That generation of officers died, for the most part; being unfit to survive or to serve the purpose under these modern conditions of warfare, to which their enemy on the other hand had adapted themselves with easy facility from beforehand.

The gentlemanly qualifications, and the material apparatus of gentility, and, it will perhaps have to be admitted, the gentlemen, have fallen into the background, or perhaps rather have measurably fallen into abeyance, among the officers of the line.

There may be more doubt as to the state of things in respect of the gentility of the staff, but the best that can confidently be said is that it is a point in doubt.
It is hoped that one may say without offense that in the course of time the personnel has apparently worked down to the level of vulgarity defined by the ways and means of this modern warfare; which means the level on which runs a familiar acquaintance with large and complex mechanical apparatus, railway and highway transport and power, reenforced concrete, excavations and mud, more particularly mud, concealment and ambush, and unlimited deceit and ferocity.

It is not precisely that persons of pedigree and gentle breeding have ceased to enter or seek entrance to employment as officers, still less that measures have been taken to restrain their doing so or to eliminate from the service those who have come into it--though there may present itself a doubt on this point as touches the more responsible discretionary positions--but only that the stock of suitable gentlemen, uncommonly large as it is, has been overdrawn; that those who have latterly gone into service, or stayed in, have perforce divested themselves of their gentility in some appreciable measure, particularly as regards class distinction, and have fallen on their feet in the more commonplace role of common men.
Serviceability in this modern warfare is conditioned on much the same traits of temperament and training that make for usefulness in the modern industrial processes, where large-scale coordinations of movement and an effective familiarity with precise and far-reaching mechanical processes is an indispensable requirement,--indispensable in the same measure as the efficient conduct of this modern machine industry is indispensable.

But the British gentleman, in so far as he runs true to type, is of no use to modern industry; quite the contrary, in fact.
Still, the British gentleman is, in point of heredity, the same thing over again as the British common man; so that, barring the misdirected training that makes him a gentleman, and which can largely be undone under urgent need and pressure, he can be made serviceable for such uses as the modern warfare requires.