd miles separate the Japanese forces defending the Cajon from those in the San Jacinto, while nearly fourteen hundred miles would be traversed by the American forces in changing from one front to the other.
The shortness of the Japanese lines and the excessive length of the American would of necessity restrict the main attack to one pass. Neither the Saugus Canyon nor the Tehachapi could be attacked with the enemy in possession of the Cajun unless the American forces were vast enough to mask Cajon while attempting to force these positions. But the desert not only minimizes the number of troops [p. 288] resting upon it, but these two latter passes are of secondary importance, their value and possession being determined entirely by the control of the Cajon and the San Jacinto. Hence the reconquest of southern California will be one or both of these main passes.
If the American advance is directed against San Jacinto, not only must they make their assault on fortified positions one hundred and thirty miles from water, but their communications with the first base of supply would be restricted to a single line of desert railway one thousand miles long. If, on the other hand, the main advance is directed against the Cajon, the American forces would have two lines of railway. This advantage of increased means of communication is, however, nullified by the fact that the nearest water supply sufficient for a single brigade is two hundred and twenty miles distant.
Such are the conditions that render southern California impregnable against attack once these passes are fortified and held in force. No fortitude, no vastness of numbers, no amount of patriotism, no human ingenuity can overcome these inaccessible ramparts and desert glacis once an enemy militarily as efficient as the Japanese occupies the three gateways through which alone armies may pass.
In a later chapter we will show how other conditions increase--if it were possible--the impregnability of this position to such a degree that not even the contemplation of an attack is possible.
