bother with science now--and why should they
bother with target practice, except just enough to insure that the
battery was in order, and that the men were not afraid of their
guns? Besides, target practice dirtied the ship--a sacrilege to
the British naval officer.

But the events of the war between Japan and Russia, especially
the naval battles of Port Arthur, August 10, 1904, and the Sea
of Japan, May 27, 1905, riveted their attention on the fact that
something more than seamanship and navigation and clean ships would
be needed, if the British navy was to maintain its proud supremacy
on the sea; for in these battles, overwhelming victories were won
purely by superior skill in gunnery, strategy, and tactics.

To these causes of awakening was added one still greater, but of
like import--the rapid rise of the German navy from a position
of comparative unimportance to one which threatened the British
navy itself. The fact became gradually evident to British officers
that the German navy was proceeding along the same lines as had
proceeded the German army. Realizing the efficiency of the German
Government, noting the public declarations of the German Emperor,
observing the excellence of the German ships, the skill of the
German naval officers, and the extraordinary energy which the German
people were devoting to the improvement of the German navy--the
British navy took alarm.

So did the other navies.

Beginning about 1904, Great Britain set to work with energy to
reform her naval policy. Roused to action by the sense of coming
danger, she augmented the size and number of vessels of all types;
increased the personnel of all classes, regular and reserve; scrapped
all obsolete craft; built (secretly) the epochal _Dreadnaught_,
and modernized in all particulars the British navy. In every great
movement one man always stands pre-eminent. The man in this case was
Admiral Sir John Fisher, first sea lord of the admiralty, afterward
Lord Fisher. Fisher brought about vital changes in the organization,
methods, and even the spirit of the navy. He depleted the overgrown
foreign squadrons, concentrated the British force in powerful fleets
near home, established the War College, inculcated the study of
strategy and tactics, appointed Sir Percy Scott as inspector of
target practice, put the whole weight of his influence on the side
of gunnery and efficiency, placed officers in high command who had
the military idea as distinguish