Is history actually written by the victors? (No.)

Matitya’s Many Musings on a Myriad of Matters Episode 8

This entry is the eighth instalment of my blog ( and eventual podcast) Matitya’s Many Musings on a Myriad of Matters. While I have not recorded the audio file yet, this entry was written to be aired in podcast format and as such will (at times) read more like the transcript of a podcast than a traditional blog. So without further ado, here’s the eighth episode of Matitya’s Many Musings on a Myriad of Matters.

(Chapter Headings: Introduction)

Hello, my name is Matitya and welcome to Matitya’s Many Musings on a Myriad of Matters.

Today’s topic: If you repeat a lie often enough does it become true? No. Obviously not. That said, if enough people repeat the same lie frequently enough then you will eventually get to the point where there are large groups of people who believe something that is demonstrably false. For instance, the lie that “history is written by the victors”.

(Chapter Headings: Quote Origins Part One: Churchill didn’t say that)

There is a popular myth that Sir Winston Churchill said “History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it”. In fact, in a 1944 telegram to Stalin, Churchill wrote “I agree that we had better leave the past to history. But remember if I live long enough I may be one of the historians.” Churchill made similar claims even about domestic controversies going back at least to the 1930s. It’s worth noting, Churchill won the Nobel Prize in Literature for a series of books he wrote about the Second World War. And even before his Prime Ministership of Great Britain, Churchill wrote books of history. Churchill was literally a historian. I don’t mean hyperbolically literally, I mean literally literally. Given that, when Churchill said “I may be one of those historians”, he was almost certainly referring to what he himself would write in his books rather than claiming he would earn a reputation as “the good guy” by simply winning the war.

(Chapter Headings: Quote Origins Part Two Orwell didn’t mean that)

Now, those of you familiar with my previous Matitya’s Musings know that I tend to hold George Orwell in high regard and as such you have an easy rebuttal to what I just said. You can easily and correctly say that in his 1944 essay Revising History, Orwell said

“Out of the millions of instances which must be available, I will choose one which happens to be verifiable. During part of 1941 and 1942, when the Luftwaffe was busy in Russia, the German radio regaled its home audiences with stories of devastating air raids on London. Now, we are aware that those raids did not happen. But what use would our knowledge be if the Germans conquered Britain? For the purposes of a future historian, did those raids happen, or didn’t they? The answer is: If Hitler survives, they happened, and if he falls they didn’t happen. So with innumerable other events of the past ten or twenty years. Is the Protocols of the Elders of Zion a genuine document? Did Trotsky plot with the Nazis? How many German aeroplanes were shot down in the Battle of Britain? Does Europe welcome the New Order? In no case do you get one answer which is universally accepted because it is true: in each case you get a number of totally incompatible answers, one of which is finally adopted as the result of a physical struggle. History is written by the winners.”

I would respond to you by bringing up that Orwell says in the same essay “Up to a fairly recent date, the major events recorded in the history books probably happened. It is probably true that the battle of Hastings was fought in 1066, that Columbus discovered America, that Henry VIII had six wives, and so on. A certain degree of truthfulness was possible so long as it was admitted that a fact may be true even if you don’t like it. Even as late as the last war it was possible for the Encyclopedia Britannica, for instance, to compile its articles on the various campaigns partly from German sources. Some of the facts — the casualty figures, for instance — were regarded as neutral and in substance accepted by everybody. No such thing would be possible now. A Nazi and a non-Nazi version of the present war would have no resemblance to one another, and which of them finally gets into the history books will be decided not by evidential methods but on the battlefield.”

This doesn’t sound like Orwell is saying that “history is written by the victors”. It sounds like he’s saying Nazis don’t care about truth and Nazis heavily control what can be written down in places they rule such that if they were to win the Second World War, then Fascist propaganda would be used in place of true history. He wasn’t suggesting that if the Allies won the war, then history would make excuses for every bad thing the Allies did or deny facts that were inconvenient to the Allied side.

