"Lions led by donkeys" is a phrase popularly used to describe the

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

infantry Infantry is a military specialization which engages in ground combat on foot. Infantry generally consists of light infantry, mountain infantry, motorized infantry & mechanized infantry, airborne infantry, air assault infantry, and mar ...

of the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

and to blame the

general A general officer is an officer of high rank in the armies, and in some nations' air forces, space forces, and marines or naval infantry. In some usages the term "general officer" refers to a rank above colonel."general, adj. and n.". O ...

s who led them. The contention is that the brave soldiers (

lion The lion (''Panthera leo'') is a large cat of the genus '' Panthera'' native to Africa and India. It has a muscular, broad-chested body; short, rounded head; round ears; and a hairy tuft at the end of its tail. It is sexually dimorphic; adu ...

s) were sent to their deaths by incompetent and indifferent leaders (

donkey The domestic donkey is a hoofed mammal in the family Equidae, the same family as the horse. It derives from the African wild ass, ''Equus africanus'', and may be classified either as a subspecies thereof, ''Equus africanus asinus'', or as ...

s). The phrase was the source of the title of one of the most scathing examinations of British First World War generals, ''The Donkeys''—a study of

Western Front Western Front or West Front may refer to: Military frontiers * Western Front (World War I), a military frontier to the west of Germany *Western Front (World War II), a military frontier to the west of Germany *Western Front (Russian Empire), a maj ...

offensives—by politician and writer of military histories

Alan Clark Alan Kenneth Mackenzie Clark (13 April 1928 – 5 September 1999) was a British Conservative Member of Parliament (MP), author and diarist. He served as a junior minister in Margaret Thatcher's governments at the Departments of Employment, ...

. The book typified the mainstream First World War history of the 1960s, was vetted by

Basil Liddell Hart Sir Basil Henry Liddell Hart (31 October 1895 – 29 January 1970), commonly known throughout most of his career as Captain B. H. Liddell Hart, was a British soldier, military historian and military theorist. He wrote a series of military histor ...

Ion Trewin Ion Courtenay Gill Trewin (13 July 1943 – 8 April 2015) was a British editor, publisher and author. Biography Born in London, the son of J. C. Trewin and Wendy Trewin (''née'' Monk), Ion Trewin was educated at Highgate School. He was the lit ...

, ''Alan Clark: The Biography'' Weidenfeld & Nicolson 2009, p 160. and helped to form a popular view of the First World War (in the English-speaking world) in the decades that followed. However, the work's viewpoint of incompetent military leaders was never accepted by some mainstream historians, and both the book and its viewpoint have been criticised.

Origin

The origin of the phrase pre-dates the First World War.

Plutarch Plutarch (; grc-gre, Πλούταρχος, ''Ploútarchos''; ; – after AD 119) was a Greek Middle Platonist philosopher, historian, biographer, essayist, and priest at the Temple of Apollo in Delphi. He is known primarily for hi ...

attributed to

Chabrias Chabrias ( el, Χαβρίας; bef. 420–357 BC) was an Athenian general active in the first half of the 4th century BC. During his career he was involved in several battles, both on land and sea. The orator Demosthenes described him as one ...

the saying that "an army of deer commanded by a lion is more to be feared than an army of lions commanded by a deer". An ancient Arabian proverb says "An army of sheep led by a lion would defeat an army of lions led by a sheep". During the

Crimean War The Crimean War, , was fought from October 1853 to February 1856 between Russia and an ultimately victorious alliance of the Ottoman Empire, France, the United Kingdom and Piedmont-Sardinia. Geopolitical causes of the war included the ...

, a letter was reportedly sent home by a British soldier quoting a Russian officer who had said that British soldiers were "lions commanded by donkeys". This was immediately after the failure to storm the fortress of Sevastopol which, if true, would take the saying back to 1854–55. The phrase is quoted in Anna Stoddart's 1906 book ''The Life of Isabella Bird'' in the scene where Isabella, en route for America in 1854, passes a troopship taking the Scot's Greys out to Balaclava. These and other Crimean War references were included in British

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a fourth television service ...

television's ''The Crimean War'' series (1997) and the accompanying book (Michael Hargreave Mawson, expert reader).

