The Fortnightly Review: No. CCCCLXIII, New Series [‎585v] (61/239)

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the battle of the sea of japan.
have been belied by events. When the Japanese set themselves
to create a navy they attached the greatest importance to speed,
far greater than was attributed to it by any of the great Powers.
This conclusion led them to the creation of a navy which in its
main fighting units was swifter than that of any other nation.
Thev built six battleships ranging in speed from eighteen to nine
teen knots, and a similar number of armoured cruisers able to
steam at from twenty to twenty-three knots. No other navy
contained at that time anything approaching this proportion ot
armoured cruisers to battleships, for, in agreement with bir
Cyprian Bridge, the naval authorities of the world believed
in “multiplicity” of weak ships. At a time when the
British Admiralty was still building slow ships without armoured
belts, Japan led the way in the construction of big cruisers
with thick belts, a heavy armament of guns, and great speed
in fact, vessels such as are now being added to the British
Pleet by the present Board, which, we are told, is a retrograde
Admiralty.” So far as the result of gun fire was concerned in the
late action the victory lay with the Japanese because they possessed
these swift ships of great offensive power, and Admiral Togo
was able to pursue the successful tactics already revealed in broad
outline because he had under his command a fleet immensely
superior to that of Russia in speed. Owing to their superior
speed the Japanese, to use a colloquialism, were able to make
rings round the Russians, and almost completely to cut off the
avenues of escape. If the Russians had had the advantage of
speed, the action would have been indecisive, and they might have
got through with a considerable portion of the armada.
(3) The Role of the Torpedo.
What part in the battle did the torpedo take? The most
casual observer of the trend of naval policy in Great Britain must
have observed that increased importance has been given to the
torpedo as an offensive and defensive arm. According to Admiral
Sir Cyprian Bridge, again writing on the naval actions of the
war, “ perhaps nothing stands out more clearly in the campaign
than the insignificance of the results effected by the locomotive
torpedo. . . . The conclusion should be that it is a weapon of
limited efficiency to be depended upon only in special circum
stances of infrequent occurrence.” The facts prior to the last battle
do not support Admiral Bridge’s conclusion as to the inefficiency
of the torpedo. It was owing to the effective use of this weapon
and not to the gun that the Japanese first crippled the Russians
off Port Arthur in February, 1904. Admiral Togo was acting