She was an exotic dancer in Paris at the height of the Belle époque.
She was the object of sexual desire for wealthy men, ambassadors and high ranking officers.
She was Mata Hari: the dancer, the spy, one of the great names of WWI espionage.
Novels, movies, even video games and a Young Indiana Jones episode have channelled a character
that is now the stuff of legends: a shrewd, manipulative femme fatale, spying and double
crossing on both Germany and the Allies at the height of WWI, motivated only by greed
and the need to maintain an extravagant lifestyle.
She was Margaretha Von Zelle, also known as Mata Hari, also known as Agent H21 of the
German Secret Service.
She was accused of causing the death of 50,000 French soldiers and met her deserved fate
in front of a firing squad on a cold October morning in 1917.
Before the Dawn But before you pronounce your verdict, stop
and think: in a world of spies nothing is as it seems.
The commonly accepted narrative of Mata Hari may be just a fabrication: was she really
the ruthless double agent the French counter-espionage wanted you to believe, or a simple pawn on
the European chessboard, lost in a game she could barely understand?
Documents recently de-classified by the French secret services reveal a whole new truth,
which we are about to tell.
Mata Hari was born Margaretha Gertruida Zelle on the 7th of August 1876, in the Dutch town
of Leeuwarden, from a relatively well-off family.
Her first years of life were largely uneventful, until the day when, aged 13, her beloved father
Adam abandoned her and her mother to live with another woman.
Two years later, her mother Antje died.
With no other sustenance, Margaretha was sent away by relatives to study to become a teacher.
Margaretha was now 15 and had bloomed.
With her dark complexion and dark exotic looks she stood out
“like an orchid among dandelions” … according to a schoolmate.
This friend was not the only one to notice: aged 16, Margaretha was expelled from school
for having an affair with the headmaster.
Two years later Margaretha was living in The Hague, bored, miserable and yearning for an
adventure away from the Netherlands.
She found a way out through a lonely hearts advert posted by a Dutch colonial officer
of Scottish descent, Captain Rudolf McLeod, who was 22 years her senior.
They married in July 1895.
If Margaretha wanted adventure in life, McLeod would offer it: as he was posted in the Dutch
colonies in Indonesia, things could not get more exotic than that.
Their married life in Indonesia, though, was not a happy one.
McLeod was a serial adulterer and physically abusive towards Gretha.
She retorted by having numerous affairs with the young officers posted in the colony.
But the worse thing was that Rudolf had contracted syphilis by one of his mistresses, infecting
Margaretha and – by hereditary transmission – their two children, Norman-John and Louise-Jeanne
who had been born in 1896 and 1898.
Norman’s case was particularly severe and he received the only available treatment at
that time – mercury.
The local Army doctor overdosed the child who sadly died from mercury poisoning aged
only two.
This was the final blow for the McLeod’s marriage.
They separated, and after returning to the Netherlands in 1902, they formally divorced.
The Light of Dawn A divorced woman like Margaretha in early
XXth Century Europe would have been at a tremendous disadvantage.
But she did not surrender.
In her colonial days she had picked up more than just an STD from that gentleman McLeod.
She could speak fluent German, French, Italian, Spanish and Malay.
Most of all, she could dance.
She had learned some local Malay and Indonesian dances unknown to the European audiences of
the early 1900s.
This is when her career truly started.
Imagine the setting, Paris during the Belle Epoque, that period from 1871 until 1914 in
which French economy, culture and the arts were flourishing.
The scene, the Guimet Museum of Asian art.
Enter an unknown dancer who is going to stun the high society of Paris with her bold moves,
inspired by the mysterious rituals of the far east.
Her name used to be Margaretha McLeod née Zelle, now it is just Mata Hari, the Eye of
the Dawn in the Malay language.
It was the start of a stellar career that would take her from private parties to the
most celebrated theatres in Europe.
In fact, Mata Hari’s shows would have been completely banned in any other context, even
by the loose standards of the Belle Epoque.
