Then came the simultaneous Franco-British offensive at the Somme. Tanks went into action for the first time, and according to Gen. Haig's official communique his "land ships achieved satisfactory results."
The tanks did achieve satisfactory results. More than that, they revolutionized offensive tactics on favorable terrain by advancing immune against rifle and machine gun bullets, or even against light trench mortars whose shells exploded at a touch. They smashed by sheer weight strong points and machine gun emplacements. They straddled trenches, enfilading the occupants and crushed in entrances to dugouts.
But several of the tanks were put out of action—and not by stray shells hurtling forward from far behind the German lines. They were knocked out by small calibre PENETRATION shells, fired from 37 millimetre trench cannons—the largest guns that can be handled from advanced positions. Guns specially built and rifled, and fired at high velocity and flat trajectory, so that, unlike any shell ever coughed up by a mortar, they penetrated the object struck—even though it were steel—before exploding.
Instantly it became evident that the enemy had become aware of what was in store for him and had constructed an "anti-tank" gun. And when the booty in the captured German positions was examined, the British found they had several good specimens of Krupp's newest weapon. Several German officers of higher rank taken prisoners confirmed suspicions, by explaining they had received description of the tanks several weeks before, and had been instructed how to combat them.
Now Mata-Hari is awaiting death and writing as she waits. She is penning her memoirs rapidly, filling scores of pages a day in a polyglot of French, German, Dutch, Javanese, Japanese and even English, according to the mood she is in, says the prison warder.
And because she fears her history will not be finished before that unannounced daybreak when she will be placed blindfolded before the high stone wall facing a firing squad of French soldiers, she has ordered her lawyer, M. Edouard Clunet, to plead for a stay of execution.
So Mata-Hari writes feverishly, and all Paris waits eagerly—except the one who waits apprehensively—to see if she will name the "ami" who gave her the first inkling of the tanks.
Pinned to the corsage of the Empire-cut black silk dress which Mata-Hari wears in her narrow cell in Saint Lazare Prison is a curious gold brooch. It is shaped like a twisted dragon, and its eyes are emeralds and its darting tongue a carrot-shaped ruby.
"It will be there—right over my heart—when I go away—when I stand before those men with guns aimed to kill me," says Mata-Hari. (Told in the New York World.)
(Since these stories were written Mata-Hari has gone to her death blindfolded before the firing squad. She met her execution stoically.)