Indeed, the conclusion of Orwell’s essay is “In the last analysis our only claim to victory is that if we win the war we shall tell fewer lies about it than our adversaries. The really frightening thing about totalitarianism is not that it commits “atrocities” but that it attacks the concept of objective truth; it claims to control the past as well as the future. In spite of all the lying and self-righteousness that war encourages, I do not honestly think it can be said that that habit of mind is growing in Britain. Taking one thing with another, I should say that the press is slightly freer than it was before the war. I know out of my own experience that you can print things now which you couldn’t print ten years ago. War resisters have probably been less maltreated in this war than in the last one, and the expression of unpopular opinion in public is certainly safer. There is some hope, therefore, that the liberal habit of mind, which thinks of truth as something outside yourself, something to be discovered, and not as something you can make up as you go along, will survive. But I still don’t envy the future historian’s job. Is it not a strange commentary on our time that even the casualties in the present war cannot be estimated within several millions?”

Orwell’s point seems to be the exact opposite of the point that “history is written by the victors” is generally used to make. “History is written by the victors” is generally used as an argument for the thesis that “there is no objective truth” which Orwell is openly criticising here or to dismiss all accounts of war history as being mere propaganda which is also something Orwell is rejecting here. Orwell is saying that, if the Nazis win the war, then they will use the coercive power of their authoritarian government to get their lies accepted as universal truth. And Orwell is saying that this is bad because the truth is objectively contrary to what the Nazis say it is. Indeed, Orwell’s main argument in this essay seems to be that it is necessary for the Allies to win the war so that when the war’s history is written, it’s rooted in truth.

Orwell is no way describing history as “he said, she said” or “might makes right”

(Chapter Headings: Lord Acton and the purpose of writing history)

Incidentally, the famous quotation you can most easily use in favour of the “history is written by the victors” argument comes from the British historian Lord Acton. Acton famously wrote “power tends to corrupt, absolute power corrupts absolutely”. Oftentimes, this quotation is used to mean that it’s dangerous to put too much power in the hands of one person. That’s a sentiment with which Acton would almost certainly agree (and which is true) but when Acton was writing the “absolute power” line, that wasn’t what he was talking about.

Acton said it in a letter he wrote to Bishop Mandell Creighton wherein Acton disapproved of Creighton’s book about Renaissance popes on the grounds that

“I cannot accept your canon that we are to judge Pope and King unlike other men, with a favourable presumption that they did no wrong. If there is any presumption it is the other way against holders of power, increasing as the power increases. Historic responsibility has to make up for the want of legal responsibility. Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority. There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it. That is the point at which the negation of Catholicism and the negation of Liberalism meet and keep high festival, and the end learns to justify the means. You would hang a man of no position, like Ravaillac; but if what one hears is true, then Elizabeth asked the gaoler to murder Mary, and William III ordered his Scots minister to extirpate a clan. Here are the greater names coupled with the greater crimes. You would spare these criminals, for some mysterious reason. I would hang them, higher than Haman, for reasons of quite obvious justice; still more, still higher, for the sake of historical science.”

Acton’s main point here is that writers of history can determine whether people are remembered as good people or as bad people. Acton is also denouncing the claim that Richard Nixon would later make that “when the President does something that means that it is not illegal.”

In the sense that writers of history control how the past is perceived, there actually can be a good case to describe them as the victors. After all, they’re the ones who control the narrative.

(Chapter Headings: Defining terms)

That said, should we go that route, then we would have the say that “to write the history is to be the victor” which would make the phrase “history is written by the victors redundant.” It still wouldn’t mean that the main history of military and political conflict is written from the perspective of those who won said conflicts. Given that’s the sentiment that “history is written by the victors” is used to express, the saying is a lie.

(Chapter Headings: List of names)

Thucydides, Xenophon, Polybius,Josephus, Jordanes, Gildas, Machiavelli et cetera. They were all on the losing side and all wrote histories of their conflicts which were read for years and years to come. The claim that it’s “the victors” who write history is so false as to be laughable.

(Chapter Headings: Thucydides)

I know not everyone will recognise the names I just listed so I’m going to explain. Thucydides was an Athenian who served as a general fighting against the Spartans. Thucydides was exiled for having lost a battle and he wrote a history of the war, known as the Peloponnesian War, and then died. Thucydides began writing his history while serving the Athenians and interviewed people who were more Spartan aligned during his exile though he still referred to himself as an Athenian in his book itself. To this day, his book is the quintessential text on that conflict. Pop quiz, who do you think won the war?

