Hundreds of armour-clads were built that became obsolete, and were turned over to the shipbreaker, without ever having fired a shot in action. Theories of tactics for fleet actions were worked out on paper, and tested to some extent at naval manœuvres, but the supreme test of battle was wanting. In the Franco-German War of 1870 the French navy had such a decided superiority that the few German warships of the day were kept in their harbours protected by batteries and sunken mines. The only naval action of the war was an indecisive duel between two gunboats. In the second stage of the war the officers and men of the French navy fought as soldiers in the defence of France. Guns were taken from the ships to be mounted on land fortifications. Admirals commanded divisions, formed largely of naval officers and bluejackets.

Again in the war of 1878 between Russia and Turkey the Russians had only a few light craft in the Black Sea, and the Turkish fleet under Hobart Pasha, weak as it was, held the undisputed command of these waters, and had only to fear some isolated torpedo attacks. In South American civil wars and international conflicts there were duels between individual ships, and some dashing enterprises by torpedo boats, but nothing that could be described as a fleet action between ironclads. The only time a British armoured fleet was in action was against the batteries of Alexandria on the occasion of the bombardment in July, 1882. The forts, badly armed and constructed, and inefficiently defended, were silenced, but a careful examination of them convinced experts that if they had been held by a better-trained garrison, the victory would not have been such an easy matter. This and subsequent experiences have led to the general acceptance of the view that it will be seldom advisable to risk such valuable fighting machines as first-class battleships and armoured cruisers in close action against well-constructed and powerfully armed shore defences.

It was not till the summer of 1894 that at last there was another pitched battle between fleets that included a large proportion of armoured vessels. That action off the mouth of the Yalu River will be always remembered as the event that heralded the coming of a new naval power.

A long rivalry between China and Japan for the control of Korea had resulted in an outbreak of war between the two empires of the Far East. For an island state like Japan the command of the sea was a necessary condition for successful operations on the mainland of Asia, and for some years she had been building up a powerful fleet, the ships being constructed in foreign yards, as the Japanese yards were not yet in a position to turn out large warships.

In the memory of living men the Japanese fleets had been made up of primitive-looking war-junks. After failures to build ships in Japan on the European model, the Government had in the middle of the nineteenth century purchased some small steamships abroad, but it was not till 1876 that the first Japanese armour-clad, the "Fuso," was constructed in England from designs by the late Sir Edward Reed. Naval progress was at first very slow, but solid foundations were laid. Young naval officers were attached to the British and other navies for professional training, and on their return to Japan became the educators of their fellow-countrymen in naval matters. A serious obstacle to the acquisition of a numerous and powerful fleet was the financial question. Japan is not a rich country. At first, therefore, the Japanese did not venture to order battleships, but contented themselves with protected cruisers. They thought that these would be sufficient for the impending conflict with China, which possessed only a fleet of weak, protected cruisers of various types and a couple of small coast defence ironclads, that might be counted as inferior battleships.

When war broke out between China and Japan in 1894, the fleet of the latter consisted of older ships of miscellaneous types, and a number of new protected cruisers, some of them armed with quick-firing guns, a type of weapon only lately introduced into the world's navies. Of these modern cruisers most had been built and armed in French yards, but the best and swiftest ship was a fine cruiser delivered not long before from Armstrong's yard at Elswick.

The following lists give some details of the Japanese and Chinese fleets, only the ships engaged at the Yalu battle being included. But these ships represented almost the entire strength of the two rival navies, and no really effective ship was absent on either side, while to make up the two squadrons ships were sent to sea that in a European navy would have been considered obsolete and left in harbour (see pages [256]–[7]).

A comparison of these two lists brings out some interesting points. The advantage in gun power was clearly on the side of the Japanese. Of the heavier class of guns they had seventy to fifty-five, and there were no weapons in the Chinese squadron equal to the long 12½-inch rifled breech-loaders of French make, carried by four of the Japanese cruisers. But there was a further gain in gun power for the Japanese in the possession of 128 quick-firers, some of them of fairly heavy calibre. The quick-firing gun was then a new weapon. It is really a quick loader, a gun fitted with a breech action that can be opened and closed by a rapid movement, and so mounted that the recoil is taken up by mechanism in the carriage which at once automatically runs the gun back into firing position, while the process of loading is further accelerated (for the smaller calibre guns) by making up the ammunition like that of a rifle, with projectile and charge in a big brass-cased cartridge, so that the gun can be loaded up by one movement, and the cartridge contains its own means of ignition, and is fired by pulling off a trigger. The lighter quick-firers are further mounted on pivots, so that they can be easily moved through an arc of a circle by one man, who keeps his eyes on a moving target and his finger on the trigger ready to fire. The storm of shells that poured from the Japanese quick-firers was even more terrible for the Chinese than the slower fire of the heavy guns, and of these new quick-firing guns the Chinese only had three on the little "Kwang-ping."

JAPANESE FLEET
Ships.Tonnage.Heavy
Guns.		Quick-
firers.		Machine
Guns.		Notes.
New
protected
cruisers		 Yoshino 4150 —044— Swiftest ship in either fleet: speed 23 knots; 2-inch steel protective deck. Built by Armstrong
Matsushima 4277 01201606 2-inch steel protective deck. Barbette forward covered with 12-inch armour, and armed with a long Canet 12½-inch gun.
Ikitsushima01201606
Hashidate01201615
Takachico 3650 08—12 3-inch steel protective deck.
Speed 18 knots.
Naniwa Kan08—12
Akitsushima 3150 0101210 2½-inch steel protective deck. One long 12½-inch Canet gun.
Chiyoda 2450 —02413 Small partly armoured cruiser; 4½-inch armoured belt over two-thirds of length; 1-inch steel protective deck.
Fuso 3718 06—08 4½-in. armour belt amidships. Old ironclads launched 1877–8.
Hiyei 2200 09—— 7-in. armour belt.
9-in. armour on battery.
Akagi 0615 02—02 Gunboat.
Saikio Maru 0600 —(?)— Armed merchant steamer carrying only a few small quick-firers.
7012884