went there, a training method had already been devised for women. Unlike
other nations who rarely employ women when men are available, Germany
has a predilection for women spies. One woman (who incidentally was
director of spy-training at one time) has become a figure of fable in
spy annals, and as she was director of the Zone of Interior, and thus
Mata Hari’s chief during the war, her picture is worth studying.
This woman’s identity has been enshrouded in mystery even to her own
colleagues. Known to the British as Frau von Heinrichsen and to the
French as Mlle. Doktor, she inspired respect as a terribly dangerous
opponent in her enemies and a terrible fear in her subordinates. Of all
the women who were employed in the dangerous game during the war, none
rose to such spectacular heights as the blond demon who directed the
Zone of Interior from Antwerp. The dashing Mata Hari may have surrounded
herself with a more resplendent aura of romance; Louise de Bettignies,
the sweet-faced aristocrat who peddled laces while organizing the
British secret service in Belgium and died of typhus in a German prison,
may be better entitled to the title of martyr for her country; the
pretty Marussia Destrelles may excite more pity; but the woman whom
Colonel Nicholai (head of German espionage) called the “mistress of
spies” holds undisputed rank among the mightiest and most powerful.
Before being engulfed in the anonymity which obscures the secret-service
agent she was Maria Ann Lesser, daughter of a prosperous fine-art dealer
in Berlin whose reputation extended beyond the limits of his own
country. His was a well-known figure at Christie’s and the Hôtel Drouot.
At school Maria showed that she was possessed of a superior
intelligence, with a decided flair for languages, which her father
decided to develope by taking the girl with him on his trips abroad, so
that she might perfect her accent. One of these business trips took Herr
Lesser to St. Petersburg, where he was negotiating for the sale of
pictures. The outcome of this journey had a more lasting effect upon
secret-service technique than it had upon the fine arts, for it led to
Maria’s introduction to the art of spying.
Maria Lesser’s claims to beauty have been disputed. Many people have
firmly advanced the claim that she was possessed of great physical
attractions, but the only time I ever saw her she was little better than
a besotted drab without any attractiveness and nothing noteworthy except
a pair of uncommonly keen eyes which were not altogether pleasant. A
German officer, who had served under her and showed no other spark of
kindliness for his former chief, described her to me as having that
special type of blond beauty which appeals to the Teuton mind—blond,
with regular features, rich red lips, a pink-and-white complexion, and
dark eyes. At the time of her first visit to St. Petersburg, when she
was only seventeen, it is conceded that Maria was a very attractive
girl. This seems to be proved by her popularity and her subsequent
success over two sophisticated men.
One of these was the military _attaché_, a dashing Prussian cavalryman,
who completely turned Maria’s head, and when Herr Lesser returned to
Berlin, Maria remained behind with her soldier lover. In the little
apartment which they occupied, the proud and happy girl so gained the
admiration of her lover that he confided to her some of his official
worries. The Russian artillery were being issued a new gun, and the
German authorities were clamouring for a description of the weapon, but
the Russians had shown a disinclination to be obliging (a new trait in
that easy-going and corrupt bureaucracy, accustomed to supplying, for a
price, anything the Germans wanted). In order to satisfy the demands of
the home authorities Maria’s lover displayed a fine magnanimity. He
loaned Maria to a Russian officer who was willing to pay for the girl’s
favours by indiscreetly revealing all that her lover wished to know
about the new gun.
This action of betraying a girl and then luring her into the secret
service has become a familiar part of the technique of so many German
spies. The story of espionage is full of similar cases. In the case of
Maria Ann Lesser her lover saw that she had the making of a superior
secret agent, so he sent her to Abteilung III with the recommendation
that she be trained for Intelligence work. There may have been a private
clause in the recommendation, for the officer to whom it was addressed
took the girl under his own protection. Together they visited the
Italian manœuvres, where Maria Lesser probably first met Mata Hari, who
also was attending this military exercise under royal protection.
