which induced her to engage in the most desperate sport in the world,
one should have in mind the declaration of von Kroon, one of the heads
of German espionage in Spain, who, with admirable but tactless candour,
said that they made use of Mata Hari because she was the only woman they
knew who had the ability to cultivate intimacy and to secure the
confidence of certain highly placed officials whose weakness made them
excellent prospects for an intelligent secret agent. This is probably
true. The methods they adopted in Mata Hari’s case will remain for all
time the secret of the Berlin authorities, but their effects may be
noted. The situation was this: Of ordinary spies they had an abundance
and could recruit as many more as they required, but in the selection of
the higher type of spies, those who could move with freedom among men in
the highest official circles, their choice was severely restricted. Mata
Hari’s well-known reputation as a courtesan showed that she had the
means of entry to these circles; she was, therefore, admirably designed
for the work. All that remained was to lure her into it. Her profession
was to become her surest defence against suspicion at a later time; now
it was the easiest means of attack.
Mata Hari told her judges frankly how she came to make the acquaintance
of Herr von Jagow, the chief of the Berlin police.
“I met him at the music-hall where I was playing,” she said. “In Germany
the police have the right to censor the costumes worn by the _artistes_
and some one had thought that I was insufficiently clad. So the chief of
police came to inspect my costume.”
Now anyone who had experience of the German police during the heyday of
the Empire will recall the position of dominating authority held by that
official who commanded the police in the capital. He was an official of
such unapproachable dignity and importance that the inspection of a
dancer’s costume would positively have been the duty of his fourth or
fifth assistant unless, of course, there was an excellent reason why the
chief himself should undertake the task. In this case the dancer had a
place in their wide schemes which made her the suitable subject for a
personal visit.
She proved a willing victim. In a short time she was recognized as an
intimate friend of the police chief, so intimate that he had made
himself responsible for providing her with an imposing apartment in
Berlin. But the very nature of the gift betrays its significance. Again
let us pause to glance at the German methods; it will furnish a clearer
understanding of Mata Hari’s mission.
Mata Hari played a part in the compilation of one of the most amazing
_Who’s Who_ ever revealed to the eyes of the public. It was not intended
for publication, far from it, but a clever agent employed by the British
got possession of the only known copy from under the nose of the German
secret service and the London authorities permitted the publication of
extracts as a solemn warning against the cultivation of friendships with
foreigners who might not scruple to abuse confidences. This book was the
accumulation of all the gossip, scandal, sins, personal weaknesses,
delinquencies, and domestic infelicities of influential people,
collected by spies, amateur and professional, which Germany employed
against England. The preparation of the book lasted over many years, but
it seems never to have served the purpose for which it was intended. It
was the intention of the Berlin authorities to use this knowledge of a
man’s hidden past in order to blackmail the victim into furnishing aid
or information not otherwise obtainable. The numerous agents who
collected the information for the volume must have been singularly
credulous, for most of the biographies were pure fiction and would not
have been of the slightest value in a time of need. The extracts
published so distorted the truth that they were received with derision.
These, however, applied to well-known people whose lives were more or
less public property. Some of the matter included was not quite so
ridiculous, especially in the lives of the younger and less known
officials who had occasion to visit Berlin and fall into the
acquaintance of Mata Hari and her kind. The method of obtaining this
information is interesting. The luxurious apartment furnished for her
occupation in the exclusive neighbourhood of the Wilhelmstrasse was an
expensive residence even for one of Mata Hari’s reputation. This famous
“Green House” was one of Stieber’s legacies to the German police. It had
played its part in Bismarckian days in entangling many unwilling victims
in the web of the Iron Chancellor’s policies. The cost of its
maintenance came from the funds allocated for secret service, and the
servants were all, or nearly all, police agents. Skilfully engineered
introductions to the right people enabled Mata Hari to entertain the
victims of the police curiosity, and since their chief was a man of
magnanimous parts he permitted these same victims to share the favours
of his mistress. Having introduced the victim into her web, Mata Hari
would stage one of those sensual orgies for which she was famous, and
the police agents were granted unlimited opportunity to secure
substantial blackmail evidence to be filed away pending the time when it
would be required for their schemes. French, Italian, and Russian
officers were treated by this Delilah with fine impartiality. It is
remarked that Mata Hari had little luck with the English.
This is not altogether evidence of the sobriety or chastity of the
English officials, because they had the somewhat unfair advantage over
the lady of having one of their agents employed in the house. For many
years, whenever Mata Hari tried to approach an English agent she was
rudely repulsed, yet it never seems to have dawned upon her employers
that there might be an excellent reason why she should invariably fail
with the men of this nation.
