r. Churchill was removed from his
position, and twelve months passed by with the German ships still in
their "holes."

Certain lessons had been taught naval authorities of all nations
through the actual use of the modern battleship in war. The first
year showed that the largest ships must have very high speed and long
gun range. To some extent the fact that the fighting ships of nearly
all of the belligerent countries were thus equipped changed battle
tactics.

When the allied fleets had started their bombardment of the Turkish
forts at the Dardanelles they were breaking certain well-defined rules
which had been axiomatic with naval authorities. The greatest of
modern battleships were designed to fight with craft of their like,
but not to take issue with land fortifications. For weeks, while the
fleets succeeded in silencing for a time some of the Turkish forts, it
was thought that this rule no longer held good. But when, after March
19, 1915, the fleets ceased attempting to take the passage without
military cooperation, the worth of the rule was reestablished. The
ease with which the bombarding ships were made victims of hostile
submarines was greatly instrumental in making the rule again an axiom.

The naval supremacy of the allied powers brought them certain
advantages--advantages which they had without winning a decisive
victory. Germany and Austria were cut off from the Western Hemisphere,
and were troubled, in consequence, by shortage in food for their
civilian populations to a greater or lesser degree. This was perhaps a
negative benefit derived by the Allies from their naval supremacy; the
affirmative benefit was that their own communications with the Western
Hemisphere were maintained, enabling them not only to get food for
their civilian populations, but arms and munitions for their armies;
and even financial arrangements, which, if their emissaries could not
pass back and forth freely could not have been made, depended on their
control of the high seas.

They were able to keep the Channel clear of submarines long enough to
permit the passage of the troops, which England from time to time
during the first year of the war sent to the Continent, and permitted
the participation of the troops of the British overseas dominions, the
troops from Canada joining those in France, and the troops from New
Zealand and Australia taking their places in the trenches along the
Suez Canal and on the Gallipoli Peninsula. Th