Page:Heresies of Sea Power (1906).djvu/134

 I

SOME TACTICAL AND STRATEGICAL PROBLEMS

are two problems the solution of which has always been before belligerents in all ages. These are as follows:—

(1) A fleet is between two hostile forces, each inferior to it, but which combined are superior. What is its right course of action?

The other is: —

(2) How can the weaker succeed in beating the stronger?

These questions have always existed; and they are just as near to or as far from solution now as they were five thousand years ago when Nile boats were battleships and the sea an untraversed unknown tract. It may be profitable and should certainly be interesting to take a few historical instances of these problems, and see whether the answer in one age was the same as in another.

The first problem confronted the Japanese to some considerable extent in 1904. There were Russians at Port Arthur and Vladivostok, with a trifling force at Chemulpo in between. Nominally at any rate these