Nor were all her activities restricted to Berlin. One of the tragedies
of the war was that of a jolly Dutchman called Hoegnagel, who was
recommended by Mata Hari as a suitable recruit for the German service
when they desired one. Hoegnagel was known to Mata from the time of her
residence in The Hague; he was the type which interested her. He was the
perfect example of henpecked husband whose pockets were cleaned out
every night by a thrifty Dutch housewife, a practice which prevented him
largely from indulging in the pleasures of the city which were his
dearest joy. This weakness of his for pleasure with the handicap of an
inquisitive and thrifty wife standing like a mounted policeman watching
over his efforts to amuse himself had been reported to the German consul
in The Hague by Mata Hari. While he remained in this city, Hoegnagel was
no use to the German authorities, but when he announced to his friends
in the Marine Club that he was compelled to make an extended visit to
Paris on legitimate business, the unhappy man’s possibilities
immediately presented themselves to the watchful consul, who offered him
the amazing opportunity of enjoying the pleasures of the French capital
without the careful Vrouw Hoegnagel being any the wiser or poorer.
The Germans have frequently been reproached for their lack of ability to
read psychology. They stumbled here when it seemed that they had judged
remarkably well. Hoegnagel accepted the consul’s offer after a little
hesitation. He was a neutral and did not readily agree to serve a
belligerent country against another which had not merited his hatred.
But the temptation was too strong. He did want to have a good time in
Paris without his wife knowing about it. Where the psychology went
astray was that the Germans had completely overlooked the effect of the
astounding phenomenon of a Dutchman dispensing money with a liberality
foreign to his race and habits. It immediately aroused the suspicion of
the French police, who were not long in uncovering his activities.
Incidentally, this man Hoegnagel has a special interest for American
readers. Once his so-called journalistic activities were found to be
directed toward informing the German authorities in Holland of the
situation in Paris, a counter-espionage agent was deftly introduced into
his little circle of intimate acquaintances. The agent talked
confidentially of the influential people whom he knew and impressed
Hoegnagel as a well-informed man. To him the Dutchman appealed for
authentic information on a matter which was gravely exercising the
Germans. Would America take an active part in the war? Would American
soldiers be sent across the Atlantic to fight? The agent was doubtful,
but, being anxious to help his friend, the pair went off to the Ministry
of Foreign Affairs, where Hoegnagel was informed that President Wilson
had informed his French friend, President Poincaré, that no American
troops were to be expected in Europe, that the country was against such
action.
The unhappy Hoegnagel was shot at Vincennes in January, 1918. When he
was awakened on the last morning of his life he said:
“It is true, then? You are really going to shoot me? I have been a good
father to my family and what has happened is only an unfortunate
incident of travel.”
“An unfortunate incident!” Is life itself not an unfortunate incident
unduly prolonged? Even into the placid lives of jolly Dutchmen the evil
genius of Mata Hari brought disaster and grief. Yet another of her
victims was the officer of the Russian Guard, Michaelovitch, who was a
former student of the Dresden Polytechnic and who succumbed to this
blackmail of the Berlin police through the instrumentality of Mata Hari.
Later, he was shot for selling photographs of airplanes in the Hanriot
plant to a Spaniard called Estrada, an agent of Major von Bulow, who
controlled an espionage service from the chancellery in Berne.
Not all her entertainments were for the relatively innocuous purpose of
collecting blackmailing evidence, which, by the way, proved so
ineffective. There were other occasions when men, entrusted with highly
confidential missions, were received by Mata Hari and during the course
of the entertainment she contrived to extract from their lips not only
wine-scented kisses, but secrets which sent them into obscure German
fortresses, from which they departed in complete ignorance of their
betrayer. One of the cleverest officers of the French army staff,
visiting Germany on an unofficial secret mission, was among the Red
Dancer’s victims. During a night of foolish indiscretion he confided his
secret to her. The Berlin secret police had suspected the object of his
visit and had deliberately turned him over to their invaluable tool, who
successfully executed the work entrusted to her. The unhappy officer
went insane during his imprisonment when he realized the extent of his
folly.
The great majority of the highly-coloured adventures attributed to Mata
Hari in this house of secret panels, revolving mirrors, and tapped
telephone wires have no semblance of truth, but one incident is worth
recalling, since it illustrates the extraordinary workings of these
secret police. For obvious reasons names are withheld.
The incident happened during the negotiations between France and Russia
before the war. At that time the combined secret police of those
countries maintained a headquarters in Germany, which, in addition to
gathering information, had to protect the couriers bearing important
messages and documents. On this occasion a Russian courier bearing the
draft of a secret treaty was announced to pass through Berlin on his way
to Paris, _via_ Brussels, and the agents were warned to give him every
protection, since it was imperative that the treaty should not
prematurely be divulged.
On arrival in Berlin the courier went directly to the Embassy and
deposited his diplomatic pouch in a special safe in the Embassy. Now, it
was known to the Russian officials that this safe had a leak in it
somewhere through which information of its contents filtered. The secret
watchers, therefore, had a double problem to face which perplexed them.