Karl Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...

and

Frederick Engels Friedrich Engels ( ,"Engels"
'' James Simpson's military leadership of the assault on the Great Redan. ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' ( ...

'' reportedly recycled the phrase as "lions led by donkeys" with reference to

French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...

soldiers during the Franco-Prussian War: There were numerous examples of its use during the First World War, referring to both the British and the Germans.Rees, Nigel. ''Brewer's Famous Quotations''. Weidenfeld & Nicolson (2006) In ''Rising Sun and Tumbling Bear: Russia's

War War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular o ...

with Japan'' (2003),

Richard Connaughton Richard Michael Connaughton (born 20 January 1942) is a British Army officer and author specialised in military history. Life Connaughton was educated at Duke of York's Royal Military School in Dover, Kent and the Royal Military Academy Sandhur ...

attributed a later quotation to Colonel J. M. Grierson (later Sir James Grierson) in 1901, when reporting on the Russian contingent to the

Boxer Rebellion The Boxer Rebellion, also known as the Boxer Uprising, the Boxer Insurrection, or the Yihetuan Movement, was an Xenophobia, anti-foreign, anti-colonialism, anti-colonial, and Persecution of Christians#China, anti-Christian uprising in China ...

, describing them as 'lions led by asses'.

More recent usage

In the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

Erwin Rommel Johannes Erwin Eugen Rommel () (15 November 1891 – 14 October 1944) was a German field marshal during World War II. Popularly known as the Desert Fox (, ), he served in the ''Wehrmacht'' (armed forces) of Nazi Germany, as well as servi ...

said it about the British after he captured

Tobruk Tobruk or Tobruck (; grc, Ἀντίπυργος, ''Antipyrgos''; la, Antipyrgus; it, Tobruch; ar, طبرق, Tubruq ''Ṭubruq''; also transliterated as ''Tobruch'' and ''Tubruk'') is a port city on Libya's eastern Mediterranean coast, near ...

. In early 2019, the

hashtag A hashtag is a metadata tag that is prefaced by the hash (also known as pound or octothorpe) sign, ''#''. On social media, hashtags are used on microblogging and photo-sharing services such as Twitter or Instagram as a form of user-generated ...

'' #LedByDonkeys'' was coined by an anti-

Brexit Brexit (; a portmanteau of "British exit") was the Withdrawal from the European Union, withdrawal of the United Kingdom (UK) from the European Union (EU) at 23:00 Greenwich Mean Time, GMT on 31 January 2020 (00:00 1 February 2020 Central Eur ...

campaign group that highlights perceived hypocritical statements by British politicians.

Attribution

Evelyn, Princess Blücher, an Englishwoman who lived in Berlin during the First World War, in her memoir published in 1921, recalled

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

general

Erich Ludendorff Erich Friedrich Wilhelm Ludendorff (9 April 1865 – 20 December 1937) was a German general, politician and military theorist. He achieved fame during World War I for his central role in the German victories at Liège and Tannenberg in 1914. ...

at German General Headquarters () praise the British for their bravery: "I will put it exactly as I heard it straight from the Grosse Hauptquartier: 'The English Generals are wanting in strategy. We should have no chance if they possessed as much science as their officers and men had of courage and bravery. They are lions led by donkeys.'" The phrase ''Lions Led by Donkeys'' was used as a title for a book published in 1927, by

Captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police department, election precinct, e ...

P. A. Thompson. The subtitle of this book was "Showing how victory in the Great War was achieved by those who made the fewest mistakes". Alan Clark based the title of his book ''The Donkeys'' (1961) on the phrase. Prior to publication in a letter to Hugh Trevor Roper, he asked "English soldiers, lions led by donkeys etc. – can ''you'' remember who said that?" Liddell Hart, although he did not dispute the veracity of the quote, had asked Clark for its origins. Whatever Trevor Roper's reply, Clark eventually used the phrase as an epigraph to ''The Donkeys'' and attributed it to a conversation between German generals

and

Max Hoffmann Carl Adolf Maximilian Hoffmann (25 January 1869 – 8 July 1927) was a German military strategist. As a staff officer at the beginning of World War I, he was Deputy Chief of Staff of the 8th Army, soon promoted Chief of Staff. Hoffmann, along w ...

