But before anything could be done to land the Second Army, either at Takushan or on the Liao-tung Peninsula, it was imperatively necessary to disarm the Russian Fleet at Port Arthur, and prevent even the remotest possibility of its interfering with the operations. Here, as always, the two services, the army and the navy, had to work in close correspondence and interdependence. From the beginning of the war these separate branches of the Japanese forces had fitted into one another like parts of the same piece of machinery, the whole directed by one uniform purpose and striving towards one great common end. The joint schemes of the naval and military strategists at Tokio will ever provide an invaluable object-lesson to all students of the art of war; and it may be predicted that they will prove of valuable assistance to the strategists of our own army and navy. One of the most remarkable features of the war has been the certainty and precision with which the Japanese have worked out their complex plans; it is no less remarkable, and affords a further striking evidence of their efficiency, that they felt able, absolutely, to count upon that certainty and precision, and to make arrangements long beforehand, which with a less carefully organized scheme and less trustworthy commanders to carry it out would have been foolhardy, or at least wasteful. Failure in any real sense does not seem to have entered into their calculations. One portion of the plan, indeed, might miscarry, but, as we have seen, partial failure had been provided against, and a rapid modification of strategy to meet the case would have been possible. It was, in fact, one of the most interesting examples of the application of brains to war that have ever been seen in the history of the world. [Sidenote: Perfect Secrecy of Plans]