Life is not easy in East India. Matvey Lihterman Matvey Lihterman
The fate of Mata Hari has been the subject of many documentaries and art books, films and works of other genres.
Encyclopedic YouTube
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✪ Mata Hari and her trial (narrated by historian Alexey Kuznetsov)
✪ Mata Hari part 1 (18+)
✪ Mata Hari (Margaret Gertrude Zelle) - dancer, adventurer, courtesan, intelligence officer.
✪ The invisible front of Mata Hari
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Youth
Indonesia
On July 11, 1895, at the age of 18, Margaretha was married in Amsterdam by an advertisement to 39-year-old Captain Rudolf McLeod (March 1, 1856 - January 9, 1928), a Dutchman of Scottish origin. They moved to the island of Java (Dutch East Indies, now Indonesia) and had two children: a son, Norman-John (30 January 1897 – 27 June 1899) and a daughter, Jeanne-Louise (Non) (2 May 1898 – 10 August 1919).
The marriage was a complete disappointment for both. Rudolph was an alcoholic; In addition, he took out all his frustrations and dissatisfaction with life on his wife, who was half his age and whom he blamed for not being promoted. He also openly kept mistresses. Disappointed, Margareta left him, temporarily moving in with Van Rheedes, another Dutch officer. For many months she intensively studied Indonesian traditions, particularly through her work in a local dance group. In she first mentioned her artistic pseudonym - Mata Hari, which in Malay means “sun” (“Mata” - eye, “Hari” - day, literally “eye of the day”) in one of the letters to relatives in Holland.
After persistent persuasion from Rudolf, Margareta returned to him, although his aggressive behavior did not change. She still tried to forget herself by studying the local culture.
At the beginning of the 20th century, during a period of heightened interest in the East, in ballet (the career of Isadora Duncan can be cited as an example) and erotica, Mata Hari had big success in Paris, and then in other European capitals.
Mata Hari was also a successful courtesan and had relationships with a number of high-ranking military officers, politicians and other influential people in many countries, including France and Germany. Despite expensive gifts, which she received from her lovers, Mata Hari experienced financial difficulties and took out debt many times. Her passion was also card games, which may have been where her money went.
Double agent
Before her execution, while Mata Hari was in custody, her lawyer tried to get her out and drop all charges. An appeal was filed - to no avail. Then the lawyer submitted a petition for clemency to the president, but R. Poincaré also remained implacable. The death sentence remained in effect. In the cell where she spent last days her life, the lawyer suggested that she tell the authorities that she was pregnant, thereby delaying her death hour, but Mata Hari refused to lie. That morning the guards came for her and asked her to get dressed - the woman was outraged that they would execute her in the morning without feeding her breakfast. While she was preparing for execution, the coffin for her body had already been delivered to the building.
The execution took place at a military training ground in Vincennes on October 15. After the execution, a certain officer approached the body of the executed woman and, just to be sure, shot her in the back of the head with a revolver.
Former courtesan and famous double agent, Mata Hari calmly, without a trace of emotion, stood at the execution stake. Turning to the nun, she kissed her and, taking her coat off her shoulders, handed it to her: “Hug me quickly, I will look at you. Goodbye!" She refused to have her wrists tied, preferring to stand at the post without being tied to it. She also refused the black blindfold. Blowing a kiss to twelve soldiers (her executioners), the undaunted Mata Hari shouted: “I’m ready, gentlemen.” By order, eleven soldiers shot at Mata Hari, eleven bullets hit her body. The twelfth soldier, still just a youth, just called up for duty, fainted in unison with the lifeless body of the double agent, the beautiful Mata Hari. Immediately after the execution, her body was taken away, and subsequently it was transferred to the anatomical theater [ ] .
Reaction to execution
The news that the famous dancer was executed as a spy immediately caused a lot of rumors. One is that she blew a kiss to her executioners, although it is more likely that she blew a kiss to her lawyer, who was a witness at the execution and her lover. Also that her dying words were: “Merci, monsieur” [ ] .
Another rumor claims that, in an attempt to distract the executioners, she threw off her coat and exposed her naked body to the gaze of the soldiers; in 1934, an article in The New Yorker magazine, however, reported that she was actually wearing "an elegant suit custom-made for the occasion and a new pair of white gloves" during her execution; although another source indicates that she was wearing the same suit, high-cut blouse and cocked hat that had been chosen for her by prosecutors for the time being trial and which constituted her only clean and complete toilet in prison [ ] .
“A prostitute, yes, but never a traitor,” she said [ ] .
Mata Hari's body was not claimed by any of her relatives, so it was transferred to the anatomical theater. Her head was embalmed and preserved in the Museum of Anatomy in Paris. However, in 2000, archivists discovered that the head had disappeared; According to experts, the loss could have occurred back in 1954, when the museum moved. Reports dating back to 1918 indicate that the museum also received the remaining remains of Mata Hari, but there are no reports of their exact location.
Performance evaluation
Most historians believe that the harm from the actions of Mata Hari (that is, her effectiveness as an intelligence officer) was greatly exaggerated - it is unlikely that the information actually obtained by her (if any) was of serious value to one side or another.
Lieutenant Colonel of the British and Dutch counterintelligence Orestes Pinto believes that “Mata Hari, of course, has gained great fame. In the eyes of the public, she became the personification of the charming female spy. But Mata Hari was a stupid, expansive creature. If she had not been executed, she would not have been known as a martyr and no one would have even heard of her.” .
In culture and art
Template:Picture The role of a high society spy, played by her with complete fearlessness and leading to tragic death, fit into the “cinematic” biography of the exotic dancer she created and “ femme fatale"; this provided Mata Hari with much greater fame than other, more effective intelligence officers of the 20th century.
- Already in 1920, the film “Mata Hari” was made about her with Asta Nielsen in the title role, and later several remakes were released.
- In 1982, the German group Dschinghis Khan dedicated a song to her (album "Helden, schurken und der dudelmoser").
- In 1982, Leina Lovich, Chris Judge Smith and Les Chappell's musical Mata Hari premiered at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith, London.
