The Fortnightly Review: No. CCCCLXIII, New Series [‎581v] (53/239)

THE BATTLE OE THE SEA OF JAPAN.
To the British people the achievement of the Japanese Fleet in
the great battle in the Sea of Japan is of peculiar and intimate
interest. An admiral who received his early professional training
in England, and who served afloat in British men-of-war, has won
the greatest naval victory in history—not excepting Trafalgar—
with men-of-war constructed almost exclusively in British ship
yards, and using as weapons of offence guns and torpedoes similar
to those employed by the British fleets and squadrons. Admiral
Togo’s chief of staff, Captain Shimamura, like many of his
colleagues, served in the British Fleet, and he had the good for
tune to be one of Rear-Admiral Percy Scott’s pupils in gunnery.
Years ago, when Japan was adopting Western methods, she was
the pupil in naval matters of Admiral Sir Archibald Douglas, now
Commander-in-Chief at Portsmouth, who was director of the Im
perial Naval College at Yeddo, and had round him a devoted band
of British naval officers and men. In later years, in fact almost
down to the opening of the war with China, Rear-Admiral John
Ingles was lent by the Admiralty to the Japanese Government
as naval adviser. While the Japanese authorities were shaping
their systems of training and administration on British models,
orders were despatched to British shipbuilding yards for men-of-
war, and in every respect the young Navy was given the hall-mark
“made in Great Britain.’’ The triumph of the Mikado’s Fleet
—small, but homogeneous—surely reflects some lustre upon the
British Fleet.
Admiral Togo handled his ships in the Sea of Japan with such
complete success that what the best opinion thought would be a
hard-fought battle resolved itself into a battue. In the long story
of sea warfare there is no parallel to the series of events which cul
minated in this fight. With a fleet far inferior in battleships,
but with a superiority in armoured cruisers and torpedo craft,
the Japanese swept practically out of existence, in a period of about
forty hours, the forces under the control of the Russian Com
mander-in-Chief. In thirty-seven minutes, Admiral Togo tells
us, the issue was decided, and the remainder of the time was
devoted to “rounding off” the victory. If any importance
could be attached to those elaborate “ paper comparisons ”
which are used to indicate the standard of strength of the
great naval Powers, the result of the action of May 27-28th