Whatever the case, the 39-year-old was assigned a German codename: H 21., Over the next several months, Mata Hari continued traveling through Europe and carrying out flings with military officers and politicians. This must be very early in 1917: Russia was in turmoil that year, with a revolution in February and the tsar's abdication in March. The evil that this woman has done is unbelievable, prosecutor Andre Mornet concluded in his final statement. Mata Hari maintained that the young Captain Vladimir de Masloff was the only man she had really ever loved. She was forced to return to her neutral homeland of Holland, where she resumed an old affair with a wealthy Dutch baron. It was an improbable end for the exotic dancer and courtesan, whose name became a metaphor for the siren spy who coaxes secrets from her paramours. Duly convicted on eight charges of espionage, on October 15, 1917, the greatest woman spy of the century, who was in reality no such thing, was shot at 5 a.m. by a firing squad of twelve men at a barracks in Vincennes, a suburb of Paris. She was arrested in Paris in February 1917. She was actually 40 years old at the time, and her time as a dancer was long behind her. Her marriage broke up after she returned to her native Netherlands in 1902. His military career later took the couple to Indonesia, where they had two children, but their marriage was plagued by infidelity and domestic violence. So popular was it that nobody doubted its extravagant claim in the worlds first advertising slogan. Historian Stephen Bourne, author of 'Fighting Proud', discusses the role of gay servicemen in the world wars and the challenges of publishing gay history. Same day she met PROFESSOR MARIANI Captain Italian Army.. She danced at ballets and operas. Completing her dramatic transformation from military wife to siren of the East, she coined her stage name, "Mata Hari," which means "eye of the day" in Indonesian dialect. Much of her prison interrogation statement concerns mundane thoughts, not troop movements. Historians are unanimous only in date and place of death of Vadim Maslov he lived to be 43 years and died in exile. However, MacLeod refused to provide any financial support for Zelle to support her daughter, forcing her to move to Paris alone to earn money. Sie wurde am 15. Vlad embraced unbridled barbarism when battling the Ottomans. He condemned dozens of Saxon merchants to the same torturous demise in 1459 to suppress dissent. The prosecution during Zelles trial went so far as to blame her for the deaths of 50,000 French soldiers, though no specific evidence was ever provided as to how she caused these fatalities. Hired by army captain Georges Ladoux, agreeing to pass military information gleaned from her conquests to the French government. Mata Haris trial began on July 24, 1917, but with cards stacked against the 41-year old former exotic dancer, its outcome was never really in doubt. The cash-strapped dancer accepted the moneyshe later claimed she considered it payback for the assets seized from her a year earlierbut whether she actually took part in espionage is unclear. During her trial Zelle was interrogated by Captain Pierre Bouchardon, a military prosecutor, who held up her way of living as evidence against her. Amid growing social unrest at home and mutinous rumblings at the front, the logical scapegoat was internal betrayal by people of dubious background, reviving the xenophobic and anti-Semitic themes of the Dreyfus Affair from 1894-1906. Deviant sex, espionage and blackmail were closely entwined in the popular imagination, thanks in part to the pre-war Redl affair and Caillaux affair.. The story might even be true. On the outbreak of war she tried to return to Paris, hoping to reconnect with old patrons there, arousing the suspicions of German officials who confiscated all her property, leaving her destitute. Take a Beechams Pill was often the advice. 2023 Minute Media - All Rights Reserved. As it happened, May 1914 found Mata Hari in Berlin, where she had a brief affair with a German officer in the morals (vice) division. Arresting a double agent painted the French war effort suddenly in a much better light. Others, of course, believe that she was in fact a German double agent. Noticing the effect her exotic appearance seemed to have on men, when she was 19 years old she responded to a newspaper personals ad placed by a Dutch colonial officer, Rudolf MacLeod, serving in the Dutch East Indies (today Indonesia), seeking a wife. Sigismund focused on beating back the Ottomans, and Vlad the Dragon aided in that effort. Together they moved to Java in the Dutch East Indies in 1897. The second Epistle written allegedly just before the shooting, was intended exclusively Maslova it has sentenced to death a woman reported that sent to the station, from where trains go to the point of no return. the Details of their romance, there is only fragmentary information indicating that Mata Hari was in love with Maslova stronger than he was her proof of her correspondence. In case that didn't get the point across, he also stopped paying taxes. Foliants wrote that Maslova was summoned in the case of Mata Hari as the witness, he about about the case knew. It was a desperate time for the French. While visiting him at the front, Captain Georges Ladoux offered her to become a spy. Margaretha and Rudolf MacLeod on their wedding day. Nevertheless the Brits, probably concluding that a washed-up exotic dancer was too