H. MALVY’S ORDEAL

Evening Star, Issue 19310, 24 July 1926, Page 22

H. MALVY’S ORDEAL

SPY DRAMA'S LAST PHASE WHO COURTED MATA HARI ? A MINISTERIAL DREYFUS.

Overwhelming thunder on the right drowned tho voir© of the trembling Minister of the Interior ns he tried to make himself hoard in his own defence. The hostile, outcry awakened n counter-demonstration from the Gnvernment side, and the French Chamber pf Deputies became a pandemonium, dominated by the accusing, remorseless, maddening rhythm: “Mata Hari! Mata Han! Mata Hari!” . The Minister, M. Jean Louis Malvy, debilitated by seven years of banishment and disgrace, stammered a few heart-felt phrases of protest and selfexculpation, but their only effect was to swell tho insulting chorus of “ Mata Hari! Mata Hari!” With the name of tho Javanese dancer and the war spy ringing in his ears, M. Malvy collapsed in a faint. Efforts to revive him in tho Chamber were unsuccessful, and he was still unconscious when driven to his house. When he came to his senses he hastened to resign his portfolio in tho Cabinet that M. Briand had reorganised overnight during a political crisis this spring. The inclusion of M a Ivy’s name—although lie had largely retrieved his reputation by conducting tho negotiations which brought about co-operation between the French and. Spanish armies in Morocco, thereby paving the way for tho eventual defeat of Abdel Krim—“drew upon tho Cabinet all the fury of tho Opposition.” Briand himself was taunted with defeatism in the war and with the failure of the Champagne offensive. Crying out that “ things of this sort disgusted him with politics,” Briand disclaimed all blood guilt for the men killed in the Chomin des Dames, and thereupon the attack. was shifted to his newly-appointed Minister of the Interior. The basis of the Mata Hari scandal, as attached to M. Malvy, was that tho dancer, executed as a German agent on October Id, 1917, bad received ardent letters from a Minister whose name began with “M ” and ended with “ y.” Nobody seems to have thought of another Ministerial “ M—y ” until this juncture, when, with M. Malvy at death’s door, it was discovered that General Adolphe Messimy, a “ babbling” old person who had been Minister of War for throe years 'prior to the war, was the author of the infatuated “ M—y ” letters to Mata Hari.

This discovery, accompanied by General Messimy’s belated confession, was brought about by Aline Severing, a. wellknown writer, and it Ims resulted in the rehabilitation of M. Malvy and his restored health in the midst of a popular reaction recalling tho climax of the Dreyfus case. As Carter, puts tho case in tho New York ‘Times,’ “the conspiracy of gossip is broken up, and France is treated to a ‘Hearts and Flowers ’ denouement of one of tho fiercest political struggles in her history.” And ho continues, after a brief review of tho Dreyfus case AN ARMY CLIQUE.

“ In much the same way the attack on Malvy seems to have been the work of the ‘Plutarch group’ of the French army—a military clique which holds that the French High Command can make no mistakes. Alter the terrible failure of his offensive in Champagne in April, 1917, General Nivclle needed an alibi hadlv. Malvy was that alibi. The charge was later disproved, hut what of that? It was used against him as recently as March 18, ID2G. “Also tho morale of . tho French troops was low alter tho Nivcllo failuie. General Pctnin put down a mutiny with crushing severity. Another alibi was needed. Malvy again served as such. Through all his misfortune lie found no, champion save himsoli, though his friends defended him on the occasion of the attack.

“ When it might he made to appear that Malvy, instead of Messimy, was implicated*in the Mata Hari letters it was Malvy who received the odium due to a former Minister of War, a ‘ Plutarebist’’ who could do no wrong. And when Malvy was attacked the leader of tho attack was Leon Daudet, heir of tho anti-Dreyfusards and champion of the French royalists. SPY DANGER’S CAREER.

“The incident has all the improbability of a fantastic melodrama. Take Mata Hari, for example. Where outside of E. Phillips Oppcnheim could you find her like? She was born in Java about 1880, daughter'of a wealthy Dutch planter and a Javanese woman. Her given name was Marguerite Eelle. Tho girl's father died when she was still a child, and the mother consecrated Marguerite as a bayadere, or temple dancer, in a Buddhist shrine in Burma, where she received the name of 51 ala

