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262 sequence. So long as bases are impregnable or nearly so, so long will the greatly inferior shelter there and survive: so long as something of an equality appears, so long will each side imagine that it possesses advantage enough to take the chances of victory. Then the fitter to win is certain to win—'x' will operate.

It may be noted that in all big battles (in which a real or fancied 'nearly equal' must have existed or else there had been no battle) one side has been practically annihilated and the other little hurt. In the battle of the Sea of Japan the Russians lost almost everything, the Japanese were practically unhurt. The Nile and Trafalgar were equally one-sided in result, so were Lepanto, Actium, Ægospotaini and any number of other naval fights. There have been indecisive conflicts like Yalu, Lissa and others; but in these neither side had much hurt the other and that determination to fight to a finish characteristic of the grand battle was absent. None of these were 'grand battles,' they were more of the nature of 'engagements'—skirmishes and a feeling of the other's strength on each side. In grand battles the eternal principle has always obtained and one side has always suffered entirely out of proportion to the other.

It is logical that this should have been. With fleets in contact strategy is at an end and tactics in operation. The bases which interfere with strategical operations are absent: the fight is in the open, there