Mata Hari: a name, a legend. This enchanting Dutch dancer – whose real name was Margaretha Geertruida Zelle – who was tried and shot for treason in France, because she was considered an enemy spy during the First World War. But was she really a traitor? There are many imaginative stories surrounding her. Hers, however, was truly fascinating: having recovered from a past of sadness and misery, she arrived in Paris, where she became a real star. Then came the war, and the star – very slowly – exploded: for a few months she served as secret agent in favor of Francebut was framed by a devious military plan and sentenced to death. Mata Hari, however, never betrayed the French: she was only a scapegoat of war.
Who was Mata Hari: the sad youth
Margaretha Zelle She was born in Leeuwarden, in the Netherlands, on August 7, 1876. She was not a child like many others: shrewd and talkative, It stood out above all for its aesthetics: in a country where everyone has fair skin, blond hair and light eyes, she had olive skin and very black hair and eyes, so much so that a schoolmate wrote to her in a letter that she looked “an orchid in a field of dandelions“.
Her childhood was ruined when her father, who showered her with gifts, ran away with another woman. A few years later her mother died, and Margaretha was left an orphan. She was only 14 years old and a very young teenager. fierywho was expelled from school because she had an affair with the headmaster. She went to see her godfather in The Hague, a city full of colonial officers who were resting after returning from the Dutch East Indies. The young girl hoped to marry one of them and move into a splendid colonial villa for “live like a butterfly in the sun“.
In 1895 she married Captain Rudolph MacLeod, but it was not a happy marriage: he hid a myriad of debts from her and was full of lovers, so much so that had given her syphilis. Hari had become a butterfly, yes, but trapped in the net.
She had two children with him, but one of them died of congenital syphilis. Everyone knew that the child had died because of the father, who with his unruly sexual life had transmitted the disease to his wife and son. In 1902 the couple managed to return to their homeland and divorced. Mata Hari entrusted her daughter to her father, then left for Paris.
Mata Hari enchants Paris with her exotic dances
In Paris he reinvented himself as dancerand it was there that from Margaretha became “Mata Hari“, name of Malay origins meaning “sun eye“. His first performance dates back to 1905, at the Guimet Museum, where he danced in front of 600 illustrious guests wearing only a dress of veils, a diamond-studded bra and an elaborate headpiece. He was an immediate success in a society bored by the same old dances, and soon his performances were even requested in other European capitals.
At the beginning of each show Hari would say that what he would accomplish were sacred dances learned in some Indian temples. Her beauty exotic and her choreographies made her the most sought-after woman in the city of light, and officials, diplomats, lawyers and other wealthy men of all ages asked her out. A flood of jewels, dresses and even thoroughbred horses never failed to arrive to her as a symbol of love. Hers was a life peppered with beauty and wealth, never boring, and always admired by influential men.
Even when the war came, she did not change her habits: even underwear was now almost impossible to find, but she never failed to flaunt her bright clothes on the streets of Paris, attracting malevolent glances. The war, however, would reach her too in the autumn of 1915, even if Hari did not expect it.
The proposal to hire him as a spy
Hari travelled a lot for work, and his flitting between one capital and another meant that he was soon recognised keeping an eye on in times of war. In October 1915 she was in The Hague, when the German honorary consul in Amsterdam offered her 20,000 francs for become a German spybut she refused.
Once in Paris, being always very courted by men, she did not realize that someone was following her. Georges Ladouxhead of the counterintelligence unit of the Deuxième Bureau, ordered that even her incoming mail and her phone calls be checked, but no evidence could be found to prove that she was a spy hired by the Germans.
With the Battle of Verdun In 1916 the war of attrition worsened and in the trenches the soldiers suffered from the phosgene gas of the Germans, who maimed and killed thousands of them. This situation gave Ladoux an idea that he believed could raise the morale of the troops: arrest an important spy.
In the meantime, Hari had fallen in love with a Russian captain who was fighting on the French front and who had been admitted to the Vittel hospital because he had been seriously affected by phosgene. Hari tried in every way to obtain a pass to enter the hospital, but failed. Then she remembered that a friend of hers worked for the Ministry of War, and she asked him, without knowing that he worked for Ladoux’s counter-espionage office, and that was how he arranged an appointment for her in his boss’s office.
Ladoux gave her the pass, but on one condition: become a French spyShe accepted for one million francswhich she said would be useful to renew her wardrobe in case she had to charm some military man. She left on Ladoux’s instructions for Spain, waiting for his instructions which however never arrived.
Betrayal and double-dealing
During one of her travels she stopped at a British port, where she was interrogated by agents who suspected her of being a German spy whom she resembled. In an attempt to be released she said she was a French spy, but when the agents contacted Ladoux, his plan to frame her began: he wrote to the British that he suspected her and that he had only hired her to obtain damning evidence proving her status as a spy.
Once released she arrived in Spain, where she worked for to ensnare some enemy soldier to steal important secrets.
For some time she frequented a German major who confessed to her that German submarines they were approaching the Moroccan coast to unload a cargo of weapons. She immediately wrote to Ladoux, who did not respond. In the meantime, however, he had taken charge of intercept radio messages between Madrid and Berlin and to declare that thanks to some intercepted messages it was possible to understand Hari’s nature as a German spy. Over time it was discovered that the messages had been editedbut not in time enough to save her life.
Mata Hari’s Arrest and Death Sentence
By January 1917, Hari had realized that she had been abandoned and that the promised money would never arrive. On February 13, she was arrested and interrogated by the investigating judge of the Third Military Court. Pierre Bouchardonknown throughout France for being a ruthless man even with suspects and women “immoral and man-eaters“, and she fell into both categories. She was sent to solitary confinement in the Parisian prison of Saint Lazarewhere the unfortunate woman – accustomed to luxury and wealth – slept between rats and fleasunable to wash. She wrote a letter to her beloved, but it would not be posted.
They hung over her eight counts of indictmentThe trial began in July of that year, and Hari faced a jury of seven military men. She was done for: she hadn’t been the lover of any of them.. The charges remained flimsy, and there was no way to prove whether and what sensitive information she had passed on to the Germans. Many of her former lovers appeared in court to defend her, but to no avail: there was a need for someone to blameand Mata was sentenced to death by firing squad.
On the morning of October 15 of that year, Hari walked with her head held high to the place of execution. She refused to be tied to the stake and wear the blindfold, astonishing all present: It was his last show, and he staged it with great skill..
