I think you do not understand the mindset of subservience which existed before WWI. Soldiers fought not because they were afraid of the officers, or because they thought that the cause that the officers were asking them to fight for was just, but because not to have done the bidding of the higher classes was unthinkable. The monarchy, the aristocracy, had been put in their place by God, and not to obey them was not just treason, it was blasphemy. WWI broke this mentality in the UK, I think it still existed elsewhere. And it is experiencing a renaissance today.