It was the opinion of Leo Tolstoy that even Napoleon was never master of his own destiny.
Thomas Carlyle was a famous proponent of the ‘Great Men’ theory of history, which holds that world-changing events are moved by bold, iron-willed men of vision. Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy was not of this brotherhood. In his classic War and Peace, he reminded us that even a man as great as Napoleon is much less in control of his own destiny than we might imagine.