Predictions that had been made long before the war came were found to be worthless; there were those who had predicted that Germany in the event of war with England would give immediate battle with her largest ships; but twelve months went by without an actual battle between superdreadnoughts. "Der Tag" had not come. There were those who had predicted that the British navy would force the German ships out of their protected harbors. "We shall dig the rats out of their holes," said Mr. Winston Churchill, British Secretary of State for the Navy in the early months of the war. Mr. 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.