Guest Author - Erin Caslavka

Even though she lived and died in an era much different than ours, Margaretha Geertruida Zelle, like many other women, relied on her beauty to get her where she wanted to go.

Originally born into a life of comfort, Margaretha's life was forever changed when her father, a hat merchant, went bankrupt. Abandoning the family to find work elsewhere, his wife, Antje, died shortly thereafter and Margaretha and her three brothers were split up amongst relatives.

Left to figure out how to survive on her own, she soon discovered that her exotic looks and blossoming sexuality were the keys to her survival. So when Rudolf MacLeod, a military captain based in the Dutch East Indies, placed an ad looking for a bride, Margaretha answered it.

Sending a photo of herself, with her olive skin and dark, wavy hair, she offered herself as the perfect choice for an older man seeking to establish his lineage. Despite their 21-year age difference, they were married on July 11, 1895 and followed it quickly with the birth of a son and a daughter.

But Captain MacLeod was a hard-drinking serviceman who was also insanely jealous at the attention other officers paid to his wife, which made their union a rocky one. The marriage further deteriorated when their young son was poisoned by a household worker in the Indies, and finally Margaretha left for the "gay streets of Paris."

Once in the city, she quickly ingratiated herself into Parisian society and became the mistress of a French diplomat who aided her in her transformation to exotic dancer. Everything "oriental" was in vogue, and as Margaretha had become familiar with the cultural and religious ceremonies of the Indies, she was able to incorporate foreign movements and symbols into her costumes and choreography. Adding her version of "The Dance of the Seven Veils" into her routines, she danced "with the flexible grace of a wild animal, and with blue black hair," reported a viewer in Vienna. She appeared almost naked atop a white horse, drapped her body in sheer fabrics which she dropped one-by-one, draped her limbs, chest and head with bells and beads, and almost singlehandedly turned the the striptease into an art form. Reaching the pinnacle of her performing career, she renamed herself "Mata Hari" from the Indonesian dialect - translated as "eye of the day."

But beauty, then as now, was in the eye of the beholder and what European crowds were witnessing was the slow progression of time, and competition from other - younger - dancers. To supplement her income from performing, she turned to sex to pay the bills and fancied herself a "courtesan" - there to entertain and please the men in power: those in the government and military.

Even though Europe was slowly being divided by political turmoil and war seemed certain, Mata Hari paid no attention to which side of the political field her lovers were on. She was just as available to the Germans as to the French, and because of her citizenship, was able to freely move from country to country.

By 1916, and nearing 40, Mata Hari fell in love with a 21-year-old Russian captain, Vladimir de Masloff, who'd been injured in battle. Deeply committed to earning money to support them both, she agreed to spy for France. Army captain Georges Ladoux was the agent who recruited her, believing her intimate relationships with German officers would prove useful.

In documents recently released by the English government, it's now known that the MI5 - the British secret service agency - were keeping tabs on Mata Hari's whereabouts and activities, and twice brought her in for questioning. However, although she confessed to having a Dutch colonel as a lover who lived near The Hague, she admitted nothing else. In that same year, an intelligence report noted that she was being paid by the German Embassy and that she was "in relation with highly placed people and during her sojurn in France she made the acquaintance of many French and Belgian officers...She is suspected of having been to France on important missions for the Germans."

So rather than her German contacts saving her and Vladimir, they instead placed her at the height of suspicion. But what sealed her fate was when she was brought in for questioning in 1917 by French military prosecutor Captain Pierre Bouchardon, and confessed that she'd once been paid 20,000 francs by a German diplomat to gather information while traveling in Paris. And even though she swore she'd never supplied the information, and that all she really was was a courtesan, she was found guilty of espionage and sentenced to face the firing
squad. She was shot and killed by French militia in October, 1917.

Even today, the intrigue surrounding Mata Hari survives. Was she truly a spy? Did she acquire and sell secrets to the Germans? In October, 2001, the Mata Hari Foundation and Dutch lawyers representing her hometown filed a lawsuit in Paris asking for a new trial, claiming she was the victim of a conspiracy.

Whether or not the world will always consider her to be "the greatest woman spy of the century" remains to be seen, but undoubtedly Margaretha would welcome the attention...