A story redolent of intrigue, adventure and a kind of romance is that
of “Mata-Hari”—which is Japanese for “Eye-of-the Morning,” and is
the name by which a Dutch dancer was known in the rendezvous of the
light world of the European capitals before the war. Her real name is
Marguerite Gertrude Zelle McLeod, and in 1917 her public and dashing
career of art and adventure came to an abrupt stop by her arrest,
trial, condemnation, and imprisonment, under sentence of death, in
the prison of St. Lazare, Paris. She was condemned as a German spy,
the specific offense being the betrayal to the Germans of the secret
of the new, carefully guarded war weapon, the Tank. Reams have been
written about this woman since her arrest, but nothing probably that
would have anything like the interest for the public that will attach
to the “memoirs,” the writing of which, reporters say, was her prison
occupation.
Among the stories published at the time was one in the New York _World_
in October, 1917, that presented what was known of her connection with
the leak of the tank secret. The success of the tank depended largely
on the element of surprise when it was put into the fighting front.
Therefore the planning, construction and shipment of tanks to the Somme
were conducted with the utmost possible secrecy. Necessarily, however,
a certain number of persons in France and England were in a position
to know; but, as it took a good many months to get the machines in
readiness and habituate a crew to their rolling, pitching, sickening
motion, the circle of those who knew more or less about it increased,
and in some way not yet explained, Mata-Hari learned something of
the secret. It is rumored that a member of the Chamber of Deputies
inadvertently gave her her first information. The _World_ said the
rumor was strengthened by the fact that Mata-Hari had plenty of coal
for her apartment during the fuel famine that winter. That in itself
is proof enough to everybody of her intimacy with some high official,
as few people, short of Deputies, had influence enough to obtain a
hundredweight of coal during the bitter months of January, February,
and March.
“In any event, Mata-Hari learned vaguely of tanks early in 1916, when
the Krupp guns of the Crown Prince were daily booming nearer and nearer
to Verdun in that terrific struggle which was to mark the turning-point
of the war. Mata-Hari also learned that the tanks were being
constructed in England, and would be shipped to France via certain
ports—and she got the names of the ports, too.”
[Illustration: Zeppelin _L-15_ Sinking Off the Kentish Coast
The airship was brought down April 1, 1916, by British anti-aircraft
guns.]
Suddenly, Mata-Hari, then in Paris, decided to return to Holland, her
native land, explaining to curious inquirers that she married a Dutch
army officer with a Scotch name (McLeod) who had divorced her and
that she was going to arrange a settlement.