She would perform with loose and transparent robes, very often stripping almost completely
naked.
And yet she always got away by stating that she was simply re-enacting the sacred dances
of the priestesses of some cult or another in Indonesia.
During the following year her celebrity grew, not only because of her performances, but
mainly because of the affaires and the gossip that surrounded her.
Her patrons included journalists, lawyers, government officials, Army officers: the top
echelon of the Parisian society.
And they repaid her favours in lavish gifts, clothes, jewels or just cash.
Now it’s time to dispel a myth that has always surrounded Mata Hari: the fact that
she was little more than a prostitute and had an appetite for sex with powerful men.
In a series of letters to her cousin Edward (published in 2017) Mata Hari confesses how
she had developed a loathing for sex after her unfortunate relationship with McLeod.
If sometimes she consented to a relationship with a powerful friend it was only so she
could provide for her beloved daughter Louise.
The Light of Dusk It was a fact, nonetheless, that her dancing
had made her famous but it was her wealthy acquaintances that had made her rich.
These ‘acquaintances’ became ever more important with time: as the Belle Epoque gradually
slid into the warning signs of the War to end all Wars, demand for her shows started
to wane.
In June 1914 she had received an offer to dance in Berlin.
It was too good an opportunity to miss.
Unfortunately the show was cancelled due to a small mishap: Germany’s declaration of
war against Russia on the 1st of August.
Time to go back to Paris for Mata Hari, then.
Alas, another contretemps prevented her from doing so: Germany’s declaration of war against
France on the 3rd of August.
World War I had started.
Mata Hari decided then to return to her real home, The Hague.
She could have settled there and enjoy a quiet life in one of the few remaining neutral powers
in Europe.
She could, but she didn’t.
It was in the autumn of 1915 that Mata Hari started dating one Karl Kroemer, apparently
the Honorary Consul of Germany in Amsterdam, but actually an agent for the Kaiser’s secret
service.
Kroemer had a plan: he would recruit this beautiful woman, who carried a neutral passport
and spoke several languages to seduce top brass in the Allied field and report back
any secret she could gather.
Her reward: 20,000 Francs.
‘Not above suspicion’ This is when accounts start to differ.
According to the official enquiry that would follow, this is when Mata Hari officially
became Agent H21 and started her campaign to harm the Allied war effort, for the sole
reason of earning more and more cash to fund her lavish lifestyle.
Feel free to believe the legend, but the declassified documents suggest a different story: Mata
Hari declined the offer … but kept the 20,000 Francs!
In her eyes these were a rightful compensation for having had her furs and jewels seized
by German border guards at the outbreak of the war.
Having regained some funds and some confidence, Mata Hari returned to her spiritual home,
Paris.
Sailing to France from the Netherlands in December that year, her ship was docked in
the English port of Folkestone, and all passengers were questioned by a British intelligence
officer.
The officer noted of Mata Hari: “She Speaks French, English, Italian, Dutch
and probably German.
Handsome, bold type of woman.
Well and fashionably dressed.”
And the final verdict?
“Not above suspicion” And
“She should be refused permission to return to the U.K.”
This overzealous officer even sent a message about Mata Hari to the French Deuxieme Bureau,
or ‘Second Office’, which was the Counterespionage unit of the Ministry of War, headed by Captain
George Ladoux.
It was January 1916 now.
Mata Hari was back in Paris and had resumed her old habits, hanging out with dashing officers
and powerful under-secretaries.
But something had changed: she was being followed.
Ladoux’s agents shadowed her every move, opened her mail, intercepted her phone calls.
I’ll present again both version of this story, ladies and gentlemen of the Jury.
According to the official enquiry, the counterespionage unit wass gathering intelligence on Mata Hari’s
spying for the Germans.
But the facts are that the evidence they collected amounted to rien de rien.
First love That same year Mata Hari met Vladimir de Massloff,
probably her first love, surely the greatest of her life.
