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140 nation that chooses to avail itself of modern advance, and has the power to carry it through. Substantially it is what Japan did do at Port Arthur in 1904, though her policy was hampered by traditions and the means for effective warfare against a base were not hers. A respect for tradition caused Togo to make the Port Arthur fleet his objective; but those much-condemned bombardments of his show that he also had a clear conception that, the base destroyed, the fleet would matter nothing. This is where strategy has so altered: in the old days the fleet not the base was the heart of things: to-day the base is the heart pure and simple and the ships, whatever their radius, are but arms of the base. Admiral Togo's real claim to immortality is, perhaps, not that he won the battle of the Sea of Japan, but that he bombarded Port Arthur, did enough damage to retard the repair of ships and subsequently landed a naval brigade whose shore battery made it out of the question for the Russians to repair their damaged vessels.

Still Togo (or Japan) imperfectly understood base-attack, since the Japanese Fleet lay inactive till Rogestvensky, after many delays, drew near. It then took the unnecessary hazard of a naval battle which it could have avoided had it taken Vladivostok in the months of waiting. The brilliant success of the battle in which the Baltic Fleet was annihilated is a detail and a side issue. Had Russian shooting been good, had Rogestvensky had a proper supply of torpedo craft,