This is the 100th anniversary of Mata Hari's execution in 1917. Writing about a woman who was executed, by a great Power, for really nothing. It is sometimes easy, sometimes difficult.

If this were not as well documented as it is, I would almost think the life of Mata Hari was a historical fiction playing through the end of the Victorian period through WWI. The life of this 'notorious' woman was as tragic as it was fascinating. Syphilis plays a major role in the life of Mata Hari and knowledge of the beliefs during this period of history are important to understanding how much of her life unfolds. Ms Shipman also uses a combination of modern information with that of the said time period to explain the actions and belief of those who were living, such as the theories of syphilis including the 'cures' used in the day. As the story of this woman's life unfolds, the author, Pat Shipman, uses quotes from letters and legal documents to give depth and personality to the characters. It was not until the meeting of Margaretha Zelle (ne' Mata Hari) to her husband, Rudolph MacLeod that this information made sense. The author begins with a narrative of the subject's early years in Holland then suddenly gives a history of the life of Dutch military and colonists in the Dutch Indies during the same time period. For all the demand her body had previously inspired, nobody wanted it once she had died.Although on the whole this biography of Mata Hari is very interesting and easy to read, I have to say that the beginning of the book had me a little mixed up. The truth was far less romantic: After she was shot dead, her remains were donated for dissection to the University of Paris medical school. Rumors circulated that the French executioners had fired blanks, enabling her to escape. The mythmaking began immediately after her date with the firing squad. The Dutch government did not intervene to any significant degree on behalf of its citizen, who was executed after having spent months enduring malnourishment and incarceration in vermin-infested conditions. On July 25, 1917, the French military government found her guilty of espionage. Shipman contends that the Allied side, and the French especially, “needed someone to blame, to punish – to defeat.” So they found a perfect scapegoat in this “immoral foreigner with a sensuous walk who had shamelessly seduced men from all armies.” In fact, “no one ever identified any specific defeat or leak of information that could be blamed on her,” wrote Pat Shipman in Femme Fatale: Love, Lies, and the Unknown Life of Mata Hari, which described her legacy as a “rich mélange of myth and legend that still persist.”Īlthough her amorous life wasn’t loyal to any particular side, no evidence existed that she provided militarily useful information to anyone.īut by 1917, the French military was war-weary morale was low and some military divisions had even begun to mutiny.

Femme Fatale by Pat Shipman