Maria Lesser was trained at Lorrach and then entrusted with independent
missions which were accomplished with the touch of a master hand. She
was then recalled to the training-school, where she instructed the
students. Drawing upon her own experience, Maria taught her women pupils
that, while spying was a game in which they would get no credit if they
were successful and no mercy if they failed, it had its own recompense.
She warned them that it demanded every sacrifice, even to death; that it
was a rough-and-tumble game in which virtue was a bagatelle of value
only as a stake to gain their end.
“If you are not over-scrupulous,” she said, “if you love adventure, a
spy’s life is filled with interest.”
When war was declared Maria Lesser had to receive recognition for her
brilliant qualities. She was made director of espionage over the areas
behind the forward zones, with headquarters at Antwerp. Her territory
included England and that part of France not occupied by the advanced
troops. In this work her energy was unbelievable. She had to overcome
the natural repugnance of officers, even high officers, receiving orders
and instructions from a woman, and to acquire their respect she made use
of ruthless measures. Twice her agents sent reports of the tanks while
they were still a closely guarded secret. Maria Lesser sent these
reports to an ordnance expert who regarded them as fantastic and absurd,
the kind of bogey a silly woman would conjure up to annoy busy men. But
when the time came that the tanks became an unpleasant reality Maria had
her reply ready. She sent copies of her reports, with the expert’s
contemptuous comments on the margins, and an automatic pistol to the
unhappy man who had ignored her warnings. He took the hint and blew out
his brains rather than endure a woman’s contempt.
There was also the case of Joseph Marks. This poor fellow was arrested
several times on trumped-up charges of treachery which he always managed
to disprove. But at last Maria Lesser told him that if he wished to
prove his loyalty he must undertake a mission to England to ascertain
some naval information required by her department. Poor Marks was too
scared to refuse and too scared to act. He even failed to pass the first
barrier, and when arrested expressed his profound gratitude to the
English police for sending him to prison, where he was at least safe
from “that terrible woman.”
Most tragic of all was the case of a daring young Belgian belonging to
that amazing organization of Belgian patriots who maintained an
efficient system of counter-espionage throughout the entire war. This
man succeeded in obtaining Maria Lesser’s confidence and eventually
became her intimate assistant. He was thus able to confound much of
Maria’s scheming until his zeal and devotion proved his undoing. A very
highly trusted spy was dispatched to France on a more than usually
delicate mission, entailing much careful preparation. He was arrested
instantly on arrival. Two days later Maria received news that her
trusted agent had been seized. She sent for her Belgian subordinate and
informed him that there were only two persons in the world who had known
the man was a spy—she and her assistant. The spy had been betrayed and
one of them had done it, one of those two must suffer. She calmly drew
an automatic out of the drawer of her desk and killed her subordinate.
In Antwerp she was established in a sumptuous suite of rooms, where she
interviewed her agents when they were ready to undertake the missions to
which she allotted them. In Major Massard’s _Espionnes de Paris_ there
is an account of such an interview which merits quotation because of the
side-light it throws on her character. Arrived in her office, the agent
was subjected to a careful scrutiny and then to a long and searching
examination as to his qualifications. Finally Maria addressed him:
“You are a resourceful young man, qualified to give a good account of
yourself in an emergency. You have a superior education and can speak
several languages. That is very good so far as it goes, but it is not
enough. You must be alert, adaptable, obedient, brave, and audacious. Do
you possess those qualities? I am a student of physiognomy and I believe
you do. You will experience many difficulties in this profession, but
before long you will find it absorbing. If you are not one who pays too
much attention to unnecessary scruples and who likes adventure you will
find the life highly interesting. It is so with me. I would not
surrender my position to fill a throne, because it furnishes me with all
the mental satisfaction I could wish for; it enables me to deal on equal
footing with men of the highest rank.
“I have one essential recommendation to make concerning your conduct. Be
sober, chaste, and keep good hours. It is in the early hours of morning
and the late hours of night that one’s movements are most easily
observed. Go to places of pleasure if you wish, but avoid entangling
alliances, because, remember, every country employs counter-spies, and
the most dangerous of all are the women one meets in those places. Let
me remind you of your instructions. Be most circumspect in your schemes.
