The strategical problem which presented itself at the outbreak of hostilities was a comparatively simple one--for Japan at any rate. The power of Russia in the Far East depended on the maintenance of two great arteries of communication with the heart of the Russian Empire. One of these was the over-sea passage from the Black Sea or the Baltic through the Suez Canal and the East Indian Archipelago--a voyage occupying six weeks at least, and however feasible in time of peace, rendered particularly difficult and even precarious under war conditions owing to the possibility of interception and the absence of any intermediate coaling stations. The other connecting link between Port Arthur and St. Petersburg was the Trans-Siberian Railway, that gigantic enterprise which, completed in 1899, brought the capital of Russia within 15 days' journey of its furthermost outpost in the Yellow Sea. From Moscow to Port Arthur is a distance of some 4,000 miles, but at two-thirds of its length the railway is interrupted by the great inland sea known as Lake Baikal. At this point transshipment across the lake had to take place, a circumstance that offered an insurmountable hindrance to rapid transit. In the building of the railway, too, soundness had been sacrificed to rapidity of construction; the line was only a single track one, with stations and sidings at intervals of about 25 miles; and even when the whole service was monopolized for military purposes the number of trains that could be passed over the railway in one day was a fixed and very limited quantity. Even with this line open, therefore, the rate at which Russia could reinforce her troops in the Far East had to be determined by other circumstances than military urgency, and the number of her reinforcements also had to be governed by the capacity of the line to bring up not only men, but supplies; for Manchuria itself does not provide the means of support for a large army. The experience of the American Army in Cuba and of the British Army in South Africa proved what tremendous difficulties may be encountered in carrying supplies to a large force at a distance much less remote from its base than Russia's was. For years past Russia has sent out her troops and supplies to the Far East mainly by sea. For twelve months before the war broke out a constant stream of transports, colliers and supply ships had passed from the Black Sea to the Gulf of Pechili, and this stream was only interrupted on the outbreak of war--a significant admission of the incompleteness of the Russian preparations, as well as of the inadequacy of the Trans-Siberian Railway to supply her needs. [Sidenote: Port Arthur]