toward Russia that any man might have on seeing another man, heavily armed, gradually coming closer to him in the night.  Japan especially wished that Russia should have no foothold in Corea, feeling, as she expressed it, that the point of Corea under Russian power would be a dagger directed at the heart of Japan.  This feeling about Corea was the same feeling that every country has about land near her; it has a marked resemblance to the feeling that the United States has embodied in Monroe Doctrine.

After several years of negotiation in which Japan and Russia endeavored to secure their respective aims by diplomacy, diplomacy was finally abandoned and the sword taken up instead.  Japan, because of the superior foresight of her statesmen, was the first to realize that diplomacy must fail, was the first to realize that she must prepare for war, was the first to begin adequate preparation for war, was the first to complete preparation for war, was the first to strike, and in consequence was the victor.  Yet Russia was a very much larger, richer, more populous country than Japan.

Russia sent large forces of soldiers to Manchuria by the trans-Siberian railroad, and Japan sent large forces there by transports across the Sea of Japan.  Japan could not prevent the passage of soldiers by the railroad, but Russia could prevent the passage of transports across the Japan Sea, provided her fleet could overcome the Japanese fleet and get command of the sea.  Russia had a considerable fleet in the Far East; but she had so underestimated the naval ability of the Japanese, that the Russian fleet proved unequal to the task; and the Japanese gradually reduced it to almost nothing, with very little loss to themselves.

Russia then sent out another fleet.  The Japanese met this fleet on the 27th of May, 1904, near the Island of Tsushima, between Corea and Japan.  The battle was decided in about an hour.  The Japanese sank practically all the Russian ships before the battle was entirely finished, with comparatively small loss to Japan.  This battle was carried on 12,000 miles by sea route from Saint Petersburg.  No invasion of Russia or Japan was contemplated, or attempted, and yet the naval battle decided the issue of the war completely, and was followed by a treaty of peace very shortly afterward.

These wars show us, as do all wars in which navies have engaged, that the function of a navy is not only to defend the coast in the sense of preventing an enemy from landing on it, but also to exert force far distant from the coast.  The study of war has taught its students for many centuries that a merely passive defense will finally be broken down, and that the most effective defense is the “offensive-defensive.”

Perhaps the clearest case of a correct offensive-defensive is Nelson’s defense of England, which he carried on in the Mediterranean, in the West Indies, and wherever the enemy fleet might be, finally defeating Napoleon’s plan for invading England—­not by waiting off the coast of England, but by attacking and crippling Napoleon’s fleet off the Spanish coast near Trafalgar.