Organize every step in your journeys with the greatest care for detail.
Miss nothing in your study of the character and resources of the people
you encounter, and everywhere you go print in your memory a picture of
the place. As you have been advised, train your memory so that you do
not have to take notes, put as little as possible into writing, and in
all your messages use only the code we have given you. Finally, destroy
everything you receive from us as soon as you have read it.”
At the conclusion of the war the German authorities had no further use
for Maria’s services. Her former colleagues and chiefs were superseded
in power. The Socialists who had seized power in the country had too
often been under her baleful supervision to have any affection for her.
But spying was in her blood, she could not surrender its hold, and she
was terribly embittered by her treatment. For Maria had deserved well of
her country. Twice during the hardest times of war she penetrated the
British counter-espionage barriers and visited London, walking
repeatedly along Pall Mall, past the service clubs where her enemies
took their ease, when they had any. Therefore, she had to remain a spy,
although she had now inherited a comfortable fortune through the death
of her father.
But what was probably the deciding factor in Maria’s latest service was
her weakness for drugs. By the time the war was over she had become the
slave of narcotics. One of her former enemies offered to ensure a supply
of her favourite drug if she would undertake espionage work for him, and
that is how I came to see Maria Ann Lesser sinking into a drugged sleep
in the headquarters of one of the armies of occupation on the Rhine.
Since then she has ceased to be of value to any power. If she still
lives it is in an asylum in Switzerland where drug addicts dream their
last.
Maria Ann Lesser was Mata Hari’s chief; not her immediate chief—that was
Major Specht in Amsterdam. The pair worked together until the French
counter-espionage service broke up the alliance between the two most
terrible women spies of history, and Mata Hari owed much of her training
to the other woman.
After her graduation from Lorrach, Mata Hari had to be restored to her
position as a vaudeville “star” and equipped to resume her position as a
courtesan, so that she might exercise her newly developed talent. With
official assistance she embarked on what was to be the existence of a
super-spy, probably the most accomplished and dangerous spy of the
century. Those who met her at this time were surprised to find that she
was doing her utmost to obliterate all traces of her Paris associations
in the cultivation of Teutonic airs and manners. A visitor to Naples
remarked at the time, after having talked with her in that city during
1907 (before her enrollment in the secret service), that she was
threatening to renounce the cult of her favourite god, Siva, and to
become a good Berlinoise, speaking German with an exaggerated accent.
But she could never altogether renounce Paris: she returns to it again
and again, and as the years go by she comes back to it as a spy. But now
her relations with the high aristocracy of Germany have made her
ambitious of social rank; she begins to sign her letters “Lady MacLeod.”
Any of her noble admirers might have informed her that this form of
signature betrayed her lack of title to it. It was a confession of
ignorance. Her posthumous admirers have tried to establish her right to
the title by marriage, but Campbell MacLeod neither inherited nor
acquired a title.
She continued to travel from one city to another. She became a familiar
figure at army manœuvres, where she was invariably the cherished
companion of some highly-placed officer, her purpose unsuspected because
of her notoriety. Scarcely any capital of Europe escaped her poisonous
presence. Like her favourite reptile, the serpent, the slime of her
writhing body coiled from one city to another, leaving its track of
debauchery and treacherous betrayal. One of her romantic biographers has
placed on her lips a terrible commentary on her success.
At the moment I am a queen with my courtiers.... Ginoceli, with his
hyena’s snout and his swindler’s mien, will never miss seeing me for a
day, even if I was in hell. And Crevard, the millionaire, who sets a
price on everything, would sell his God if he could find a buyer....
