French and Spanish naval power during the American War of Independence
For hundreds of years, maritime expansion represented the only way to reach distant shores, to attack enemies across channels of water, to explore uncharted territories, to make trade with regional neighbors and to connect the comprised empires. Leading directly into the 20th century, this was the chief mode of making war, maintaining occupations, colonizing lands and conducting the transport of goods acquired by trade or force. Peter Padfield theorized that ultimately, British maritime power was decisive in creating breathing space for liberal democracy in the world, as opposed to the autocratic states of continental Europe like Spain, France, Prussia and Russia. The Hapsburgs, the Bourbons, Hitler and Stalin all failed to find a strategy that would defeat the maritime empires, which controlled the world's trade routes and raw materials. Successful maritime powers like Britain and, in the 20th Century, the United States, required coastlines with deep harbors and security from aggressive neighbors that Germany, France and Russia lacked. This allowed them to concentrate on trade and commerce, and to develop powerful mercantile classes that won a share of power in government. Britain and Holland were the "first supreme maritime powers of the modern age", succeeded by the United States after the world wars of 1914-18 and 1939-45, and the fact that democratic institutions developed first in relatively open societies like these was not coincidental. Of course, the United States was a very weak maritime power in the 18th Century and its navy hardly existed, yet the Battle of Chesapeake Bay in 1781 was the key event that enabled it to win its independence. It depended on French and Spanish sea power to divert the British Navy to other theaters of the war, such as India, the Caribbean, Gibraltar or the defense of the home islands and in the end this strategy was successful enough so that at a crucial moment of the war, Britain temporarily lost its maritime supremacy in North American waters.