After six months, therefore, Jellicoe had received four new battleships—two of them by far the most powerful at that time afloat—and Beatty had been joined by three battle cruisers, one of them quite new. The Grand Fleet was the stronger for six months of work by seven ships. As compared with our increased strength of seven ships (five quite new), Germany had managed to muster no more than three. She completed two battleships of a speed of twenty and a half knots, each carrying ten 12-inch guns. Neither of these vessels were more powerful than our original Dreadnought class and they were not to be compared with our King George V’s, Orions or Iron Dukes and still less with our Queen Elizabeths. That Germany should, six months after the war began, be completing battleships of a class which with us had been far surpassed fully four years earlier is the best possible illustration of her poverty in naval brains and foresight. Germany had also completed one battle cruiser, the _Derfflinger_, of twenty-seven knots speed and with eight 12-inch guns, which in her turn was not more powerful than our Invincibles of five years earlier date. The _Derfflinger_ could no more have stood up to our new _Tiger_ than the two battleships just completed by our enemies could have fought for half an hour with our two new Queen Elizabeths. So great indeed had our superiority become as early in the war as the beginning of 1915 that we could without serious risk afford to release two or three battle cruisers for the Mediterranean and to escort the Canadian and Australian contingents across the seas, and to send to the Mediterranean the mighty _Queen Elizabeth_ to flesh her maiden guns upon the Turkish defences of the Dardanelles. Ship guns are not designed to fight with land forts, and though the _Queen Elizabeth’s_ 15-inch shells, weighing over 1,900 lbs. apiece, may not have achieved very much against the defences of the Narrows, their smashing power and wonderful accuracy of control were fully demonstrated.