Finally, we must ask what, with every condition abnormally in favour of the attack, was the actual material result?  Did it have any real influence on the ultimate question of command?  It is true that it so far swung the balance in favour of the Japanese that they were able to exercise the local control long enough to land their troops and isolate Port Arthur.  But the Japanese plan for securing ultimate command rested on their power of taking Port Arthur by military operation and sustaining the siege from the sea.  Yet in spite of every condition of success the physical effect of the blow was so small, that even without the help of an adequate dockyard the squadron recovered from it and became potent again before the siege could even be formed.  The minor attacks which followed the first blow were all failures, and whether delivered at the port or upon the squadron in the open had no appreciable effect whatever.

At the same time it must be remembered that since that war the art of torpedo warfare has developed very rapidly.  Its range and offensive power have increased in a higher ratio than the means of resisting it.  Still those means have advanced, and it is probable that a squadron in a naval port or in a properly defended anchorage is not more easy to injure than it ever was; while a squadron at sea, so long as it constantly shifts its position, still remains very difficult to locate with sufficient precision for successful minor attack.

The unproved value of submarines only deepens the mist which overhangs the next naval war.  From a strategical point of view we can say no more than that we have to count with a new factor, which gives a new possibility to minor counterattack.  It is a possibility which on the whole tells in favour of naval defence, a new card which, skilfully played in combination with defensive fleet operations, may lend fresh importance to the “Fleet in being.”  It may further be expected that whatever the effective possibilities of minor operations may ultimately prove to be in regard to securing command, the moral influence will be considerable, and at least at the beginning of a future war will tend to deflect and hamper the major operations and rob of their precision the lines which formerly led so frankly to the issue by battle.

In the absence of a sufficient volume of experience it would be idle to go further, particularly as torpedo attack, like fireship attack, depends for success more than any other on the spirit and skill of officers and men.  With regard to the torpedo as the typical arm of mobile coastal defence, it is a different matter.  What has been said applies only to its power towards securing command of the sea, and not to the exercise or to disputing the exercise of command.  This is a question which is concerned with defence against invasion, and to that we must now turn.

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CHAPTER FOUR