The Japanese had made The Influence of Sea Power a textbook in their naval and war colleges. But nowhere was Mahan more a “prophet with honor” than in Imperial Germany.41 “‘I am just now not reading but devouring Captain Mahan’s book and am trying to learn it by heart,’ the Kaiser wrote in 1894. ‘It is on board all my ships and constantly quoted by all my captains and officers.’”42 When France was forced to back down at Fashoda, the Kaiser commiserated, “The poor French. They have not read their Mahan!”
