In the natural selection of the trenches of the Western Front, good leaders found their place.
Sometimes it was simply a private taking over from a fallen corporal or a young lieutenant showing he had what was needed to lead under fire.
One who rose to the very top was General Sir John Monash, who was among the many officers who departed Australia in the opening months of the Great War.
The former civil engineer and militia soldier is now widely regarded as Australia's greatest ever military commander, the right man for the only occasion when Australian forces contributed significantly to victory against the main enemy on the principal field of global conflict.
In the heady period from the Battle of Hamel on July 4 through to October 5, 1918, Monash presided over a succession of victories as the Australian Corps, together with the Canadian Corps and several British formations, virtually spearheaded the British army in successful attacks on the German army.
For this, he was knighted in the field and many other accolades followed.
Melbourne's Monash University is named in his honour, as is a local government area in Melbourne, a town in South Australia, a suburb in Canberra and more. His face graces the $100 note.
A new interpretive centre at Villers-Bretonneux, France is named the Sir John Monash Centre, has been opened on the eve of Anzac Day. As well, a new statue of Monash will be placed in the grounds of the Australian War Memorial.
But there are some who insist that is not enough and that he should also be posthumously promoted to Field Marshal.
A group of past and present politicians, led by former deputy prime minister Tim Fischer, insist now is the appropriate time to give this recognition to a man who, they say, was denied this honour during his lifetime for various reasons, including his Jewish-German heritage.
Sir Thomas Blamey, who commanded all Australian forces in WWII- far more than Monash ever commanded - remains the first and only Australian Field Marshal, promoted in 1951, three months before he died.
The only current Australian Field Marshal is Prince Philip, an honorary rank conferred on April 1, 1954.
Monash was promoted from Lieutenant General to General in 1929, long after he had left the Army but while he still remained on the active list of officers.
However, the Turnbull government has resisted the push, saying there is no precedent for the posthumous promotion.
"I can't think of a single serving senior military person in Australia right now who believes that a promotion is warranted," Veteran Affairs Minister Darren Chester said last week.
"That is not being disrespectful in anyway to Monash himself."
Australian War Memorial head of military history Ashley Ekins said there was a similar, unsuccessful proposal back in the late 1920s to early 1930s.
He said posthumous military decorations and occasionally promotions were common for those killed in combat.
"But there are few acceptable precedents for retrospective military promotions being made in other cases," he said.
John Monash was born in Melbourne in June 1865.
A young man of ferocious intellect, he graduated in arts, law and engineering, becoming a successful civil engineer.
He also took an early interest in the military, joining the militia at 19 and rising through the ranks.
Yet at the outbreak of war, few would have seen great potential in this portly middle-aged engineer.
In that era of rampant nationalism and casual bigotry, Monash's German-Jewish background marked him out from other officers.
At Gallipoli, he commanded the 4th Brigade, though not with any great distinction, and later the new 3rd Division.
Official correspondent Charles Bean, initially no great fan of Monash, noted that the higher he rose, the better Monash became as he could make use of his formidable planning and organisational skills.
Monash was appointed commander of the five divisions in the new Australian corps in May 1918.
Bean and fellow correspondent Keith Murdoch (father of Rupert) initially sought to white-ant Monash in favour of Cyril Brudenell White.
The then prime minister Billy Hughes prudently sought his own advice and stuck by Monash.
White was unquestionably an officer of supreme ability - he would have commanded all Australian forces in World War Two were he not killed in a plane crash in 1940.
But Monash stood tall and his abilities were amply demonstrated at the Battle of Hamel on July 4.
Through meticulous planning, clear direction and imaginative employment of infantry, artillery, tanks and aircraft, victory was absolute.
Monash calculated it would take 90 minutes. It actually took 93. More such victories were soon to follow.
Monash believed in feeding his soldiers a steady diet of victory.
But he also thought that at times they needed to be pushed hard, beyond the limits of their endurance, or "what they believed were the limits of their endurance."
The cost of those final victories was high, at least 24,000 casualties including 5000 dead.
The consequence was that by early October, the Australian Corps was exhausted and with reinforcements down to a trickle, many battalions were a shadow of their former strength.
After the Battle of Montbrehain on October 5, the Australians withdrew to Abbeville for rest.
They were moving forward when the war ended just over a month later.
Monash then turned his great organisational talents to getting the troops home.
He died of a heart attack in October 1931, aged 66.
