[a:Alan Clark's|53420|Alan Clark|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/m_50x66-82093808bca726cb3249a493fbd3bd0f.png] [b:The Donkeys|1897272|The Donkeys|Alan Clark|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1359623961s/1897272.jpg|1898856] is one of the most famous British books written on the First World War. Taking it's title from a conversation between two German officers in which the British army was described as "Lions led by donkeys", Clark's book did much to cement the popular reputation of the British generals on the Western Front as ignorant, callous, and incompetent.

In this excellent book, the late [a:Robin Neillands|3890|Robin Neillands|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1337351543p2/3890.jpg] takes aim at Clark's thesis and destroys it (even the famous conversation probably didn't take place). Focusing, like Clark, on 1915, the forgotten year on the Western Front, Neillands shows that the British generals were actually, for the most part, reasonably quick learners seeking innovative solutions for dreadful strategic and tactical problems which were not of their making. The exception, a bona fide donkey according to Neillands, is Sir John French, Commander in Chief of the BEF until his sacking in the aftermath of Loos.

The last few years have seen a deluge of real scholarship on the First World War which has left few of the old myths intact. Not only is this book an excellent addition to that field, it is also a fascinating look at an often overlooked part of the war. ( )

This is a follow up to the author's book The Old Contemptibles about the first four months of the British Expeditionary Force's war in France until the end of 1914. Unfortunately, I found this even drier to read than that book sometimes was. When he analyses developments, rather than recounting battle formations, he is on much more readable ground, and his analysis of the conduct of the Generals in refuting the long-lasting myth dismissing them as "donkeys", is convincing when placing that conduct in the context of the times, the ill-preparedness of British society and the munitions industry for full scale warfare, and the stark unsuitability of the means of communication available to the forces when compared to the means of destruction. That said, he analyses clinically the mistakes they did make, especially those of the clearly unsuited for top command Sir John French.

Again, this Kindle edition lacked maps or photos and there were a fair number of typos, so not the best reading experience. ( )