Traitors & turncoats : twenty tales of treason from Benedict Arnold to Ezra Pound
'If I had to choose between betraying my friend and betraying my country, I hope I should have the courage to betray my country.' So wrote the English novelist E.M. Forster in 1951. People have betrayed their country, or their friends, for all kinds of different reasons; and one man's traitor may be another man's hero, especially as those found guilty of treason have usually faced only one penalty: death. Betrayal for money is perhaps the most despicable level of treachery; not for nothing is the term 'Judas' applied with such contempt; others have earned the mark of treason for rebelling against established authority. The stories in Traitors and Turncoats range from a British seaman in the Second World War who sold information to the Germans for a pittance, to the White Rose gang's defiant campaign against Hitler; from the recusant terrorism of Guy Fawkes, to the abolitionist fury of John Brown; from the unwitting treason of Lady Jane Grey, to the deadly perfidy of Mata Hari. Thoroughly researched and grippingly told, these tales of treachery embrace cowardice and cupidity, high tension and terrible tragedy. Tarpeia, Charles I, Genrikh Yagoda, Tarquin the Proud, Benedict Arnold, Vichy collaborators, Coriolanus, William Wordsworth, Duncan Scott-Ford, Alcibiades, John Brown, The White Rose (Sophie Scholl), Arminius, Rose Greenhow, July Plot (Hitler), Judas, Roger Casement, Lord Haw-Haw, King John, Easter Rising rebels, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, Anne Boleyn, Mata Hari, Kim Philby, Lady Jane Grey, Norman Baillie-Stewart, Sammy 'the Bull' Gravano, Guy Fawkes, Pu Yi, Aldrich Ames
History
190 pages : illustrations ; 28 cm
9781848660113, 1848660111
298185611
My birthplace hate I : Coriolanus : late 6th century
early 5th century BC
At the hot gates : Ephialtes : late 6th century BC
c.470 BC
For a handful of silver : Judas : c.10 BC?
c. AD 30
When heaven and earth are silent : Pierre Cauchon : 1371
15 December 1442
Queen Anne the headless : Anne Boleyn : 1501 or 1507
19 May 1536
Most miserable calamity : Lady Jane Grey : October 1537
12 February 1554
Remember, remember : Guy Fawkes : 1570
31 January 1606
Lost to all sense of honour : Benedict Arnold : 14 January 1741
14 June 1801
Accountable to God alone : Louis XVI : 23 August 1754
21 January 1793
Rebel Rose : Rose O'Neal Greenhow : c.1815
1 October 1864
This most gallent gentleman : Roger Casement : 1 September 1864
3 August 1916
Harlot, yes. Traitor, never! : Mata Hari : 7 August 1876
15 October 1917
Philippe Le Gaga : Marshal Philippe Pétain : 24 April 1856
23 July 1951
Lord Haw-Haw : William Joyce : 24 April 1906
3 January 1946
We are your bad conscience : Sophie Scholl : 9 May 1921
22 February 1943
Pull down thy vanity : Ezra Pound : 30 October 1885
1 November 1972
Don't kill my mommy and daddy : Julius and Ethel Rosenberg : 12 May 1918 (Julius), 28 September 1915 (Ethel)
19 June 1953 (both)
The third man : Kim Philby : 1 January 1912
11 May 1988
Over the DMZ : Joe Dresnok : b. 1941
A tale of two Germanys : Markus Wolf : 19 January 1923
9 November 2006