e were also the vessels _Ikoma_ and _Tsukuba_,
individual in type, with corresponding kinds in no other navy,
and which might be called a cross between an armored cruiser and
battle cruiser. Though displacing no more than 13,766 tons, they
carried four 12-inch guns, and made the comparatively low speed
of 20.5 knots. In 1909 and 1910 the Japanese added two more ships
of this kind to their navy, the _Ibuki_ and _Kurama_, slightly
heavier and faster and with the same armament.

The dreadnought _Satsuma_ also came in 1910--a vessel displacing
19,400 tons, but making a speed of only 18.2 knots, and with an
extraordinarily heavy main battery consisting of four 12-inch guns
and twelve 10-inch guns. The _Aki_, launched in 1911, was 400 tons
heavier than the _Satsuma_, and was more than 2 knots faster, and
her main battery was equally strong. The dreadnoughts _Settsu_
and _Kawachi_, completed in 1913 and 1912 respectively, displaced
21,420 tons, but were able to make not more than 20 knots. At this
time the Japanese admiralty, perhaps on account of lessons learned
in the war with Russia, was building dreadnoughts with less speed
than those in the other navies, but with much heavier main batteries.
These two vessels carried a unique main battery of twelve 12-inch
guns, along with others of smaller measurement. What the dreadnoughts
lacked in speed was made up in that of four battle cruisers launched
after 1912. These were the _Kirishima, Kongo, Hi-Yei_, and _Haruna_,
with the good speed of 28 knots. Their displacement was 27,500
tons, and they carried in their primary batteries eight 14-inch
guns and sixteen 6-inch guns.

At the time Japan entered the war she had in building four
superdreadnoughts with the tremendous displacement of 30,600 tons.
These vessels, the _Mitsubishi, Yukosaka, Kure_, and _Kawasaki_,
had been designed to carry a main battery of the strength of the
U. S. S. _Pennsylvania_, and to have a speed of 22.5 knots.

The first move of the Japanese navy in the Great War was to cooperate
with the army in besieging the German town of Kiaochaw on the Shantung
Peninsula in China, but the operation was soon more military than
naval. Japanese warships captured Bonham Island in the group known
as the Marshall Islands, and, having cleared eastern waters of
German warships, scoured the Pacific in such a manner as to chase
those which escaped into the regions patrolled by the British navy.

The German vessels which mad