Femme Fatale

by Pat Shipman

  Diabetes was spoken of in the nineteenth century, but there was neither a reliable means of diagnosing the disease nor an effective treatment for it until decades later. One of the usual nineteenth-century treatments for diabetics was to restrict their carbohydrate intake and put them on a high-fat, high-protein diet—not at all what Rudolf’s military life permitted. If Rudolf had what is now recognized as diabetes, his life was rampant with risk factors that would have increased its severity: he was a hard drinker; he smoked; his diet was heavy with starchy carbohydrates and low on protein, vegetables, and fruits; his meals occurred at irregular intervals; he spent many hours marching through tropical terrain under conditions ripe for contracting foot funguses or infections, which often lead to amputation in diabetics; he was unable to maintain good hygiene under field conditions; and he was at constant risk of other illnesses that might aggravate diabetes, such as malaria, cholera, typhoid, typhus, and tropical parasites.

  The facts of Rudolf’s life do not suggest severe diabetes suffered under extremely unfavorable circumstances. Though Rudolf took extended medical leave to return to the Netherlands, he did so only once in seventeen years, and by the time he retired from the Indies army, he had survived twenty years’ service in the Indies, a rare event. There is no indication that he ever had a leg, foot, or toes amputated, nor was his life span noticeably shortened: he died at the age of seventy-two at home. The sum total of evidence suggests strongly that Rudolf did not have diabetes as it is recognized now.

  However, along with the more familiar symptoms of diabetes related to excessive thirst and the passing of “sweet” urine due to inadequate sugar metabolism, the disease also often commonly provokes joint problems, stiffness, and pain, such as rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis, and osteopenia.

  The other condition from which family legend says that Rudolf suffered was “rheumatism”: a vaguely defined ailment involving joint and bone pain, stiffness, or similar orthopedic problems. In fact, the joint symptoms that Rudolf suffered from may have been the reason that the family believed he suffered from diabetes. Rheumatism was common among military men. One study of medical complaints in the Indies army concluded: “Everyone, including the few who survived for more than twenty years, suffered more or less from complaints of the liver, frequent stools, rheumatism, etc., and everyone remained susceptible to acute illnesses.”

  Symptoms of rheumatism as it was understood in the nineteenth century included “pain in the bones, joints, rheumatic complaints, arthritis.” All of these are well-documented symptoms of early stages of syphilis. Could venereal disease have been the cause of Rudolf’s medical leave and the true source of his medical problems?

  Though specific medical records pertaining to Rudolf are not preserved, information about Dutch military hospitals in the Indies tells us about medical ailments in the Indies army in general. Initially hospital wards were organized into two types: W (wounded) and F (fever). In the last half of the nineteenth century, the diseases that killed the largest number of European patients in the Indies were, in order of severity, dysentery/diarrhea (28–35 percent), leprosy (14–22 percent), and malaria (3–5 percent). Malaria constituted 90–95 percent of the “fevers” reported in medical records concerning the European Indies population. Recurrent or chronic malaria is an extremely debilitating disease that caused lifelong ill health in many Europeans who had spent years in the tropics, and it is highly likely that Rudolf suffered from it. Rudolf was not wounded but he almost certainly had fevers.

  Other major causes of illness among Indies soldiers are shown in the designations of the wards that were added later to military hospitals: V (venereal), O (ophthalmic)—which might include syphilitics who suffered from iritis or irritation of the iris—and C (contagious), which would have included leprosy.

  Statistically, syphilis or some form of venereal disease must be considered a strong possibility for the source of Rudolf’s medical leave, aside from the fact that its symptoms coincide with those of “rheumatism” and diabetes as it was then known. This hypothesis has never been suggested previously, although circumstantial evidence—which is presented in chronological order in this book—suggests strongly that he suffered from syphilis. This scenario would explain much that has remained mysterious about the married life of the woman who became Mata Hari.