De Massloff was a decorated Russian Captain, who had been partially blinded in one eye
while fighting on the Western Front.
When Vladimir proposed, Mata Hari accepted happily.
But he had to leave for the front again.
How could she stay closer to him?
Despite her passport from a neutral Country, Mata Hari still needed a special safe-conduct
to travel near the front-lines.
Enter Jean Hallaure, an ex-lover.
Jean apparently worked for the War Department – but unofficially reported to … Captain
Ladoux.
Him again.
Jean arranged an appointment for Mata Hari to meet the Deuxieme Bureau and the Captain
placed his offer on the table: The exotic dancer would become a spy for them,
seducing high ranking German targets in neutral countries to capture military secrets.
In exchange, Captain Ladoux would give her the safe-conduct she needed and One.
Million.
Francs.
That’s more than 3 Million USD in today’s money.
That would have been more than enough to support Massloff and herself after they married, especially
if he did not recover his sight or his aristocratic family disowned him.
Ladoux instructed Mata Hari to wait for instructions before going back to The Hague via Spain … instructions,
which never came.
She did not know what intelligence she was meant to gather, whom to target, nor how to
communicate in secret.
Tired of waiting, she eventually wrote him by regular post asking at least for an advance:
if she was going to seduce important men, she needed to buy some new clothes!
Finally en route for Spain, Mata Hari’s ship was yet again stopped at a British port
and she was questioned once more.
This time, the British transferred her to London and kept her under custody until November
1916.
What was going on?
It seems that the British secret service MI5 were trying to establish if she was indeed
Margaretha Zelle aka Mata Hari, or one Clara Benedix, an actual German secret agent.
A sticky situation, which Mata Hari tried to resolve by admitting to being a French
agent.
The British contacted Ladoux.
His reply was “Understand nothing.
Send Mata Hari back to Spain.”
What was his game?
According to author Pat Shipman, the MI5’s interpretation was that Ladoux suspected her
for some time of being a German agent and had only pretended to employ her.
He would have been only too happy to have the Brits get rid of her.
But also in this occasion they let her go.
In December 1916 Mata Hari set to work in Madrid.
Without instructions but determined to win her reward she seduced a German diplomat,
Maj. Arnold von Kalle.
They spent only three afternoons in bed, but it was enough.
He let it slip that the German Navy with their Ottoman allies were planning a submarine landing
in Morocco, back then a French Colony.
The Germans planning to open a new front in North Africa?
This was huge news!
Mata Hari sent a message to Ladoux to inform him.
His response?
[Crickets] Why did Ladoux not respond to her?
Did he not trust her nor the intelligence she had captured?
Mata Hari sought advice from another lover, this time a French officer, Col. Joseph Denvignes.
Denvignes asked her to extract more information about the Moroccan landing from Kalle, which
she did.
Bad move.
Kalle and the Germans now became suspicious and decided to act.
American journalist Russell Warren Howe in 1985 claimed to have accessed the Mata Hari
Dossier, which had been kept secret by the Deuxieme Bureau since 1917.
According to him, what the German secret service did was incredibly sneaky.
Suspecting that Mata Hari was a French spy and still resentful that she had extorted
20,000 Francs from Kraemer in 1915, Kalle and his cronies sent a secret radio message
to Berlin to get rid of her.
This message implicated that Mata Hari was actually a German double agent.
But the evil genius was that they used a code which they knew the French had already cracked!
Into Ladoux’s web The message was intercepted by a listening
post located on top of the Eiffel Tower (It is a big aerial after all …) and promptly
relayed to Ladoux who now had the evidence he needed to arrest Mata Hari.
So, the German agents had manipulated Ladoux in doing their own dirty work.
But Ladoux was only too happy to have been manipulated.
He had suspected her from the start.
And the French public opinion was always on the hunt for scapegoats after the disastrous
battles of the Somme and Verdun.
In January 1917 Mata Hari returned to Paris and demanded to meet Ladoux to claim her reward.