- In 2009, director Evgeniy Ginzburg staged the musical “Mata Hari” to the music of A. Kiselev (libretto by A. Kiselev, A. Vulykh), in which the main roles were played by T. Dolnikova, V. Lanskaya, N. Gromushkina, O. Akulich, E. Vitorgan and singer Alexander Fadeev.
- In 2010, the musical “Love and Espionage” to the music of M. Dunaevsky, based on the play “Eyes of the Day” by E. Gremina, with Larisa Dolina and Dmitry Kharatyan in the leading roles, started in Moscow.
- September 16, 2010 in Moscow, on big stage Theater “Theater of the Moon” (artistic director Sergei Borisovich Prokhanov), the premiere of the play “Mata Hari: “Eyes of the Day”” (director Daria Popova) took place.
- The computer game “Secret Missions. Mata Hari and the Kaiser's submarines."
- Song " Mata Hari mambo"was performed in Polish by the famous pop singer 60-80s of the XX century by Anna German.
- In the 8th episode of the 2nd season of the series "
Life story Mata Hari represents a real find for lovers of spy intrigue and related adventures. Who was this woman: a German spy or intelligence officer - we will try to answer in this article.
What was Mata Hari’s “oriental style”? It was something between sacred dances ancient east and striptease. She danced not like Duncan, in transparent robes, but in general, completely naked. In addition to jewelry, on her seductive body there were only accessories covering her breasts, which were not very good for her.
Newspapers wrote about her: “This naked dancer is the new Salome, making any men lose their heads.” And she said about herself this way:
“I never knew how to dance well. People came in droves to look at me only because I was the first who dared to appear naked in front of the public.”
I must say that this self-esteem was close to reality. Looking at the photographs that we present at the end of the article, you can compare them with photographs of other beauties of that time. From this it becomes clear that calling Margaret a beauty in literally words are not allowed. Add to this the lack of choreography, and the question inevitably arises: why was she so deified? modern men?
![](https://i0.wp.com/interesnyefakty.org/wp-content/uploads/Mata-Hari-9.jpg)
Margaret Zelle herself mystified her image in every possible way. Her erotic performances attracted a lot of people to her, and she said that she was allegedly raised in a monastery, that she was the daughter of King Edward VII and was an exotic princess.
There is a known case when she paid one Indian to run up to her on stage during a performance and, falling to his knees, began to tearfully ask for something in an incomprehensible language. She later told the press that this was a messenger from her mother from India. Allegedly, he begged her to return home and marry a noble prince.
All this added up into a single whole brought her unprecedented success not only in Paris, but also in other European capitals. The real Mata Hari becomes a courtesan, and starts love affairs with many high-ranking politicians in Europe, including Germany and France.
However, she still has money problems. Despite many precious gifts from her lovers, she continues to take on debt. There are reasonable suspicions that she spent all the money on card games which I was very passionate about.
Spy Mata Hari
Be that as it may, Mata Hari went down in history, first of all, as a spy. When did the first one begin? World War(1914-1918), the Netherlands, of which she was a subject, remained on the neutral side.
This allowed Margaret Zelle to travel safely from France to her homeland. But given the front line, which had to be avoided, she was forced to cross Great Britain and Spain, where the German station was widely deployed.
Historians are unanimous in their opinion that Mata Hari was recruited by the Germans long before the start of the war. However, it should be emphasized that the circumstances of her recruitment are still unknown.
In 1916, the French received the first information that the Dutch citizen Margaret Zelle was a spy and working for Germany. Having learned about this, Mata Hari goes for broke and herself appears before the French intelligence agencies.
Offering her own services for collecting information, she accidentally names the name of one of her lovers, whom the French intelligence services knew well as a German recruiting agent.
The spy who was betrayed
So the French pretended to believe her stories. After that, she is given the first trial case. She goes to Madrid on a minor mission. But here the initial information that Mata Hari was working for German intelligence was confirmed.
The fact is that specialists intercepted the radio exchange between a German agent and the center. It reported that agent H-21 had been recruited by the French side and arrived in Spain, but the German station gave him instructions to return back to Paris.
It became clear that we're talking about about a double agent. Why is Mata Hari considered a spy who was betrayed? There is a reasonable opinion that the Germans specifically declassified the radio message in order to get rid of the double agent by revealing him to the enemy.
The figure of Mata Hari has become symbolic also because the exact reason for her exposure as a spy is still unknown.
On the one hand, it was beneficial for the Germans to set her up, on the other hand, scandalous reputation prostitutes to hide the real H-21 agent, who was a completely different person.
On the other hand, it was also convenient for the French to hand over their spy, holding her responsible for many failures at the front.
Thus, Mata Hari found herself between two fires, where she had no chance of life. One or the other, sooner or later, would have used it to write off their own military mistakes. This is what happens in history.
Death of Mata Hari
Returning to Paris on February 13, 1917, Margarete Zelle was immediately arrested on charges of espionage. The trial took place at behind closed doors. She was accused of transmitting secret information that led to the death of several divisions. An interesting fact is that the materials of this case are still classified.
On February 14, Mata Hari was found guilty and sentenced to death penalty. The lawyer, who was also her lover, tried unsuccessfully to appeal, and even wrote a petition to the President of France. But the head of the republic categorically rejected this request.
Desperate, the lawyer, coming to the convict’s cell, suggested that she tell her that she was pregnant. So he thought to postpone the execution of the sentence. But the Dutch subject Margaret Zelle refused to lie.
In the early morning of October 15, 1917, guards came to the cell to take her to execution. Mata Hari was outraged that they wanted to execute her in the morning without even feeding her breakfast. While she was getting dressed, a coffin was brought into the building for her.
She was shot at a military training ground. They say that a proud courtesan stood near the execution stake without a shadow of fear. She categorically refused to have her hands tied or a black blindfold placed over her eyes.
As the platoon of soldiers prepared, she blew them a kiss and shouted, “I’m ready, gentlemen.” Shots rang out. Eleven bullets hit the body of the beautiful spy. The twelfth soldier, still very young, could not stand this sight, and lost consciousness, falling to the ground, along with the lifeless body of the victim.
After this, one of the officers approached the spy’s body and fired a control shot from a revolver at the back of the head.
