ultimate command rested on their power of taking
Port Arthur by military operation and sustaining the siege from the sea.
Yet in spite of every condition of success the physical effect of the blow
was so small, that even without the help of an adequate dockyard the
squadron recovered from it and became potent again before the siege could
even be formed. The minor attacks which followed the first blow were all
failures, and whether delivered at the port or upon the squadron in the
open had no appreciable effect whatever.

At the same time it must be remembered that since that war the art of
torpedo warfare has developed very rapidly. Its range and offensive power
have increased in a higher ratio than the means of resisting it. Still
those means have advanced, and it is probable that a squadron in a naval
port or in a properly defended anchorage is not more easy to injure than it
ever was; while a squadron at sea, so long as it constantly shifts its
position, still remains very difficult to locate with sufficient precision
for successful minor attack.

The unproved value of submarines only deepens the mist which overhangs the
next naval war. From a strategical point of view we can say no more than
that we have to count with a new factor, which gives a new possibility to
minor counterattack. It is a possibility which on the whole tells in favour
of naval defence, a new card which, skilfully played in combination with
defensive fleet operations, may lend fresh importance to the "Fleet in
being." It may further be expected that whatever the effective
possibilities of minor operations may ultimately prove to be in regard to
securing command, the moral influence will be considerable, and at least at
the beginning of a future war will tend to deflect and hamper the major
operations and rob of their precision the lines which formerly led so
frankly to the issue by battle.

In the absence of a sufficient volume of experience it would be idle to go
further, particularly as torpedo attack, like fireship attack, depends for
success more than any other on the spirit and skill of officers and men.
With regard to the torpedo as the typical arm of mobile coastal defence, it
is a different matter. What has been said applies only to its power towards
securing command of the sea, and not to the exercise or to disputing the
exercise of command. This is a question which is concerned with defence
against invasion, and to that we must now tu