You might say “Well, the Peloponnese is the region that includes Sparta such that calling it the Peloponnesian War is essentially calling it the Spartan War. It would be very strange for the Spartans to call the war the Spartan War given all their wars were Spartan so it more likely got its name from the Athenians. Therefore, the mere fact it’s called the Peloponnesian War would indicate that the Athenians won.” That would be a nice analysis but the conclusion is wrong. The Spartans won the war. An Athenian general still wrote its history.

(Chapter Headings: Xenophon)

And before you object that the phrase “history is written by the victors” is not saying that only people on the wining side ever wrote books of history but that the main history of it was based on the accounts of the victors. Thucydides is the main source of history for this war. To my knowledge, the Spartans did not even attempt to create their own counter-history and even if they did, it doesn’t survive despite them having been the winning side.

I’m guessing that some of you are thinking “But Matitya, what about Xenophon?” to which my answer would be, he was also an Athenian. And before you object that Xenophon still fought for the Spartans against the Athenians in the very same war, I should point out that Xenophon’s history The Hellenica was written as a sequel to Thucydides’ book. As such, the history written by the victors relies upon acceptance of the history written by the defeated. Furthermore, shortly after Xenophon’s death, Philip of Macedon conquered Greece such that Xenophon’s book being the main primary source for Greek history in advance of the Macedonian conquest is itself an example of history being written by the defeated.

(Chapter Headings: Demosthenes)

And even if you don’t accept that as an example, then you should still be willing to accept Demosthenes the orator. Demosthenes gave several speeches denouncing Philp and advocating for violent resistance against him but the Athenians surrendered to the Macedonians anyway. Demosthenes later advocated rebellion against Philip’s son Alexander the Great and got killed for his trouble. Demosthenes wrote down his anti-Macedonian speeches and we still have them today. That isn’t the case for most of the people with whom Demosthenes debated. There are exceptions to that, Demosthenes’s mentor Isocrates wrote an open letter to Philip which expresses support of him. There are still copies of the letter. Even so, in that very letter, Isocrates offers critiques of Philip and offers recommendations as to how Philip could do a better job securing the loyalty of the Athenians. History isn’t written by the victors here.

(Chapter Headings: Polybius)

If you wanted a good example of history being written by the victors, then a good place to start would be Polybius. He was an Antigonid Greek soldier before being captured and imprisoned by the Romans. While a prisoner, Polybius wrote a history of Rome and the rest of the world. Polybius portrays the Romans quite positively because he admired (or claimed to admire) the political system of the Roman Republic. That said, Polybius still predicted, in his book, that Rome would one day fall on the grounds that

“ what will happen is, I think, evident. When a state has weathered many great perils and subsequently attains to supremacy and uncontested sovereignty, it is evident that under the influence of long established prosperity, life will become more extravagant and the citizens more fierce in their rivalry regarding office and other objects than they ought to be. As these defects go on increasing, the beginning of the change for the worse will be due to love of office and the disgrace entailed by obscurity, as well as to extravagance and purse-proud display; and for this change the populace will be responsible when on the one hand they think they have a grievance against certain people who have shown themselves grasping, and when, on the other hand, they are puffed up by the flattery of others who aspire to office. For now, stirred to fury and swayed by passion in all their counsels, they will no longer consent to obey or even to be the equals of the ruling caste, but will demand the lion’s share for themselves. When this happens, the state will change its name to the finest sounding of all, freedom and democracy, but will change its nature to the worst thing of all, mob-rule.”

So even Polybius isn’t that good an argument for the thesis that history is written by the victors.

(Chapter Headings: Josephus)

I could go on and on about this. I could bring up that General Titus Flavius Josephus fought for the Jews against the Romans before he surrendered to General Vespasian and his son Titus and it was Josephus who wrote the history of the Jewish War. And Josephus tells the story from the perspective of the Jews emphasising that the anti-Roman Zealots were but a small faction rather than representative and that the Roman governors of Judea committed more than their share of abuses before the war began.

(Chapter Headings: Jordanes)

I could just as easily mention it was the Byzantine Bishop Jordanes who wrote the history of the wars between the Huns and the Goths even though Jordanes was of Gothic ancestry and it was the Huns who won that war. (Indeed, that may be why Jordanes’s work is so strongly anti-Hun).

