Written in History

by Simon Sebag Montefiore

  I knew what I was doing when I stopped the war that would have killed a half million youngsters on both sides if those bombs had not been dropped. I have no regrets and, under the same circumstances, I would do it again—and this letter is not confidential.

  Sincerely yours,

  Harry Truman

  Disaster

  Pliny the Younger to Tacitus, c.AD 106–107

  On 24 August AD 79 Mount Vesuvius erupted, destroying the nearby towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum entirely. The lawyer and writer Pliny the Younger was eighteen years old at the time of the eruption, which resulted in the death of his uncle Pliny the Elder. Young Pliny and his mother managed to escape. Around a quarter of a century later, Pliny’s friend, the historian Tacitus, asks him to supply details of the event. Pliny’s letter is a masterpiece of reportage.

  You ask me to send you an account of my uncle’s death, so that you may be able to give posterity an accurate description of it. I am much obliged to you, for I can see that the immortality of his fame is well assured, if you take in hand to write of it. For although he perished in a disaster which devastated some of the fairest regions of the land, and though he is sure of eternal remembrance like the peoples and cities that fell with him in that memorable calamity, though too he had written a large number of works of lasting value, yet the undying fame of which your writings are assured will secure for him a still further lease of life. For my own part, I think that those people are highly favored by Providence who are capable either of performing deeds worthy of the historian’s pen or of writing histories worthy of being read, but that they are peculiarly favored who can do both. Among the latter I may class my uncle, thanks to his own writings and to yours. So I am all the more ready to fulfil your injunctions, nay, I am even prepared to beg to be allowed to undertake them.

  My uncle was stationed at Misenum, where he was in active command of the fleet, with full powers. On the 24th of August, about the seventh hour, my mother drew his attention to the fact that a cloud of unusual size and shape had made its appearance. He had been out in the sun, followed by a cold bath, and after a light meal he was lying down and reading. Yet he called for his sandals, and climbed up to a spot from which he could command a good view of the curious phenomenon. Those who were looking at the cloud from some distance could not make out from which mountain it was rising—it was afterward discovered to have been Mount Vesuvius—but in likeness and form it more closely resembled a pine-tree than anything else, for what corresponded to the trunk was of great length and height, and then spread out into a number of branches, the reason being, I imagine, that while the vapor was fresh, the cloud was borne upward, but when the vapor became wasted, it lost its motion, or even became dissipated by its own weight, and spread out laterally. At times it looked white, and at other times dirty and spotted, according to the quantity of earth and cinders that were shot up.

  To a man of my uncle’s learning, the phenomenon appeared one of great importance, which deserved a closer study. He ordered a Liburnian galley to be got ready, and offered to take me with him, if I desired to accompany him, but I replied that I preferred to go on with my studies, and it so happened that he had assigned me some writing to do. He was just leaving the house when he received a written message from Rectina, the wife of Tascus, who was terrified at the peril threatening her—for her villa lay just beneath the mountain, and there were no means of escape save by shipboard—begging him to save her from her perilous position. So he changed his plans, and carried out with the greatest fortitude the task, which he had started as a scholarly inquiry.

  He had the galleys launched and went on board himself, in the hope of succoring, not only Rectina, but many others, for there were a number of people living along the shore owing to its delightful situation. He hastened, therefore, toward the place whence others were fleeing, and steering a direct course, kept the helm straight for the point of danger, so utterly devoid of fear that every movement of the looming portent and every change in its appearance he described and had noted down by his secretary, as soon as his eyes detected it. Already ashes were beginning to fall upon the ships, hotter and in thicker showers as they approached more nearly, with pumice-stones and black flints, charred and cracked by the heat of the flames, while their way was barred by the sudden shoaling of the sea bottom and the litter of the mountain on the shore. He hesitated for a moment whether to turn back, and then, when the helmsman warned him to do so, he exclaimed, “Fortune favors the bold; try to reach Pomponianus.” The latter was at Stabiae, separated by the whole width of the bay, for the sea there pours in upon a gently rounded and curving shore.

