Donkey business
Sir: I do wish we could nail for ever the `donkeys and lions' myth about the first world war (Letters, 7 June).
The exchange was first recorded in the front pages of Alan Clark's book The Don- keys in 1961. It runs thus: Ludendorff: The English soldiers fight like lions.
Hoffman: True. But don't we know they are lions led by donkeys?
In subsequent, garbled versions the 'don- keys' reference was attributed to General Ludendorff, rather than the acerbic Colonel Hoffman.
The trouble is that the quotation cannot be found in any official literature. In 1963 an enterprising Daily Telegraph reader approached the Imperial War Museum and the Library for Contemporary World War Literature in Stuttgart. They had no record of the exchange in their archives, and it is not to be found in the various biographies of Ludendorff, Hoffman and, for good measure, Falkenhayn and von Moltke.
I myself have written to Alan Clark for elucidation. With his usual combination of charming manners and pseudo-aristocratic pretensions, he has not deigned to reply.
In this mysterious affair the only clearly identified donkey seems to be Master Clark, except that he was cunning enough to devise an arresting title for a less than impressive book.
Ronald Spark
19 The Rotyngs, Rottingdean, East Sussex
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