In April, The Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Navy Air Service combined to form the Royal Air Force (RAF). British anti-German feeling had increased as the war had gone on and, on 17 June, the British royal family changed their surname to Windsor to appear more British.
 
German forces released from the Eastern Front launched a major offensive on the Western Front in spring 1918, but despite some minor initial successes and by July the Germans had failed to break the Allied lines. Allied counter-offensives at the Marne and at Amiens in August were successful, pushing the Germans back past the Hindenburg line, freeing much of occupied France and Belgium.
 
On 11 November, at 11am an armistice between the Allied forces and Germany was signed. While the fighting stopped, millions of young men were dead – 947,000 of them from the British Empire.