The scheme of defence broke down in three ways. First, the opening attack of the Japanese so crippled the Russian fleet, that it never ventured to take the offensive, and could render only limited direct assistance in defending the fortress when the forts were attacked from the sea. Secondly, the key to the defences of the peninsula was passed on to the Japanese by the inability of the Russian forces to hold the isthmus--a position was lost which could not be retrieved without the co-operation of a fleet. Thirdly, the Russian reinforcements were not obtained soon enough to give the Russians the required superiority to enable their forces to take the offensive at the most favourable season. From the first Port Arthur had to protect the whole of the fleet; to resist the attacks of an undivided fleet of the enemy; and later to repulse attacks on the land side made simultaneously. Not once did the Russian fleet forsake the shelter of the forts, until it made a dash to escape to neutral ports; it made no attempt by going forth to draw away part of the enemy’s attacking fleet, even for a time--made no attempt to ruin or weaken the strength of that attacking fleet by counter attacks, which, though they might have entailed heavy losses of Russian ships, would yet have caused the Japanese victory to have been too dearly bought. The fleet co-operated in the defence, it is true, and showed to greater advantage in coast defence, for which it was not primarily intended, than it did in such work, as maintaining communications, which it had been expected to perform. The torpedo attack of February 8 was disastrous, but it might have been made much more effective than it was. To the enemy’s fleet, bombarding the port on February 9, the Russian fleet made some slight show of resistance; in fact the _Novik_ seemed ready to attack all the Japanese without assistance, and, but for her speed--twenty-seven knots,--she would certainly have been cut off and captured or sunk. That engagement showed to the Japanese the strength of the Russian fleet at Port Arthur, and confirmed their belief that they had put two battleships and a cruiser out of action. So far as can be learned, the firing from the forts that day in no way injured the Japanese vessels.