consisting mainly of frigates and smaller craft, but strengthened if necessary by a few capital ships, generally two-deckers, closely watching the entrance to the port, but keeping outside the range of its land defences. This was supported at a greater distance in the offing by the main blockading fleet of heavier ships of the line, cruising within narrow limits and keeping close touch with the inshore squadron. Such a method is no longer practicable owing to the development of steam navigation, and to the introduction into naval warfare of the locomotive torpedo, and of special vessels designed to make the attack of this weapon extremely formidable and extremely difficult to parry. The inshore squadron of the old days was liable to no attack which it could not parry if in sufficient force, and if too hardly pressed it could always fall back on the main blockading fleet, which was unassailable except by a corresponding force of the enemy. The advent of the torpedo and of its characteristic craft has changed all this. No naval Power can now afford to place its battleships at a fixed station, or even in close touch with a fixed rendezvous, which is within reach of an enemy's torpedo craft. The torpedo vessel which operates only on the surface is, it is true, formidable only at night; in the daytime it is powerless in attack and extremely vulnerable. But the submarine is equally formidable in the daytime, and its attack even in the daytime is far more insidious and difficult to parry than that of the surface torpedo vessel is at night. The effective range of the surface torpedo vessel is thus, for practical purposes, half the distance which it can traverse in any given direction from its base between dusk and dawn—say from one hundred to two hundred miles, according to its speed and the season of the year. The speed of the submarine is much less, but it can keep the sea for many days together, sinking beneath the surface whenever it is threatened with attack. It can also approach a battleship or fleet of battleships in the same submerged condition, and experience has already demonstrated that its advance in that condition to within striking distance is extremely difficult to detect. Moreover, even if its presence is detected in time, the only certain defence against it is for the battleship to steam away from it at a speed greater than any submarine has ever attained or is likely to attain in the submerged condition. It should further be noted that torpedo craft engaged in offensive operations of this character are not confined to the blockaded port as a base. Any sheltered anchorage will serve their purpose, provided it is sufficiently fortified to resist such attacks from the sea as may be anticipated.

Thus, in the conditions established by the advent of the torpedo and its characteristic craft, there would seem to be only two alternatives open to a fleet of battleships engaged in blockade operations. Either it must be stationed in some sheltered anchorage outside the radius of action of the enemy's surface torpedo craft, and if within that radius adequately defended against torpedo attack—as Togo established a flying base for the use of his fleet, first at the Elliot Islands and afterwards at Dalny, for the purpose of blockading Port Arthur; or it must cruise in the open outside the same limits, keeping in touch with its advanced cruisers and flotillas by means of wireless telegraphy, and thereby dispensing with anything like a fixed rendezvous. It is not, perhaps, imperative that it should always cruise entirely outside the prescribed radius, because experience in modern naval manœuvres has frequently shown that it is a very difficult thing for torpedo craft, moving at random, to discover a fleet which is constantly shifting its position at high speed, especially when they are at any moment liable to attack from cruisers and torpedo craft of the other side.

Thus a modern blockade will, so far as battle fleets are concerned, be of necessity rather a watching blockade than a masking or sealing up blockade. If the two belligerents are unequal in naval strength it will probably take some such form as the following. The weaker belligerent will at the outset keep his battle fleet in his fortified ports. The stronger may do the same, but he will be under no such paramount inducement to do so. Both sides will, however, send out their torpedo craft and supporting cruisers with intent to do as much harm as they can to the armed forces of the enemy. If one belligerent can get his torpedo craft to sea before the enemy is ready, he will, if he is the stronger of the two, forthwith attempt to establish as close and sustained a watch of the ports sheltering the enemy's armed forces as may be practicable; if he is the weaker, he will attempt sporadic attacks on the ports of his adversary and on such of his warships as may be found in the open. If the enemy is so incautious as to have placed any of his capital ships or other important craft in a position open to the assault of torpedo craft—as Russia did at Port Arthur at the opening of the war with Japan—or if he has been so lacking in vigilance and forethought as not to have taken timely and adequate measures for meeting sporadic attacks of the kind indicated, such attacks may be very effective and may even go so far to redress the balance of naval strength as to encourage the originally weaker belligerent to seek a decision in the open. But the forces of the stronger belligerent must be very badly handled and disposed for anything of the kind to take place. The advantage of superior force is a tremendous one. If it is associated with energy, determination, initiative, and skill of disposition no more than equal to those of the assailant, it is overwhelming. The sea-keeping capacity, or what has been called the enduring mobility, of torpedo craft, is comparatively small. Their coal-supply is limited, especially when they are steaming at full speed, and they carry no very large reserve of torpedoes. They must, therefore, very frequently return to a base to replenish their supplies. The superior enemy is, it is true, subject to the same disabilities, but being superior he has more torpedo craft to spare and more cruisers to attack the torpedo craft of the enemy and their own escort of cruisers. When the raiding torpedo craft return to their base he will make it very difficult for them to get in and just as difficult for them to get out again. He will suffer losses, of course, for there is no superiority of force that will confer immunity in that respect in war. But even between equal forces, equally well led and handled, there is no reason to suppose that the losses of one side will be more than equal to those of the other; whereas if one side is appreciably superior to the other it is reasonable to suppose that it will inflict greater losses on the enemy than it suffers itself, while even if the losses are equal the residue of the stronger force will still be greater than that of the weaker. It is true that the whole art of war, whether on sea or on land, consists in so disposing your armed forces, both strategically and tactically, that you may be superior to the enemy at the critical point and moment, and that success in this supreme art is no inherent prerogative of the belligerent whose aggregate forces are superior to those of his adversary. But this is only to say that success in war is not an affair of numbers alone. It is an affair of numbers combined with hard fighting and skilful disposition.

CHAPTER IV

DISPUTED COMMAND—THE FLEET IN BEING

We have seen that