The Donkeys
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Product Description
Product Description
On 26 September 1915 twelve British battalions - a strength of almost 10,000 men - were ordered to attack German positions at Loos in north-east France. In the three-and-a-half hours of the actual battle, they sustained 8,246 casualties. The Germans suffered no casualties at all.
The Donkeys is a study of the Western Front on 1915, a brilliant exposé of a key stage of the Great War, when the opposing armies were locked in trench warfare. Alan Clark scrutinizes the major battles of the year. He casts a steady and revealing light on those in High Command - French, Rawlinson, Watson and Haig among them- whose orders resulted in the virtual destruction of the odd professional British Army.
About the Author
Alan Clark was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford. He served in the Household Cavalry before qualifying for the Bar in 1955. In 1974 he became Conservative MP for Plymouth Sutton and went on to hold a number of ministerial posts. He wrote several works of military history: The Fall of Crete, Barbarossa: The Russo-German Conflict 1941-45 and Aces High: The War in the Air over the Western Front. He also published his Diaries. Alan Clark died in 1999.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
22 of 31 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Professor Michael Howard summed this book up as "a worthless history", Dr John Bourne; the University of Birmingham justly cites it as "preserving historical writing about the Great War in its ridiculously protracted adolescence". This is generous. Clark is an agenda driven politician with an appalling grasp of the First World War.
Firstly, Clark lied about the title. The German General he claimed attached this phrase to the British Army had not said that at all. Clark admitted this before his death.
The British Army was a Colonial police force in 1914, with a core of highly trained men. By 1918 it was the most sophisticated Army in the World. British Generals began a learning curve in 1914 which reached its peak in 1918. Most of them had never commanded above Division level before. They were learning on the job. The Battles of Loos, Neuve Chappelle, the Somme and Ypres were a part of this learning process. The British Armies had not operated in such masses since Napoleon. They did not have the experience of the French or Germans. But within four years had matched and surpassed them in terms of tactics and technical quality.
The inconvenient truth for Clark is - the Allies won and the British played a vital part. He dismisses this as a result of numbers, and blockade. In fact it was three massive attrition damage done to the German Army on the Western Front that forced Germany to seek an armistice. It was the losses at the Somme, which force the German economy to move to total war in order to stave off defeat that was the driving force for the collapse.
There is much more: But Clark's 'work' is not scholarly or academic it just plays on casualties and the "six inches of ground won". Claiming Chateaux Generals threw away thousands of lives "doing the same thing" - utter nonsense.
For those who want to become academics - try reading Gary Sheffield's Forgotten victory.
Firstly, Clark lied about the title. The German General he claimed attached this phrase to the British Army had not said that at all. Clark admitted this before his death.
The British Army was a Colonial police force in 1914, with a core of highly trained men. By 1918 it was the most sophisticated Army in the World. British Generals began a learning curve in 1914 which reached its peak in 1918. Most of them had never commanded above Division level before. They were learning on the job. The Battles of Loos, Neuve Chappelle, the Somme and Ypres were a part of this learning process. The British Armies had not operated in such masses since Napoleon. They did not have the experience of the French or Germans. But within four years had matched and surpassed them in terms of tactics and technical quality.
The inconvenient truth for Clark is - the Allies won and the British played a vital part. He dismisses this as a result of numbers, and blockade. In fact it was three massive attrition damage done to the German Army on the Western Front that forced Germany to seek an armistice. It was the losses at the Somme, which force the German economy to move to total war in order to stave off defeat that was the driving force for the collapse.
There is much more: But Clark's 'work' is not scholarly or academic it just plays on casualties and the "six inches of ground won". Claiming Chateaux Generals threw away thousands of lives "doing the same thing" - utter nonsense.
For those who want to become academics - try reading Gary Sheffield's Forgotten victory.
18 of 29 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Fluently written as ever with Alan Clark. Very powerful...but how much is real and how much more building on the sterotypical view? I suggest looking at another view such as that in the much more recent and excellent "Forgotten Victory" by Gary Sheffield would help balance the picture.
45 of 72 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
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'
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
overrated
The book was described as being in Very Good condition. This is fantasy, as the book is heavily used, a library reject I would guess. Read more
Published 15 months ago by Terry Oreilly
ALL THE KING`S HORSES & ALL THE KING`S MEN ...
BRILLIANT
1 of the classic works on the 1914-1918 War.
The literary equivalent of a 5. Read more
1 of the classic works on the 1914-1918 War.
The literary equivalent of a 5. Read more
Published on 20 Mar 2010 by Ajax Bardrick
Entertaining read, a polemic rather than a history
If you read this as a polemic - something that puts forward the case agaist the British generals, an opening sally rather than the last word on the subject, this is an entertaining... Read more
Published on 1 Jan 2010 by E. ELSBY
Money-making from poor history
Alan Clarke was not a historian. He just needed some money for his castle and his philandering. So hid did zero research and dashed of this tripe. Read more
Published on 2 Mar 2009 by Rogthedodge
Always astounds me
Alan Clark (loathed) writes this piece and is the last person you would think of criticising the generals . Read more
Published on 7 Feb 2008 by Kenny S. Queen
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. Read more
Published on 3 Aug 2004
Brilliant! Moving! Powerful! This will fill you with anger!
This is probably the best book I have ever read about the Great War (Only rivalled by Alistair Horne's "the Price of Glory"). Read more
Published on 29 Jun 2001
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... Read more
Published on 9 Nov 1999
One of THE best books on WW1 I have read.
Whatever your opinion of Clark the politician, Clarke the military historian was one the best in this specialised field. Read more
Published on 15 Oct 1999
The death of the British professional army in 1915
A pungent and concise account of three major offensives on the Western Front in 1915 - the rivalries among British generals and politicians, the difficult relationships with the... Read more
Published on 3 Jan 1999
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