 McCreery took over command of the Eighth Army from Lieutenant General Oliver Leese on 31 December 1944, after the failure to break through the Gothic Line.The 1945 spring offensive which followed, conducted jointly by the Eighth Army and the Fifth Army, now commanded by Lucian K. Truscott, another cavalryman, culminated in a 23-day battle which resulted in the surrender of nearly a million German soldiers.The achievements of the Eighth Army in this last campaign are perhaps less well remembered than those during the Western Desert Campaign under Montgomery.