Either their government, knowing how insecure the hiding-place was,
wished, for their own purpose, to allow the German authorities to know
what was in the pouch, or it was the duty of the watchers to guard the
safe rigorously in order to prevent the individual who made illicit use
of it from inspecting the highly confidential document deposited in it.
Either line of argument led away from the courier, who retained the
draft treaty in his possession, secreted on his person.
As it was desired to allow this officer to proceed without attracting
attention to his movements, he had been instructed to travel leisurely,
and it was his intention to spend a few days in Berlin, where he had
many acquaintances among the officers of the garrison. He made directly
for the Adlon Hotel, a noted hostelry for officers of all nations who
chanced to be in the Prussian capital. His German acquaintances were
glad to have the opportunity of entertaining their rare visitor, and he
was assured that they would make his visit memorable. Mata Hari was sent
for to make up the party, and they proceeded to enjoy what the capital
had to offer in the way of amusement.
At Mata Hari’s suggestion they all adjourned to her apartment, where she
promised to furnish entertainment such as no cabaret could supply, and
which, being private, would allow them to act with greater freedom and
incur less subsequent gossip. Before the time for dinner had arrived the
courier had sent to the railroad station for his baggage and had it
brought to Mata Hari’s apartment. He was assigned as valet one of the
police agents who brought his baggage from the station. As soon as the
courier went to his room to dress for dinner the valet begged for a pen
to enter some details on a baggage receipt which he produced. The
courier hesitated for a moment but after some little difficulty in
withdrawing it from his pocket lent the fountain pen he carried to the
man. As the servant was writing at the dressing-table he saw in the
mirror that the courier kept him covered with a pistol concealed under
his jacket. The courier at this stage was fully awake to his danger.
Now, the valet returned _a_ pen, not _the_ pen he had borrowed from the
Russian, but the movement was made so innocently that the latter merely
glanced at the pen to be sure it was his before restoring it to his
pocket. Without question he also pocketed the receipt. When he awakened
next morning his room was in wild disorder, but since he felt as if a
hive of bees and the combined bands of the Guards Division had taken up
residence inside his head, the condition of his discarded clothing was
not surprising. He only retained vague recollections of the earlier
stages of the previous night’s debauch, while its termination was a
complete blank. The one thing which most concerned him was the safety of
his fountain pen. It was still intact. But the unwise guest had a sudden
access of virtue and the recollection of his duty which determined him
to leave Berlin without delay. Meanwhile, the wildly perplexed German
secret police were frantically scouring the city for the draft of the
secret treaty which they had been informed by friends in St. Petersburg
was carried by this courier. They had photographs of all his other
papers, but none bore the slightest resemblance to the missing document.
The still blissful Russian was kept under constant surveillance as far
as Aix-la-Chapelle, where the German agents finally gave up their job in
the belief that this man was not the messenger they sought. Once across
the Belgian border, the courier heaved a sigh of relief; the hunt must
be reduced to one or two men now; but, he reflected, if that night of
unconsciousness had exposed him to the utmost risk without his secret
being betrayed, these few men who continued to watch him could be
circumvented by his more discreet behaviour. He avoided all the pitfalls
of the delightful Belgian capital and spent the time in _bourgeoise_
simplicity. On the second night he was returning from the Théâtre de la
Monnaie when the valet who had attended him in Berlin suddenly stepped
out of the darkness with his hand extended.
“Monsieur, it has been a long chase, but at last I have succeeded in
overtaking you. When I borrowed your pen the other night I had the
misfortune to confuse it with my own, and I now beg you to make an
exchange which will restore the pens to their rightful owners.”
He offered a fountain pen of identically the same make as that which the
courier drew from his pocket. The language the horrified man used was
appropriate to the occasion.
“It is useless to argue, monsieur. This is your pen. If you will take
the trouble to examine the bottom you will find your draft treaty intact
and I can give you the positive assurance that its terms are unknown to
the German authorities.”
“But ... but you are, then, one of their secret police?” stammered the
astonished Russian.
“I was, monsieur, until this morning. I have resigned without taking the
trouble to send my resignation through the usual channels. Probably it
will not be necessary now.”
Careful examination of the pen proved it to be the original containing
the treaty, written on thin rice paper and cunningly concealed in the
tube. If the terms of the treaty were unknown to the German officials
they must have been acceptable to still another power, for no protest
ever came from the nation whose secret agent had protected the draft
during the Russian’s drunken sleep and who had been able to photograph
it for the benefit of his own employers while making a pretence of
searching for it for the Berlin authorities.
It is not often that any country succeeds in placing its agents in the
secret police of another, but they had been able to do so in this case.
