Mata Hari: Super spy or innocent femme fatale?

Mata Hari’s life has blockbuster written all over it-honestly it’s Oscar bait at its finest:

A small town girl finds international fame as an exotic dancer at the turn of the 20th century. She takes lovers from across Europe and is privy to secrets of global superpowers.

But her glittering world comes crashing down when she is discovered to be a German spy. She is captured, imprisoned and takes her final bow in front of a firing squad in a small corner of France.

It’s Hollywood gold dust! A blockbuster bio pic in the making (seriously someone give Baz Luhrman a call) but is it actually true?

Eeeeer kinda but no….

Born Margaretha Geertruida Zelle in 1876. Mata was born and raised in the Netherlands. Her Dad made some incredibly canny investments which allowed Mata and her siblings a very comfortable and happy childhood. Everything was great!

…and then her Dad lost all his money and a year later Mata’s Mum died.

via giphy

Things were already pretty shit, when Mata’s Dad decided to reveal himself as the literal worst.

As soon as the funeral was over, he shrugged off his old family and started a new one. Sending Mata far away to live with a Godfather she barely knew. At just 15, Mata was on her own.

But she was hardy, she picked herself up and decided to pick up a profession – training to be a teacher.

Unfortunately when it rains it pours and the headteacher of her school had a thing for teenage Mata and he wasn’t taking no for an answer.

The ‘affair’ was quickly discovered. The headmaster kept his job (naturally) and a shamed Mata was sent packing. Returning to her severely pissed off Godfather.

Yeah, don’t look for the logic in this via giphy

Ok so the job hadn’t panned out, but work wasn’t the only thing that could get a girl money and the hell out of dodge. So Mata turned to the Lonely Hearts pages.

Aged 18 Mata married Rudolph “John” MacLeod, a twice her age, almost constantly drunk officer in the East Indies Army. I think you’ve probably guessed after that description- but- Rudolph was a notorious dick.

Great moustache. Still a dick.

Rudolph was jealous (despite constantly sleeping with anything that moved) and an all around abusive drunk who regularly beat his wife.

Despite the numerous marital issues, the couple had two children, Norman and Non and the whole family moved to Indonesia where Rudolph was now based.

As with everything until this point…tragedy soon struck.

Seriously, it’s going to be a never ending stream of shit via giphy

In 1899 Mata awoke to the sound of screams. Immediately she ran to check on her children, only to find both Norman and Non convulsing in intense pain, a doctor was called but it was to late for Mata’s eldest. Two year old Norman died in front of her.

The cause of Norman’s death was shrouded in mystery. Locals theorised that the boy had been poisoned either by a soldier that Rudolph had ruthlessly beaten or by the child’s own Nanny (who Rudolph endlessly harassed). A more modern theory is that the children were being treated for syphilis (caught thanks to dear daddy Rudolph) and were accidentally given an overdose of medication.

It always comes back to Rudolph!

The couple were barely hanging on by a thread and just couldn’t continue after Norman’s death.

Rudolph drank even more and blamed his wife for their sons death. Mata descended into a deep depression, struggling just to get through each day. Yet somehow, she clawed her way back to life and found the strength to finally leave her husband.

Don’t get too excited, it’s all about to go to shit again! via giphy

But Rudolph wasn’t done being a monumental ass hat just yet! Mata had custody of Non, but (of course) Rudolph wasn’t paying his half in full. This was pretty shitty behaviour, escalated dramatically when Rudolph never returned Non after a scheduled visit.

Mata didn’t have the connections or funds (after all she’d essentially been a single mum) to fight for her daughter.

Worse, when she confronted Rudolph, he came at her with a bread knife; Mata narrowly escaped the encounter with her life.

It was one knock too many and Mata lost her will to fight. So she gave up. Hoping that Rudolph would do right by their daughter, Mata did what felt like the only option left to her – she ran away.

‘I thought all women who ran away from their husbands went to Paris’

Surrounded by the glittering lights of Paris Mata worked to reinvent herself. She joined the circus, entertaining the masses as a horse rider.

With the circus not paying much, Mata needed to earn extra to support herself, so made up the rest by posing as an artists model and dancing on the side.

And it was this dancing that would be her making.

When told audiences that when she’d lived in Indonesia she had trained with local dancers.And it was these ‘exotic’ moves she bought to Paris.

Presenting Mata Hari

Mata Hari was born and Margaretha Geertruida Zelle was all but dead.

Mata was a Princess of noble Indian birth, raised in Indonesia and trained from childhood in the ancient art of dance. Her near naked dances weren’t for titalation – they were sacred religious acts.

Now this is obviously entirely horse shit concucted by Magaretha…but damn it sold tickets!!