  Although the danger was not yet close upon him, it was none the less clearly seen, and it traveled quickly as it came nearer, so Pomponianus had got his baggage together on shipboard, and had determined upon flight, and was waiting for the wind which was blowing on shore to fall. My uncle sailed in with the wind fair behind him, and embraced Pomponianus, who was in a state of fright, comforting and cheering him at the same time. Then in order to calm his friend’s fears by showing how composed he was himself, he ordered the servants to carry him to the bath, and, after his ablutions, he sat down and had dinner in the best of spirits, or with that assumption of good spirits which is quite as remarkable as the reality.

  In the meantime broad sheets of flame, which rose high in the air, were breaking out in a number of places on Mount Vesuvius and lighting up the sky, and the glare and brightness seemed all the more striking owing to the darkness of the night. My uncle, in order to allay the fear of his companions, kept declaring that the country people in their terror had left their fires burning, and that the conflagration they saw arose from the blazing and empty villas. Then he betook himself to rest and enjoyed a very deep sleep, for his breathing, which, owing to his bulk, was rather heavy and loud, was heard by those who were waiting at the door of his chamber. But by this time the courtyard leading to the room he occupied was so full of ashes and pumice-stones mingled together, and covered to such a depth, that if he had delayed any longer in the bedchamber there would have been no means of escape. So my uncle was aroused, and came out and joined Pomponianus and the rest who had been keeping watch. They held a consultation whether they should remain indoors or wander forth in the open; for the buildings were beginning to shake with the repeated and intensely severe shocks of earthquake, and seemed to be rocking to and fro as though they had been torn from their foundations. Outside again there was danger to be apprehended from the pumice-stones, though these were light and nearly burnt through, and thus, after weighing the two perils, the latter course was determined upon. With my uncle it was a choice of reasons which prevailed, with the rest a choice of fears.

  They placed pillows on their heads and secured them with cloths, as a precaution against the falling bodies. Elsewhere the day had dawned by this time, but there it was still night, and the darkness was blacker and thicker than any ordinary night. This, however, they relieved as best they could by a number of torches and other kinds of lights. They decided to make their way to the shore, and to see from the nearest point whether the sea would enable them to put out, but it was still running high and contrary. A sheet was spread on the ground, and on this my uncle lay, and twice he called for a draft of cold water, which he drank. Then the flames, and the smell of sulphur which gave warning of them, scattered the others in flight and roused him. Leaning on two slaves, he rose to his feet and immediately fell down again, owing, as I think, to his breathing being obstructed by the thickness of the fumes and congestion of the stomach, that organ being naturally weak and narrow, and subject to inflammation. When daylight returned—two days after the last day he had seen—his body was found untouched, uninjured, and covered, dressed just as he had been in life. The corpse suggested a person asleep rather than a dead man.

  Meanwhile my mother and I were at Misenum. But that is of no consequence for the pur
poses of history, nor indeed did you express a wish to be told of anything except of my uncle’s death. So I will say no more, except to add that I have given you a full account both of the incidents which I myself witnessed and of those narrated to me immediately afterward, when, as a rule, one gets the truest account of what has happened. You will pick out what you think will answer your purpose best, for to write a letter is a different thing from writing a history, and to write to a friend is not like writing to all and sundry.

  Farewell.

  Voltaire to M. Tronchin, 24 November 1755

  Voltaire was the most famous European of his day and a master of the art of letter writing in its golden age. His letters were often copied out for public distribution and read across the continent. Voltaire—real name François-Marie Arouet, born in 1694—was the polymathic French author of the satirical novel Candide and of poetry, history, and essays. He corresponded with monarchs like Frederick the Great and Catherine the Great while he amassed a huge fortune through financial speculation. “Écrasez l’infâme!” he often wrote—wipe out superstition, particularly with regard to religion. His wit was razor-sharp: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”

  Voltaire initially enjoyed the king’s patronage, but soon ran afoul of royal censorship and retired to live in splendor at his chateau in Switzerland. His first great love was the clever beauty the Marquise du Châtelet—a mother of three who was also a philosopher and scientist—and then after her death, his own young niece. On All Saints’ Day 1755 an earthquake hit Lisbon, killing over thirty thousand, a natural disaster that shocked Europe. Voltaire wrote his Poem on the Disaster of Lisbon in response to the destruction. Here in a letter he considers the meaning of such events in a way that seems just as appropriate today.