And Baron Clavenmoor, as puritanical outside as he is licentious
within.... Bah, their jewels and their flowers weary me. Beauty
carries with it a curse. Men are vile! They who adore me would devour
each other for my smiles. The Grand Duke Basil is transformed into a
Nero when he is drunk—disgusting. And the Kaiser’s friend, General von
Zwanzig, former general of the Guard, one has but to see him eat to
know what manner of man he is.[2]
Footnote 2:
_La chèvre aux pieds d’or_, by Chas. H. Hirsch. Paris.
It is not a pretty picture, but it is Mata Hari. And it pleases this
excellent writer to place her in the position of complaining that
flattery sickened her, that the hot caresses of these monsters froze
her, as part of the character she was playing. Yet Mata Hari never tried
to avoid them. She hunted them, pursued them without ceasing, and there
were few men whom she chose to make her victims who tried to resist the
modern Circe.
Some of those who knew Mata Hari most intimately have declared that from
the beginning of her career she had the presentiment that her life was
to be a tissue of magic and unpredictable events. At the apogee of her
career, when she had at her feet men of power, influence, and wealth
from all parts of Europe, it would seem that her dream of being the idol
on some strange altar had been realized. Her progress from one
engagement to another was a triumphal procession over a flower-carpeted
path, her state was very nearly regal, for princes met in her rooms, and
ambassadors forgot their cares when she offered them consolation in
forgetfulness. And yet there was an occult warning of destiny which
menaced her with black anguish, a vague fear of obscure events which
overcast the future. To her most cherished friend of the period she
wrote: “Protect me from so many things which may do me evil and which
tempt me from a desire to work.”
Of her first steps in the practice of espionage very little is known,
since their exponent is dead and the German authorities have good and
sufficient reason to be and to remain reticent. We must pass over some
years while the twinkling feet of the Red Dancer carry the lovely body
toward Paris on her final phase, _Nach Paris_. These two words have
become synonymous with German Nemesis.
The first of her known spy activities show that she was employed upon
the extensive scheme in which high finance and low morality each had
their part, one of Germany’s most expensive failures. It is now a
well-known fact that the Berlin authorities made a vigorous effort to
control and direct a substantial current of public opinion in France
through the daily press. The familiar story has been exposed in the
prosecution of Caillaux, Humbert, Almeyreda, Bolo, and Malvy, charged
with complicity in the effort to purchase influential journals with
German capital for the purpose of spreading Germanophile ideas. Mata
Hari played an inconspicuous part in the intrigue from its inception. In
1912, when she was on one of her visits to Paris, Mata Hari made
strenuous efforts to learn something of the inner workings of Parisian
journalism, what journals were in need of financing, where pressure
could be applied to obtain financial control, and to ascertain what were
the Berlin sources of information. In this rôle she was completely
overshadowed by her colleague, Almeyreda, for, while he succeeded in
reaching the font of policy, Mata Hari lingered with the journalists
themselves. This was the more flattering to her vanity, since the
cultivation of journalistic friendships produced favourable notices in
the press, but it was not particularly useful to her employers because
the editorial-writers do not frame policies and have nothing to do with
the control of the journals which they help to produce.
In one respect alone was she really successful. She did learn the names
of the Berlin correspondents whom it was hoped to influence at times of
international storm and stress so that German ideas would be favourably
exposed before the French public. Unprejudiced comment was not welcomed
in the tortuous policies which Germany employed in the anxious years
which preceded the war. If the Berlin correspondents failed to respond
to the official overtures, the blame cannot be laid on Mata Hari, who
had done her duty in revealing the men who should have been influenced.
An interesting reminiscence of her methods at the time is given by a
French journalist, one of the men whom she invited, unsuccessfully in
this case, to furnish her with information. He recalls being invited in
the year 1913 to her villa at Neuilly, which was surrounded by a high
wall to prevent prying eyes from witnessing the dances without costume
in the moonlight, which the dancer informed him she used to perform for
the benefit of her guests. This portion of her story was verified; the
rest was not. She explained that she was waiting for a divorce from her
husband. One day she appeared at the rooms of the journalist with tears
running down her cheeks. She told a pitiful story of having been beaten
by her husband, and to prove her words exhibited bare flesh on which
were several horrible bruises. The writer advised her to see a lawyer
friend of his who would be able to provide her with professional advice,
but he positively refused to have anything to do with her attempt to
cultivate pity as a means of being admitted to the secrets of the press.
