Today is the birthday, in 1876, of Margaretha Geertruida MacLeod (née Zelle), better known by the stage name Mata Hari, Indonesian for ‘sun’. She was a Dutch dancer and supposed courtesan who was convicted of being a spy for Germany during World War I, and executed by a firing squad. It has been said that she was convicted and condemned because the French Army needed a scapegoat for their failures and that the files used to secure her conviction contained falsifications.
After a failed marriage to a Dutch colonial officer, Rudolf MacLeod, she moved to Paris, where she performed as a circus horse rider using the name Lady MacLeod, much to the disapproval of the Dutch MacLeods. Struggling to earn a living, she also posed as an artist’s model.
By 1904, Mata Hari rose to prominence as an . She was a contemporary of dancers Isadora Duncan and Ruth St. Denis. Promiscuous, flirtatious, and openly flaunting her body, Mata Hari captivated her audiences and was an overnight success from the debut of her act on 13 March 1905.
Before the war, Zelle had performed as Mata Hari several times before the Crown Prince Wilhelm, eldest son of Kaiser Wilhelm II and nominally a senior German general on the Western Front. The Deuxième Bureau believed she could obtain information by seducing the Crown Prince for military secrets and offered her 1 million francs if she could seduce him.
In late 1916, she traveled to Madrid, where she met the German military attaché Major Arnold Kalle and asked if he could arrange a meeting with the Crown Prince.[32] During this period, she apparently offered to share French secrets with Germany in exchange for money, though whether this was because of greed or an attempt to set up a meeting with Crown Prince Wilhelm remains unclear.
On 13 February 1917, Mata Hari was arrested in her room at the Hotel Elysée Palace on the Champs Elysées in Paris. She was tried on 24 July, accused of spying for Germany and consequently causing the deaths of at least 50,000 soldiers. Although the French and British intelligence suspected her of spying for Germany, neither could produce definite evidence against her.
In 1917, France had been badly shaken by the Great Mutinies of the French Army in the spring of 1917 following the failure of the Nivelle Offensive and massive strikes. France might have collapsed from war exhaustion. Having one German spy on whom everything that went wrong with the war could be blamed was convenient for the French government. Mata Hari seemed the perfect scapegoat. The case against her received maximum publicity in the French press and led to her importance being greatly exaggerated.
She was executed by a firing squad consisting of 12 French soldiers just before dawn on 15 October 1917. She was 41. According to an eyewitness account by British reporter Henry Wales, she was not bound and refused a blindfold. She defiantly blew a kiss to the firing squad.
Certainly not the only one…
‘Sheik’
What could be better than a CORNDOG????
Some Signs….
Today is the birthday, in 1960, of Jacqui O’Sullivan, singer who joined British female pop group Bananarama in 1988. She sang on the hits ‘I Want You Back’ and ‘Nathan Jones’. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4-1ASpdT1Y
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