  Syphilis was the third most common cause of European soldiers’ being invalided home from the Indies, surpassed only by malaria and nervous breakdown. Army commandant de Bruyn identified the two greatest enemies of battleworthiness in the Indies army as alcoholism and venereal disease, of which syphilis was the most common. Syphilis was “rampant” in the Indies and was twice as common in towns with naval or army garrisons as in rural towns. The impression of the high prevalence of syphilis in the Indies is borne out by hard statistical data. For example, in one hospital in Surabaya, where there was a large naval garrison, an average of 127 prostitutes were treated for venereal disease every day between July 1, 1868, and the end of June 1869. During a later four-year span (1909–1913) for which there are good military records, an astonishing 29.4 to 35.9 percent of the European Indies army soldiers were treated for “venereal disease” and another 10 to 14 percent were specifically treated for “syphilis,” the distinction between the two not always being clear in the records. Thus, it is plausible that Rudolf contracted syphilis during his first tour of duty in the Indies, a likelihood rendered still more plausible because he was a known womanizer and because the symptoms of the diseases he was publicly alleged to have correspond closely to those of syphilis.

  Rudolf might also have suffered from beriberi. This vitamin-deficiency disease was first recognized in 1652 in a young man recently returned from the Indies. Early signs of beriberi are irritability, weakness, fatigue, bowel irritation, numbness or twinges, burning sensations, and aches in the hands, feet, and legs—all symptoms that could be attributed to “rheumatism,” syphilis, or many other ailments. Patients with advanced beriberi become either paralyzed in the hands or feet or suffer extreme edema of the limbs. Sufferers may die of heart failure caused by the deterioration of the cardiac muscle.

  The number of cases of beriberi in the Indies increased suddenly and dramatically starting in the 1870s, while Rudolf was stationed there. In 1886, the alarmed Dutch government made determining the cause of beriberi one of the main charges of its medical research institute in Batavia. Finally, in 1896, Charles Eijkman was able to demonstrate that beriberi was caused by a deficiency of vitamin B, or thiamine, related to the processing of rice, the staple food of the Indies. The rice-polishing machines that had been brought to the Indies in the 1870s removed the outer husk of the rice where the thiamine was found. Thus the technological shift to mechanized rice processing was directly to blame for the epidemic rise in beriberi. Both locals and Europeans found polished rice tastier and preferred its whiter appearance, so polished rice was what the military bought, if it was available. Rudolf might well have been among the many soldiers who suffered from beriberi, but the fact that his illness persisted for years after he returned to the Netherlands mitigates against this diagnosis.

  When Rudolf was carried helplessly onto the Prinses Marie to go home to the Netherlands in 1894, he took with him seventeen years of hard experience as an officer in the Dutch East Indies. He had led his rough troops into some of the worst battles of the Atjeh War and had seen his men die of bloody wounds and insidious diseases. He had made difficult decisions and developed a self-protective vigilance against sneak attack in the terrible guerilla war he fought under grueling conditions. He had marched long hours in the monsoon rain and enervating heat over rough terrain so thickly vegetated that a man hiding five feet away was invisible.

  Rudolf was a soldier’s soldier. Even on leave, he always wore his uniform and insisted that subordinate soldiers he passed in the street salute him properly. He still spoke “soldier’s language” after returning to the Netherlands. The manners and polish he had learned as a child were
so foreign to him after he returned to the Netherlands that he actually told a salacious story in the presence of ladies, not realizing how offensive it would be. Yet in the Indies, his was not a purely masculine world. He whiled away happy hours in the arms of one or more Indo nyais who kept his quarters clean and pleasant, cooked his food, taught him languages, and warmed his bed. He also contracted diseases that made him too weak to fight any longer, that gave him fever and skin rashes and caused his joints and limbs to ache unbearably.

  In 1894, his future bride was a mere seventeen years old to Rudolf’s thirty-nine. He had spent years in the jungles of the Indies, whereas she had traveled no farther than the relatively short distance from Leeuwarden to Sneek, and then to Leiden and The Hague. He was a sexually experienced man, who had wooed and apparently bedded a number of women; despite M’Greet’s affair with her headmaster in Leiden, she had little experience of men or life. Rudolf was cynical, confident, and tough, a true officer. He had faced and beaten death time and again; and now that he was back in the Netherlands, he wanted more than ever to enjoy drinking parties and attractive women.

