Reading the Rick Atkinson trilogy of books on the US Army in WW2, all of the US generals seemed much more like the corporate presidents managing the various divisions of a big conglomerate and responsible to the board than they seemed like inspirational military commanders leading their men. It was all politics and competition and ego, and if you didn't deliver your quota of results that contributed to the overall bottom line, there was always someone waiting in the wings with whom you could be replaced without a second thought by upper management. The one guy I came away from those 1500 pages with a higher opinion of was Eisenhower, who did an amazing job of just holding the whole thing together, especially given how bitchy the Brits frequently were toward him.
With strong leaders, there are few 'in-betweens', people either love them or hate them. My dad worked with a guy who was in Patton's Third army, including being their when they liberated Mauthausen. He loved the man and once said he proud to have fought under his command.
“MacArthur had an insufferable ego. Likewise did Patton. An older friend of the family served with Patton, and he absolutely hated the guy.”
My Father fought with Patton in WWII and was in the 3 day march to Bastogne to relieve the 101st in the Battle of the Buldge. My Dad told me that he soon found out that he could sleep and march at the same time. The only good thing that my Dad had to say about Patton was that Patton would not send any of his troops anywhere that he himself would not go. Other than that my Dad hated him as Patton was a real SOB, and that is a quote from my Dad.
True, but then this is a commonplace characteristic of commanders of armies. They need to have a great deal of self confidence to be effective, and its all too easy for that to manifest itself in arrogance and ego and haughtiness.