Mata Hari, Dance of Death

Did a voice speak on August 7.8.1876, 15.10.1917, the day Margareta Zella, known as Mata Hari, was born, and condemn her to death, a sentence that would be carried out forty-one years later? It seems that all the events of the tragic figure's life intertwine to lead to the bitter end, on October XNUMX, XNUMX, in front of the firing squad. Mata Hari built the legend of her life, layer by layer, until it collapsed like a house of cards, under particularly hostile historical circumstances. Who was Mata Hari, a celebrity in her life and a myth after her death? A ruthless femme fatale? A double agent who caused the cold-blooded deaths of thousands of French soldiers?

A century after her death, historians and biographers now largely agree that Mata Hari caused no harm to either side and was cast into the abyss as a scapegoat whose role was to atone for the failures of the military leadership. The Mata Hari Association, in cooperation with her hometown of Leeuwarden, has filed a request with the French Ministry of Justice for a retrial in order to clear her name.

Margareta Zella, from a happy childhood to disaster and orphanhood

Gertrude Margaretha Zelle was born in 1876 in the city of Leeuwarden, the capital of the province of Friesland, in the northwest of the Netherlands. The fogs that surround the sleepy city and its canals blur the lines of reality, erasing the line between truth and fiction. From the beginning of her childhood, little Margaretha, as if she were walking on a stage, in the light of her father's loving and adoring gaze, who spared her nothing. For her sixth birthday, he installed a princess carriage for her, with four seats, drawn by a pair of goats. Little Margaretha is proud to drive it when she takes friends on a trip. Adam Zelle is a wealthy man.

His hat and cape shop is thriving. He, his wife and their children live comfortably above the shop. A cheap man calls himself a “baron”. Margaretha knows without a doubt that her father is nothing more than an impostor, but who cares. And that life is nothing but a theater. All means are sufficient to beautify and refine it. Margaretha herself tells her astonished friends about her birth in the castle where the local nobles of Leeuwarden lived. The friends naturally suspect that the stories are nothing more than the figment of their original friend’s imagination, but Margaretha is an acceptable girl and even the teachers like the brilliant student who shows a remarkable talent for music, poetry and languages.

Margaret, the only daughter of three boys, is very different from her fair-skinned, blue-eyed brothers. Her skin is brown, her hair is thick and black, and her eyes are brown and velvety. It is impossible not to notice the girl who stands out with her dark colors. Doesn't Asian blood flow in her veins? Her father, who sees her as a rare orchid in a field of yellow lights, pampers her with eye-catching clothes and an excellent education. There are whispers in the small town. The rise of a mean man, a simple hatter posing as a baron, who has been chosen to be the royal standard-bearer to welcome the visiting King of Holland.

When Margaretha was 13, her father lost all his assets due to misguided speculation. The wealthy merchant's money went down the drain somewhere in the oil wells of the East Indies, which was then a Dutch colony. Ahithophel's advice dragged the family to the brink of ruin. Adam Zela disappeared. To find a new livelihood in The Hague, he said. In 1890, Margaretha's parents divorced. The mother and her children left their spacious house in the prestigious district and moved to a shabby apartment near the harbor, in poor conditions. Margaretha's mother could not stand the test, sank into depression, fell ill and died a year later. Adam Zela came to the funeral but did not take his children under his care. They were scattered among various associates. Margaretha, 14, moved into one of their houses but was not welcome there.

There is no doubt that the tragedy that Margaret experienced as a child greatly influenced the course of her future life and contributed to her own downfall. Her father's bankruptcy was the beginning of the crack that gradually widened. Margaret worked with all her might to regain her lost property and honor, but she lost them again later when, like her father, she wrapped herself in a thousand masks of falsehood, did not weigh her actions wisely and did not read the map of reality correctly. The girl reaches the then unusual height of 5 feet 11 inches. In those days, this was not an advantage but rather a limitation on the way to finding a suitable match.

Margaretha's small breasts also did not meet the aesthetic standards of the time. But the slender, charismatic girl, with olive hair, continues to attract attention and arouse interest. The relative in whose house she was staying advised her to become a teacher. The headmaster of the school in Leiden, where she studied to prepare herself for this calling, fell head over heels in love with her. The scandal that erupted led to the headmaster's dismissal and the student's divorce.