  M’Greet knew nothing of bloody ambushes, desperate night marches, vicious fighting, malaria, or syphilis; she thought being forced to live with prim relatives as a poor relation was suffering. She was in an odd way innocent. She still expected a magical love to transform her world. Still she knew instinctively how to flirt and please a man. At seventeen, M’Greet was deeply romantic, frivolous, and terribly vain. She longed for experience—to burst out of the strict world of propriety and regulation so she could have fun—and she craved admiration from an older man.

  She loved officers and Rudolf was an officer to the core. He loved pretty, flirtatious women and she was one.

  Their meeting was disastrous for both.

  3

  Object Matrimony

  RUDOLF ARRIVED IN HOLLAND on August 14, 1894, and after a few weeks in the hospital went to his sister Louise’s flat in Amsterdam to recuperate. Soon he was bored, though not yet entirely well. Then he met J. T. Z. de Balbian Verster, a journalist working for the News of the Day. De Balbian Verster was anxious to talk to officers recently returned from the East Indies who would be able to interpret the reports that were filtering back to the Netherlands about fierce fighting on Lombok, the island east of Bali. Rudolf had never visited Lombok, but he had many years of experience in the Indies and was very knowledgeable and opinionated. He and the journalist became friends and drinking companions.

  In 1894, Lombok was causing almost as much trouble as Atjeh province on Sumatra. Lombok was a semi-independent kingdom of largely Muslim tribal peoples who had been ruled for two centuries by Hindu Balinese rajahs. These differences meant that the Hindu crown prince in charge of the province of Mataram treated the locals harshly, leading to riots, rebellions, and appeals by the tribesmen for Dutch intervention. This unrest gave the Dutch a perfect excuse to invade and take control of the whole island.

  In March of 1894, an Indies army force led by General Vetter landed at Ampenan on Lombok’s west coast. The troops marched east into the provincial capital, leaving massive destruction in their wake. When they arrived in the capital, they found that the prince had committed suicide. Theoretically the Indies army had invaded only to protect the tribes from the prince’s cruelties, and he would dispense no more. But the army was there, and the opportunity to establish Dutch control and drive out the Balinese aristocracy was irresistible. Realizing the Dutch had no intention of leaving the island without conquest, the Balinese forces attacked at night, killing more than 250 soldiers and wounding many more.

  The massacre was a shocking blow to Dutch forces and Dutch pride. In the Indies and at home, the Dutch newspapers dubbed this battle the “Treason of Lombok” and demanded revenge. Finally, ten thousand Indies army troops attacked Cakranegara, where the rajah resided. He was captured and banished to Batavia, where he died in the spring of 1895. The rest of the Balinese rulers committed ritual suicide by facing the Dutch troops weaponless and dressed in their best white clothing. Rudolf, like most career soldiers, was shocked by the Treason of Lombok and proud of the great victory won at Cakranegara, which helped erase the stain of the sneak attack.

  By the beginning of 1895, Rudolf was restless. He and de Balbian Verster met often at the stylish American Café on the Leidseplein overlooking the canal, under the shade of the great sycamore trees. During the day they’d drink coffee and discuss the news; at night they’d drink alcohol and carouse with other friends. Though his health was still intermittently poor, Rudolf was looking for something exciting and entertaining to do.

  Half jesting, de Balbian Verster placed an ad in The News of the Day on Rudolf’s behalf:

  Officer on home leave from Dutch East Indies would like to meet a girl of pleasant character—object matrimony.

  Marriage was not such a ridiculous proposition as it might seem. Rudolf liked women, very much. If he was promoted to major—and his promotion was more or less guaranteed—then when he returned to the Indies, he could expect a prestigious posting. As a senior officer, he would be expected to entertain. Certainly neither military nor civilian society could be entertained with a nyai as one’s hostess; there were even rumors that men known to live with nyais might no longer be promoted as quickly as others.