  This is indeed a cruel piece of natural philosophy! We shall find it difficult to discover how the laws of movement operate in such fearful disasters in the best of all possible worlds—where a hundred thousand ants, our neighbors, are crushed in a second on our ant-heaps, half dying undoubtedly in inexpressible agonies, beneath débris from which it was impossible to extricate them, families all over Europe reduced to beggary, and the fortunes of a hundred merchants—Swiss, like yourself—swallowed up in the ruins of Lisbon. What a game of chance human life is! What will the preachers say—especially if the Palace of the Inquisition is left standing! I flatter myself that those reverend fathers, the Inquisitors, will have been crushed just like other people. That ought to teach men not to persecute men: for, while a few sanctimonious humbugs are burning a few fanatics, the earth opens and swallows up all alike. I believe it is our mountains which save us from earthquakes.

  Friendship

  Captain A. D. Chater to his mother, Christmas 1914

  Captain A.D. “Dougan” Chater, of the 2nd Battalion Gordon Highlanders, writes this letter home in the hope that the chivalry, decency, and friendship shown by both sides in the first Christmas of conflict will overcome the duty to fight and kill. When the Great War started in August 1914, most people presumed it would be over by Christmas. It wasn’t, and instead the war deteriorated into the slaughter of trench warfare. But here Chater describes the “extraordinary sights” of the Christmas Truce of that first year of war. He does not mention the football games that took place between the English and the Germans in other sectors of the Front. Chater was later wounded at the Battle of Neuve Chapelle in March 1915, but survived, married his girlfriend Joy in 1916, and lived until 1974.

  Dearest Mother,

  I am writing this in the trenches in my “dug out”—with a wood fire going and plenty of straw. It is rather cozy although it is freezing hard and real Christmas weather.

  I think I have seen one of the most extraordinary sights today that anyone has ever seen. About 10 o’clock this morning I was peeping over the parapet when I saw a German waving his arms and presently two of them got out of their trenches and came toward ours. We were just going to fire on them when we saw they had no rifles so one of our men went out to meet them and in about two minutes the ground between the two lines of trenches was swarming with men and officers of both sides, shaking hands and wishing each other a happy Christmas. This continued for about half an hour when most of our men were ordered back to the trenches.

  For the rest of the day nobody has fired a shot and men have been wandering about at will on the top of the parapet and carrying straw and fire wood about in the open.

  We have also had joint burial parties with a service for some of the dead—some German and some ours—who were lying out between the lines. Some of our officers were taking groups of British and German soldiers. This extraordinary truce has been quite impromptu. There was no previous arrangement and of course it had been decided that there was not to be any cessation of hostilities. I went out myself and shook hands with several of their officers and men. From what I gathered most of them would be as glad to get home again as we should. We have had our pipes playing all day and everyone has been wandering about in the open unmolested but not of course as far as the enemy lines. The truce will probably go on until someone is foolish enough to let off his rifle. We nearly messed it up this afternoon, by one of our fellows letting off his rifle skywards by mistake but they did not seem to notice it so it did not matter. I have been taking advantage of the truce to improve my “dug out” which I share with D M Bain, the Scotch rugger international—an excellent fellow.

  We put on a proper roof this morning and now we have got a tiled fire place and brushwood and straw on the floor. We leave the trenches tomorrow and I shan’t be sorry as it is much too cold to be pleasant at nights.

  27th. I am writing this back in billets—the same business continues as yesterday and we had another parley with the Germans in the middle. We exchanged cigarettes and autographs and some more people took photos.

  I don’t know how long it will go on for—I believe it was supposed to stop yesterday but we can hear no firing going on along the front today except a little distant shelling.