Shortly before her death she said:
"I do not regret anything. My life is covered in the most incredible legends, and often even I myself cannot distinguish truth from fiction. I've had my share of tears, pain, and misfortune. But I learned what a woman’s power is over men - over those who decide the destinies of entire nations.”
And it was absolutely true.
The story of Mata Hari
The life story of Mata Hari was bright and full of legends. Heavy family drama led Margaret to the point that she “went into all sorts of troubles.” Prostitution, enormous popularity and fame, as well as constant stories about the mysterious eastern origin did their job.
Her image has gone down in history as the standard of a charming spy. Although most historians agree that Mata Hari's effectiveness as a spy has been greatly exaggerated.
She was of no real value to either side and hardly ever possessed any serious military information.
According to one figure of that time, her guilt would not even be enough to flog her, let alone condemn her to execution.
Mata Hari and Maslov
Finally, I should say a little about one thing love story famous courtesan. His main character— Vadim Maslov, captain of the Russian army, who was in France on a diplomatic mission. It was there that he met a seductive dancer.
They quickly got involved love relationship. However, they did not last long, as Margaret's profession would have predicted. However, this connection apparently was not easy for Mata Hari. This became known from the fact that when she was arrested, photographs of Vadim Maslov were found among her personal belongings.
In the famous film series, their relationship becomes almost fatal. In reality, historians do not know any details of this novel.
Therefore, the promoted drama of Mata Hari and Maslov has exclusively artistic and not documentary value.
Photo by Mata Hari
Below is a photo of Mata Hari. Quite predictable comments are like: “Isn’t this a beauty?”, “There’s nothing like that about her!” and so on. I would like to say right away that charm and sexuality are determined not just by external data, but first of all by the energy emanating from a person.
And according to contemporaries, this very energy of Mata Hari was extremely strong. Such that hardly any man could resist her charms. So, photo.
![](https://i2.wp.com/interesnyefakty.org/wp-content/uploads/Mata-Hari-v-den-svoego-aresta-13-fevralya-1917-goda.jpg)
![](https://i1.wp.com/interesnyefakty.org/wp-content/uploads/Mata-Hari-11-1.png)
![](https://i1.wp.com/interesnyefakty.org/wp-content/uploads/Mata-Hari.-Skulptura-v-Leuvardene.jpg)
In the end, I just want to say that Mata Hari is one of the most famous women 20th century. Having lived only 41 years, she went down in history for centuries. Her biography, life story and rare photos are still the subject of increased attention among professional historians.
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Mata Hari (real name Margareta Gertrude Zelle) was born on August 7, 1876 in Leeuwarden (Netherlands) in the family of hat shop owner Adam Zelle. Gertrude was the only daughter in the family; she had three brothers.
Until the age of thirteen, Gertrude attended schools for girls from wealthy families, where she studied French, German and English.
Her father went bankrupt in 1889 and divorced his wife the following year. In 1891, Gertrude's mother died, and her father sent her to her godfather in the town of Sneek. The godfather decided to send the girl to a school for teachers kindergarten in Leiden.
In 1904 she made a second attempt. At first she performed as a circus rider under the name "Lady Gresha McLeod", and in 1905 her great fame began as a dancer. oriental style, who performed under the pseudonym Mata Hari (in Indonesian and Malay - “eye of the morning”). According to one version, the pseudonym was invented by her admirer Monsieur Guimet, who built a museum of oriental art to house his collection.
Her debut took place at the end of January 1905 at a charity evening in the salon of the Russian singer Kireyevskaya. The audience greeted Margaret with delight.
On March 13, 1905, she appeared before the audience in oriental attire, taken from the collection of Monsieur Guimet, but during the dance she gradually took off her clothes, leaving only strings of pearls and sparkling bracelets. Among the selected guests at the performance were the ambassadors of Japan and Germany.
Margareta pretended to reproduce real sacred dances of the East, supposedly familiar to her from childhood, and told tall tales of a romantic nature about herself. In 1905, Mata Hari danced a total of about thirty times in fashionable Parisian salons. In addition, she performed at the Trocadero theater and in the salon of Baron Henri de Rothschild. In August 1905 she performed at the famous Olympia Theater.
In January 1906, she received a two-week engagement in Madrid. This was her first foreign tour. Then Mata Hari, at the invitation of the Monte Carlo Opera, came to the Cote d'Azur, where she danced in Jules Massenet's ballet "The King of Lagorsk". The premiere of the ballet was a huge success.
In August 1906, Gertrude went to Berlin. At the end of 1906 she danced in the Vienna Secession Hall, and then at the Apollo Theater.
In December 1907, Mata Hari returned to Paris. She became a wealthy woman and performed only in performances organized for charitable purposes.
In January 1910 she toured again in Monte Carlo. In 1910-1911, the dancer had an affair with the Parisian stockbroker Rousseau, with whom she lived in a castle on the Loire. For his sake, she refused to perform, but when Rousseau’s affairs began to deteriorate, she left him.
In 1911, the Milanese opera house La Scala hired Mata Hari for the winter season. At the same time, she negotiated with Sergei Diaghilev about performing in his ballet, but they were unsuccessful. In the summer season of 1913, Mata Hari performed in Paris at the Folies Bergere theater.
On March 23, 1914, she signed a contract with the Berlin Metropol Theater to participate in the ballet “The Thief of Millions,” the premiere of which was scheduled for September 1, but a month before the scheduled premiere date, the war began.
On August 6, 1914, Mata Hari left Berlin for Switzerland. But Gertrude was denied entry, and her luggage moved into the country in a freight car. She was forced to return to Berlin, from where she went to the Netherlands. In Amsterdam, she found herself in a difficult situation, finding herself without things. Mutual friends introduced Mata Hari to Consul Karl Kramer, head of the official German information service in Amsterdam, under the roof of which the German intelligence department III-b was hiding. In the late autumn of 1915, the German intelligence service recruited Mata Hari. Her first task was to find out in Paris the immediate plans of the Allied offensive. In December 1915, she arrived in France and began her mission.
