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During the First World War, just as during the Dreyfus case, officials in Paris needed a scapegoat for their deficiencies. This time, Mata Hari was a convenient victim.
In the author's words:
"The Allied commanders, especially the French, needed someone to blame, to punish—to defeat, as they were being defeated by the Germans.
And there she came, the perfect scapegoat: a tall, dark woman..."
So Mata Hari was sacrificed.
To quote the author again:
”Years later, after the Second World War, the prosecutor André Mornet spoke to a writer, Paul Guimard, about Mata Hari. Guimard wrote: “He did not confide in me to the fundamental basis of the [Mata Hari] affair, but he told me with a supreme indifference, ‘Between you and me, there wasn’t enough [evidence] to flog a cat.’”
Mata Hari's trouble was that she was getting too old to dance for the public and in any case the war made a stage career impossible. But she needed money to lead the kind of life she wanted and, in the end, she was not wise enough to fade into the background, to forego the luxuries she preferred.
She trusted so many men, so many officials; she had so much confidence in her ability to keep men enthralled. But even her last lover turned against her when she was charged with espionage.
Years after the execution, France went on to the humiliating defeat of World War II. France always loses ignominiously, as it did later in Algeria and Vietnam.
This book is well organized. The writing is clear, easily passing from one sentence to the next and one paragraph to another. The style is excellent.
- Paperback: 464 pages
- Publisher: Harper Perennial; Reprint edition (August 5, 2008)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0060817313
- ISBN-13: 978-0060817312
- Product Dimensions: 5.3 x 1 x 8 inches
- Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
- Customer Reviews: 48 customer reviews
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Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
#524,500 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #613 in Historical Germany Biographies
- #502 in Historical France Biographies
- #7256 in Women's Biographies
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