  We are, at any rate, having another truce on New Year’s Day as the Germans want to see how the photos come out! Yesterday was lovely in the morning and I went for several quite long walks about the lines. It is difficult to realize what that means but of course in the ordinary way there is not a sign of life above ground and everyone who puts his head up gets shot at.

  It is really very extraordinary that this sort of thing should happen in a war in which there is so much bitterness and ill feeling. The Germans in the front of the line are certainly sportsmen if they are nothing else. Of course I don’t suppose it has happened everywhere along the line although I think that indiscriminate fighting has more or less stopped in most places on Christmas Day….

  Your loving son,

  Dougan

  Mark Antony to Octavian (later Augustus), c.33 BC

  When two friends rule the world, this is the letter they write when they fall out because one of them falls in love with an Egyptian queen.

  The heir to the Roman dictator Julius Caesar was his teenage great-nephew Octavian. In 44 BC, Caesar was assassinated. Octavian came to Rome to seek vengeance, forming an alliance with his uncle’s top henchman, Mark Antony. After destroying the assassins led by Brutus and Cassius, Octavian and Antony divide the Roman world, Octavian ruling Rome and the west while Antony governs the east from Antioch, including Syria and the client kingdom of Egypt. Antony marries Octavian’s sister Octavia to cement their alliance.

  Egypt, the richest surviving state in Antony’s east, is ruled by Cleopatra, heir to the grandest royal dynasty of the ancient world, the Ptolemies, who were Greeks descended from one of Alexander the Great’s generals. Now that the Mediterranean is dominated by Rome, she needs the favor of the strongman of Rome. Earlier, she had had an affair with Caesar himself, bearing him a son. Now, aged thirty, she meets the buff and viril
e soldier Antony, and they fall in love and have children. Together they rule the east with a mixture of Greek style and eastern ritual, promising kingdoms to their children as if it is Antony’s personal empire. The Romans sneer at Antony for his showy decadence: Octavian encourages the idea that a Roman imperator under the control of an Oriental queen is effete, unmanly, un-Roman. Furious at Octavian’s manipulations back in Rome, Antony fires this earthy letter to his ex-friend, mocking the hypocrisy of this well-known womanizer. But Octavian’s lovers were Roman, and Antony, isolated in his eastern grandeur with the fascinating Cleopatra, fails to see how dangerous his situation is becoming: he has lost the support of Rome. The two move toward war: in 31 BC, Octavian defeats Antony and Cleopatra at sea, and the lovers commit suicide. Taking the name Augustus (meaning “Illustrious”), Octavian then becomes Rome’s first emperor.

  What has come over you? Do you object to me screwing Cleopatra? But we are married; and it’s not even as if this is anything new—the affair started nine years ago. And what about you? Are you faithful to Livia Drusilla? My congratulations if when this letter arrives you have not been to bed with Tertullia or Terentilla or Rufilla or Salvia Titisenia—or all of them. Does it really matter so much where or with whom one gets it up?

  Between Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, July 1862–November 1864

  The letters between Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels are shockingly racist to modern ears, but they reveal some of the flaws at the heart of Marxism. Marx and his friend Engels were the creators of an ideology known as Marxism that changed the world. Both born in Prussian territory, Marx was the son of Jewish intellectuals while Engels’s father was a wealthy industrialist, a cotton manufacturer. But both were fascinated, horrified, and inspired by the cruel inequalities of the capitalist system and the plight of the working class. When they met in 1844 in Paris, Engels, then working on The Condition of the Working Class in England, convinced Marx that the working class itself would be the engine for a future revolution. Moving between Brussels and Britain, the two cooperated in the creation of a secret revolutionary movement, the League of the Just, which became the Communist League, and wrote their seminal text, The Communist Manifesto, with its famed opening sentence: “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.” In this and Marx’s future work Das Kapital, the two argued that the capitalist exploitation of the working class would lead to a class struggle and ultimately a revolution by the oppressed proletariat as well as a new era of equality and communism in which the state, no longer necessary, would wither away.