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5 unusual facts about Alfred Thayer Mahan


British logistics in the Second Boer War

Alfred Thayer Mahan The Story of the War in South Africa 1899-1900 (London: Sampson Low, Marston and Company, 1900).

Carola Oman

This drew on a wealth of material not available to the previous biographer Alfred Thayer Mahan fifty years before, notably the papers of Lady Nelson assembled by the founder of the Nelson Museum, Monmouth.

Erich Raeder

One faction led by Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz were avid followers of the teachings of the American historian Alfred Thayer Mahan and believed in building a "balanced fleet" centred around the battleship that would, if war came, seek out and win a decisive battle of annihilation (Entscheidungsschlacht) against the Royal Navy.

Erich Raeder pre Grand Admiral

The dominating figure of the Navy was Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, the autocratic State Secretary of the Navy who using the theories of the American naval historian Alfred Thayer Mahan had devised a distinctive Seemachtideologie, a Social Darwinist view of international relations where only the strongest states survived, and which in turn required a policy of imperialism to ensure that the German state was the strongest.

War of the Pacific

The USS Wachusett (1861) commanded by Alfred Thayer Mahan, was stationed at Callao, Peru, to protect American interests during the war's final stages.


Hattendorf Prize

It depicts a stylized image of the cupola of Luce Hall, the first purpose-built building of the Naval War College, built in 1892 and first used during the College presidency of Alfred Thayer Mahan.

Luce Hall

The building was the main administrative building for the Naval War College from 1892, when Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan was President of the Naval War College for his second time, until 1974 during the presidency of Vice Admiral Stansfield Turner, when the president's office was moved to newly constructed Conolly Hall.


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