The story of Mata Hari, the beautiful dancing girl, who as a German
spy discovered the information about the British "tanks" before they
arrived at the Battle of the Somme, is one of the most romantic of the
War. She was found guilty of espionage and condemned to death by a
military court martial presided over by Col. Sempron.
"Accused did wilfully and maliciously, and against the interest of
la Patrie, communicate information of military value to the enemy
concerning our offensive of the summer of 1916," read the verdict that
sent her to a cell in Saint Lazare Prison awaiting the dawn which means
her death.
"Eye-of-the-Morning" is English for the Javanese pet name
"Mata-Hari"--the stage name of Mme. Marguerite Gertrude Zelle Macleod,
first known in Paris, and latterly all over Europe, as a dancer whose
specialty was the representing of Far-Eastern legends and fables
according to the terpsichorean art....
One of the most important and spectacular events of the only Allied
offensive of 1916 was the appearance in action of the newest engine
of war--the so-called tank. As with any innovation, the success of
the tank depended largely on the element of surprise attaching to
its debut. Therefore, the strictest secrecy marked the planning, the
construction, and the shipment of tanks to the Somme, where they first
went into action. But of course a certain number of people in England
and in France knew about the tanks--or "creme-de-menthes" as they were
first called in Paris because each one is named like a ship and one
called after the famous green liqueur. It took a good many months to
construct the first fleet, and a good many weeks to train the first
crews to stand the jerky, rolling, pitching, lumbering gait of the
mobile forts. During that period the circle of people "in the know"
increased, and Mata-Hari was one of those who heard about the curious
landships.
Where Mata-Hari obtained her first tip on the tanks has not yet been
disclosed. And that is one reason why the "memoirs" which she is
writing in her cell at Saint Lazare prison are being awaited with fear
and anxiety by at least one person, and with the liveliest interest by
the world at large.
It is rumored that a Deputy inadvertently gave her the first
information about tanks. And the rumor is strengthened by the fact that
Mata-Hari had plenty of coal for her apartment during the fuel famine
in 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, Mara-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 _viâ_ certain
ports--and she got the names of the ports.
Then Mata-Hari decided she must return to her native country, Holland.
For, with all her Javanese appellation, she was born near Rotterdam,
although it is true she went to the Dutch East Indies when a tiny
child. She gave as reason for going to Holland the fact that she had
married a Dutch army officer with a Scotch name--Capt. Macleod, that
they had divorced, and she wished to arrange a settlement of their
common property.
Her passports were made out, and safe conducts granted for a trip to
Holland, _viâ_ England, of course, as that is the only way to get into
the Low Countries from the Allied side.
Mata-Hari went to England. But before she proceeded to Holland,
as Secret Service agents of the British and French Governments
ascertained, she visited a certain English manufacturing city, where,
it so happened, the tanks were being constructed.
Evidently Mata-Hari did not find out much about the tanks there, as
not a man connected with their construction ever passed through the
gates of the high brick wall which surrounded the factory during the
six months that the first "fleet" was building. The men were boarded,
entertained and employed here continually. Every letter they sent out
or received was subjected to the most rigorous censorship.
The dancer proceeded to Rotterdam. Investigation there has since proved
that she had no "communal rights property" to settle with any one, and
further that Capt. Macleod of the Dutch Army was known among his fellow
officers as pronouncedly pro-German.
Soon Mata-Hari returned to Paris. She was seen at the Café de Paris and
at Maxim's, and at Armenonville in the Bois with an English officer
who wore on the lapel of his collar, an insignia denoting his branch
of service, a little twisted brass dragon. Months later, when more of
these badges were seen on British officers passing through Paris, it
became known that the dragon was of the official insignia denoting
service with the tanks.
Mata-Hari sported a new bauble soon after taking up with the
Englishman--a jewelled replica of his gold insignia--her dragon had
real emeralds for eyes, and a carrot-shaped ruby for a tongue darting
from its opened fangs.
In May, 1916, a little more than a month before the Somme offensive
opened and tanks were first used, Mata-Hari appeared before the police
magistrate of her district and requested a safe conduct to visit a
certain port in France. The reason she gave was that her fiance, an
English officer, was seriously wounded and in hospital there. He had
sent for her to come to see him. Perhaps they would be married at his
deathbed if he could not recover, she volunteered, dabbing at her eyes
with a lace handkerchief.
The safe conduct was made out, and Mata-Hari arrived at a certain
French port almost simultaneously with the first consignment of tanks
shipped over from England.