: The conversation was supposedly published in the memoirs of General

Erich von Falkenhayn General Erich Georg Sebastian Anton von Falkenhayn (11 September 1861 – 8 April 1922) was the second Chief of the German General Staff of the First World War from September 1914 until 29 August 1916. He was removed on 29 August 1916 after ...

, the

Chief of the German General Staff The German General Staff, originally the Prussian General Staff and officially the Great General Staff (german: Großer Generalstab), was a full-time body at the head of the Prussian Army and later, the German Army, responsible for the continuou ...

of the German Army between 1914 and 1916, but the exchange and the memoirs remain untraced. A correspondent to ''The Daily Telegraph'', in July 1963, wrote that librarians in London and

Stuttgart Stuttgart (; Swabian: ; ) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Baden-Württemberg. It is located on the Neckar river in a fertile valley known as the ''Stuttgarter Kessel'' (Stuttgart Cauldron) and lies an hour from the Sw ...

had not traced the quotation and a letter to Clark was unanswered. Clark was equivocal about the source for the dialogue for many years, although in 2007 a friend Euan Graham, recalled a conversation in the mid-sixties, when Clark on being challenged as to the provenance of the dialogue, looked sheepish and said "well I invented it". At one time Clark claimed that Liddell Hart had given him the quote (unlikely as Hart had asked him where it came from) and Clark's biographer believes he invented the Ludendorff-Hoffmann attribution. This invention provided critics of ''The Donkeys'' with an opportunity to condemn the work. Richard Holmes, wrote:

Popular culture

The musical ''

Oh, What a Lovely War! ''Oh, What a Lovely War!'' is an epic musical developed by Joan Littlewood and her ensemble at the Theatre Workshop in 1963. It is a satire on World War I, and by extension on war in general. The title is derived from the "somewhat satirical ...

'' (1963) and the comedy television series ''

Blackadder Goes Forth ''Blackadder Goes Forth'' is the fourth series of the BBC sitcom ''Blackadder'', written by Richard Curtis and Ben Elton, which aired from 28 September to 2 November 1989 on BBC1. The series placed the recurring characters of Blackadder, Bald ...

'' (1989) are two well-known works of popular culture, depicting the war as a matter of incompetent donkeys sending noble (or sometimes ignoble, in the case of ''Blackadder'') lions to their doom. Such works are in the literary tradition of the war poets like

Wilfred Owen Wilfred Edward Salter Owen MC (18 March 1893 – 4 November 1918) was an English poet and soldier. He was one of the leading poets of the First World War. His war poetry on the horrors of trenches and gas warfare was much influenced b ...

Siegfried Sassoon Siegfried Loraine Sassoon (8 September 1886 – 1 September 1967) was an English war poet, writer, and soldier. Decorated for bravery on the Western Front, he became one of the leading poets of the First World War. His poetry both describ ...

and

Erich Maria Remarque Erich Maria Remarque (, ; born Erich Paul Remark; 22 June 1898 – 25 September 1970) was a German-born novelist. His landmark novel ''All Quiet on the Western Front'' (1928), based on his experience in the Imperial German Army during World ...

's novel (and subsequent film) ''

All Quiet on the Western Front ''All Quiet on the Western Front'' (german: Im Westen nichts Neues, lit=Nothing New in the West) is a novel by Erich Maria Remarque, a German veteran of World War I. The book describes the German soldiers' extreme physical and mental trauma ...