implausible to be a real spy, released her and shipped her back to Spain. Why Was England Invaded So Much During the 14th Century? Wheelwright said she became an exotic dancer after fleeing an abusive marriage. Mata Hari was tasked with seducing him. MacLeod was a 38-year-old officer on home leave from the Dutch East Indies, where he had been stationed for 16 years. An exhibit that opened in 2017 on Mata Hari at the Museum of Friesland in her hometown of Leeuwarden in the Netherlands backs up this view. Zelle danced at both private salons and later at large theaters. However Ladoux failed to see that this was was all in fact an elaborate counterintelligence gambit perpetrated by Germanys spymasters. She was paid 20,000 (francs) in advance and her number was H.21.. Another enthralled newspaper writer called her "so feline, extremely feminine, majestically tragic, the thousand curves and movements of her body trembling in a thousand rhythms.". Star Newspapers Limited and/or its licensors. As does Garbo, in this pre-Hays Code film, Zelle usually ended up starkers. (The couple's son died in 1899 after a household worker in the Indies poisoned him for reasons that remain a mystery.). During their rocky, nine-year marriage marred by MacLeod's heavy drinking and frequent rages over the attention his wife garnered from other officers Mata Hari gave birth to two children, a daughter and a son. she defiantly told her interrogators. It's fair to say 2016 will go down in the history books as a year that rocked celebrity culture. The Sinking of the Lusitania and America's Entry into World War I, Biography of Georgia Douglas Johnson, Harlem Renaissance Writer, B.A., History, University of California at Davis. Zelle became famous. This led her to agree to spy on the Germans on behalf of the . Mata Hari later insisted that she planned to use her connections to seduce her way into the German high command, get secrets and hand them over to the Frenchbut she never got that far. Following the death of their young son, they moved back to Europe and divorced. Vladimir de Masloff, of the Russian army, stationed in France. Following her mother's death, Mata Hari and her three brothers were split up and sent to live with various relatives. But he evidently thought this arrangement sucked harder than his vampire counterpart. As war swept the continent, she had some freedom of movement as a citizen of neutral Holland and took full advantage of it, country-hopping with trunks of clothing in tow. He gave it to her on condition she work for French intelligence. When he was blinded and injured at the front and sent to recover in France, Zelle desperate to see him, asked French army Captain Georges Ladoux permission to see him. Find History on Facebook (Opens in a new window), Find History on Twitter (Opens in a new window), Find History on YouTube (Opens in a new window), Find History on Instagram (Opens in a new window), Find History on TikTok (Opens in a new window), Michael Nicholson/Corbis via Getty Images, https://www.history.com/news/the-exotic-dancer-who-became-wwis-most-notorious-spy, The Dancer Who Became WWIs Most Notorious Spy. Despite a lack of evidence about the secrets she might have passed to the Germans, the prosecution blamed her for the deaths of thousands of Allied soldiers and pointed to her numerous affairs as proof that she had been gathering intelligence. Mata Hari was a professional dancer and mistress who accepted an assignment to spy for France in 1916. Zelle wanted to support him financially, so she accepted an offer to spy for France in mid-1916. She was now nearly 40, and she had watched her dancing career slowly stagnate. AsOZY describes, some of the tried and truly horrifying tactics he used included sending men infected with bubonic plague to mingle with Ottoman troops, poisoning wells, and conducting night raids. When she passed these bogus secrets on to Ladoux, it only seemed to confirm that she was in fact a German double agent, as hed originally suspected. Best Known For: Mata Hari was a professional dancer and mistress who became a spy for France during World War I. . Mata Hari spent much of her career claiming that she was raised as an Indian temple dancer. The Germans were aware that the Allies had cracked this particular cipher, and were using it with the knowledge any messages they sent would be decoded, all in an attempt to sow confusion and hopefully trick the French into revealing some of their intelligence assets. Rosanoff is taken by imperial Russian general Serge Shubin (Lionel Barrymore) to see the celebrated Mata Hari dance. As loved theatrical divas are documents testifying to the great love of the famous spy Mata Hari (Margareta geertruida Zelle this is her real name) to Vadim Maslov. When it was over he no longer had a head at all. Once again she had found herself penniless and took the money offered to her. Although citizens of the Netherlands their ancestry traced back to northern Germany, giving Margreet a cosmopolitan air, which was only reinforced by her dark features and ethnic appearance, fuelingracist rumors of ancestors from India or Indonesia (echoing a scandalous allegation leveled at Britains former First Sea Lord and the inventor of the dreadnought, Jackie Fisher). The Art of Expressing Gratitude: Graduation Thank You Cards. Vladimir Masloff . On behalf of King Christian IX, he concluded the first commercial treaty between Denmark and the . This career was taking centre