The "lions led by donkeys" myth is far truer of republican and democratic governance than it is of aristocratic and monarchial rule. World War I saw British aristocrats dying on the front lines at a higher rate than the general population.
In the United States, we had hit songs written about how wealthy politicans exempted their children from the Vietnam draft.
Rickey Gervais has a joke about this.
Wilfred Owen-type English officers writing poetry, while the soldiers scream at them to pick up a rifle and fight.