'', which have been criticised by some historians, such as Brian Bond, for having given rise to what Bond considered the myth and conventional wisdom of the "necessary and successful" Great War as futile. Bond objected to the way that, in the 1960s, the works of Remarque and the "Trench Poets" slipped into a "nasty caricature" and perpetuated the "myth" of lions led by donkeys, while "the more complicated true history of the war receded ... into the background". Producers of television documentaries about the war have had to grapple with the "lions led by donkeys" interpretive frame since the 1960s. The 1964 seminal and award-winning

BBC Television BBC Television is a service of the BBC. The corporation has operated a public broadcast television service in the United Kingdom, under the terms of a royal charter, since 1927. It produced television programmes from its own studios from 193 ...

The Great War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

'' has been described as taking a moderate approach, with co-scriptwriter

John Terraine John Alfred Terraine (15 January 1921 – 28 December 2003
''The Independent'', 23 January 2 ...

fighting against what he viewed as an oversimplification, while Liddell Hart resigned as an advising historian to the series, in an open letter to ''

'', in part over a dispute with Terraine, claiming that he minimised the faults of the High Command on The Somme and other concerns regarding the treatment of Third Ypres. ''The Great War'' was viewed by about a fifth of the adult population in Britain and the production of documentaries on the war has continued ever since. While recent documentaries such as Channel 4's 2003 ''The First World War'' have confronted the popular image of lions led by donkeys, by reflecting current scholarship presenting more nuanced portrayals of British leaders and more balanced appraisals of the difficulties faced by the High Commands of all the combatants, they have been viewed by far fewer members of the public than either 1964's ''The Great War'' or comedies such as ''Blackadder''. The name of British anti-

political campaign group

Led By Donkeys Led By Donkeys is a British political campaign group, established in December 2018 as an anti-Brexit group, but which has also criticised other actions of the Conservative government. Since the group's creation its four founders have been callin ...

was inspired by the saying. The activists thought it aptly described the relationship between the British people and their Brexit leaders.

Criticism

Brian Bond, in editing a 1991 collection of essays on First World War history, expressed the collective desire of the authors to move beyond "popular stereotypes of ''The Donkeys''", while acknowledging that serious leadership mistakes were made and that the authors would do little to rehabilitate the reputations of the senior commanders on the Somme.

Hew Strachan Sir Hew Francis Anthony Strachan ( ), (born 1 September 1949) is a British military historian, well known for his leadership in scholarly studies of the British Army and the history of the First World War. He is currently professor of internatio ...

quoted Maurice Genevoix for the proposition " it is neither desirable nor good that the professional historian prevail over the veteran; it is also not good that the veteran prevail over the historian" and then proceeded to take Liddell Hart to task for "suppressing the culminating battles of the war", thus "allow nghis portrayal of British generals to assume an easy continuum, from incompetence on the Western Front to conservatism in the 1920s...." While British leadership at the beginning of the war made costly mistakes, by 1915–16 the General Staff were making great efforts to lessen British casualties through better tactics ( night attacks, creeping barrages and

air power Airpower or air power consists of the application of military aviation, military strategy and strategic theory to the realm of aerial warfare and close air support. Airpower began in the advent of powered flight early in the 20th century. Airp ...

) and weapons technology (

poison gas Many gases have toxic properties, which are often assessed using the LC50 (median lethal dose) measure. In the United States, many of these gases have been assigned an NFPA 704 health rating of 4 (may be fatal) or 3 (may cause serious or perma ...

and later the arrival of the

tank A tank is an armoured fighting vehicle intended as a primary offensive weapon in front-line ground combat. Tank designs are a balance of heavy firepower, strong armour, and good battlefield mobility provided by tracks and a powerful ...

). British generals were not the only ones to make mistakes about the nature of modern conflict: the Russian armies too suffered badly during the first years of the war, most notably at the

Battle of Tannenberg The Battle of Tannenberg, also known as the Second Battle of Tannenberg, was fought between Russia and Germany between 26 and 30 August 1914, the first month of World War I. The battle resulted in the almost complete destruction of the Russ ...

