he precision of the old methods. Needless to say it was the
torpedo and the mine. Their deflective pressure was curious and
interesting. In our own operations against Sebastopol, to which the Port
Arthur case is most closely comparable, the old rules still held good. On
the traditional principle, dating from Drake's attack on San Domingo in
1585, a landing place was chosen which gave the mean between facility for a
_coup de main_ and freedom from opposition; that is, it was chosen at the
nearest practicable point to the objective which was undefended by
batteries and out of reach of the enemy's main army.

In the handling of the covering squadron Admiral Dundas, the
Commander-in-Chief, gave it its dual function. After explaining the
constitution of the transport squadron he says, "The remainder of my force
... will act as a covering squadron, and where practicable assist in the
general disembarkation." With these two objects in mind he took a station
near enough to the landing place to support the army with his guns if it
were opposed, but still in sight of his cruisers before Sebastopol, and at
such a distance that at the first sign of the Russians moving he would have
time to get before the port and engage them before they could get well to
sea; that is, he took a position as near to the army as was compatible with
preventing interference, or, it may be said, his position was as near to
the enemy's base as was compatible with supporting the landing. From either
aspect in fact the position was the same, and its choice presented no
complexity owing mainly to the fact that for the first time steam
simplified the factors of time and distance.

In the Japanese case the application of these principles was not so easy.
In selecting the nearest undefended point for a landing, it was not only
batteries, or even the army in Port Arthur, or the troops dispersed in the
Liaotung Peninsula that had to be considered, but rather, as must always be
the case in the future, mines and mobile torpedo defence. The point they
chose was the nearest practicable bay that was unmined. It was not strictly
out of mobile defence range, but it so happened that it lay behind islands
which lent themselves to the creation of fixed defences, and thus it
fulfilled all the recognised conditions. But in so far as the defences
could be turned by the Russian fleet a covering squadron was necessary, and
the difficulty of choosing a position for it was complic