From Paris, Mata Hari went to Spain. This trip was also of reconnaissance nature. On January 12, 1916, Mata Hari arrived in Madrid, where she contacted the military attache of the German embassy, Major Calle. The major ordered the immediate transfer of the information received to Consul Kramer in Amsterdam, but it was intercepted by the British radio eavesdropping service.
After the conversation in Madrid, Mata Hari returned to The Hague through Portugal, and then through Spain to Paris. There, Gertrude learned that her lover, Staff Captain Vadim Maslov, after being wounded, was undergoing treatment at the Vittel resort, which is located in a restricted front-line zone. To get to her lover, Mata Hari turned to the French military authorities, and they set a condition for her: to obtain secret information from her high-ranking German acquaintances. Needing money for Vadim's treatment, the woman agreed.
The French sent her at the beginning next year with a minor mission to Madrid, and suspicions of espionage were finally confirmed: a radio exchange between a German agent in Madrid and the center was intercepted, where he indicated that the H-21 agent, converted by the French, had arrived in Spain and had received instructions from the German station to return to Paris. It is possible that the radio interception was specifically declassified by the German side in order to get rid of the double agent by handing him over to the enemy.
On the morning of February 13, 1917, Mata Hari was arrested on charges of espionage. She was placed in the Faubourg-Saint-Denis prison in Saint-Lazare. The interrogations lasted for four months, the last one taking place on June 21, 1917. Mata Hari insisted that in Madrid she worked only for France and lured important information out of Major Calle.
The trial began on July 24, 1917, and the very next day the jury sentenced Margaretha Gertrude Zelle to death. She was shot near the city of Vincent at a military training ground on October 15, 1917.
The material was prepared based on information from open sources
Mata Hari on the chopping block of history
There are legendary names that everyone knows. And among them is Mata Hari. So it seemed to me. Imagine the surprise when the question “do you have a book about Mata Hari?” the seller replied: “We do not sell religious literature.” Then it became interesting. I continued my search for Julia Wheelwright's just published book, Mata Hari. Fatal Mistress, or the Story of Erotic Espionage." The answers were disappointing: no one had heard of Mata Hari. Modern generation(sellers?!) chooses Rimbaud or Angelique. The story of Mata Hari has remained behind the scenes for many.
And yet Mata Hari is a household name. Agree that when faced with the non-standard behavior of some acquaintance, an adventurous turn of someone’s fate, we say with a smile: “Our Mata Hari.” And at the same time, we have a very vague idea of the espionage activities of Mata Hari, we do not think about the tragedy of her fate. We are rather fascinated by the mystery and unusualness of her life, the end of which is perceived as a legend. Her life is like a cinematic plot. And it is no coincidence that there are an abundance of film versions, where Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich, Jeanne Moreau and Sylvia Kristel shone.
The image of Mata Hari, biographers rightly note, was mainly created by the press. Society needed him as a symbol of depravity, adventurism, as a symbol of a female spy at the beginning of the century. Its tragedy is that the Mata Hari case appeared at the right moment, when spy mania was gaining momentum. In addition, Margaret Gertrude Zelle (Zelle) did not correspond to the feminine ideal professed in society in those years.
Husband, family, children - all this did not satisfy her temperamental artistic nature. And the more society and family made demands on her, the more actively she rebelled against them. She was attracted to prohibitions. She was attracted to a luxurious life.
Margaret Gertrude Zelle was born in 1876 in in the small Dutch town of Lewarden in the family of a hatter. Lost my mother early. Raised in a family godfather. At the age of 19 she married the Dutch officer Rudolf McLeod. Margaret met him through an advertisement in an Amsterdam newspaper. Rudolf was intrigued by a dark-eyed and dark-haired girl who wrote him seductive letters. Rudolf was 40 years old. A lone colonial army captain from the Dutch East Indies. It seemed that fate gave both of them a chance to build a life and start a family.
But the idyll ended quickly. The difference in age and worldview immediately made itself felt. Rudolf, who believed that his wife had a family and her husband had fun, quickly returned to his old habits and spent all his savings having fun with other women. Quarrels and scandals began. Their married life, which began in Amsterdam, continued ingloriously on the island of Java, where Rudolf served. Margaret could not put up with the humiliating position of an obedient wife. In a letter to a friend, she admits: “My husband refuses me any clothes because he is afraid that I will be too beautiful. It is unbearable! Meanwhile, young lieutenants in love are following me. It’s very difficult for me to behave in such a way that my husband doesn’t have a reason to reproach him.”
Margaret rebelled against the hypocrisy of her husband, who cheated on her with the first person he met, and, taking advantage of her undoubted attractiveness, took revenge on her husband. “I got married to become happier,” she admitted later. But Rudolph did not live up to her hopes. It was he who was to blame for the failure of the family.
The only thing left was to change your life. Moreover, to the family troubles was added real grief - the death of the youngest child.
A difficult decision was made. As Pauly Binder rightly wrote, “Great women always build their careers on the ruins of violated feelings, distorted sexual experiences... and they are no longer looking for love.”
Yes, Margaret was no longer looking for love. But it was love that ultimately destroyed her. However, this will come later. And now she decides to leave. Moreover, after returning from Java to Amsterdam, her husband began to drink heavily, beat her, and refused to give her money. And in August 1902, he disappeared from home along with his daughter.
After the divorce, Margaret tried in vain to arrange her affairs in Amsterdam, then in The Hague. In the end she decides to leave for Paris. After long and unsuccessful attempts To get a job, she goes to a riding school, which was maintained by Mr. Moliere. It was this gentleman who captivated her with an incredible idea - to become a dancer. He was the first to appreciate her refined manners, beautiful body lines, ability to move, and good sense of rhythm. So, Margaret went into the hall, onto the stage, into the audience.
One of her first patrons, the French diplomat Henri-Jean-Baptiste-Joseph de Margery, introduced Margaret to Parisian salons. And Margaret, writes J. Wheelwright, began life on the elusive line of virtue and vice, for dancers, as a rule, were considered cocottes.
However, there are many dancers, and in order to stand out among them, it is necessary to create a completely new image. Margaret brilliantly guessed: East. And Margaret Gertrude Zelle, married to Lady MacLeod, disappears. Mata Hari, an exotic dancer performing erotic dances of the East, appears to the world.
