The Military Hazards of Arrogance

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.

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