On 8 August 1918, the Battle of Amiens was launched. Allied troops under the command of Haig, predominantly Rawlinson's British 4th Army (consisting of the Australian Corps under Monash, Canadian Corps under Sir Arthur Currie, British III Corps under Butler and British Cavalry Corps under Kavanagh), attacked the Germans. The allied attack was spearheaded by the Australian Corps, who had been given the capture of enemy artillery as a key objective in the first phase by Monash in order to minimize the potential harm to the attacking forces. The battle was a strong, significant victory for the Allies, the first decisive win for the British Army of the war, causing the Germans to recognise that for them the War was lost. The defeated German leader, General Erich Ludendorff, described it in the following words: "August 8th was the black day of the German Army in the history of the war". These operations were just a start of a broad Allied offensive across the Western Front. On 12 August 1918, at Château de Bertangles, Monash was knighted as a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath on the battlefield by King George V.