This is how J. Wheelwright describes her first “arrival” in a Parisian salon: “The door opened and a tall woman with dark eyes slid through. She stood motionless in front of the statue of the god Shiva. Her hands were folded on her chest, hidden by garlands of flowers. The head was decorated with an authentic oriental headdress. She was wrapped in several veils of various colors, symbolizing “beauty, chastity, sensuality and passion." An unfamiliar melody sounded, and the dancer moved towards Shiva, then away from him, calling on the evil spirit to take revenge. Then, when she turned her back to the god, her expression softened. In a frenzy, she began to scatter flowers and feverishly tear off the transparent covers from her hips. Then, unfastening her belt, she prostrated herself before the altar.”
As the audience gazed in fascination at the “beautiful naked Indian woman,” the myth began to envelop her life, causing not only the audience, but also Mata Hari herself to believe in her own rebirth. “Her carefully thought-out “primitive religion,” we read, “made refined Parisian society applaud and take for art the awe caused by the sight of a naked woman dancing in front of an audience.”
It should be noted that the Parisian courts strictly prohibited dancing in the nude. And the appearance, for example, of Sarah Brown naked caused a whole scandal. But inexplicably this did not affect Mata Hari. She covered herself with a legend like a shield, and the legend varied with it. Either she declared herself as a Javanese girl of European parents, or as the daughter of a temple dancer from South India. The name Mata Hari itself translated from Malay means “eye of the day”, or “sun”.
Mata Hari's greatest success began in 1905, when the major industrialist Emile Guimet invited her to perform at the Museum of Oriental Arts, which bears his name. On March 13, 1905, the whole of Paris gathered for her performance. The exotic erotica of Mata Hari created a sensation. Le Journel magazine wrote in delight: “Mata Hari is the personification of the poetry of India, her mysticism, her passion, her languor, her hypnotic charms...” Monsieur Gaston Meuniere, the French chocolate magnate, wrote to her after the dancer’s performance in his salon: “You - the embodiment of true ancient beauty... yours beautiful appearance like an oriental dream."
This was followed by tours of European capitals - Rome, Vienna, Madrid, Monte Carlo. Success, unimaginable gifts, a trail of lovers, including very influential people: bankers, industrialists, politicians, the military, whom, according to her, Mata Hari especially loved.
Not everyone is so enthusiastic about Mata Hari. Famous writer Colette noted on the pages of the Le Figaro newspaper that Mata Hari barely dances, but knows how to undress wonderfully. However, women are always jealous - they cannot stand beautiful and lucky people.
However, time flies quickly, Mata Hari is already approaching 40. Using the same technique becomes dangerous. Many young dancers with “Indian numbers” are appearing, and therefore Mata Hari is looking for new ways to success. He even tries to contact Sergei Diaghilev. But no matter how exotic Mata Hari was, she could not compete with the filigree skill of Russian ballerinas...
The First World War intervened in Mata Hari's creative search. A citizen of a neutral country, Mata Hari gets out of Berlin, where the war found her, and tries to get to Paris in a roundabout way through the Netherlands and Great Britain in order to put her financial affairs in order.
Coming difficult period life. Women artists and dancers are beginning to arouse suspicion in society. They are seen as potential spies who are just waiting to charm poor all-powerful men and extract military and state secrets from them.
As eyewitnesses recall, “in those first months of the war...spy mania filled all minds. All over Paris, in shop windows, on trams, in the subway, there were posters and calls everywhere warning: “Keep silent, remember that the enemy’s ears are listening to you.” Spy psychosis, historians note, became “a serious form of mental disorder among ardent patriots.” A wave of spy mania also overtook Mata Hari: “They follow me wherever I go... they even search my luggage when I leave the hotel...”
And then it begins new story Mata Hari, which no one has yet managed to unravel. And it is unlikely to succeed in the coming years, because only in 2017, perhaps, documents on this case will be declassified, and it is possible that Mata Hari will be right when she addressed the court: “I have not done anything bad to you. Release me!" She really thought so, because her whole guilt was that she fell in love, and in the name of this love she did everything.
Capricious, impulsive and yet always calculating, she gave herself easily to connections and intrigues, getting everything she wanted: wealth, luxury, success. The meeting with the young (he is only 23 years old) Russian officer Vadim Maslov turned her life upside down. Vadim proposed marriage to her, and Mata Hari agreed, understanding that the noble family would not accept this marriage. She needs a lot of money, and her capital is frozen in Paris, where it is impossible to get there. That is why Mata Hari agrees to the proposal of Captain Georges Ladoux, who headed the French counterintelligence, to obtain the information he needs. By this time, Mata Hari was listed as an N21 agent of German intelligence. It is believed that, having hastily learned the basics of espionage in Germany and learned to use a code, Mata Hari receives 20 thousand francs and heads to France, where she is recruited by Captain Ladoux. True, there is another version that among Mata Hari’s lovers there were high ranks of the counterintelligence services of both countries, who paid her a lot of money.
We are closer to the version that she is leading double play, not realizing the seriousness of its consequences, for the sake of his goal - to get money to connect with Maslov. Having seemingly secured the support of two special services, Mata Hari is trying to play her own game on her own field. She is traveling to Spain to transfer to a ship going to Holland. She has one goal - Vadim.
And then SOMETHING comes into play. On the ship "Holland", intercepted by the British, Mata Hari is arrested, mistaking her for the German spy Clara Bendix, also a dancer. The mistake was quickly revealed, but the confusion of Mata Hari’s testimony alarmed the British and she was taken to Scotland Yard and then handed over to the French.
Life in the legend played a terrible game with her. Life follows different laws. This is not a stage. And Mata Hari could no longer stop, she played all the time. Sir Basil Thomson, who conducted the first interrogation, subsequently noted Mata Hari’s intelligence, her intelligence and... artistry.