_Chapter Seven_
Useful as her activities in Berlin were, Mata Hari was only serving her
novitiate for the more important work she was to undertake abroad. The
main object of her Berlin employment was to get her so deeply involved
in the intricate web of Machiavellian intrigue that withdrawal was
impossible without the risk of being denounced to those countries whose
agents had been the victims of her fatal power of fascination. Once
engaged in this dangerous pastime there is very little opportunity to
withdraw should the agent’s services still be useful. Denunciation was a
favourite trick of punishment for recalcitrant spies. The case of Karl
Graves has already been mentioned in this respect, and the French assert
that they have conclusive proof that no less than fourteen of “Mlle.
Doktor’s” agents were exposed to them by that lady herself, either
because they had ceased to be useful to her or because they required
disciplining.
Having caught her wings in the web of police intrigue, Mata Hari was
sent, sometime about 1910, to Lorrach, in Bavaria, where the authorities
conducted a regular spies’ “academy.” Here she received a finishing
course in the delicate art. During the war much of the spy’s training
had to be of a hasty and improvised character, but before the war the
German spy schools enjoyed a sinister reputation because of their
thoroughness in instruction, the exacting discipline, and the harsh
punishments inflicted on the graduates who blundered. In the latter case
officers who made mistakes were sent for a period of imprisonment in the
grim fortresses of Königsberg and Spandau. During the war no effort was
made to inflict minor punishments. Unsatisfactory spies were simply sent
on an unimportant errand and then betrayed by intentional indiscretion
to the enemy and left to stew in their own juice.
The training in these schools was mostly restricted to the Intelligence
departments of the army and navy; the men of the Personal Corps (under
the control of the Foreign Office) rarely sent their men to them except
for special training. Until the war made the necessity of employing
neutrals desirable the students at the spy academy were usually
recruited from selected groups of army and navy reservists possessing
the necessary personal qualifications for the work. If one wishes to
understand how so many of the hastily recruited war spies proved unequal
to the tasks imposed upon them, one needs to know only what
qualifications were sought in the men who were to be trained technically
for espionage. It is a formidable array. The recruit had to possess the
natural qualifications of discretion, tact, courage, patience, quick
wit, keen intellect, resource, imagination, industry, intuition, and—an
easy conscience. When these qualities were found in a man, he was then
instructed in the requisite specialized knowledge.
That espionage was considered an honourable calling is shown by the high
rank of some of the men who engaged in it. The hall porter at the
popular Hôtel des Indes at The Hague, during war-time, was the brother
of the Baron von Wangenheim, ambassador to Turkey; the chief spy in
Vienna in 1914 was Prince Kraft zu Hohenlohe Ingelfingen, and a famous
resident spy in Paris was the son of Prince Ratibor, ambassador to
Spain. None the less, the heads of the German secret service repeatedly
employed international crooks to secure information which could not
otherwise be obtained.
At Lorrach the pupils were given instruction in such essential details
as the use of codes and ciphers, methods of passing on information, etc.
Added to this was certain highly technical knowledge, such as the
measuring of heights and distances, the calculation of angles, and the
description of topographical features. In 1914, just before the war, a
German agent operating in England, working without instruments (which
would have attracted attention), but simply by pacing distances and
calculating heights, got a very accurate picture of the dimensions of a
new bridge of considerable strategic importance. His account of this
bridge, its capacity, strength, use, and resistance to explosives was
surprisingly complete. Such knowledge is often of primary importance,
as, for instance, in America during the early stages of the war, when
confidential information was of less value than the destruction of
material which was intended for Allied use.
Then there were the subtle mannerisms and national traits which the spy
had to study. These formed a very difficult part of the curriculum,
because usually the idiosyncrasies which lead to betrayal are of such
trifling nature that they are difficult to detect. During the war one
very skilled Allied agent was trapped through an amazingly small detail.
He was travelling as a duly accredited representative of an established
Berlin commercial house. Lunching one day in Munich, he casually
murmured, “Thank you,” each time the waitress served him with a fresh
dish. This trifling courtesy made the waitress suspicious that he was
not what he pretended to be, because German salesmen do not usually
bestow such courtesy upon unprepossessing waitresses. She reported her
suspicions to the police, and their investigations justified them in
arresting the agent. To this day French agents are cautioned against
displaying their national politeness while operating in certain
countries.
It was in these details that the war-time instruction failed woefully.
Some of the spies betrayed themselves by sheer stupidity in their guile.
There was the ingenious gentleman (or was it a lady?) who had been
accustomed to send secret information from behind the Allied lines in
Flanders by means of pigeons. Discovering that orders had been issued
that all pigeons were to be shot, this imaginative spy was nonplussed
until he hit upon the happy idea of disguising a pigeon as a parrot in
order to make it inconspicuous. An inconspicuous parrot in Flanders!
The French records show that no less than three spies were betrayed by
their inability to pronounce the “v” in _vingt_. Such a deficiency would
have been remedied in peace-time training.