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Treachery has shaped our world in ways we rarely discuss... Join us as we reveal history's most consequential yet overlooked betrayals! From double agents who changed the course of wars to traitors who toppled dynasties, these acts of deception altered the fate of nations. Which of these historical backstabs surprised you the most?
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00:00The first spy to steal secrets from Los Alamos was Theodore Hall. He was codenamed Balad.
00:05Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're counting down our picks for some of history's lesser-known
00:10betrayals, which still had a huge impact. Among the enemy's ranks, there's an agent
00:15working for the military genius, Carl Ludwig Schulmeister.
00:20Number 10. James Armistead Lafayette. When you hear the name Lafayette, your first thought may
00:25be of the heroic French officer who fought in both the American and French Revolutionary Wars.
00:29But I'll bet there's a name you don't know. Important. Heroic. Vital to the cause of freedom.
00:37His name was James. Over time, he was James Armistead Lafayette.
00:43Instead, we're discussing an enslaved American from the same era who served under Lafayette.
00:48James was born a slave, but volunteered for the Continental Army, which promised him freedom.
00:52Passing himself off as a waiter, he gathered significant information that included the
00:57number of ships and boats in and around the Hampton Roads area, including Yorktown.
01:03They asked him to spy on British General Benedict Arnold, who thought he was just a runaway slave.
01:08This allowed him to do the job amazingly well. Thankfully, in 1784, he was granted his freedom
01:14for his heroism. On January 9, 1786, James finally gained his freedom. One of his first acts was to
01:22add to his name that of the general who inspired him and pleaded for his freedom. James the slave
01:28became James Lafayette, an American hero of the Revolutionary War.
01:33Number 9. Operation Trust. In the 1920s, the Soviet Union was a newly formed revolutionary state.
01:40One month after the Tsar's abdication, Lenin's special private train arrived in Petrograd to find the
01:46provisional government, the Soviets, and the revolutionary parties working together.
01:52In 1917, they got their start in the Russian Constituent Assembly election. When Lenin's radical
01:57Bolsheviks lost, they destroyed democracy in favor of authoritarianism. Understandably,
02:02not everyone was pleased.
02:04Less than a quarter of the population voted Bolshevik. And anyone who knew Lenin knew exactly
02:10what he would do. He let the Constituent Assembly meet, and then he closed it down a day later.
02:17It never met again. That was one of the great blows against the move toward democracy in Russia.
02:23This led to Operation Trust in the 20s, a fake anti-Bolshevik organization created by the government.
02:28It was called the Monarchist Union of Central Russia, which was a front to capture monarchists.
02:34In 1993, historian John Costello was allowed to access Trust's records. Turned out it was a
02:40total mess, with no real way to tell who was a monarchist or not. But he also imposed czarist-era
02:45tactics, secret police, press censorship, and state terror.
02:51Number 8. The Zinoviev Letter. Britain between the two world wars was teeming with fresh political
02:56ideologies, from anarchy to communism to fascism.
02:59As far as the opposition were concerned, there was only one issue at stake.
03:04Labour's ties to communist Russia. In short, the Red Menace.
03:09Many were terrified of the communists revolting in Britain, much like they had in Russia.
03:14This fear was so great, in 1924, it cost the Labour Party the election.
03:18This was because of a published letter from the Soviets, which encouraged British communists to revolt.
03:23A very secret letter of instruction from Moscow, which we published below,
03:27discloses a great Bolshevik plot to paralyze the British army and navy, and to plunge the country
03:33into civil war. The right-wing conservatives published the letter, which later turned out
03:37to be forged. This would only be realized decades later, after the damage had been done. So,
03:43it turned out Britain wasn't at major risk of a communist uprising after all.
03:47The individuals who forged the letter remain a mystery.
03:50There are a whole series of people who could have done it.
03:55I could have done it.
03:56Number 7. Hans-Joachim Tietke
03:59Most people agree, the worst person to turn into a spy is your own counterintelligence agent.
04:05This is exactly what happened in West Germany in the 1980s.
04:08For most of the 20th century, Germany was divided into East and West,
04:12respectively communist and capitalist. Espionage between the two was major,
04:16with over 150 West German spies being caught in the East in the 80s alone.
04:21Somehow, the West's counterintelligence officer Hans Tietke evaded capture. That ended up not
04:27being a concern for Tietke, who was a double agent. In 1985, he defected to the East entirely,
04:34which caused huge damage to the West's intelligence agency.
04:37Number 6. William Sebald
04:39Originally born in the German Empire in 1899, Sebald immigrated to America following World War I.
