THE OCEAN AS A BATTLE-FIELD 301 



United States that they raised such tremendous shouts 

 of exultation over their defeat of ships that were help- 

 less to resist attack. 



Then came the battle of Tsu-Tshima, wherein it 

 was hoped that some lessons might be given us, 

 some settlement of urgent problems arrive. In some 

 measure this was the case, in spite of the fact that 

 here, again, one fleet was perfectly equipped, dis- 

 ciplined to perfection, and every man on board a 

 patriot of the noblest type, while the other fleet, 

 though numerically stronger, was heterogeneous in 

 composition, honeycombed with mutiny, and effete 

 by reason of departmental corruption. But these 

 disqualifications, at least the extent of them, were 

 not fully known until after the battle, wherein a great 

 fleet was destroyed, while the victors suffered prac- 

 tically no loss at all. It has brought the story of the 

 ocean as a battle-field right up to date, for, with the 

 exception of the submarine, every modern engine of 

 war used at sea was brought into play, while the 

 opposing forces were of a magnitude truly colossal. 

 The mind almost reels to think of the play of those 

 terrible 12-inch guns, with their 850-pound projectiles, 

 rending foot-thick steel-plates and bursting with 

 volcanic force in the bowels of the devoted ships. 

 Never since the world began has man been enabled 

 to let loose such awful elements of destruction, to 

 which, indeed, the ships and marine weapons of our 

 ancestors were but playthings. And yet, in spite of 

 the almost incalculable increase in death-dealing 

 potentiality, and of the enormous damage done, 

 measured in millions of value ; in spite, too, of the 

 non-floatability of the materials of which the ships 



