dishonest character at her trial. Zelle admitted to Bouchardon that she had accepted 20,000 francs from a German diplomat and former lover as reimbursement for belongings taken from her by German authorities. Bouchardon claimed that this was, in fact, payment to her for spying for Germany. In the meantime, Ladoux had been preparing a case against his former agent by casting all of her activities in the worst possible light, going so far as to engage in evidence tampering. Scapegoat In 1917, France had been badly shaken by the Great Mutinies of the French Army in the spring of 1917 following the failure of the Nivelle Offensive together with a massive strike wave. At the time, many believed France might collapse due to war exhaustion. In July 1917, a new government under Georges Clemenceau had come into power, utterly committed to winning the war. In this context, having one German spy on whom everything that went wrong with the war so far could be blamed was most convenient for the French government, making Mata Hari the perfect scapegoat, which explains why the case against her received maximum publicity in the French press and led to her importance in the war being greatly exaggerated. The Canadian historian Wesley Wark stated in a 2014 interview that Mata Hari was never an important spy and just made a scapegoat for French military failures which she had nothing to do with, stating: "They needed a scapegoat and she was a notable target for scapegoating." Likewise, the British historian Julie Wheelwright stated: "She really did not pass on anything that you couldn't find in the local newspapers in Spain." Wheelwright went on to describe Zelle as "... an independent woman, a divorcee, a citizen of a neutral country, a courtesan and a dancer, which made her a perfect scapegoat for the French, who were then losing the war. She was kind of held up as an example of what might happen if your morals were too loose." Zelle wrote several letters to the Dutch Ambassador in Paris, claiming her innocence. "My international connections are due of my work as a dancer, nothing else .... Because I really did not spy, it is terrible that I cannot defend myself." The most terrible and heartbreaking moment for Mata Hari during the trial occurred when her lover Maslov—by now a deeply embittered man as a result of losing