The final year of the war—1918—started with disaster and ended in triumph. On 21 March 1918, General Erich Ludendorff, Chief of the German General Staff, launched the Spring Offensive, which was intended to defeat the Allies on the Western Front before the strength of the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) could become overwhelming. The main weight of the first blow—Operation Michael—fell on General Gough' s Fifth Army which was forced to retreat. In response to the crisis facing the Allies, French "Generalissimo" Ferdinand Foch was made Supreme Commander of the Allied forces on the Western Front, placing the BEF under his strategic direction. The next German attack came south of Ypres in the Battle of the Lys river and here too the BEF fell back. Field Marshal Haig issued his famous Order of the Day, "With our backs to the wall and believing in the justice of our cause, each one of us must fight on to the end." A third major German offensive, falling mainly on the French, was finally halted on the Marne in June. On 8 August, General Rawlinson's Fourth Army launched the Battle of Amiens which marked the start of the Hundred Days Offensive, the final Allied offensive on the Western Front. Over the following weeks, all five armies of the BEF went on the offensive from the Somme to Flanders. Fighting continued right up until the Armistice with Germany came into effect at 11:00 am on 11 November 1918.