But among the most important lessons of this war—perhaps the most important, as also one easily understood and which exemplifies a principle of warfare of ageless application—is the inexpediency, the terrible danger, of dividing the battle fleet, even in times of peace, into fractions individually smaller than those of a possible enemy. The Russian divisions at Port Arthur, at Vladivostok, and in the European ports of Russia, if united, would in 1904 have outweighed decisively the navy of Japan, which moreover could receive no increase during hostilities. It would have been comparatively immaterial, as regards effect upon the local field of operations, whether the ships were assembled in the Baltic, in Vladivostok, or in Port Arthur. Present together, the fleet thus constituted could not have been disregarded by Japan without a risk transcending beyond comparison that caused by the Port Arthur division alone, which the Japanese deliberately put out of court. For, while they undertook, and successfully carried out, measures which during a period of four months disabled it as a body menacing their sea communications, they none the less before the torpedo attack of February 8 had begun the movement of their army to the continent. It is most improbable that they would have dared the same had the available Russian navy been united. It would have mattered nothing that it was frozen in in Vladivostok. The case of Japan would not have been better, but worse, for having utilized the winter to cross her troops to the mainland, if, when summer came, the enemy appeared in overwhelming naval force. If Togo, in face of Rozhestvensky’s division alone, could signal his fleet, “The salvation or the fall of the Empire depends upon the result of this engagement,” how much more serious the situation had there been with it the Port Arthur ships, which had handled his vessels somewhat roughly the preceding August.