Top positive review
5.0 out of 5 starsA Little Known Heroine Who Played An Enormous Role
Reviewed in the United States on March 11, 2019
Marie-Madeleine Fourcade was born into a wealthy and prominent French family with an illustrious history and all the right social connections. For her first thirty years she led an unremarkable life treading the path expected of her: early marriage, children, and not much else. But then history caught up with her. In 1940 Germany invaded France and much of Western Europe. With Marie-Madeleine's connections she could have easily made her way to safety and spent the war living comfortably. She was made of sterner stuff. She became first the deputy and then the prime leader of the most successful French underground intelligence network, Alliance, and spent the war years in frequent peril of her life, providing vital information to the British, American, and Free French forces. Lynne Olson has written a series of excellent histories illuminating lesser known aspects of the World War II era, and Madame Fourcade's Secret War is one of her best.
Marie-Madeleine's sex, social position, and beauty were both assets and liabilities. Very few men outside of her intelligence network took her seriously or believed her to be capable of anything underhanded or devious. As a result she was often able to pull off diabolically cunning intelligence coups right under the noses of the German military. When she was captured and held prisoner she escaped in a series of hair-raising adventures that rival anything Ian Fleming or Frederick Forsyth ever wrote. Other women in her network had similar successes, including Jeannie Rousseau, whose apparent wide-eyed innocence led German officers to discuss secret military plans in her presence, and who was thus able to alert the British to the dangers of Hitler's missile research at Peenemunde. Unfortunately, after the war the roles played by Marie-Madeleine, Jeannie Rousseau, and many other brave women were discounted by the male officers and historians who established the official record, and it was not until many years had passed that they began to receive the recognition they were due.
This was one of those books I could not put down. Marie-Madeleine managed to get herself into so many alarming scrapes and adventures that I had to keep reading to learn how she would finally turn disaster into triumph. I came away from the book with a renewed appreciation for the bravery and dedication of the many women and men of the French Resistance who fed vital information to the Allies during some of the darkest moments of World War II. And in future, if I am ever tempted to believe that the exploits of fictional spies are too sensational to believe, I'll remember Marie-Madeleine Fourcade, and recognize that the truth is stranger yet.
