The Military Hazards of Arrogance
Arrogance is defined by Webster's as "full of pride, haughty, having or showing great pride in oneself and contempt for others." Ever known anyone like that?
Military people are frequently accused of being arrogant. The extremely confident air of some people gets them an accusation like this, but very often, the accusation is accurate. The profession of 'diplomacy through other means' breeds arrogance to some extent, simply because successfully using force against someone else is not a profession for milquetoasts. Some people are just plain arrogant, and others grow into it over the years. Nearly everyone has experienced the dubious pleasure of working with, or for, one of these people.
In the military, arrogance can have far reaching effects. Since commanders are the ones usually written about in the history books, they are the ones usually seen to be arrogant, and with good cause.
Napoleon didn't start out arrogant, but he rapidly became an expert in it. Highly competent, a visionary, and, literally, an empire builder; he fell prey to the idea that he could do no wrong. Moscow and Waterloo proved him wrong, but he never accepted that the failure was his. He was simply too arrogant to recognize his own shortcomings. The only general I know of that has a mental disease named after him.
George Custer didn't make an out-of-character mistake at the Little Big Horn; he simply continued his normal pattern of arrogant behavior. His first 'Little Big Horn' occurred during the Civil War, when he led his Division in a rash attack against the superior enemy force during the Valley Campaign. He nearly got his unit wiped out, and only survived because of luck and the valor of the troopers in his command. http://www.performance-vision.com/howard...
Assigned to the frontier after the war, he severely disciplined deserters when they were caught, including ordering them shot without trial. He enforced this policy even though he himself had been AWOL while taking a detachment from Ft. Wallace, Kansas to Ft. Hays, Kansas so that he could visit his wife; while he was supposed to be actively engaged against Indians. For this, and several other instances of arrogant (and illegal) behavior, he was court-martialed and remove from command for one year. http://leav-www.army.mil/history/custer.... Unfortunately, he was later reinstated, and consummated his arrogance with his suicide at the Little Big Horn.
Douglas MacArthur displayed high levels of arrogance throughout his career. His handling of the Bonus Marchers in 1932 was typical; he ignored orders from the White House to cease pursuing the marchers because, according to his aide Dwight Eisenhower, "said he was too busy," did not want to be "bothered by people coming down and pretending to bring orders,". In spite of information to the contrary, MacArthur believed that most of the march leaders were communists, and he was determined to treat them
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