Product Description

A study of the Western Front in 1915, this book is a stinging indictment of incompetent generalship. The author explores the truth of the observation that British troops were "lions led by donkeys" and shows how appalling losses almost completely destroyed the old professional army.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #141655 in Books
• Published on: 1991-12-12
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 216 pages

Customer Reviews

A hatchet job for all time
Politician, legendary diarist, bon viveur, irresistible to women, a character from the pages of John Buchan, Alan Clark was born not so much with a spoon as a whole canteen of silver cutlery in his mouth. Eton, Oxbridge and the Brigade of Guards, the classic CV of the British upper classes, trained him to enjoy his castle in Kent, deer forest in Scotland, skiing lodge in Switzerland. Bred for a life of idleness, a chance reading of an old regimental diary aroused his interest in the First World War, whose carnage was at that time regarded as unavoidable, an act of God for which no individuals could be held responsible. Not satisfied with this, he asked questions; old men who would never have spoken to an academic historian gave him answers, as one officer and gentleman to another. With a scholar's attention to detail and the narrative skill of a great novelist, he wrote the book which made his reputation as a military historian.

The generals whose dreadful follies he chronicles are mainly allowed to condemn themselves out of their own mouths. Only the rare phrase of glacial contempt betrays the white-hot rage with which this book was written. We are shown some of the most unappealing military leaders in history, for whom the phrase could have been invented, "having all Hitler's faults without any of his redeeming qualities": men who sent their fellow-countrymen to die simply to avoid a tedious lunch engagement. Clark had no objection to their privileged lifestyle, a lifestyle which he himself shared, but to him the price of privilege was noblesse oblige, and their unforgivable crime was to refuse to pay it.

The self-serving memoirs of the generals themselves are long books, now deservedly forgotten. This is a short book by comparison, but at its end their reputations are utterly destroyed, never to recover.

A dated and discredited approach
Alan Clark's The Donkeys was the inspiration for Oh! What a Lovely War, the play that captured the antiwar mood of the 1960's and helped turn the First World War in popular mythology into the futile war of 'mud and blood.' Writing in 1961, before the opening of the documentary evidence under the 50 year rule, Clark relied heavily upon the ideas of his patron, Basil Liddell Hart. This is a shame, since Liddell Hart's bias against the quality of the generalship during the War largely stemmed from his own frustration at never having proceeded beyond the rank of Captain. In castigating the failure of British generals to adapt tactically and strategically to a very different set of circumstances, Liddell Hart and his followers failed to explain how the British Expeditionary Force ultimately led the Allies to victory in the Hundred Days in the autumn of 1918.

The availability of the documents in the Public Record Office at Kew Gardens has shown, instead, that the British Army adapted at every level to the new constraints of trench warfare. The disastrous results of the offensives in 1915, which are the subject of this book, stemmed from the virtual destruction of the old professional army and the difficulties of training and assimilating the New Armies. Once, however, that was achieved, tactical innovation proceeded at a fast pace. Enterprising officers within the British Army, led by Arthur Solly Flood, Director of Training, GHQ, adapted (between the summer of 1916 and spring of 1917) the tactical principle of small-unit, fire and movement and all-arms approach combining infantry and artillery in a deep battle that led the BEF to victory in 1918.

It is a shame that this book should feature so prominently among the 'classics' of First World War Historiography, for it paints a very distorted picture of the standard of the British officer class, which hinders the study of the developments in tactics during the War. Far from being 'lions led by donkeys', it would be more true to assert that the average 18 year old conscript, freshly trained in 1918, was 'a donkey led by a lion'

Use By Date Reached !
1915 appears to be the forgotten year as far as the Western Front is concerned, with a limited number of books available which focus on events in that year.

Seeking to go beyond the coverage of the more general histories of the Great War, I picked up a copy of the "The Donkeys" and settled in for an entertaining read......and yes it is entertaining, but regretably that entertainment comes from the exaggerated writing style, value judgements, and hearsay that has been injected into the narrative. It's a polemic made palatable by a racy journalistic style.

As a "history", the book has been made redundant by the opening of the archives since the book was written at the beginning of the '60s. The subsequent outpourings of newer histories, even where 1915 and the British attacks are covered as part of a general review of the war, have much more to add to an understanding of the conflict in that year than this book.

It's "Use By Date" has clearly been reached!