Soon Mata was an independently wealthy woman, a huge achievement in this period.

via giphy

With money came men. Dazzled by Mata’s beauty and mystery, Europes most powerful men flocked to her side. With the ability to speak multiple languages, as well as a fast wit and ambitious streak – Mata had her pick.

She chose military men. Girl apparently had a type. 

As WW1 dawned Mata was reaching her late thirties. With younger imitators snapping at her heels, she slowed down on the dancing and instead supported herself as a courtesan, sleeping with some of Europes military mights.

She hopped from country to country, living a lavish strings free life. But when wartime hit this had to change.

Well….it should have changed.

Mata continued flitting from country to country (thanks to her neutral Netherlands passport) she slept with high ups from across Europe, no matter what side they fell on.

Now I think we can all agree: this was not a smart plan.

via giphy

Ok now here’s the thing: this next part is a bit of a cluster fuck. See some historians think Mata was a spy, some don’t and some think she was passing on information on the odd occasion but wasn’t a spy.

See what I mean…cluster fuck. So let’s just focus on the concrete facts here!

We know that Mata had access to all kinds of information from pretty much every major player in WW1 (because she was in the bed of pretty much every military higher up)

In 1916 Mata was detained during a jaunt to London and taken to Scotland Yard for questioning. The British had been tipped off by French Authorities that Mata was a German spy, an accusation she refuted under interrogation.

Extract from Mata Hari’s interrogation (released in 2016 you can find the whole thing in the National Archives)

But Britain and France weren’t convinced and at such a delicate time in global politics, these weren’t exactly people you wanted gunning for you.

Though not concrete, there was anecdotal evidence to support the spy theory.

In 1914 the Germans supposedly offered Mata money in return for secrets of those she bedded and the French had put forward a similar offer.

So was Mata a spy? A double agent? Just trying to see what she could get?

Who knows at this point there are so many different theories and strings to keep track of!        

So with the spy theory still hanging over her, Mata was released from Scotland Yard.

Free? Sadly no.

The heat was too much and Europes political powerhouses from all sides were keen to get their hands clean of the embarrassing tangled web that had become Mata Hari.

The French intercepted a (almost definitely purposefully leaked) German message detailing the actions of spy H21. The French figured this spy was Mara Hari and so on February 13th 1917 French officers marched into her Paris hotel room and arrested her.

‘I am innocent….someone is fooling me’

Mata Hari’s trial was, at best, a joke. At worst a formal slut shaming exercise.

Mata admitted to taking German funds to spy, but argued that she hadn’t actually carried out these acts. She just took the money.

The French weren’t having this and claimed that her actions directly resulted in the deaths of up to 50,000 men.

I think it’s worth noting here that at this point the war was not going well for the French. They were suffering massive losses and their men were turning against them.

The French needed a fall guy. So they created the ultimate villainess.  

Not only was Mara Hari on trial for spying but her lifestyle was on trial. Her accusers claimed she regularly bathed in milk at a time when there wasn’t enough for French children to drink. Her bed hopping and sensual dancing proved her lack of morals, which itself was proof she would be happy to spy.

There was never going to be a good outcome of this for Mata. And there wasn’t, she was sentenced to death.

Picture of Mata Hari whilst incarcerated

On October 15th 1917 Mata Hari woke at dawn in a small corner of France. She wrote two letters; one to her daughter Non. Then she dressed and was led outside to where a firing squad were waiting.

Mata refused a blindfold and stood unbound, staring directly at her executioners. Shots were fired and she fell. Her final curtain call.

Mata Hari’s story is one that shows just how easily manipulated history can be.

Once held up as an example of loose morals and villainy, documents released to time in with the WW1 centennial show a very different story. One that is still being pieced together.

Personally I don’t think she was a spy. I do think she was privy to a silly amount of information from all sides and I think she occasionally leaked this information to whatever side she was with at the time.

But this isn’t Hollywood. Mata Hari wasn’t a master spy. She was just a person, who had flaws and made some really shitty choices that she paid the ultimate price for.

This was interesting, where can I find out more? Check out Pam Shipman’s book, Femme Fatale which gives even more background on Mata’s early life.

What it means to dress like a woman

Women’s clothing is currently somewhat of a hot button issue thanks to Presidents Trumps suggestion that his female staffers ensure that when they attend work they ‘dress like a woman’

Of course this is far from the first time the way women dress has been the topic of public debate and it won’t be the last. Discussing and dissecting women’s clothing is something of a historic tradition, with many aspects of what it is to dress like a women having remained the same for centuries

Beauty is pain

To be beautiful is to be in pain, a fact anybody who has ever worn heels for more than 3 hours can attest to (time to bust out the gel heel pads every woman in Trumps office!) This is of course nothing new, from bruise inducing heavy fabrics to mantuas that required hinges to allow for the wearer to get into and out of carriages (and don’t even start on managing doors!)

