Great War Generals Are Lampooned As Donkeys. ; My Great-Grandfather's Story Reveals the Truth: Too
Mail on Sunday › April 24, 2011
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Summary
Like many children of my generation, I learnt my history from the BBC's Blackadder; when it came to the First World War, I thought Stephen Fry's portrayal of blustering, incompetent General Melchett was entirely accurate. Generals were aristocratic, callous and quite possibly bloodthirsty. Even now, it is widely thought senior officers were 'donkeys' who sent 'lions', the brave young troops, to their slaughter.
A more maligned group of men in British history it would be hard to find.See the full content of this document
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Great War Generals Are Lampooned As Donkeys. ; My Great-Grandfather's Story Reveals the Truth: Too
There was a portrait of one of these absurd generals hanging in our family home. He has the trademark Snow features: Roman nose, squinty eyes and a box-like skull. He sits in military khaki, red tabs on his collar, a chest packed with medals, glaring out as if staring down the Mahdi of Sudan, King Cetshwayo's elite Zulu warriors or the Kaiser's troops, all of whom he faced in a long Army career. This was my great-grandfather, Lieutenant-General Sir Thomas D'Oyly Snow, one of the commanders on the Western Front.
We knew he had been there on the first day of the S...See the full content of this document
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