04:45In 1939, he returned home to visit his mother, where he was pressured by the Gestapo to become
04:50a Nazi spy. He reported this to the Americans, then quickly became a double agent. Eventually,
04:56he'd be a major player in the Duquesne spy ring, a secret Nazi group. In 1941,
05:01Sebald had aided the FBI in identifying all its members. This then resulted in a monumental number
05:07of convictions. In total, 33 people were convicted, with their sentences lasting over 300 years combined.
05:13Number 5. Theodore Hall
05:16For a brief period, the United States was the strongest nation globally by an overwhelming
05:21margin.
05:21The Manhattan Project. Supposedly, the United States' best-kept secret.
05:27This was following World War II, when they were the sole owners of atomic weapons. This
05:32dominance would have lasted longer if not for the efforts of Theodore Hall. He was the youngest
05:37physicist hired for the Manhattan Project.
05:39Hall, it's also a case of ego. I mean, Hall is the youngest member of the Manhattan Project.
05:44And it's clear that he feels like he's pretty smart, and he's getting to be with all these
05:49Nobel Prize winners and do this cool work. But he also worked for the Soviet Union.
05:53As the war came to a close, he became worried at the thought of the USA being the sole atomic
05:58power. This was a concern of many physicists who worked on the project, with a few petitioning
06:03President Truman not to use it against Japanese people. Eventually, Hall gave the Soviets detailed
06:08plans for the atomic bomb.
06:09They figured out that they're unable to get a clean case against Ted Hall. And as a result,
06:15he never goes to prison.
06:17Number 4. Jeanne de Valois-Saramy
06:19The French Revolution was an extremely complicated event, with a myriad of factors driving it.
06:25One such factor was a bizarre scandal involving a diamond necklace and Marie Antoinette.
06:29The Queen's reputation had taken huge hits by 1784, making many disinterested in the monarchy.
06:35Jeanne de Valois-Saramy made things even worse by tricking someone into thinking the Queen
06:40wanted a two-million-lever necklace. Jeanne then stole the jewelry and had it sold on the
06:44black market. The offenders were put on trial, in a scramble to save face. It had the opposite
06:49effect, fueling more hatred of the monarchy. Jeanne was branded with a V for voleuse, or thief,
06:55then sentenced to life in prison.
06:57Number 3. Karl Schulmeister
06:59The Napoleonic Wars were a period of immense turmoil in Europe, following the chaos of the
07:04French Revolution.
07:05Napoleon's armies are taking over Europe. The German states armed themselves against the armies
07:11of the revolution. But the French Emperor handily defeats both Prussia and Austria.
07:18At its helm was Napoleon Bonaparte, whose head spymaster was the German Karl Schulmeister.
07:23Initially, he worked for the Austrian Empire, but became a double agent for the French Republic.
07:28Documents that he put together can still be found in the French military archive.
07:34They include a detailed description of the Austrian army's deployment,
07:38personally addressed to the French Emperor.
07:41Without him, Austerlitz wouldn't have been such an overwhelming victory for Napoleon.
07:45This was the famous battle that caused the Holy Roman Empire to be dissolved.
07:49This turned him into one of the most important spies of the era. Schulmeister was even sent to
07:54the British Isles to spy on France's greatest foe.
07:57Schulmeister is an extraordinary godsend for all who want to show that he belonged to one side or the
08:02other. For in this way, he can be made into a hero.
08:08Number 2. Harold Cole
08:10The worst traitor of World War II is a huge claim to make. Yet it's how Harold Cole has been described.
08:16Originally from London's East End, Cole started working for the Gestapo by 1941.
08:21His cover was that he was a British agent working to release POWs from Vichy France.
08:26In this job, he managed to get at least 150 French freedom fighters arrested.
08:31Many of them were executed and sent to concentration camps.
08:34Cole survived the war, but angered both the Axis and Allies.
08:38This got him shot by French police while resisting arrest in 1946, not long after the war had ended.
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09:00Number 1. Wu Sangue
09:02The Ming Dynasty was one of the longest-lived Chinese empires.
09:05They ruled from 1368 all the way until 1644.
09:10The Ming Empire was crumbling.
09:13Even from the faraway Shanghai Pass, Wu Sangue could sense its imminent demise.
09:20In the end, one sole traitor, Wu Sangue, was a major factor in their downfall.
09:25Wu was originally a Ming general, but decided to let their northern Manchu enemies through the Great Wall.
09:30This was because a peasant rebel had taken Beijing, capturing Wu's family in the process.
09:48The Manchus then descended on Beijing, but decided to start the Qing Dynasty instead of restoring Ming.
09:55Wu didn't stay loyal to them either, eventually starting his own rebellion in 1673,
10:00which lasted eight years and ended in defeat.
10:03Were there any huge betrayals we forgot to mention that you feel are barely known about?
10:08Leave them in the comments section below.
10:10It was certainly compromised to a great extent by the actions of these individuals.
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