Being really bloody uncomfortable goes part in parcel with being on trend. Of course these trends have also proved deadly. Yes the thing that makes you beautiful can also be a weapon. Corsets of course are famed for their organ mangling powers but crinolines were also a very lethal culprit.

so so so very deadly

Unsuspecting wearers would catch themselves on a candle and the whole crinoline would go up in flames. To make matters worse the crinolines design prevented the victim from putting the fire out themselves and any crinoline clad bystanders were also hampered down by their large skirts and rendered powerless to help- all they could do would be to watch their friend burn alive within their dress.  In 1864 one Dr Lancaster reported a supposed 2,500 people in London alone suffered this fiery end. This seems a little steep, still, I can’t think of a worse fate but please feel free to put answers on a postcard- or the comments…whatever.

This actually happened in 1861 in Philadelphia, 9 ballerinas died. Crinoline fires, argubaly worse than chip pan fires

You are what you wear 

When you read any book about the wives of Henry Vlll you will quickly realise the wives hoods are an indicator of who they are as people. Anne Boleyn with her rule breaking and saucy French hood, Jane Seymour trying to appease with her plain and ungainly English hood etc etc etc. The clothes are packaged as an integral part of these women’s core identity.

Even executions of women in this period turn into a (blood soaked) runway. Catherine Howard newly conservative but still glamorous in dark velvet, Lady Jane Grey pious in black and Mary Queen of Scots working rebellious martyr chic in crimson.  What you wear is who you are, even if that could not be further from the truth.

Margaret Cavendish, forerunner of Science Fiction, poet and one of the first philosophers to really dive into if the gender divide was maligned by her peers. She was seen as a bimbo.

Cavendish loved fashion and dressed vividly and eccentricly. Samuel Pepys described her as ‘conceited and ridiculous’ and her ‘dress so antic’. One of the greatest minds of her time overlooked, because her dress was a bit out there. But don’t worry, Pepys also describes her as a ‘good comely woman’ so everything’s fine really.

The sex is in the heel

If you are a woman then at some point you will have been told that you are dressing too provocatively (you bitch) or not provocatively enough (you bitch). Yes the debate on putting it away vs putting it out there is long and aged and something everyone apparently has some kind of stake in.

What is permitted for women to wear is somewhat cyclical. There is fine line between what is seen as ‘attractive’ and ‘slutty’ but it is a line that keeps on fucking running all over the pitch.

For example, if you were a woman in the court of Charles ll then your neckline would be low to the extent that nipple paint would be a thing in your life – go and find any portrait of a bright young thing of this court and you will find an image of a woman barely containing her breasts (if they arnt just out and roaming free) it seems like the birth place of liberal love for the raw female form, free the nipple and all that…but for the love of christ don’t show an ankle, because a naked breast was one thing but a naked ankle was seen as scandal itself.

Mistress of Charles ll, Hortense Mancini

Sexual fetishization was also ripe in Victorian England. What we now think of as the a bastion of sexual repression was actually incredibly sex obsessed (seriously Victorians LOVED their porn). But like today sexuality was a nuanced minefield.

Take our old friend the corset, it was seen as key to maintaining the ideal female figure- a waspish waist, curvy hips and breasts. A narrative was created around this fashion- it became a sign that you were a someone, feminine, rich, desirable, demure and sophisticated all at once. Yet at the same time the corset became a symbol of loose morals- it pushed up the cleavage and alluded to the hips and vagina.

Wear it…but don’t go too far. It is much the same as a short skirt – one thing on a Jennifer Lawrence type (elegant, fashionable and daring yet somehow sophisticated) and another entirely on a reality TV star (tacky, most likely taken as an up skirt shot when entering a club).

To dress like a woman is a myth and one far more complicated than I have been able to touch on in this (another time perhaps). It is an ever changing goal post built on cultural expectations and outdated stereotypes. It exists…it clearly very much still exists (hey again Mr President!) but it doesn’t have to be something we adhere to. We can look at history and notice the rule breakers, the women that created their own fashions and lived how they choose – what I’m saying is, don’t feel like you have to wear heels and a pencil skirt to the office because someone berk in a shit wig tells you too.

3 Important Witch Trials In History (that you’ve never heard of)

Superstition made living in Europe around 1560 – 1630 very dangerous for any woman that bucked the norm. Panic was wide spreads and things soon escalated from accusation to execution.

The Berwick witches!

Now this was far from the first witch trial in England- but it was the catalyst for things being particularly burney during the reign of King James l.

In 1590 King James and his new wife Anne of Denmark, were sailing home from their wedding in Denmark to James home in Scotland; when their ship was hit by a terrific storm – though the couple was fine, rumors soon flared up that the storm had been the work of witches determined to murder the newlyweds.

