"War and Peace" by Leo Tolstoy.

In the nineteenth century, the Russian Empire had reached it's golden age; the arts and sciences flourished, and metropolitan aristocracy came to resemble that of the French court under King Louis XV or perhaps that of the Antebellum South in the United States. In this social system, the prodigal sons of nobility would join one or another branch of the military to prove their honor and dedication to the motherland. In this time period, Leo …

…of war being an evil thing that does not aid society in any way. In the novel, those who wage war are not glorified in any ways, but rather are shown as meeting tragic ends. Finally, Tolstoy makes it clear that he does not believe that a nation's leaders really have control of the beast that they ride, but rather that they are prey to the whims of the mass of people that they rule.