what do you think of tolstoy's view of napolean in war and peace?

[fishjie]

so i finished reading war and peace and in the book, tolstoy spends a lot of time talking about how napolean was no military genius at all, and how battles back then were all decided by the morale of the individual soldiers doing the actual fighting. the generals got all the credit but did nothing. he especially goes into a lot of detail about the battle of borodino and how napolean's dispositions/orders were not even followed. and then he goes into detail about how napolean committed blunder after blunder following his "victory" at borodino, which was not really a victory at all, but a defeat.

since i never really studied the military history involving napolean, especially his campaign in russia, i was wondering if anyone else who has read war and peace, and has also studied napolean, had any opinions regarding this?

 

[Sofista]

I read War and Peace, but made no special study about the Napoleonic campaign.

So take my opinion for what it is: at one point I started to consider those chapters a waste of space, where a biased man with questionable ideas on the way history and war work ranted away.

In the end I concluded that my Russian novelist is still Fëdor.

 

[Illdisposed]

Tolstoy's view of Napoleon in "War and Peace" merely represents his philosophical opinion about the role of an individual in history, diminishing it to a minimum extent, as opposed to the importance of social, economical and cultural tendencies represented by the people en masse. One can also consider this as Tolstoy’s take on the question of whether Napoleon was a product of its time or opposite.
Such perspective, being one of the many themes in the world famous novel, allowed soviet propagandists proclaim Tolstoy as a progressive communist writer, which, of course, was based on the shaky grounds

 

[luiz]

Such perspective, being one of the many themes in the world famous novel, allowed soviet propagandists proclaim Tolstoy as a progressive communist writer, which, of course, was based on the shaky grounds

Not shaky, plain false. Tolstoy was a christian anarchist, which of course means he had no love for Napoleon (and this bias is very present in WaP), but he would also condemn the atheist and totalitarian Soviet Union.

 

[fishjie]

I read War and Peace, but made no special study about the Napoleonic campaign.

So take my opinion for what it is: at one point I started to consider those chapters a waste of space, where a biased man with questionable ideas on the way history and war work ranted away.

In the end I concluded that my Russian novelist is still Fëdor.

well, i enjoyed the sections, i just thought they were quite redundant at times. he obviously spent a lot of time trying to sort out the question of whether or not we have free will, and how it related to the war in 1812. it definitely got me thinking. i'm just wondering whether or not his description of the battle at borodino is accurate, because it sounds like he studied the dispositions and etc in depth. i also wonder at his description of napolean after borodino. after all, the facts clearly show napolean was pwned hands down, so tolstoy describing napolean as bungling the capture of moscow and the subsequent actions afterward didnt seem much of a stretch to me.

 

[Emperor2]

so i finished reading war and peace and in the book, tolstoy spends a lot of time talking about how napolean was no military genius at all, and how battles back then were all decided by the morale of the individual soldiers doing the actual fighting. the generals got all the credit but did nothing. he especially goes into a lot of detail about the battle of borodino and how napolean's dispositions/orders were not even followed. and then he goes into detail about how napolean committed blunder after blunder following his "victory" at borodino, which was not really a victory at all, but a defeat.

since i never really studied the military history involving napolean, especially his campaign in russia, i was wondering if anyone else who has read war and peace, and has also studied napolean, had any opinions regarding this?

MY ALL TIME FAVORITE BOOK!!!
Personally, I think he's compleatly wrong. I'm a bit of a subscriber to the great man theory, and I think Naopleon was a genius. He only lost a few battles during his entire military carrer. I really don't think that was due compleatly to the French army's morale. Plus, even if it was, where would their morale be without a leader? Morale is important, but not as important as the strategy. Happiness does nothing if you can't direct it. I think some of it might just have been that Tolstoy was a bit of a cyinic.