The Donkeys

The Donkeys

by Alan Clark (Author)

Synopsis

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 expose 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 old professional British Army.

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More Information

Format: Illustrated
Pages: 240
Edition: Revised ed.
Publisher: Pimlico
Published: 12 Dec 1991

ISBN 10: 0712650350
ISBN 13: 9780712650359
Book Overview: An impassioned book which changed the way we think about the Western Front - a controversial classic.

Media Reviews
A shell-burst of a book * The Economist *
An eloquent and painful book... Clark leaves the impression that vanity and stupidity were the main ingredients of the massacres of 1915. He writes searingly and unforgettably -- George Malcolm Thomson * Evening Standard *
Mr Clark writes with verve, venom and real feeling for the men whose lives the brasshats squandered -- Paul Johnson * New Statesman *
So far from being just another war book that it is likely to be bought and read for years to come -- Vernon Fane * Sphere *
He is a writer with considerable gifts both of description and narrative. His subject gives them plenty of scope; indeed his descriptions of battles and battlefields are sometimes masterly -- Michael Howard * Listener *
Author Bio
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.