Lady Mac Loud, married life

Margaretha, 18, found refuge in the home of one of her uncles in The Hague, but her future was uncertain. A newspaper advertisement from a Dutch naval officer looking for a bride caught her eye, and she was Lady MacLeod, as she would later call herself, the wife of Rudolph, twenty years her senior. Rudolph MacLeod, a Dutchman of Scottish descent, had returned on home leave from his service in the Dutch East Indies (today's Indonesia) due to his failing health. Marriage seemed an ideal solution for a girl who had nothing and no one to care for her. Margaretha undoubtedly saw Rudolph as a replacement for the father who had disappeared from her life so suddenly and cruelly. But the husband was a violent drinker, jealous and possessive of his wife, and a hopeless womanizer himself. The marriage was doomed to failure. In 1897, their son Norman was born.

Captain Rudolph MacLeod was ordered to return to the East Indies. He, his young wife, and their newborn son sailed to Java. Rudolph's jealousy of his wife grew. At one point, he took a local mistress and even the housemaids were harassed by him serially. Margaret used her talent for languages ​​to learn Javanese. She also developed a keen interest in the Hindu epics and the ritual dances associated with them, during which the dancers address the gods and ask to please, appease, and please them in order to ward off the forces of evil, achieve victory over evil, and gain blessings, prosperity, and fertility. The gods sometimes demand a heavy sacrifice for the fulfillment of the request.

In 1898, amidst one quarrel after another, the couple had a daughter, Louisa. Her mother would call her “Nun,” a little girl, in Javanese. She called herself “Mata Hari,” the eye of the day. Margaret’s enthusiasm for the local culture was unusual among the colonial wives who led a rather closed lifestyle in their small circle. Moving to Sumatra improved MacLeod’s status and Margaret fulfilled her duty as a socialite. She spoke to Mozambicans in Dutch, German, Spanish, English, or French, languages ​​she mastered well. She spoke the local language to her servants. In addition, she played the piano and danced gracefully, under the admiring and admiring eyes of her high-ranking guests. Margareta began to enjoy her new status.

A new tragedy, more terrible than the previous one, interrupted her happiness. On June 27, 1899, screams were heard from the children's room. Norman and Louisa vomited a black liquid and their bodies turned into butterflies. The children were poisoned by the nanny, who was the father's jealous and vengeful mistress. Norman did not survive. Louisa, "Nun," was miraculously saved. Unfortunately, she did not live long. Louisa MacLeod died of a stroke at the age of 22, two years after her mother was executed. Margaretha sat motionless for days, staring in despair. Rudolph blamed her for her son's death and made her life miserable. The couple returned to Holland with their daughter and Margaretha obtained a divorce. Rudolph refused to pay her child support, kept their daughter and prevented Margaretha, a "dangerous woman," from seeing her. And yet again, at the age of 26, destitute, lonely, without a loving friend, she is forced to ask for mercy from relatives.

Mata Hari, Javanese princess

A strong hope motivated the young woman with no means to start a new life in the bustling Paris of the Belle Époque, the “Beautiful Age.” A first visit ended in professional disappointment: the painters whose doors she knocked on to offer her services as a model did not treat her well. But Margaret, who was forced to return to Holland, did not give up. In 1903, she returned to Paris, determined to reinvent herself and succeed in the field of art. The strategy she chose this time bore fruit. In her last travels, she bought a magnificent dress.

Lady MacLeod entered the luxurious hotel, Le Grand Hôtel, near The opera, 2 rue Scribe, and marked herself a victim. Already in the elevator, the wealthy wine merchant, Louis Castagnol, fell into the net of the exotic beauty, dressed in a sari, with aristocratic manners. On the third floor, the matter was already arranged. Her stay at the hotel, in addition to all her needs, would be paid for from her lover's pocket. Thus, Margaret joined the high society women of the Belle Époque, the courtesans. Merchants, bankers, diplomats, members of the nobility, but especially those of rank (an insatiable longing for paternal authority?) would finance her extravagant life.

But Margaret has artistic ambitions. She is interested in a career and publicity. Nothing deters her. Not yet thirty, at the height of her sensuality, she fulfills her dreams beyond measure, climbing the ladder of success. Two years after arriving in Paris, in early 1905, she knocks on the door of Ernest Mollier, who has established a prestigious circus in the Passy district. She wants to join the Amazons, the horse-riding women. Mollier offers her a riding show in the revealing attire of a Hindu dancer. Margaret agrees and this is the beginning of the legend, a springboard to a brilliant independent career. Lady MacLeod returns to being Mata Hari, “the eye of the day,” the rising sun, Ayelet Hashachar.

