Origins of The Phrase
The origins of the phrase pre-date the First World War. During the Crimean War a letter was reportedly sent home by a British soldier quoting a Russian officer who had said that British soldiers were ‘lions commanded by asses'. This was immediately after the failed attempt to storm the fortress of Sevastopol and, if verified, this citation would take the saying back to 1854‑5. These and other Crimean war references were included in the 1997, British Channel 4 TV’s The Crimean War series and accompanying book (Michael Hargreave Mawson, expert reader). The Times reportedly recycled the phrase as "lions led by donkeys" with reference to French soldiers during the Franco-Prussian War: ‘Unceasingly they had had drummed into them the utterances of the “Times”: “You are lions led by jackasses.” Alas! The very lions had lost their manes’, Paris During the Siege, Chap. 3, translated from Le Siège de Paris (both editions 1871).’ There were numerous examples of its use during the First World War, referring to both the British and the Germans." Richard Connaughton's book Rising sun and tumbling bear: Russia's war with Japan (p 32), also attributes a later quotation to Colonel J. M. Grierson (later Sir James Grierson) in 1901, when reporting on the Russian contingent to the Boxer Rebellion, describing them as 'lions led by asses'.
Read more about this topic: Lions Led By Donkeys
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