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 73she 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 74upon 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, 75the 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 76courtesy 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.

Mata Hari was by no means the only woman trained at Lorrach. When she went there, a training 77method 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 78espionage) 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 79pleasant. 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. 80He 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 81they 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 82comments 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 83delicate 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, 84obedient, 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 85the 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 86to 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, 87after 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 88has 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]

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 89was 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 90she 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 91to 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 92appeared 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 93of 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 94danger; 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 95and 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.

This digression will explain why Mata Hari continued to follow her public profession as a 96courtesan in order to fulfil the requirements as a spy. The Amsterdam authorities stoutly maintained the cigar-selling myth, although it immediately betrayed the pseudo-salesmen. In Mata Hari’s case, however, it served a much better purpose to have an illicit occupation, since it brought her into direct relations with public men in a way which made investigation a matter of great delicacy.

Even when she did come under suspicion, her rôle enabled her to escape detection time after time, to the intense annoyance of the Second Bureau, who were convinced of her guilt long before they could secure the material evidence which made a conviction reasonably certain.

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