stage in the build up to World War One, as Hari got older and her dances less lucrative. Margaretha and Rudolf MacLeod on their wedding day. After the tragedy, the MacLeod family returned to the Netherlands. Zelle maintained her innocence up until the time of her death. In March 1895, while still staying with her uncle, 18-year-old Zelle became engaged to Rudolph "John" MacLeod after answering a personal ad in the newspaper. After her death, her name became synonymous with spying and espionage. Hari wrote reports in regular ink rather than invisible ink and sent them via easily intercepted hotel post. Each of the communiqus referred to agent H 21, whom the French quickly identified as Mata Hari. The French claimed not to know of Mata Hari when she was arrested and interviewed by British authorities in November 1916, having come to their attention because of the freedom of movement afforded to her by her neutral Dutch nationality. Nor was Mata Hari's maid, who acted as an intermediary for the baron's payments. There are memories of a Soviet diplomat Alexei Ignatiev, in which he wrote that Vadim Maslov after the emigration took monastic vows. Mata Hari's lover was a Russian aviator named Alexis Rosanoff. The French executed Zelle on Oct. 15, 1917. That summer, a French intelligence operative named Georges Ladoux approached her in Paris with yet another lucrative espionage offerthis time to spy for France. That amorous Dutch baron, who could have shed light on the truth, was never called to testify. Published: June 14, 2018Updated: August 14, 2022. Haris pioneering style made her well known, regardless of how talented a dancer she was. She commences something billed as a "sacred dance of Indonesia" that consists of some awkward writhing around in sequins and veils. She seems to have died bravely, she refused a blindfold and stood silently until the gunshots rang out. Their divorce became final in 1906. to colleagues, clients or customers, or inquire about Famous designers would offer her outfits for the stage, and postcards showing Mata Hari wearing her breast plate in poses from her routines were circulated. Suspected of being a double agent, she was executed in 1917. We strive for accuracy and fairness. She was 41 years old. She met a German attach and began tossing him bits of gossip, hoping to get some valuable information in return. It was an almost fittingly horrific ending to a tale punctuated by nightmarish violence. He gave it to her on condition she work for French intelligence. Someone is fooling with me, and blaming French counterespionage, since I am in its service, and I have only acted on its instructions. Nonetheless her notorious reputation, and her habit of embellishing or fictionalizing parts of her own past, effectively signed her death warrant: the French press and public were all too ready to believe that a foreign woman, famed for her loose morals and ability to seduce powerful men, had sold out the Republic, leading to the deaths of thousands of brave young Frenchmen. No Strings Attached: A Londoners Guide to One Night Stands 2023, Know How Sustainability Insights Help in Driving Change. Vlad's land maintained limited sovereignty in return for taxes, troops, and fealty. Over the course of his life the brutal ruler of Wallachia had killed an estimated 80,000 people, a quarter of which had been impaled on stakes and brandished like flags of flesh outside the city of Targoviste. Mata Hari (August 7, 1876October 15, 1917) was a Dutch exotic dancer and courtesan who was arrested by the French and executed for espionage during World War I. It is the first time she has fallen in love and perhaps the first time she has met a man who did not simply desire her for sex. Karineh Polenz wrote in his book that Vadim Maslovs arrest (and death too) Mata Hari wasnt too worried he thought she was just one of the women with whom he had an affair. Vladimir Malka (Masloff) Russian: Masloff. Although she was thoroughly searched and nothing incriminating found, a report read, she is regarded by Police and Military to be not above suspicion, and her subsequent movements should be watched.. Mary, Queen of Scots Not Just the Tudors Lates, Queen Victorias Favourite: Disraeli and Hughenden, The Defeat of Rome: Crassus and the Battle of Carrhae, How the Nile River Defeated Alexander the Greats Top General, Who Was Harald Hardrada? Her problems only mounted with the outbreak of World War I. Despite the growing tension in Europe in the years leading up to World War I, Mata Hari foolishly knew no borders with her lovers, who included German officers. The fact that she portrayed herself as an exotic other might have enabled the French to use her capture as propaganda, separating the blame for the lack of success in the war from themselves. She was the first woman and the first Jew to hold that office. Rosenberg, Jennifer. After she returned to France, on February 13, 1917, at Ladouxs order French counterintelligence agents arrested Mata Hari as a German agent. "Captain, those 'impractical' tanks went into action in the Somme yesterday, costing your country 20km of front and 18,000 casualties," he says. Since her conviction as a double agent during WWI she has become a byword for the femme fatale. Mata Hari is swarmed by fans. He was very intimate with her from this date and constant letters pass between, he was her favourite lover, the MI5 files state. ThoughtCo, Apr. 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