in 1904. Russia possessed three battle-fleets: one in the Baltic Sea, the second in the Black Sea, and the third in the Far East. The Pacific squadron in the Far East was stationed at Vladivostok and Port Arthur. With the latter being closer to the land war, Port Arthur became strategically more important. The IJN possessed only one battle-fleet to the Russian Navy's three; therefore it was imperative that the IJN not have to fight all three of them simultaneously. The Anglo-Japanese Treaty of 1902 effectively eliminated the Black Sea fleet by keeping it blocked in the Black Sea, lest they risk war with Britain. However, the Baltic Fleet (later renamed the 2nd Pacific Squadron) had orders to reinforce the Port Arthur squadron sometime in 1905. It would be the IJN's mission to preempt that move. Only after Port Arthur's "fleet in being" was eliminated could the Baltic Fleet and Japanese fleet square off; and this would happen the following year, during the Battle of Tsushima in May 1905. In order to permanently eliminate Port Arthur's battle-squadron, the IJN initiated three operations. The first was a surprise destroyer torpedo attack inside the harbor in early February 1904. This was quickly followed up with an attempt to block the harbor's entrance by sinking old steam ships (block ships) in the channel. The third and final attempt of permanently bottling up the fleet was the mining of the waters surrounding the harbor's entrance. Although this last attempt also failed, it had the unintended consequence of robbing the Russian Navy of one of its most brilliant naval officers, Admiral Stepan Makarov. When his flagship, the battleship Petropavlovsk, struck one of those mines she sank almost immediately, drowning Makarov with the crew. The "fleet in being" remained so, until under the new command of Admiral Vilgelm Vitgeft, the Port Arthur squadron was ordered to break out and steam for Vladivostok on 10 August 1904. Vitgeft's exit from Port Arthur resulted in the Battle of the Yellow Sea, an excessively long-ranged gun duel that resulted in no capital warships being sunk on either side, but finally eliminated Port Arthur's "fleet in being", as its warships became dispersed to neutral ports (where they were interned), and the survivors were so heavily damaged that they were no longer serviceable. World War I A later example is the stand-off between the German High Seas Fleet and the British