The last interrogation (there were 14 of them) took place on June 21, 1917. Mata Hari's guilt has not been proven. Two decades after her execution, the Parisian journalist Paul Allard, having carefully studied all the espionage charges against her, concluded that there was not a single indisputable evidence: “I still don’t know what exactly Mata Hari did! Ask any ordinary Frenchman what Mata Hari's crime is, and you will find that he does not know it. But he is absolutely convinced that she is guilty, although he does not know why.” “I’m innocent,” Mata Hari herself said at the trial. “What games is the French counter-espionage, whom I served and whose instructions I followed, playing with me?”
The question hung in the air, and the court rendered a verdict: “Guilty!”
And the true guilt of the defendant is not so important. An enemy was needed. They found him. The military judge, Captain Bouchardon, called the dancer: “ The most dangerous enemy France." No one came to her defense. Neither her beloved Vadim Maslov, nor Captain Landa, who recruited Mata Hari, nor her others influential friends. Mata Hari made the last attempt to save her ex-lover 75-year-old lawyer Eduard Clune, who announced that the defendant was expecting a child from him. But Mata Hari, thanking her old friend, refused his help.
The cold morning of October 15, 1917 immortalized the name of Mata Hari. After slowly getting dressed, she wrote three notes - to her daughter, to a friend from the Foreign Ministry, and to Vadim Maslov. Then she turned to the nun who was accompanying her: “Don’t worry about me. I will die with dignity."
Mata Hari did not want to be blindfolded. Dressed in a fur coat, hat and gloves, she walked onto the scary stage, thanking those present who had come to see her off. She proudly greeted the command “fire!”
None of her relatives came to take her body, and it was transferred to Faculty of Medicine Sorbonne, and then buried in a common grave.
Mata Hari died, and the myth about her life flew across the earth, acquiring new fantastic details over the years. Beautiful spy. An exotic woman who was punished by the sword of justice.
Guilty or not guilty? All this excites the imagination of more than one generation of readers. Mata Hari is a victim on the chopping block of history.
On the thirteenth of March 1905, a small, carefully selected audience looked with curiosity at the premises of the library of the Guimet Museum, which that evening was transformed into some kind of Indian temple: there were candles everywhere, eight columns were decorated with flowers, in the back of the hall there was a statue of Shiva, and in the center, surrounded by four girls in black tunics, an Indian dancer wriggled in a very revealing outfit: an embroidered breastband, a piece of fabric tied around her hips and several bracelets. The dancer was invited as a live illustration to the lecture of Emile Guimet himself, a famous expert on the East, about Indian temple dances - and with her very first movements she made everyone present forget about the lecture and everything else in the world. And when, at the end of the performance, the fabric slipped from her hips and the dancer appeared before the audience almost completely naked, a cry of delight, usually inappropriate within the walls of a museum, shook the building.
The next day, journalists attending the performance at the Guimet Museum spread the news throughout France about Mata Hari, her mastery of the sacred art of temple dances and her divine body. The newspapers were choked with praise for the beautiful dancer, and the spectators who were able to see Mata Hari’s performance with their own eyes passed on rave reviews to each other both about the dances themselves and about the rare beauty of their performer. It was said that Mata Hari, whose name means “eye of the dawn,” was born in South India and was trained in sacred dances from childhood. From the age of thirteen she danced naked in the temple in Kanda Svani, and would have continued to dance, but a loving English officer married her and brought her to Europe.
Unfortunately, in this beautiful story there was not a word of truth.
Mata Hari was not a dancer, not an Indian, not even Mata Hari. Her name was Margaretha Gertrude Zelle, and her homeland was the quiet town of Leeuwarden in the Dutch province of Friesland. She was born on August 7, 1876, the daughter of hat shop owner Adam Zelle and his wife Antje Van der Meulen, and her childhood was an ordinary, unremarkable childhood of a girl from a well-to-do family: three younger brother, parents pampering their only daughter, a private school with three foreign languages and a love of music.
But Margareta still stood out among her peers - both because of her early beauty, her wild imagination, and her desire to attract attention at any cost. Her classmates recall that Margareta came to school in incredibly provocative outfits for a provincial town, made from unusual bright fabrics. And her fantastic stories about her family and her past were so plausible that they would have been believed unconditionally - if Margareta had not been inventing new ones all the time.
But the reality was both more tragic and more ordinary. Adam gradually went bankrupt, and along with his debts, his irritation with his wife and children grew. Debts in 1889 led to bankruptcy, constant quarrels led to divorce. Nine months after the divorce - in May 1891 - Antje Zelle died. Her ex-husband by that time he was already living in Amsterdam. The children were taken away by relatives: Margaretha settled with her godfather, Mr. Visser, who soon decided to send the girl to Leiden - to a boarding school that trained kindergarten teachers. It would be difficult to think of a more unsuitable profession for the restless and independent Margareta: it is not surprising that instead of studying, she made eyes at the school principal. To this day, biographers argue about who seduced whom, but the outcome was still a foregone conclusion - Margareta was forced to leave school.
She moved in with her uncle in The Hague. At that time, it was a city where officers of the Dutch colonial army spent their holidays - they served in the Dutch Indies (modern Indonesia) and came to improve their health at nearby resorts. The brave men in uniform were captivated by the beauty of young Margaret, and she, in turn, was fascinated by the military for the rest of her life. This is an addiction to men military uniform haunted her for the rest of her life.
The uncle, perfectly seeing the frivolous nature of his niece, held her under strict control. The only way to escape from his tutelage was marriage, and the only opportunity to meet a potential groom was a marriage column in the local newspaper, since the uncle nipped all acquaintances on the street in the bud. An advertisement caught her attention: “An officer from the Dutch East Indies, currently on leave at home, wants to meet a nice girl with a view to subsequent marriage.” Margareta replied, attaching a photograph to the letter.
The letter was posted on behalf of Rudolph McLeod. Hereditary military man, nephew of the aide-de-camp of King William III and cousin Vice Admiral, he arrived home to improve his health, which had been pretty shaken over sixteen years in the colonies. Friends decided that Rudolph - or John, as he was called - urgently needed to get married, and secretly from him they posted a marriage advertisement. McLeod himself, having learned about this, ordered all letters to be returned to the editor unopened - however, he still read some, and one of them was a letter from young Margaretha Zelle, whose face in the photograph struck Rudolph on the spot.
