Written in History

by Simon Sebag Montefiore

  Madame my dear daughter

  I cannot hide from you that a letter you sent to [Minister] Rosenberg upset me most dreadfully. What style! What frivolity! Where is the good and generous heart of the Archduchess Antoinette? I see only intrigue, vulgar spite, delight in mockery and persecution. An intrigue which would do very well for a Pompadour or a Dubarry, but never for a queen, a great princess, still less a princess kindly and good of the house of Lorraine and Austria. All the winter long I have trembled at the thought of your too easy success and the flatterers surrounding you, while you have thrown yourself into a life of pleasure and preposterous display. This chasing from pleasure to pleasure without the king, and knowing that he takes no joy in it and only goes with you or lets you do what you want out of sheer good nature, has made me write before to express my fears. I see now from this letter that these were all too well justified….

  Your luck can all too easily change, and by your own fault you may well find yourself plunged into deepest misery. That is the result of your terrible dissipation which prevents your being assiduous about anything serious. What have you read? And after that you dare to opine on the greatest State matters, on the choice of ministers? What does the Abbé do? And Mercy? You dislike them because of behaving like low flatterers they want you to be happy and do not take advantage of your weaknesses. One day you will recognize the truth of this, but then it will be too late. I hope I shall not survive until misfortune overtakes you, and I pray to God to end my days quickly, since I am no longer of any use to you, and I could not bear to lose my dear child or see her unhappy, whom I shall love tenderly until I die.

  Mahatma Gandhi to Adolf Hitler, 24 December 1940

  This letter is the ultimate clash of seraphic decency and diabolical evil. At the end of 1940, with the Nazi empire at its height, Europe conquered, Germany apparently invincible, Hitler receives a letter from his diametric opposite, Mahatma Gandhi, who is actively involved in attempting to eject the British from India. Gandhi campaigned against any Indian participation in the war, arguing that his country could not be involved in a conflict over freedom when such a right was denied to India itself. (Nonetheless, two and a half million of his countrymen joined the Allied forces.)

  The seventy-one-year-old Indian activist had tried in 1939 to counsel Hitler against war and now appeals to the Führer’s better nature by reminding him of his own struggles against British imperialism. He writes from his ashram in Sevagram in Maharashtra, where he lives with his wife and their four children. The letter is as futile as it is admirable. Hitler never replies, going on to perpetrate the Holocaust, invade Russia, and commit suicide in the ruins of Berlin. Gandhi’s campaign was successful, leading the British to grant India (and Pakistan) independence. Soon afterward, Gandhi was assassinated by a fanatical Hindu gunman.

  DECEMBER 24, 1940

  DEAR FRIEND,

  That I address you as a friend is no formality. I own no foes. My business in life has been for the past 33 years to enlist the friendship of the whole of humanity by befriending mankind, irrespective of race, color or creed.

  I hope you will have the time and desire to know how a good portion of humanity who have been living under the influence of that doctrine of universal friendship view your action. We have no doubt about your bravery or devotion to your fatherland, nor do we believe that you are the monster described by your opponents. But your own writings and pronouncements and those of your friends and admirers leave no room for doubt that many of your acts are monstrous and unbecoming of human dignity, especially in the estimation of men like me who believe in universal friendliness. Such are your humiliation of Czechoslovakia, the rape of Poland and the swallowing of Denmark. I am aware that your view of life regards such spoliations as virtuous acts. But we have been taught from childhood to regard them as acts degrading humanity. Hence we cannot possibly wish success to your arms.

  But ours is a unique position. We resist British Imperialism no less than Nazism. If there is a difference, it is in degree. One-fifth of the human race has been brought under the British heel by means that will not bear scrutiny. Our resistance to it does not mean harm to the British people. We seek to convert them, not to defeat them on the battlefield. Ours is an unarmed revolt against the British rule. But whether we convert them or not, we are determined to make their rule impossible by non-violent non-co-operation. It is a method in its nature indefensible. It is based on the knowledge that no spoliator can compass his end without a certain degree of co-operation, willing or compulsory, of the victim. Our rulers may have our land and bodies but not our souls….

  We know what the British heel means for us and the non-European races of the world. But we would never wish to end the British rule with German aid. We have found in non-violence a force which, if organized, can without doubt match itself against a combination of all the most violent forces in the world. In non-violent technique, as I have said, there is no such thing as defeat. It is all “do or die” without killing or hurting. It can be used practically without money and obviously without the aid of science or destruction which you have brought to such perfection. It is a marvel to me that you do not see that it is nobody’s monopoly. If not the British, some other power will certainly improve upon your method and beat you with your own weapon. You are leaving no legacy to your people of which they would feel proud. They cannot take pride in a recital of cruel deed, however skilfully planned. I, therefore, appeal to you in the name of humanity to stop the war….