(Chapter Headings: Saint Gildas)

If that’s not enough for you, then I’ll have to mention that it was a Briton by the name of Gildas who wrote the history of the Saxon takeover of Brittania. Gildas portrayed the Saxons as bloodthirsty and brutal conquerors leading a terrible invasion though his version of events is disputed now. That notwithstanding, two centuries later a Saxon monk known as the Venerable Bede wrote his own history of Britannia and Bede accepted Gildas’s description of the Great Saxon Invasion as fact. This is the case even though it was the Saxons who won and the Britons who lost. (don’t get me wrong, I know there are modern theories positing that the Great Saxon Invasion was drastically exaggerated.)

(Chapter Headings: Machiavelli)

And it doesn’t stop with the Middle Ages. Niccolò di Bernardo di Machiavelli lived during the Renaissance and served as a militia commander and government administrator in the service of Piero Soderini, actively seeking to keep the city of Florence a republic despite the best efforts of the Medici family to restore their dynasty. Machiavelli lost. The Medici took over and had him imprisoned, tortured and exiled and Machiavelli even wrote his famous book The Prince to ingratiate himself to Principe Lorenzo de Medici after Lorenzo came to power. That didn’t keep Machiavelli from writing the Florentine Histories. And in the Florentine Histories, Machiavelli espouses the same political positions that he held in his other books such as The Discourses on Livy, itself an analysis of history since Machiavelli was a Republican rather than a supporter of hereditary power. His having lost didn’t change that. Don’t get me wrong, Machiavelli was quite cynical. He still didn’t posit that objective history could not exist due to the past being preserved solely by those on the winning side. And the reason he didn’t posit that was that he knew it wasn’t true.

(Chapter Headings: The Bible for Atheists)

I would hasten to add that unless you’re a religious Jew or Christian then you should add the Babylonian conquest of the Jews and the Roman crucifixion of Jesus as examples of history not being written by the victors. If you accept, as I do, that the Hebrew Book of Kings was written by the prophet Jeremiah having been dictated to him by G-d then its authorship is too far removed from the material world to be a good example for my purposes. The same applies if you believe the New Testament to be of divine provenance.

That said, if you don’t believe in the Judeo-Christian tradition then it would logically follow that you believe the Bible to have human authorship. In which case, it was the Jews who wrote the history of the war with Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonian Empire even though the Babylonians won the war. Likewise, you would have to accept that despite Pontius Pilate torturing Jesus to death, it was Jesus’s followers who wrote the story of his Crucifixion such that the history was told by those who lost rather than those who won.

(Chapter Headings: Martin Luther King on the inevitable victory of Good against Evil)

While there are more examples, the history of the Vikings was written by the people they conquered, I am going to quit while I’m ahead and close with some choice words from Reverend Martin Luther King Junior. In 1956, Dr. King gave a sermon about the inevitable triumph of Good over Evil and he said

“The Hebraic Christian tradition is clear, however, in affirming that in the long struggle between good and evil, good eventually emerges as the victor. Evil is ultimately doomed by the powerful, insurgent forces of good. Good Friday may occupy the throne for a day, but ultimately it must give way to the triumphant beat of the drums of Easter. A mythical Satan, through the work of a conniving serpent, may gain the allegiance of man for a period, but ultimately he must give way to the magnetic redemptive power of a humble servant on an uplifted cross. Evil may so shape events that Caesar will occupy a palace and Christ a cross, but one day that same Christ will rise up and split history into A.D. and B.C., so that even the life of Caesar must be dated by his name. Biblical religion recognized long ago what William Cullen Bryant came to see in the modern world: “Truth crushed to earth will rise again;” and what Carlyle came to see: “No lie can live forever.””

(Chapter Headings: Conclusion)

So if you’re the kind of person who genuinely believes that history is written by the victors, you are wrong. That’s not a matter of opinion. You’re objectively incorrect. To anyone else who parrots the claim that “history is written by the victors”, I have no illusions that you’re going to become honest but please stop telling obvious lies like that, it just insults our intelligence.

My name is Matitya and this has been an episode of Matitya’s Many Musings on a Myriad of Matters.