Now a tank of the early type was 35 feet long, 12 feet wide and 9 feet
high, and the caterpillar tractors rumbling under it and over it and
around it made a terrible din, attracting the attention of people for
great distances around. And because of the weight of the tanks they
could not be moved by rail, but had to travel under their own power. It
was impossible, therefore, to wholly hide the monsters from inhabitants
of that particular French port, and from the townspeople in the French
villages through which they passed on the way to the Somme front. Of
course most of the travelling was done by night, and tarpaulins were
always draped over the armed and armored behemoths.
But there did not seem to be much necessity for precautions, as nearly
all of the inhabitants of the districts through which the tanks passed
remained stolidly right there where they were. Few indeed were as lucky
as Mata-Hari and able to get safe conducts to travel about. But then
few were as beautiful and alluring as the dancer.
Mata-Hari remained in the French port for a week. She strolled about
the town at night and explained to the hotel clerks that she could not
sleep without taking a certain amount of exercise before retiring, and
that after being accustomed to gay life in Paris, she was not tired
until after midnight.
It was on June 1, exactly a month before Gens. Haig and Foch began
their drive astride the Somme, that Mata-Hari returned to Paris.
And the first thing she did was to apply for a visé on her passport
permitting her to go to Spain. San Sebastian was the place she
mentioned, as she explained she wished to attend the horse races there.
Her papers were stamped and sealed and she left almost immediately for
the fashionable winter resort in the south.
Madrid, Spain, and Nauen, Germany, are in constant wireless
communication. There are other radio stations, privately owned in
Spain, which can flash messages to Germany, according to Allied
intelligence officers who have investigated. And of course there are
innumerable German agents, spies and propaganda disseminators infesting
the land of the Dons.
Secret Service reports disclose the fact that Mata-Hari was seen much
in company at San Sebastian race track with a man long looked upon with
suspicion by the French Government. He was a frequent caller upon her
at the hotel where she stopped, and it was reported that he made good
many of the big bets she placed on horses that did not materialize as
winners.
Soon Mata-Hari came back to Paris and the apartment near the Bois de
Bologne. And once more the limousine owned by the individual whom rumor
has branded a Deputy, began rolling up to her door twice a week and
sometimes oftener.
Then came the simultaneous Franco-British offensive at the Somme. Tanks
went into action for the first time, and according to Gen. Haig's
official communique his "land ships achieved satisfactory results."
The tanks did achieve satisfactory results. More than that, they
revolutionized offensive tactics on favorable terrain by advancing
immune against rifle and machine gun bullets, or even against light
trench mortars whose shells exploded at a touch. They smashed by sheer
weight strong points and machine gun emplacements. They straddled
trenches, enfilading the occupants and crushed in entrances to dugouts.
But several of the tanks were put out of action--and not by stray
shells hurtling forward from far behind the German lines. They were
knocked out by small calibre _PENETRATION_ shells, fired from 37
millimetre trench cannons--the largest guns that can be handled from
advanced positions. Guns specially built and rifled, and fired at high
velocity and flat trajectory, so that, unlike any shell ever coughed
up by a mortar, they penetrated the object struck--even though it were
steel--before exploding.
Instantly it became evident that the enemy had become aware of what
was in store for him and had constructed an "anti-tank" gun. And when
the booty in the captured German positions was examined, the British
found they had several good specimens of Krupp's newest weapon. Several
German officers of higher rank taken prisoners confirmed suspicions,
by explaining they had received description of the tanks several weeks
before, and had been instructed how to combat them.
Now Mata-Hari is awaiting death and writing as she waits. She is
penning her memoirs rapidly, filling scores of pages a day in a
polyglot of French, German, Dutch, Javanese, Japanese and even English,
according to the mood she is in, says the prison warder.
And because she fears her history will not be finished before that
unannounced daybreak when she will be placed blindfolded before the
high stone wall facing a firing squad of French soldiers, she has
ordered her lawyer, M. Edouard Clunet, to plead for a stay of execution.
So Mata-Hari writes feverishly, and all Paris waits eagerly--except the
one who waits apprehensively--to see if she will name the "ami" who
gave her the first inkling of the tanks.
Pinned to the corsage of the Empire-cut black silk dress which
Mata-Hari wears in her narrow cell in Saint Lazare Prison is a curious
gold brooch. It is shaped like a twisted dragon, and its eyes are
emeralds and its darting tongue a carrot-shaped ruby.
"It will be there--right over my heart--when I go away--when I stand
before those men with guns aimed to kill me," says Mata-Hari. (Told in
the _New York World_.)
(Since these stories were written Mata-Hari has gone to her death
blindfolded before the firing squad. She met her execution stoically.)