  You know that not long ago I made an appeal to every Briton to accept my method of non-violent resistance. I did it because the British know me as a friend though a rebel. I am a stranger to you and your people. I have not the courage to make to you the appeal I made to every Briton. Not that it would not apply to you with the same force as to the British. But my present proposal is much simpler because much more practical and familiar.

  During this season when the hearts of the peoples of Europe yearn for peace, we have suspended even our own peaceful struggle. Is it too much to ask you to make an effort for peace during a time which may mean nothing to you personally but which must mean much to the millions of Europeans whose dumb cry for peace I hear, for my ears are attended to hearing the dumb millions?

  I am, Your sincere friend,

  M. K. GANDHI

  Abraham Lincoln to Ulysses S. Grant, 13 July 1863

  Here President Abraham Lincoln congratulates General Grant wholeheartedly for an important victory during the American Civil War—the capture of Vicksburg, Mississippi—and, remarkably, apologizes for getting it completely wrong himself. A masterful letter writer, Lincoln is famed for his clarity of language, whether political or personal. In a letter of 22 August 1862 he states his real priorities in the conflict: “I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way….What I do about slavery and the colored race I do because I believe it helps save the Union….”

  But he also had a sense of fun: when an eleven-year-old girl named Grace Bedell wrote to advise him to grow more presidential whiskers, Lincoln replied on 19 October 1860: “My dear little Miss….As for whiskers, having never worn any, do you not think people would call it a piece of silly affectation if I were to begin now? Your very sincere well wisher A. Lincoln.”

  However, this letter is significant strategically and because of what it reveals about Lincoln’s character. It means he has finally found a victorious general: he promoted Grant to commanding general and Grant went on to be elected president. It also highlights Lincoln’s magnanimity and his confidence in his own gifts. Such humility is rare among bosses of all kinds but especially among politicians.

  My dear General

  I do not remember that you and I ever met personally. I write this now as a grateful acknowledgment for the almost inestimable service you have done the country. I wish to say a word further. When you first reached the vicinity o
f Vicksburg, I thought you should do, what you finally did—march the troops across the neck, run the batteries with the transports, and thus go below; and I never had any faith, except a general hope that you knew better than I, that the Yazoo Pass expedition, and the like, could succeed. When you got below, and took Port-Gibson, Grand Gulf, and vicinity, I thought you should go down the river and join Gen. Banks; and when you turned Northward East of the Big Black, I feared it was a mistake. I now wish to make the personal acknowledgment that you were right, and I was wrong.

  Yours very truly

  A. Lincoln

  John Profumo to Harold Macmillan, 5 June 1963

  There is the sin, and there is the cover-up. Often the cover-up is worse. This letter of truth and confession ends an era. In 1961 John Profumo, secretary of state for war in Harold Macmillan’s government, admired a beautiful model and demi-mondaine, Christine Keeler, bathing in the pool at Cliveden, the country house of Viscount Astor—and began an affair with her. At the same time she was having an affair with a KGB spy, Soviet naval attaché, Yevgeni Ivanov. Profumo, who was married, denied any “impropriety” to the prime minister and Parliament. But when the truth was exposed he was forced to write this letter to Macmillan. The “Profumo affair” fatally damages not just the Conservative government but also the old-fashioned public-school Establishment. Macmillan retires, Labour wins the next election, and Profumo devotes the rest of his life to charity.

  Dear Prime Minister,

  You will recollect that on 22 March, following certain allegations made in Parliament, I made a personal statement. At the time the rumor had charged me with assisting in the disappearance of a witness and with being involved in some possible breach of security.

  So serious were these charges that I allowed myself to think that my personal association with that witness, which had also been the subject of rumor, was by comparison of minor importance only. In my statement I said there had been no impropriety in this association. To my very deep regret I have to admit that this was not true, and that I misled you and my colleagues and the House.

  I ask you to understand that I did this to protect, as I thought, my wife and family, who were misled, as were my professional advisers.

  I have come to realize that, by this deception, I have been guilty of a grave misdemeanor and despite the fact that there is no truth whatsoever in the other charges, I cannot remain a member of your Administration, nor of the House of Commons.

  I cannot tell you of my deep remorse for the embarrassment I have caused you, to my colleagues in the Government, to my constituents, and to the Party which I have served for the past twenty-five years.

  Yours sincerely,

  Jack Profumo

  Jacqueline Kennedy to Nikita Khrushchev, 1 December 1963

  Chivalry in despair is the spirit of this letter written by Jackie Kennedy on one of her last nights in the White House, a week after the assassination of her husband, John F. Kennedy. The president and his adversary, the Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev, were opposites: Kennedy a handsome, cultured, millionaire Lothario, Khrushchev a warty, brutal Communist peasant. They had had bruising negotiations—and only narrowly avoided launching the world into nuclear war. There were many in the CIA who feared the Russians might have played a role in planning the assassination. Khrushchev, for his part, was terrified of being blamed for it. Perhaps the letter that follows is written to calm the Russian—it is certainly supremely elegant and touching in both its literary simplicity, presidential grandeur, and its theory of Big Men and Little Men.