Why not turn the ride into an Indonesian dance combined with a striptease? In front of a refined audience, who show an enthusiastic interest in everything related to the exotic East, covered in jewelry, a tiara, necklaces, bracelets and anklets, her breasts covered with metal domes studded with pearls, Mata Hari writhes like a snake in a sensual dance and slowly sheds her coverings. The highlight is the show at the Museum of Asian Arts, which bears the name of its founder and director, Emile Gimme, who heard about the debaucher's performances in private homes and invited her to enlighten and entertain his guests: statesmen, diplomats, members of the nobility, artists and journalists.

The Dance of Death at the Gimhae Museum

On March 13, 1905, Mata Hari's performance in the museum library, dressed as a Hindu temple for the occasion, is a resounding success. The tension is at its peak, the hall is in darkness until the star appears, surrounded by four black-clad backup dancers. The lithe body of the prostitute, wrapped in transparent and luminous silk fabrics, arouses the desires of the spectators. In the first picture, the erotic priestess dances a slow-paced dance in praise of the god Shiva. In the second picture, she brandishes a dagger, in a fast and violent dance, in honor of the god of war, Subramanian. Plays of light and shadow heighten the dramatic effect. Passions are heated. When the music becomes shrill and oppressive, when the backup dancers burst into screams, the audience holds its breath. This is the third picture. Mata Hari, after rapid gyrations, fell exhausted at the feet of her lover Shiva, the god of destiny, sacrificing herself in ecstasy on his altar. The audience roared with joy.

An ominous pantomime? An ironic hint? Mata Hari never imagined that twelve years after her victory at the Gima Museum, she would be executed by firing squad.
The performance ends with Mata Hari almost completely naked. Mata Hari would never remove the metal cups that concealed her small breasts and would say that her violent and jealous husband had bitten her in the groin and torn off her nipple.

The Good Dozen Years

The show at the Gima Museum launched a brilliant career. The leading promoter at that time was Gabriel Astruc, son of a highly respected rabbi, Elie-Aristide Astruc, who served as deputy chief rabbi of Paris and Chief Rabbi of Belgium. Gabriel Astruc took the budding artist under his wing for the next ten years. Mata Hari, the Javanese princess, became famous overnight, her name was on everyone's lips, the newspapers praised the daring of her dance, her pictures were printed on postcards, matchboxes and biscuits. The debaucher conquered Paris and was honored to perform in the mythical Olympia Hall.

The great promoter organizes a tour of European cities for the sought-after artist, Vienna, Berlin, Rome, Madrid. In Monte Carlo, she plays the role of an Indian dancer in the opera “Le King Laure” by composer Jules Massenet before the eyes of Prince Albert I. Puccini is enthusiastic, showering her with flowers. The star documents her successes in two thick diaries, filled with newspaper clippings and photos, which are now kept in the hall dedicated to her memory, in the Frieze Museum in her hometown of Leeuwarden.

Mata Hari rents a luxurious apartment at a prestigious address, 3 rue Balzac, near Arc de Triomphe, renovating and furnishing with the best of her money. From now on, she will be assisted by a faithful maid, a member of her people who will not leave her until the day she dies. The gossip columns describe her costumes and tell of her jewelry, furs, and lovers. Margaret Zella ignites their imaginations and tells that she was born in southern India to a holy Brahmin family, to a righteous and generous father who in another version becomes an English lord, and to a Hindu temple dancer who died at the age of 14 when giving birth to her daughter.

She was adopted by the temple priests who taught her the secrets of the ritual dance and gave her her name, Mata Hari. It is impossible not to admire the way Margareta Zella enlists reality in the service of fiction. She continues to weave the stories of the canvases and tells that she is the widow of a British officer or the wife of a Dutch colonel. During their stay in the distant colony, she and her husband went out and came in the company of princes and rulers who hosted them in palaces where ritual dance ceremonies were held. The versions change, as do the lovers.

At the height of her success, the star suddenly stops her performances to follow a German officer, Alfred Kiefer, to Berlin. She thinks she has found the love of her life in him, but she becomes bored in Berlin. She misses the stage. It is known that she boasted of an affair with Crown Prince Wilhelm, whose weakness for beautiful women, especially singers and dancers, poisoned his married life. After a few months, in 1907, completely disgusted with her life in the German capital, she returns to Paris, but success turns its back on her. New stars exploit the idea of ​​erotic-exotic dance under the guise of a cult conceived by Mata Hari.