  The attitude toward nyais was beginning to change. Ever since 1888 when the minister for the colonies, Levinus T. Keuchenis, had declared that concubinage must be gradually done away with, it was clear that poor Jan Fusilier would soon no longer enjoy his most basic comfort. The disapprobation for soldiers who kept concubines was growing stronger every day. If Rudolf were to get a straitlaced superior officer, keeping a nyai would be out of the question unless he chose to give up on his ambitions. The best choice for Rudolf was to acquire a European wife; second best would be a beautiful Indo wife, but half-castes were still greatly looked down upon in many circles. Yes, a pretty Dutch wife would be a very useful accessory to Rudolf.

  Though the Indies army recognized a senior officer’s need for a wife, he was still required to obtain permission before marrying, a regulation apparently intended to ensure that the wife of a senior officer had a suitable social background and was presentable in society. Lower-class wives, such as the enlisted men or NCOs might wed, were viewed by the high command with a sort of disgust. Such wives, they feared, would provide endless difficulties within the camps: more expense on passages to and from Europe; more complaints about food and conditions; more children who would require an education; greater need for pensions for widows and orphans; and more immorality, since the opportunities for adultery and jealousy were abundant in the Indies, where men heavily outnumbered women. For enlisted men or NCOs, nyais were a better choice—far more tractable—and they could always be shipped back to the kampong if they made trouble. For any soldier of any rank, contracting an unapproved marriage would bring official disapproval and would not entitle the man to the usual increase in pay and upgrade in housing.

  There were two great questions for Rudolf. The first was, where was he to find a wife? Like many officers home on leave after long service in the colonies, he had virtually no acquaintances in Holland anymore, much less among suitable young ladies. He called upon the families of a few of his fellow officers, perhaps hoping to meet an attractive younger sister, but his manners had deteriorated during his military service in the Indies. Finding a suitable prospect for marriage was not an easy task.

  The second question was, was Rudolf “fit to marry”? If he had contracted syphilis during his years in the Indies, he would infect a young, virginal wife who was innocent of any licentiousness. While only a pure girl would suit Rudolf’s purposes in marrying, if he infected her with syphilis and it became known, he would have done himself irreparable social damage. Catching syphilis—the pox—was recognized to be the consequence of leading an immoral life, and there was a widespread dread in Victorian society that an entirely innocent wife (or occasionally husba
nd) could be infected because of the sins of her partner.

  Attempting to diagnose syphilis or any other disease in the late nineteenth century was a task requiring considerable skills. There was no laboratory test for syphilis at the time, and the pox was notorious for its varied symptoms and manifestations. The disease was known as “the Great Imitator” following a speech to the British Medical Society in 1879 by Jonathan Hutchinson. In addition to the chancres or sores that were often the first sign of syphilis, recorded symptoms included “rheumatism, arthritis, gout, eczema, hypertension, epilepsy, headache, stomachache, jaundice, mania, depression, dementia, schizophrenia, deafness, ‘nerves,’ also smallpox, measles, psoriasis, lupus vulgaris, and iritis.”

  Diagnosing syphilis in a historical figure from this period is, of course, even more uncertain. In her book Pox: Genius, Madness, and the Mysteries of Syphilis, Deborah Hayden offers a series of ten clues that suggest someone had syphilis. Rudolf showed at least four of these: he was known to engage in high-risk sexual behavior and visit prostitutes; he had high fevers and chronic relapsing illness, accompanied by baldness; he said he intended not to marry; he visited numerous physicians; he had a long list of ailments including pain in the joints, rheumatism, and arthritis. Thus, there is considerable circumstantial evidence that Rudolf had caught syphilis as a young soldier in the Dutch East Indies, as so many did. Could he, then, marry?

  The wisdom and ethicality of a man’s marrying once he had been diagnosed with syphilis was a subject of intense discussion in medical circles in the late 1800s. Alfred Fournier, who in 1857 had published Research on the Contagion of the Chancre, was the first professor to hold the chair of syphilogy and dermatology that had been created at the Hospital of Saint-Louis in Paris, the leading center for the treatment and study of venereal disease. In 1890 he addressed the vexatious question of whether or not a man with syphilis might marry following a “cure” with mercury treatments and a period ranging from six months to two or three years without symptoms. He wrote, “So yes, a hundred times yes, you can marry after you have had the pox, and the consequences of such a marriage can be, medically speaking, entirely happy ones.”