Accusations spread across England, Wales, Denmark and Scotland; with nearly 100 women  in Berwick being accused of forming a coven and bringing about the storm.

Fun fact – in Scotland it was completely legal to torture witches; this little legal loop hole unsurprisingly led to some pretty lurid confessions from the Berwick ‘witches’, including one Agnes Sampson.

Agnes was a healer and midwife for the community and despite sounding like an all around good egg; the elderly woman was accused of being the lead witch in the plot to sink the Kings ship. She was questioned and tortured in front of the King at Holyrod Palace. Initially Agnes pleaded her innocence, but after she was stripped, shaved and beaten…she admitted her guilt.

It had all started so well…

Agnes said that the witches had been called to action by Francis Stewart, 5^th Lord of Bothwell (who had a claim to the throne so long as James remained heirless). To cast the spell that set forth the storm, the witches had gathered in church yards to kiss the devils ‘backside’. They had dug up graves to secure fingers for spells, and in one instance, stolen a cat, christened it, tied male genitals to the cats legs, sailed out to sea, and tossed the poor kitty into the sea (which sounds totally legit)

Agnes was executed, along with other accused witches in Scotland and Denmark.

Following the trials, James wrote and published a pamphlet which scandalously detailed the events of the trial; and in no small way helped to create the panic surrounding witchcraft that would see thousands of innocent people executed.

James l – in no way remembered as a notorious dick

 

The Fulda witch trials

It wasn’t just England who got a little…heated (sorry) over witches. Germany also got involved in the epidemic (after all they are the home of fairy tales!) and my God did the Germans go all in.

The Fulda witch trials took place over 3 years between 1603-1606 and saw over 200 people executed. It was one of the worst and most large scale of the witch trails in Europe during this era.

The trials were triggered by the return to power of Prince-abbot Balthasar Von Dernbach, following 20 years in exile.

Now though he had an amazing name, the good Prince was a bit of a massive dick. Upon coming home he ordered a witch-hunt to cleanse the area (as you do). You see whilst the Prince had been in exile, Fulda had enjoyed a period of relative religous liberalism, and the good Prince was not down with this. So naturally he figured a witch hunt was the best way to ‘cleanse’ Fulda. Nice guy.

The excessive gilding tells you that this man will in no way be remembered as a notorious dick

The most high profile the Prince’s 200 odd victims was Merga Bein.

Merga had been married twice before, but she was independently wealthy herself; the now heir to her two previous husband’s fortunes. This factor seems likely to have played a pretty hefty part in her being ‘cleansed’ by the Prince.

Merga was one of the first arrested. She was accused of being in cahoots with the Devil, of having murdered her second husband and their children and of having taken part in the Sabbath of Satan. Merga was sentenced to be burned at the stake.

However her husband argued that executing her was illegal as she was pregnant. No matter for the good Prince though, he just claimed that the child was clearly the Devils- and so Merga along with over 200 others was executed.

The executions only stopped after the good Prince died. I’m sure all of Fulda was devastated…

3. Hag Riding

Witch trials were still going on in the 19^th century, though less common place. Kind of awesomely though, they tended to be prosecuting the accusers!

In 1875 the town of Weston Super Mare housed one of these trails- which concerned the fantastically named practice of hag riding.

Hag riding was essentially, ‘sleep paralysis’. Much of these claims were just nightmares, but in Weston Super Mare, the claimant was was stabbed in the face and hand as a defense against the dreams.

Hester Adams accused neighbor, Maria Pring of appearing in her dreams to terrify her for over two years, Hester claimed that she lived in fear of Maria (an early adopter of Freddy Krueger based high jinks)

But Hester was an early adopter of, er…knives? (sorry) She decided that the only way to stop the dreams was to draw Maria’s blood… because logic. The elderly woman stabbed Maria in the face and hand, which put a stop to the dreams (again- logic)

Though understandably confused by the case bought to them, the magistrates erred on the side sanity (ish) and ordered that Hester give Maria a shilling and agree to keep the peace (and try really hard to not stab her neighbours anymore).

Thats just 3 notable witch trails that you might not know- or if you do, you might not know that much about.

You see *gets on soap box* the problem with witch trials is that its hard for us to ever know much about the people who were accused. We can only ever have half of the story- because 99.9% of the time we don’t know anything about the people who were accused – these were people who were often poor and lived on the fringes of society, they were easy victims. Often the only direct information we have from them is their confession- which was false and 9 time out of 10 obtained through torture – not great.

It’s important to try and seen the humanity behind the horror.

OK *gets off soap box* sorry about that

Bonus Wicked as way of apology:

Go get her, she’s Wicked