“The reason territorial monarchs failed time after time against maritime powers was not that absolutist, non-consensual governments were incapable of building great fleets in peace - quite the reverse - but that they were unable to fund them in the crises of war. Mainly this was because they were forced to divert resources from the fleet to their armies, to fight territorial rivals frequently financed by their maritime enemy from the profits of sea trade.”
Quote by Peter Padfield
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Source: Maritime Supremacy & the Opening of the Western Mind: Naval Campaigns that Shaped the Modern World
Source: Maritime Supremacy & the Opening of the Western Mind: Naval Campaigns that Shaped the Modern World
Source: Democracy in America