The most famous of them is Colette, who appears on the stage of the famous cabaret, La Moulin Rouge'. Mata Hari is forced to perform in popular clubs and begs for work. In such times of depression, she frequents brothels where her famous name still impresses customers. The large sums of money she earned in her heyday, before her stay in Berlin, she squandered on luxuries like there was no tomorrow. Sergei Diaghilev, the renowned ballet promoter, rejects her impudent request to join his company. Mata Hari was never trained to dance and in the eyes of professionals she was nothing more than an eyesore. Respected experts on Eastern culture also raise serious doubts about the credibility of her art.

The perpetrator of the past, on the verge of forty, but still well-groomed and well-groomed, continues to sell her body, as she did before, without inhibitions, for the highest price, but her heart remains sealed. The memory of her failed marriage to her possessive and violent husband prevents her from falling in love and dropping anchor. Restless, she wanders, from place to place, from identity to identity. Between 1910 and 1911, she stays in the country castle that a banker lover puts at her disposal in the Loire Valley, Le Château de la Dorée, devoting herself to riding her beloved horses. Marguerite has always been an excellent rider. She returns to Paris and settles in an urban mansion in the prestigious Neuilly district. She still manages to perform at the La Scala theater in Milan, Swan Song. On the eve of the war, the former dancer is up to her neck in debt. At the end of 1915, the courtesan sells furniture, horses, and carriages and returns to her homeland, settling in The Hague, in a house rented for her by a colonel who is an acquaintance of hers.

La Belle Epoque, the “Beautiful Age,” frivolous, permissive, creative, progressive, prosperous, is over. A long war with many victims is taking its toll. The carefree, celebratory Paris of yesterday is in the grip of austerity, cuts, and fear. Hatred for Germans and foreigners is growing. An atmosphere of witch hunt has taken over the city. Margarethe Zelle saw that the entertainment clubs were closed, that the nightlife was shut down, that the men were taken to the front, that the women took their place, driving trams, delivering mail, and working in factories, but she did not understand that the new, dark era no longer allows life to be treated as a light theatrical performance. Mata Hari continues to conduct herself blindly like a star on stage in front of an adoring audience.

Mata Hari “Spy”

In her neutral homeland, Mata Hari receives an unexpected offer for a new, adventurous role. The German consul in The Hague, Karl Kramer, offers her to pay off her debts in exchange for espionage services. Mata Hari is a polyglot socialite whose seductive powers and connections with French officers and statesmen are well-known. An opportunity to return to the stage from which she was banished to play a new, entertaining role, to pocket money, and to leave boring Holland. Mata Hari therefore accepts Karl Kramer's offer and returns to Paris, in mid-1916, with the amount of money she received as an advance from the German diplomat in her pocket. From the ship taking her to Paris, she throws into the sea the jars of secret ink given to her by her "operator."

Did Mata Hari give the Germans important intelligence information? No. Margaretha lived in a champagne bubble. World affairs did not interest her, espionage techniques even less so. She was incapable of bringing significant benefit or harm to either side. Mata Hari was an operetta spy. The “secrets” she revealed to the Germans to justify her salary she read in the newspapers. She never intended to betray France. She never, for example, approached the French Minister of War, Adolphe Massimi, who was one of her lovers, to extort information from him firsthand.

Mata Hari's frequent visits to Berlin and her connections with German officers aroused the suspicion of the French and British authorities. When she arrived in France, she was placed under constant surveillance that yielded nothing. But the noose began to tighten around her neck despite everything. At the end of 1916, the 40-year-old Mata Hari fell in love like a young girl with a 22-year-old Russian officer, the same age as her son Norman, had he remained alive. Margareta probably saw in Vadim Maslov the image of her son who died when he was two and a half years old. Mata Hari did everything to fulfill her dream, to marry the chosen one of her heart, a captain who fought on the side of the French, and to live happily and richly with him until the end of her days. Maslov was wounded in battle and hospitalized in a military hospital near Vital. Mata Hari was determined to visit him. As

How to get a driving license to travel to Vital during wartime? Coincidentally, one of her acquaintances calls her at that very moment and advises her to contact the head of counter-espionage, Georges Lado. Margareta does not know that this is a trap set by the cunning Lado to lure her into his office. Lado is interested in catching spies to move up the ranks. When she knocks on his door, he offers her to spy for FranceSpy services pay well, why not take the side where her new lover is fighting and build the future?

Mata Hari promises Captain Lado to lure a German general to her bed and extract information from him about the enemy's military plans. In exchange for her espionage services, she demands a million French francs. This is the amount she needs to abandon her life of adventure and turn over a new leaf with the young Russian knight, who is also deeply in debt. Lado promises but does not keep his word. Mata Hari sets off for Belgium, via Spain, to seduce the German high command, and she is a "double agent."

