I think somewhere on the thread about Audi drivers Charmion you talked about your old Sergeant and your old Corporal teaching you how to drive. So I take it that you unlike most posting here did actually do some time in the military.

That being the case how true to the above was the behaviour of the Officers and NCO's you served under? Your Officers and NCO's were taught by and maintained the traditions by those who went before them, who in turn had been taught by those who had gone before them.

The song is a bit of a humorous dig nothing more, your Canadian version is no more but a bit of the same with the net cast wider.

If you want to take it literally as a condemnation of the leadership then Charmion are you really trying to tell us that out of every rank in the Canadian Army it was only the Corporals that did the fighting and the dying?

In the British version you quote - who is it that constitutes the Battalion? All ranks, officers, NCO and men isn't it?

Nothing more than Forces "Black Humour" describing life in the trenches that are not under attack - note that "trenches" plural - there again like most contributing to this thread you have probably no idea of what that means, how they were organised, or manned during the months when absolutely nothing was happening. British troops did 1 week in the front line out of every 3 months deployed under normal circumstances.

However the best indication of how dismissive the British soldier was of the officers who commanded them is the fact that out of every 1914 combatant power by November 1918 the British, Commonwealth and Empire Armies were the only armed force that had not mutinied.

Best example of British Army "Black Humour" can be found in the pages of the "Wipers Times" Tommy's Front Line Newspaper - a publication that the High Command had they wanted to, or had ever seen the need to, could have ordered it shut down, but they didn't, they fully recognised it for what it was and also recognised it as being excellent for morale. Care to share the name of the equivalent French and German Trench Newspapers?