Captain and Mrs McLeod
A month later they met in person: almost forty-year-old, almost bald McLeod and eighteen-year-old Margareta - slender, big-eyed, with thick dark hair and a magnificent figure. Both decided that it was love at first sight, and just six days later - on May 13, 1895 - they became engaged, and three months later they got married. They went on their honeymoon to Wiesbaden, from where, however, they quickly left - young officers, of whom there were many at this resort, began to pester the beautiful Margaret too actively.
Eyewitnesses of the first months of marriage claimed that this union was doomed to failure from the very beginning. Rudolf was rude, hot-tempered and did not pay too much attention to his wife, and Margareta, although sincerely - at first - wanted to be a good wife for him, found more and more pleasure in flirting with others. Her husband could serve as an example for her in this - he began to cheat on her a few months after the wedding. Besides, he turned out to be a gambler and was not a fool to drink.
John with son Norman (1899) (1899)
On January 30, 1897, a son was born into the McLeod family, who was named Norman John - in honor of his father's relatives. And on the first of May, Rudolf, his wife and son, went to their place of service - on the island of Java. A year later, they had a daughter, who was named Jeanne-Louise (in the family she was simply called Non: a common abbreviation of the Malay word nonah - girl), and soon Rudolf was transferred to the garrison commander in Sumatra.
Daughter Jeanne-Louise (in the family her name was simply Non)
His family remained in Java for now: Margaret was bored, lonely, sad, and hurt - but life without her husband was much more pleasant than with him. She was tired of family life, of the tropics, of uncouth military men, of lack of money and her husband’s jealousy - largely justified. There were very few white women in those parts, and there were none as beautiful as Margareta, so it was not surprising that many began to court her at once, and even less surprising was that she accepted these courtships with pleasure.
McLeod moved his family to Sumatra only a few months later. His position obliged him to give receptions, at which his wife gladly acted as hostess - dresses for her were ordered from Amsterdam. Family relationships Things seemed to be getting better, but then a tragedy occurred: their son died under mysterious circumstances. They say that he was poisoned by the nanny, whose lover Rudolph beat. According to another version, the killer was just a lover who took revenge on McLeod for seducing the nanny. There is a version that the child died of cholera. Be that as it may, from that day on, the relationship between the spouses deteriorated hopelessly: Rudolph, without any logic, blamed his wife for the death of his son and consoled himself in the arms of local prostitutes, and Margareta frivolously spent time with his subordinates. As they say, it was because of her not very decent behavior that McLeod was transferred back to Java, where it became clear to both that divorce was inevitable. Margareta was eager to go to Europe, and Rudolf was eager to get rid of her. He retired and in 1902 they returned to Holland.
Mata Hari als junge Frau (Aufnahme vor 1900)
The McLeods settled in Amsterdam. One evening Margareta returned home and discovered that her husband had taken her daughter and all her valuables and ran away. She immediately filed a petition for separation: by court decision, the daughter remained with her mother, and Rudolf was ordered to pay alimony, but he never gave a guilder. Tired of lack of money, Margareta returned her daughter to her husband, and she left for the city of her dreams - Paris. As she later explained her decision, “I think that all wives who have run away from their husbands are drawn to Paris.”
1915
She never saw her daughter or her husband again.
Arriving in Paris without a single penny, Margaretha decided that she beautiful body and some experience will help her earn money. But the model’s work was poorly paid, and after the famous impressionist Guillaume called her breasts flat and refused her services, she decided that she had nothing more to do in Paris.
And then, having become Mata Hari, Margareta continued to be ashamed of her breasts. Even when she was completely naked from the waist down, her breasts were still covered by her bra.
In 1904, Margaretha again tried to conquer Paris. She got a job at Mr. Mollier's riding school - the skill she acquired in the tropics in handling horses came in handy. But he once noticed that her tanned body and flexibility would be more useful in dancing than in horse riding.
The words were remembered. Margareta knew that she moved well and that men were staring at her. She knew the value of her beauty - and of herself: she never learned to dance, but she knew how to charm and seduce. In addition, she knew the Malay language well and had a good visual memory - folk dances, which were one of the few entertainments in Java and Sumatra, she remembered very well, because she had seen them more than once - and her dark skin and dark, almost black hair will help her pass for a native of Southeast Asia.
At an evening with the leading actress of the Comédie Française, Cecile Sorel, the wife of Comte de Segur, Mata Hari captivated the richest “chocolate king” Gaston Meunier, who not only took several photographs of Mata Hari naked, but also became her lover and supporter. These photographs played a fatal role in the fate of Mata Hari: Rudolf McLeod, recognizing his ex-wife in newspaper photographs and realizing what she was doing, demanded a divorce. The lawyer tried for a long time to get the former Mrs. McLeod to agree to a divorce, but she pretended that she did not understand what they wanted from her until the lawyer showed her one of those candid shots. It was clear that if he was brought to court, a scandal that could affect their daughter could not be avoided. Margareta agreed - the final divorce took place on April 26, 1906.
Rudolph McLeod never saw his ex-wife on stage. To curious journalists who decided to find out his opinion regarding Mata Hari’s stage talents, he said: “She has flat feet and she absolutely cannot dance.” And when she performed in The Hague and his friends invited him to the performance, McLeod said: “I saw her in every possible pose, and there’s nothing else I could look at.”
The newspapers were full of frenzied enthusiasm, and the public was ready to carry the “Indian goddess” in their arms. Then there was a two-week tour in Spain, where her dances were called “tactfully sensual”, and the applause that accompanied them was called “sensational”; it was also said that during the trip she seduced some members royal family and French Ambassador Jules Cambon - the latter remained a close friend of Mata Hari for many years.
In a year and a half, Mata Hari became the highest paid, most popular and most talked about dancer in the world. Postcards with her images were sold in every store, cigarettes named after her were produced (as they wrote in the advertisement, “the best Indian cigarettes made from tobacco from the island of Sumatra”) and cookies, the jars of which had her portraits on them - in one such jar Non carried lunches to school McLeod, daughter of Mata Hari. The dancer spent huge sums on luxurious outfits and jewelry, but earned so much that she could no longer afford to perform at all. After the Vienna tour, she, in the company of Kiepert, traveled for several months around Europe and Egypt - she returned to Paris only at the end of 1907.