During a stopover in England, the British mistakenly think she is a German spy named Clara Bendix. After realizing their mistake, they release her from custody but forbid her from continuing the voyage and send her back to France via Spain. Mata Hari is in their sights. The British and French suspect her of spying for the Germans. In Madrid, she arranges a meeting with the German military attaché, Arnold von Calais, introducing herself as a spy for Germany, using the code name given to her by the German consul in The Hague, H 21.

Mata Hari rejoices, having managed to seduce the fallen attaché, who had fallen under her spell, and she has extracted important information from him regarding the landing of German submarines on the coast of Morocco. She rushes to inform Georges Ladoux. But the one she considers prey becomes the hunter. Arnold von Klaa decides to take down the woman who is posing as a German spy but is working for France. To get rid of double agents, there is nothing easier than handing them over to the enemy. Klaa knew very well that the telegraph messages he would send to his commanders in Berlin would fall into the hands of the French at the wireless station set up on the Eiffel Tower – “The Big Ear.”

Arnold Kelleh therefore sends long messages to Berlin detailing the activities of the agent H 21 and also the amounts of money she demands. There can be no mistake. The agent is none other than Mata Hari. French intelligence deciphers the messages without difficulty and here is the supposed proof that Mata Hari is a dangerous spy in the service of the German enemy who received payments from him, Tevin and Tekilin.

A trial that ended in execution

In France, the wounded and dead slaughtered in the trenches are no longer counted. Most of the bloody battles take place on its own soil. Notices call on residents to listen and turn in spies. Panic, fear, and despair both at the front and in the rear. Paris is bombed from the air. Civilian victims are buried with state honors. The enemy on the ground is approaching. Rebellions break out in the ranks of the army against the command. Soldiers and spies are executed, so that they may be seen and feared. Enemy agents are doomed to death. The order of the hour is to unite the people, glorify patriotism, and divert attention from military failures. The leadership needs scapegoats. Mata Hari will pay the price of war and its horrors and will ascend the altar.

On February 13, a few weeks after returning to France, Mata Hari was arrested in her hotel room, locked up in the Saint-Lazare women's prison, and put on trial for espionage for Germany. The investigator, Captain Pierre Bouchardon, a patriot, truly believed her guilt. Mata Hari was in contact with German espionage and received substantial payments from it - these were facts. Only one of her hundreds of high-ranking lovers, Henri de Margerie, an intelligence officer, bothered to come and testify in her favor and confirm her words. The rest preferred to deny the suspicion and hide their connections with her. The sly Georges Ladoux, of course, did not lift a finger. They had plotted to convict her from the start.

And the worst thing for the woman in love was Maslov's betrayal, for whom it came through fire and water. Captain Vadim Maslov, on the advice of his commanders, decided to disown her immediately when he heard of her arrest. He never thought of marrying Madame Mata Hari, who was nothing more than an “adventurer,” as he called her in his written statement. Mata Hari was described at the trial as a corrupt woman, who left her husband and abandoned her daughter to lead a permissive and debauched life, an immoral liar. Mata Hari, the enemy's agent, the daughter of the devil, embodies all evil.

The experienced lawyer, the defendant's lawyer, Edouard Clooney, who was also one of her past lovers and was now over seventy, spared no effort to save her, but in vain. The last chapter in the drama had already been written and signed. After Edouard Clooney's desperate ploy to present his friend Mata Hari as a pregnant woman failed, he turned to President Raymond Poiret with a request for clemency, which was immediately rejected. After three days of hasty trial, before dawn, the condemned woman was transported to the forest of Vincennes, where a firing squad awaited her. About a hundred spectators attended the execution ceremony. "What a success!" exclaimed Mata Hari, dressed in a magnificent dress with fur trim, wearing a wide-brimmed hat, a coat draped over her shoulders, and blowing a kiss to the 12 musketeers.

Upright, proud and brave, she walked towards her death, looking straight at him, refusing to be blindfolded. A last smile towards Sister Leonid, her nun friend from the women's prison who had accompanied her during her months of detention, a wave of farewell. The commander raised his sword with a sharp movement, the signal was given. To the sound of drums and trumpets, the woman fell to the ground. A bullet pierced her heart. No one claimed her body, which was handed over to the Faculty of Medicine, and then to be cremated. Margareta Zella's ashes faded and disappeared, but the myth of Mata Hari lives on, never forgotten, still exciting the imagination of the audience.