For a lot of us it is looking at things from a different angle. However here is a link to a journal from German soldier during the great war.
So much is made of the British Commanders living in palatial surroundings while the commoners suffered. Sounds like it wasn’t one sided.
He went on furlough in September 1915 ( 100 years ago ! ) and ran to The Netherlands whilst on leave, then made for America the next March in case Holland was dragged into the war.
Bearing in mind the nature of when and where it was published, under a convenient anonymity, 'New Yorker Volkszeitung*, the principal organ of the German speaking Socialists in the United States’*, just before the USA entered the War, I wouldn’t be surprised if much of it is propagandist writing, not merely for the socialists against war ( which still persisted in the American section of Socialism, when all but them had fled on the outbreak of war ), but for the warmongers also.
However it is wholly unreasonable to expect that grand commanders should share the same privations and live as do their men: they never have, and wouldn’t be able to operate their command, leading to a speedy collapse of the army. Plus once captured that’s game over.
According to Robert Graves in Goodbye to All That, they discovered that the German officers kept themselves out of the trenches and let their NCOs run things. Or, as Graves’ own sergeant put it, they “didn’t see any point to keeping a dog and doing their own barking.”
Yes Slithy Tove. I was going to refer to the book and also that Guderian and Rommel hardly kept themselves out of the front line. They never hid themselves back in shelters as did Lloyd Fredenall.
And officers of lesser rank and NCO’s have a duty ot be aware of situations. They don’t need to fight the war in the trenches but they need to be able to direct the conflict in their sector. In so much as they can.