Home Bases.—­A home base is, as its name implies, a base situated in the home country.  The most usual type of the home naval base is the navy-yard, though few navy-yards can meet all the requirements of a naval base.  The New York navy-yard, for instance, which is our most important yard, lacks three of the most vital attributes of a naval base, in that it has no means for receiving and protecting a large fleet, it cannot be approached by large ships except at high tide, and it could not receive a seriously injured battleship at any time, because the channel leading to it is too shallow.

Home bases that approach perfection were evidenced after the battle off the Skagerak; for the wounded ships of both sides took refuge after the battle in protected bases, where they were repaired and refitted, and resupplied with fighting men and fuel.  These bases seem to have been so located, so protected, and so equipped, as to do exactly what bases are desired to do; they were “bases of operations” in the best sense.  The fleets of the opposing sides started from those bases as nearly ready as human means and foresight could devise, returned to them for refreshment after the operations had been concluded, and, during the operations, were based upon those bases.  If the bases of either fleet had been improperly located, or inadequately protected or equipped, that fleet would not have been so completely ready for battle as, in fact, it was; and it could not have gone to its base for shelter and repairs so quickly and so surely as, in fact, it did.  Many illustrations can be found in history of the necessity for naval bases; but the illustration given by this battle of May 31 is of itself so perfect and convincing, that it seems hardly necessary or even desirable to bring forward any others.

The fact of the nearness to each other of the bases of the two contending fleets—­the nearness of Germany and Great Britain in other words—­coupled with the nearness of the battle itself to the bases, and the fact that both fleets retired shortly afterward to the bases, bring out in clear relief the efficacy of bases; but nevertheless their efficacy would have been even more strongly shown if the battle had been near to the bases of the more powerful fleet, but far from the bases of the other fleet—­as was the case at the battle, near Tsushima, in the Japan Sea.

Of course the weaker fleet in the North Sea battle would not have been drawn into battle under such conditions, because it would not have had a safe refuge to retreat to.  It was the proximity of an adequate naval base, that could be approached through protected waters only, which justified the weaker fleet in dashing out and taking advantage of what seemed to be an opportunity.  Similarly, if the Russian fleet in the Japan Sea had had a base near by, from which it had issued ready in all ways, and to which it could have retired as soon as the battle began to go against it, the Russian disaster might not have occurred, and full command of the sea by the Japanese might have been prevented.  But there being no base or harbor of refuge, disaster succeeded disaster in a cumulative fashion, and the Russian fleet was annihilated in deep water.