Mata Hari

She married Dutch Colonial Army Captain Rudolf MacLeod on July 11, 1895, at the age of 19 – her husband was 21 years older to her. She moved to Indonesia with her husband where she gave birth to two children, Norman-John MacLeod and Louise Jeanne MacLeod.

Not long after their marriage, problems began to surface owing to MacLeod’s alcoholism and abusive nature. He also had a relationship with a concubine, common in those days in Indonesia. Distraught by her husband’s infidelity, she left his side and temporarily moved-in with a Dutch officer Van Rheedes.

MacLeod requested her to come back but she found that her husband had not changed. In 1899, both of her children fell seriously ill as they had contracted syphilis. Her son Norman could not survive and passed away, but her daughter survived. In 1907, the couple got divorced.

Born as Margaretha Geertruida Zelle, Mata Hari was the eldest child of Adam Zelle and his first wife Antje van der Meulen.

Her father divorced her mother in 1889. Her mother passed away in 1891 and on February 9, 1893 her father got married to Susanna Catharina ten Hoove.

She was sent to live with her godfather in Sneek, where she was trained to become a kindergarten teacher, but later went to live with her uncle in The Hague.

After a disastrous marital life in the Dutch East Indies (present-day Indonesia), she moved to Paris in 1903. She became a friend of a French diplomat, who told her to pick dancing for a livelihood.

With her exotic oriental looks, she started her dancing career in a salon. Her stay in Indonesia had helped her perfect the style of an oriental dancer and seductress and she was not shy of exposing her body.

She posed for artists, scantily-clad, while her sensuous dance moves captivated the audiences. Soon, she started gaining popularity and became friends with high-ranking men of her time.

However, by 1910 her career in dancing began to decline as young dancers began to surface and replace her. In order to maintain her lifestyle she turned into a courtesan and for a long time she depended on this profession as a source of her income.

During World War I, at the age of forty, she used to frequently travel between France and the Netherlands. She would usually travel through Britain and Spain and her journeys aroused a lot of suspicion.

This Dutch dancer, courtesan and spy, who was executed during World War I, adopted a name which means ‘eye of the day’ in Indonesian.