He was suspicious of her motives, knew that she had not been in
communication with her former husband, and, besides, could see that the
bruises on her body were the result of art and not brutality. It was no
surprise to him when he learned that she made no effort to see the
lawyer.
So little did the Germans trust their spies that each one was placed
under the unseen supervision of a more trusted agent, who in turn had
his supervisor. In this way the slightest deviation from the strict path
of duty was followed by denunciation to the authorities against whom
they were operating. One cannot take risks with a spy inclined to
treachery. Mata Hari was placed under the willing charge of a German
nobleman, who, while ostensibly her “protector,” provided her with an
expensive villa in Neuilly, the fashionable suburb of Paris, where she
soon began to collect her friends. At first there was no effort to
conceal the relations between the baron and his friend, but when his
purpose was served and Mata Hari had established more advantageous
relations with French officials, the German nobleman moved out of the
picture; it was emphatically not part of his duties to monopolize the
favours of the spy.
Again let us glance at the methods of the German secret service to
appreciate why Mata Hari was encouraged to practise her profession as a
courtesan. At first thought it would appear that a spy’s duty is to be
as inconspicuous as possible and to avoid any entanglement which would
attract suspicion, rather than to court the full glare of publicity.
This is the argument of the unsophisticated. Most of the successful
spies, the super-spies, have all occupied positions which brought them
much before the public. Witness the example of Trebitsch Lincoln, who
served as a member of the British Parliament while in the pay of the
German secret service.
Contrary to belief, a spy’s main difficulty is not in finding out
things, but in forwarding the information he has collected. Anyone who
has the average five senses can exercise them in obtaining the required
information with very little attendant danger; the risk of exposure
comes in transmitting it. Should the spy, however, make a false move and
arouse suspicion, it is imperative to have a well-grounded and
perfectly-rehearsed alibi. And it must not be too innocent. The
prearranged excuse should have a convincing reason for furtive movements
and suspicious efforts to avoid surveillance.
The majority of the lesser spies sent out by Germany during the war were
furnished in advance with the most singular excuses, rehearsed so that
when produced to meet the occasion they would divert suspicion from the
graver charge of espionage. Usually they were furnished with some
article of German or Austrian manufacture or origin which was
contraband. Narcotics were a favourite camouflage. If a spy carrying
cocaine, heroin, or morphine were arrested on suspicion of spying he had
an excellent excuse ready for his desire to avoid the authorities.
“I am a smuggler, not a spy.”
That expression became so familiar to the counter-espionage agent during
the war that smuggling became almost synonymous with spying. But it was
an infinitely better protection than the idiotic occupation assumed by
some of the spies who operated in England. There, they insisted upon
being cigar salesmen in a country where a cigar is a luxury and where an
order on Amsterdam demanding 20,000 Coronas to be forwarded to Dover,
where not more than 2,000 are smoked in one year, was a certain signal
for an exodus of Scotland Yard men on the track of this super-salesman.
The war years were the boom years for the cigar trade in England, but
very few orders were executed. They were similarly the years when more
drugs were imported into France than ever were consumed.
At first the narcotic pedlars in France managed to slip past the
vigilance of the Second Bureau, for the simple reason that they were
pounced upon by the civil police and sent to serve prison terms before
the secret service even knew of their existence. The usual parcel
carried by the spy was a kilo (two pounds) of drug, which made their
capture a cause for congratulations by the police. Alas! one of the
spies went into his adopted trade too seriously and, having disposed of
his genuine drug before capture, had to substitute some ground
rice-flour for it. When the drug, which was his excuse for avoiding the
police regulations, came to be examined and was found to lack
pharmaceutical properties, the fat was in the fire. A man did not have
to apologize for carrying and trying to sell rice-flour.