  Dear Mr. Chairman President,

  I would like to thank you for sending Mr. Mikoyan as your representative to my husband’s funeral. He looked so upset when he came through the line, and I was very moved.

  I tried to give him a message for you that day—but as it was such a terrible day for me, I do not know if my words came out as I meant them to.

  So now, on one of the last nights I will spend in the White House, in one of the last letters I will write on this paper in the White House, I would like to write you my message.

  I send it only because I know how much my husband cared about peace, and how the relation between you and him was central to this care in his mind. He used to quote your words in some of his speeches—“in the next war the survivors will envy the dead.”

  You and he were adversaries, but you were allied in a determination that the world should not be blown up. You respected each other and could deal with each other. I know that President Johnson will make every effort to establish the same relationship with you.

  The danger which troubled my husband was that war might be started not so much by the big men as by the little ones.

  While big men know the needs for self-control and restraint—little men are sometimes moved more by fear and pride. If only in the future the big men can continue to make the little ones sit down and talk, before they start to fight.

  I know that President Johnson will continue the policy in which my husband so deeply believed—a policy of control and restraint—and he will need your help.

  I send this letter because I know so deeply of the importance of the relationship which existed between you and my husband, and also because of your kindness, and that of Mrs. Khrushchev in Vienna.

  I read that she had tears in her eyes when she left the American Embassy in Moscow, after signing the book of mourning. Please thank her for that.

  Sincerely,

  Jacqueline Kennedy

  Babur to his son Humayun, 11 January 1529

  This is a letter of tolerance. Babur, born in 1483, was a prince descended from greatness, from the conqueror Tamurlane, in a family that had lost its glory. But almost single-handedly he restored its power, conquered the vastness of India, and founded his own dynasty known as the Mughals. In the famous memoirs The Baburnama, Babur writes of battles and polo matches, feasts and poetry, but he also knew how to rule the complex multireligious society of India. Here, aged forty-five, shortly before his death, Emperor Babur gives advice to his son that is relevant today not just in India but also in the wider Islamic world.

  Oh my son! The realm of Hindustan is full of diverse creeds. Praise be to God, the Righteous, the Glorious, the Highest, that He hath granted unto thee the Empire of it. It is but proper that you, with heart cleansed of all religious bigotry, should dispense justice according to the tenets of each community. And in particular refrain from the sacrifice of cow, for that way lies the conquest of the hearts of the people of Hindustan; and the subjects of the realm will, through royal favor, be devoted to thee. And the temples and abodes of worship of every community under Imperial sway, you should not damage. Dispense justice so that the sovereign may be happy with the subjects and likewise the subjects with their sovereign. The progress of Islam is better by the sword of kindness, not by the sword of oppression.

  Ignore the disputations of Shias and Sunnis; for therein is the weakness of Islam. And bring together the subjects with different beliefs in the manner of the Four Elements, so that the body politic may be immune from the various ailments. And remember the deeds of Hazrat Taimur Sahib Qiran so that you may become mature in matters of Government. And on us is but the duty to advise.

  Émile Zola to Félix Faure, 13 January 1898

  This letter is a wonder of moral outrage. Zola’s letter to the French president exposes the injustice and anti-Semitism of the French military that has already divided France in a vicious schism between two visions of the country: Catholic nationalism versus secular liberalism. Zola exposes the “shady creatures,” shameful hypocrites, and despicable anti-Semites who have sentenced a totally innocent man to life on the hellish Devil’s Island prison in French Guiana for treason—even when, two years later, they uncover the identity of the real German spy who really is guilty of betraying his country.

  In Decembe
r 1894, a young French captain from Alsace named Alfred Dreyfus, who happened to be Jewish, was convicted of selling French military secrets to German intelligence. The conviction was always highly suspect, but in 1896 French intelligence identified the real culprit as Major Ferdinand Esterhazy. Nonetheless, the French generals and politicians arranged for Esterhazy to be acquitted and covered up his guilt. As the brazen injustice and rampant racism divide France, the novelist Émile Zola, author of Nana and Germinal, decides he must speak out, publishing this letter exposing the men behind the framing of Dreyfus, the public campaign of anti-Semitism, and the cover-up.

  Zola was tried for libel and had to flee to London, but the letter worked: the outcry forced the government to reopen the case. In 1899, broken after five years in captivity, Dreyfus returned for a second trial. Amazingly, he was convicted again and sentenced to ten years but was then pardoned and exonerated, his rank reinstated, dying in 1935 as a lieutenant-colonel. In 1902 Zola died of carbon-monoxide poisoning due to a blocked chimney: he may have been murdered for writing this letter. Its exposé of anti-Semitism is sadly relevant today.