I don't subscribe to the trite "lions led by donkeys" depiction of WW1, and we should be extremely careful of accepting latter-day depictions ("Oh What a Lovely War", "Blackadder Goes Forth" etc) as remotely accurate. To put things in context, more British Army General Officers were killed during the Battle of Loos in 1915 than were killed during the ENTIRE Second World War. Some 97 British General Officers were killed during WW1 and a further 146 were captured...that kind of thing doesn't happen if you're sitting on your backside in the rear areas.
You should also be VERY careful when talking about the "officer class" as a homogenous grouping. The British Army went through roughly 3 "generations" of officers. The first generation were the pre-war professional soldiers, most of whom became casualties in 1914-1915. The second generation came in 1915-1916 and was drawn from the upper echelons of society but not everyone was "landed gentry". Many were middle-class sons of educated or professional men. Bear in mind that many of this "officer class" group went to war with men from their local environment, and they fought and died in the trenches alongside them. Casualty rates for officers were far higher than for private soldiers because the junior officers (Major and below) had to lead from the front...with obvious consequences. To cite the example of just one upper-class school, Eton College saw 5,660 boys go to war and 1,157 of them - more than 20 per cent - were killed (not casualties, which includes wounded, but killed outright). Historian Richard Holmes has termed the losses in 1915-1917 "the greatest holocaust of the male British aristocracy since the Wars of the Roses four centuries previously." Average life expectancy for junior officers in front-line units was just 6 weeks. The final generation of officers was needed because the "officer class" was getting wiped out in the fighting. This last generation comprised experienced enlisted soldiers with proven leadership experience who were selected for commissioning. You'd have a hard time convincing me that members of that generation disregarded the welfare of their men.
I strongly recommend you read "The Anger of the Guns", a personal account of the travails of a junior officer in the Rifle Brigade. It was written not for publication but for his family's consumption, and hence provides a pretty unvarnished description of his experiences...including the efforts he took to avoid getting in harm's way and his daily care for his soldiers. Many such young, junior officers ended up having to take on unprecedented responsibility. There were many instances of battalions going into battle and coming out with a single Captain as the senior officer...and it rested on his shoulders to rebuild the battalion (and typically without returning to the UK for said reformation). Thus some very young officers suddenly found themselves being promoted to Colonel rank, just one step below Brigaider General.
The Western Front was frequently muddy, bloody carnage with weather playing a major role in the fighting. It was also evolutionary in nature as both sides sought ways to break the deadlock while struggling to determine how best to wage war in the industrial age. Were there poor decisions? Yes, absolutely - some were unaccountably stupid. But we should be extremely cautious of citing that as the norm. Equally, suggesting that the officers in general, or the senior officers in particular, had no regard for their men misrepresents the reality.