Her love affairs have long aroused no less - if not more - interest than her dancing
However, in 1913, Mata Hari felt that a crisis was approaching. Her dancing no longer aroused the same delight, and the money became less and less.
On August 1st the war began
Mata Hari is trying to leave for Switzerland, but only her luggage went there - the dancer herself was not allowed into the country, and she had to return to Berlin. She was left without things, without money, without patrons, but a man saved her again - a Dutchman, a hotel neighbor, having learned about the plight of his fellow countrywoman, bought her a ticket to Holland and gave her some money.
In Holland, she found another admirer right on the street - banker Van der Skalch. The banker mistook her for a Russian; he left Mata Hari as soon as he found out that she was Dutch - as she herself admitted, “for a Dutchman, an affair with a Russian was a real adventure, but in connection with a compatriot there is nothing unusual.” However, Van der Scalch was a true gentleman - before breaking up, he paid all her bills.
The place of the banker was taken by two at once: Baron Eduard Willem Van der Capellen, whom Mata Hari met several years ago, and the Marquis de Beaufort. But in Holland she was unbearably bored, she strives with all her might to Paris. At the end of 1915, she arrived in the capital of France, where she continued to lead her previous frivolous lifestyle, which in war time looks very inappropriate and suspicious. Dinners for the military, constant trips to Europe and private meetings with high-ranking officers in the context of growing spy mania seem to be outright provocations - so it is quite understandable why at this time Mata Hari is being closely monitored by agents of the French, German and British intelligence services. Researchers write that she was often offered money for valuable information, although Mata Hari herself later admitted that she considered them payment for her love. As it became known in 1941, in the fall of 1915 she was recruited by German intelligence - however, not a single clear message was received from agent N-21 (as Mata Hari was listed in the documents).
At this inappropriate time for human feelings, she fell in love - with a Russian, captain of the imperial guards regiment Vadim Maslov. She fell in love so much that she was even going to marry him. The meeting of the lovers was scheduled in the resort town of Vittel - but by chance it was located in the front-line zone, where a special pass was needed. After him, Mata Hari went to the military bureau for foreigners on Boulevard Saint-Germain - but she made the wrong door and ended up with Captain Georges Lad, the head of French counterintelligence. And he, without thinking twice, recruited Mata Hari - for one million francs (which she never received).
After several weeks next to her beloved, Mata Hari returns to Paris. As she later explained, she needed money so that Maslov’s family would allow him to marry her. And on the way to Holland (they had to go around the fronts, through Spain), where Vadim was waiting for her, Mata Hari was arrested: the British intelligence services mistook her for the German spy Clara Benedict, but released her - after Mata Hari admitted that in fact she works for France.
This whole story reached Ladu: the British transparently hinted to him that recruiting such a narrow-minded and frivolous person as Mata Hari was not the smartest thing in his life. Perhaps it was from then on that Ladu disliked her - so much so that he eventually put her under a death sentence.
She was arrested on February 13, 1917 at the Élysée Palace Hotel in Paris. It was often written that she tried to seduce the policeman who came with a warrant, but there were six of them, so “Zelle, Marguerite, known as Mata Hari, residing at the Élysée Palace Hotel, Protestant, foreigner, born in Holland on August 7, 1876, height one meter seventy-eight centimeters, able to read and write,” was sent to the Saint-Lazare prison on charges of espionage and extradition state secrets. The first thing she did was write to the warden: “I am innocent and have never been involved in any espionage activities against France. In view of this, I ask you to give the necessary instructions so that I can be released from here.”
She spent eight months in prison. All her attempts to justify herself were in vain, the investigation was biased, and the verdict was a foregone conclusion. France was losing one battle after another, and someone had to answer for the failures of the command. By blaming all the mistakes on spies, and then publicly condemning one - or rather, one - the French government hoped to at least somehow justify itself in the eyes of its citizens.
One of the participants in the trial, Andre Mornet, later said that “the testimony would not even be enough to whip a cat.” All those interrogated unanimously insisted that she never asked anything, never told anyone anything, and she was only interested in love and entertainment, and not in the location of military installations or the timing of military operations, and only Ladu insisted on her complete guilt. Mata Hari was blamed for everything: visiting with Alfred Kiepert the imperial maneuvers in 1906 and meeting with German officers in The Hague, the death of three ships for which she was late, preparing to leave Paris in 1916, and the arrest of one of the French agents in Belgium. The trial lasted only two days, and after a short meeting the verdict was pronounced: execution.
Mata Hari's lawyer and old friend Edouard Clune - he was seventy-four years old - tried to claim that Mata Hari was pregnant from him (according to French law, a pregnant woman cannot be executed), but she herself refused this trick. Holland was not even informed about the fate of its citizen. The President rejected the pardon request; Mata Hari found out about this only on the morning before the execution. She was forty-one years old.
On the morning of October 15, 1917, Mata Hari, wearing a pearl gray dress, a straw hat with a veil, her best shoes and long gloves, stood in front of twelve zouaves - a firing squad. She refused a blindfold and did not want to be tied to a pole - eyewitnesses recall that she was the calmest person of all those present there. At 6.15 - at dawn - Mata Hari passed away.
Upon learning of this, her ex-husband said: “Whatever she did, she didn’t deserve it.”
The body, as unclaimed by relatives, was handed over to medical students for practice. All her property was sold at auction - if converted to modern money, only two and a half thousand dollars were raised. Rudolph McLeod tried to get French government issuing his inheritance ex-wife in favor of their daughter, but was refused: all of Mata Hari’s property went “in favor French Republic to cover legal costs and damages from her criminal activity" Otherwise, Jeanne-Louise McLeod would not have needed the inheritance anyway: four months later she suddenly died of a cerebral hemorrhage.
Mata Hari loved men and knew how to give love. But men don’t like being conquered by a woman who is stronger than them, and they take revenge. Only in history it is not those who killed Mata Hari who remain, but she - amazing, mysterious, mysterious woman who simply knew how to love better than others.