It was Sun Tzu in The Art of War who said that chaos in the ranks would lead to failure. In this case, it led to stalemate, basically, because the trenches were an ongoing theater in WWI basically the whole time, and neither side could think of strategies to overcome the new, unimaginable weaponry of the other side. Sun Tzu also observed what several of the characters notice in this book—the best outcome for war is not victory, it is peace, to not have to settle dilemmas through violence is ultimately the best path, given what the book presents us.
Notice how broken the army is. To say it is broken is the negative way of notice it, and the positive way is to say it is limited by the real nature of man. So, when the army treats its supposedly equal soldiers in a privileged way, that is a serious problem, because it means that instead of there being order, there is the chaos brought on by imbalance. The soldiers begin to grow tired of their mistreatment, while they watch other people being pampered.
That is, until they start getting shot at. When the horror of WWI befalls them, they realize that their understanding of war was completely misguided. Yes, in the past, there were only muskets, horses, and lines of firing squads, essentially. But now, it seems there is a different fate befalling them, a new, horrific fate, full of chemical weapons, tanks, machine guns, sniper rifles, and the horrors of trench warfare. In the chaos of war, all men are equal, and their cooperation before the battle determines their success.
