Customer Reviews

The Donkeys

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The title comes from the German view of the English soldiers who charged into their machine guns and barbed wire: "Lions led by donkeys." The donkeys were the professional officers of the British army that was destroyed in those battles, officers who were unable to adapt to the awful technology that changed the face of war forever. When I was studying under Michael (now Sir Michael) Howard at All Souls in 1972-4, he insisted that this book should be read by anyone who wanted to understand the early phase of the Great War. It is a classic and must be read by anyone trying to understand the impact of the War on the English people, and the shock of the early battles on the perception of the British military of what needed to be done. It is judgmental to be sure, and would not be the only source one would need to understand this critical transition, but it is nonetheless an essential text.

Bob Rizzi Bethesda, MD

The only thing really wrong with this book is that it only covers 1915. Otherwise, it gives a dismal, heartbreaking account of the way the British commanders on the Western Front destroyed what was left of their pre-war army, and failed to learn anything during the process. I wish Clark had covered the entire war.

Highly recommended.

I would be interested to have a written list of the "errors and lies" with which Clark's book is allegedly riddled. It is immensely readable and, if it is distorted and unhistorical, so is Sir James Edmonds' Official History, which Clark follows closely. The First World War is a terrible unhealed wound on the British psyche, and both the denigrators (Clark, Denis Winter, Leon Wolff) and the apologists (Terraine, Bond, Sheffield) are dangerous guides because they cannot overcome their own emotional interference (Terraine's biography of Haig contains more preposterous falsifications than are to be found in The Donkeys). I wouldn't take Clark alone as my guide to the British campaigns on the Western Front in 1915, but students would be better served by calm and factual analysis of the case he presents than by abusive phrases which tell us nothing except that he has hit a nerve in the abuser.

Alan Clark's The Donkeys is a brief history of the British campaign in France and Flanders in the year 1915, focusing on the British defeats at the battles of Neuve Chapelle, Second Ypres, Aubers Ridge, and Loos. Clark blames the British defeats in 1915 on the incompetence of the British generals, whom he condemns as butchers, fools, and knaves. In Clark's opinion, the British Army in 1915 consisted of lions led by donkeys.

The Donkeys is the only short and accessible account in print of the British battles on the Western Front in 1915. Unfortunately, The Donkeys is a terrible book: I studied it closely while researching my Master's thesis, and found it was riddled with errors and lies. It should never have been reprinted.

But don't take my word for it: when The Donkeys was first published, in 1961, it received a number of blistering reviews. AJP Taylor wrote that The Donkeys "lacks understanding and sympathy," "disregards the most elementary rul! es of historical scholarship," and "is valueless as a serious contribution to history." Michael Howard called The Donkeys a "petulant caricature" and dismissed it as "worthless." Rudest of all was John Terraine, who called The Donkeys "the apotheosis of distortion."

If you are interested in the history of the Great War, then avoid this book. A much better and more recent book on this subject is Lyn Macdonald's 1915: The Death of Innocence.