The Myth of Great Men — War and Peace

Tolstoy interrupts narrative to argue with historians. The French campaign after Moscow was a flight in which the crowd destroyed itself; attributing each movement to Napoleon's will should have broken the great-man theory, yet libraries claim profound plans and marshal genius. Tolstoy mocks explanations for retreats down devastated roads when better routes existed, and hero tales at Krasnoe where Napoleon waved a birch stick, said he had played emperor long enough and would act general, then ran again abandoning fragments of army. Ney's night escape loses standards, artillery, and nine tenths of his men yet becomes soul greatness in books. Napoleon's fur-coat departure is labeled characteristic genius. When facts resist praise, historians invoke greatness that sits outside right and wrong. Tolstoy rejects the category: for him, with Christ's measure, no human action is beyond moral judgment and there is no greatness without simplicity, goodness, and truth. The chapter is historiographic critique: myth protects power by renaming cowardice and collapse as destiny.