Hari, which means ‘ Eye of the Morning.’ Her duties in the temple presupposed a, vow of chastity, which became irksome when she reached the ago of 14. “It was then that she attracted the roving eye of Sir Campbell MacLeod, a British Army officer, who eloped with her. Two years later they were married. In about her twentieth year, having homo the baronet a son and a daughter, Alata Hari (or Lady AlacLeod lost her tropical temper in dealing with a maid. This maid was beaten and discharged. By way of wreaking vengeance she induced a. gardener to poison AJata’s son. On discovering the culprit, Lady AlacLeod blew out Lis brains with a pistol. The scandal was such that she was compelled to flee from India. She made her way do Holland, and there she placed her daughter in a convent. “.When Sir Campbell found her in Paris she was already living under the protection of a “ high German official ’ in a. vialla at Neuilly-sur-Scinc. Tho husband promptly divorced her, but never recovered from his infatuation, dying miserably in Paris a few years later. Tho enterprise of a Parisian impresario induced Mata Hari to do her bayadere dance on the stage. It made a deep impression on tho bonlovardiers. Soon she was flitting about Europe, appearing in London, Vienna, Petrograd, and Paris.” Of tho dancer's stuns when tho war broke out, wo read; — “Accompanied always by a Gorman maid named Anna, and protected by her Dutch nationality, Mata Hari was living in Paris. It was just before that time —when Louis Malvy had not yet become Minister of tho Interior—that Gen. Adolphe Messimy, Minister of War, wrote her tho letters. Of these letters he said last week: — “ 1 Let this adventure serve as a lesson to young deputies of Ministerial timber whom beautiful women pursue with advances they suspect, somehow, confusedly. Let deputies beware of leaving Ju ladies’ bauds both their overcoats and their letters, which might serve as poisoned weapons for the reporter of ‘ L’Action Francaise ’ (Daudet’s paper) in the future. In the last analysis it was to that hatefilled paper that the whole perfidious campaign aimed at . lining up M. Malvy’s name with that of the celebrated spy can be traced.’ “ The offence with which Mata Hari was accused in 1917 was that of sending to the German word of the great allied surprise of that year, the < tanks.’ Early in 1917 she visited the town in England where the tanks were

being'made. Then site visited in Holland! Later she'went to San Sebastian, SpainJ and just before her arrcjjt was found in Paris with a young British officer attached to the tank service.

“ Mata Hari was tried by a military tribunal and found guilty of espionage on July 29, 1917. During her imprisonment at St. La an re she wrote her memoirs, using French, Dutch, Japanese, German, Javanese, and English to express her multiple past. Appeals to higher courts confirmed (lie conviction, and it was at dawn on October Id, 1917, that she faced the firing squad on the parade ground of the Fortress ol Vincennes, outside of Paris. During tho trial the ‘M y ’ papers had been freelv circulated, mid even then it was intimated that she was in close touch with a member of the Government—who was also a deputy—-namely. Malvy.. At any rate, the ■ conspiracy of gossip proceeded apace. “ Of General Messimy’s own part in the war there is little to relate. On July 30, 1914, as Minister of War, he ordereTT the French troops to withdraw ten kilometres from the frontier, thus abandoning the iron fields of Briey to the, Gormans. He took full responsibility for this action, alleging that it was necessary to avoid giving the Germans any occasion for claiming French aggression, and in this 'was tally backed up by Premier Yiviani._ His action, however, was severely criticised in tile Briey instance —by General Lanrexac, then commanding the Fifth French Army, who claimed after the war that the evacuation had not been ordered in advance and that the ironworks had not been crippled. The Germans worked tlie iron fields throughout the war, as they were beyond the range of tho French canon at Verdun and air raids against them weio ineffective. Many a French soldier died from shells made of Fricy iron. “ The abandonment of the fortress.oi Manbengo bv General Fourier so in-furiated-Messimy that lie is reported to have sent General Pan to have the commander shot when Fourier reported that the fortress could not bo defended. Messimy continued to act as War Minister until the end of 1914, and then, being judged inadequate, yielded to Painlevc in the Union Sucre, which fought tho war for three years. Revelations of hi.s friendship with Mata Hari were given last week to Mine .Severing, a French Socialist writer, in order to help clear the name of Malvy. He insisted that, ho had made no secret of his infatuation after the war was over j nevertheless, he stands responsible for having permitted Malvy to he tried and exiled on charges based largely on. the assumption that Malvv had written tho letters to Mata Hari. His publication of the truth■ comes only after Malvy’s health and spirt have been broken by encmiesc. m! MALVY’S RECORD. “ Louis Malvv was forced on the Vivian! Ministry of 1914 by the RadicalSocialist Pariy of Caillanx. He was thus Minister of the Interior when the war broke out, and in that capacity he continued under the various Ministries of Rihot, Briand, and Painlevc, until his resignation in the autumn of 19J7, under the charges brought against him by Loon Daudet, editor of ‘L’Action Francaise,’ and by the C’lonicncist coup do Ministro of that il “As Minister of the Interior lie is understood to have blocked a scheme of the General Confederation of Labor to thwart the mobilisation plans of the French Armv. He became a member of tho War‘Council in 1916,. and was retained when the .second Ivibot Ministry was formed in March of the lotlowing year. As the war progressed Malvy conceived it to he Ids duly to Franco to rally all shades of French opinion, radical as well as conservative, to support the struggle against Germany, “All went well until General Nivellc staged his spectacular and unsuccessful offensive against the Chemiu des Dames.. Nivcllo insisted that the. secret of tho offensive had been given away to the Germans, hollowing the failure there was an outbreak nl mutiny among tho discouraged Trench armies from a. rout as disastrous as that of the Italians at Caporrtto, in October. 1917. The French troops wore fed up with the war and the methods of the General Staff. Agitators supplied by such German agents as nolo Pasha began their intrigues and there occurred an organised outbreak in

Pn “M m 'Malvv’s trial opened in the middle of July. 1918. land ended on August fi. While it lasted it provided Paris with a hmhly-dramatic sensaJjon Four Prcimer.-Bnand. Paiulovc. Yiviani. and Rihot—testified in Malvv’s behalf and maintained that ins actions were perfectly proper.