But he simply shunned her, as she was running out of money and hope.
Then, on the 19th of February the Deuxieme Bureau issued an arrest warrant against her.
The charges were “espionage on behalf of Germany”.
Mata Hari was taken to Saint Lazare, Paris’ harshest women’s prison.
She who had once been at home in the most luxurious hotels of Europe now had to survive
in a flea-ridden and overcrowded jail.
For three months she was interrogated by investigative magistrate Pierre Bouchardon, an unforgiving
man with a prejudice against so called “loose women” like Mata Hari.
During this time, Ladoux kept her completely isolated, especially from her lawyer Clunet
(another ex-lover) and from her fiancée Vladimir de Masloff.
Finally, on the 24th of July, Mata Hari went on trial.
Once one of the most beautiful women in Europe she appeared ill, bloated and tired.
But not yet defeated.
Clunet was not experienced in military trials but he did a fair job.
He pointed out that the only evidence against her was the message intercepted at the Eiffel
Tower, which may have been doctored by Ladoux himself.
He produced a ‘star witness’, the secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs who testified
for Mata Hari’s good character and loyalty.
Mata Hari herself gave a great performance, declaiming to the jury
"A courtesan?
I admit it.
A spy?
Never!"
But this was a show trail from the start.
A few weeks earlier, the 20th of April, the disastrous Nivelle offensive had ground to
a halt.
40,000 French soldiers had died on a single day, the 16th of April.
As a consequence, 68 Divisions had mutinied in June, refusing to continue fighting and
dying for France.
The general public needed a scapegoat for those failures.
What better than a spy?
Even better: a foreigner.
Even better: a woman of loose morals.
According to author Pat Shipman, the 7 jurors all believed the unfounded rumour that Mata
Hari’s spying had caused the death of 50,000 French soldiers.
How could she stand a chance?
On the 27th of July the Judge pronounced the verdict: guilty of espionage and treason.
Sentence of death, to be executed by firing squad.
How to die On the morning of the 15th of October Mata
Hari was driven to the Vincennes Castle in the outskirts of Paris.
Six months of incarceration had taken their toll on her legendary beauty.
Even so, she decided to wear her finest clothes for the occasion.
The firing squad officer offered to blindfold her, but she refused.
Instead, she looked defiantly at her captors and executors.
Legend says that she blew one kiss to the soldiers of the firing squad, and one to the
priest there to offer the last rites.
Then, the squad commander raised his sabre.
Journalist and eye witness Henry Wales wrote: “She did not die as actors and moving picture
stars would have us believe that people die when they are shot.
She did not throw up her hands nor did she plunge straight forward or straight back.
Instead she seemed to collapse.
Slowly, inertly, she settled to her knees, her head up always, and without the slightest
change of expression on her face … She lay prone, motionless, with her face turned towards
the sky.
A non-commissioned officer drew his revolver … Bending over, he placed … the revolver
almost - but not quite - against the left temple of the spy.
He pulled the trigger, and the bullet tore into the brain of the woman”
She had tied Europe’s richest and most powerful men to her little finger.
She had Europe’s audiences at her feet.
But when the Belle Epoque ended and the War to start all Wars had broken out, Mata Hari
had failed to stay afloat.
She had been condemned by her naivete rather than her cunning and had been framed by petty,
vengeful men.
Yet, she had faced her last weeks on Earth with great dignity, giving her best ever performance
on that cold October morning.
The sergeant major supervising the firing squad remarked at the time, “By God!
This lady knows how to die.”
Close Thank you for watching today’s video and
let us know your verdict in the comments.
Mata Hari – legendary spy or martyr of a Great Game she could not control?
If you want to know more about World War I check out our video about Kaiser Wilhelm right
here.
For another story of women spies in a man’s world discover Coco Chanel’s story right
here.
We have three new videos going live every week, so subscribe and hit the bell icon to
make sure you don’t miss any of them.
See you next time and thank you for watching.