. German tactics are routinely criticised for involving the immediate counterattacking of lost ground, leading to lopsided losses in essentially defensive actions. To many generals who had fought

colonial war Colonial war (in some contexts referred to as small war) is a blanket term relating to the various conflicts that arose as the result of overseas territories being settled by foreign powers creating a colony. The term especially refers to wars ...

s during the second half of the 19th century, where the

Napoleonic Napoleon Bonaparte ; it, Napoleone Bonaparte, ; co, Napulione Buonaparte. (born Napoleone Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military commander and political leader wh ...

concepts of discipline and pitched battles were still successful, fighting another highly industrialized power with equal and sometimes superior technology required an extreme change in thinking. Later, Strachan, in reviewing ''Aspects of the British experience of the First World War'' edited by Michael Howard, observed that "In the study of the First World War in particular, the divide between professionals and amateurs has never been firmly fixed". Strachan points out that revisionists take strong exception to the amateurs, particularly in the media, with whom they disagree, while at the same time

Gary Sheffield Gary Antonian Sheffield (born November 18, 1968) is an American former professional baseball outfielder who played in Major League Baseball for eight teams from 1988 to 2009. He is a sports agent. For most of his career, Sheffield played rig ...

welcomes to the revisionist cause the work of many "hobby"-ists who only later migrated to academic study.Hew Strachan ''Back to the trenches – Why can't British historians be less insular about the First World War?'' The Sunday Times November 5, 2008
/ref> Gordon Corrigan, for example, did not even consider Clark to be a historian. The phrase "lions led by donkeys" has been said to have produced a false, or at least very incomplete, picture of generalship in the First World War, giving an impression of Generals as "château Generals", living in splendour, indifferent to the sufferings of the men under their command, only interested in

cavalry charges Historically, cavalry (from the French word ''cavalerie'', itself derived from "cheval" meaning "horse") are soldiers or warriors who fight mounted on horseback. Cavalry were the most mobile of the combat arms, operating as light cavalry in ...

and shooting cowards. One historian wrote that "the idea that they were indifferent to the sufferings of their men is constantly refuted by the facts, and only endures because some commentators wish to perpetuate the myth that these generals, representing the upper classes, did not give a damn what happened to the lower orders". Some current academic opinion has described this school of thought as "discredited".Sheffield, Gary. ''The Somme'', pp. xiv–xv. Strachan quotes Gavin Stamp, who bemoans "a new generation of military historians", who seem as "callous and jingoistic" as Haig, while himself referring to the "ill-informed diatribes of Wolff and Clark".

Dan Snow Daniel Robert Snow (born 3 December 1978) is a British popular historian and television presenter. Early life and education Born in Westminster, London Dan Snow is the youngest son of Peter Snow, BBC television journalist, and Canadian Ann M ...

wrote in the

Guardian Guardian usually refers to: * Legal guardian, a person with the authority and duty to care for the interests of another * ''The Guardian'', a British daily newspaper (The) Guardian(s) may also refer to: Places * Guardian, West Virginia, Unit ...

br>My family's dark Somme secret
"Delving into his own ancestors' past, Dan Snow was stunned to discover that his great-grandfather Thomas Snow was a first world war general who sent thousands to die". Subsequently Snow wrote an article for the BBC in 2014 discussing 10 big myths about World War One debunked in which he posits the idea that "Much of what we think we know about the 1914-18 conflict is wrong" and that "''This saying (Lions led by donkeys) was supposed to have come from senior German commanders describing brave British soldiers led by incompetent old toffs from their chateaux. In fact the incident was made up by

.'' " While Clark is said to have admitted to his imagining "the incident" this does not impact on the appropriate (or otherwise) use of the phrase, since a book with this title had been published by Captain Peter Thompson in 1927 (through an independent publisher, T W Laurie). Thompson was a well-travelled writer who had served in the Royal Army Service Corps – a forerunner to the current Royal Logistics Corps. He was part of a small but growing group of soldiers-turned-writers who used their prodigious talents to raise profound questions about the nature and management of World War One.

References

External links

''The Donkeys'' (1962) archive.org

* ttp://www.warstudies.bham.ac.uk/firstworldwar/ma/index.shtml University of Birmingham Centre for First World War Studies: Lions Led By Donkeys
National archives: Learning Curve WW1

BBC History's World War's in Depth: World War One
{{World War I Adages United Kingdom in World War I Military leadership