Among young men in Britain, 1 in 8 were killed in WWI. However, among those going to Oxford, Cambridge and their feeder schools, the number rises to 1 in 5. The leadership class, for all its flaws, took a lead in the risks of war.
One might wonder what would happen in a society when its more educated class virtually never went to war and never took the riskier tasks in any war. What sort of foreign policy decisions would such leaders make?
I remember reading an officer’s memoir once where he went on about how you couldn’t find a place along the trenches where young men weren’t engaged in discussing Thomas Hardy’s _Tess of the Du’bervilles_.
Much of the reason for the difference between these sorts of societies has to do with the rewards that come from taking risks; there was much to be gained (either in prestige or materially) for the educated class in the UK of the day. If there is nothing to be gained on a personal level should they survive, there will be little reason for educated people to stick their necks out.
I am curious, however, as to the effects on British society over the years stemming from the loss of so many of the highly educated, especially given the fact that they were a small portion of the population to begin with.
“One might wonder what would happen in a society when its more educated class virtually never went to war and never took the riskier tasks in any war. What sort of foreign policy decisions would such leaders make?”
–You mean like our nation?
Niall Ferguson’s book, The Pity of War, has a good discussion of the social pressures that were put on young men in England to enlist for the war. You really risked being labeled a coward if you stayed home.