The Life Story of the Victim of Germany’s Most Barbarous Crime. By William Thomson Hill. Decorative image WITH ILLUSTRATIONS. Decorative image LONDON: HUTCHINSON & CO. PATERNOSTER ROW     ᛭    1915 Decorative image LONDON: HUTCHINSON & CO. PATERNOSTER ROW     ᛭    1915...

“But this I would say, standing as I do in view of God and eternity, I realise that patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness to anyone.”...

CHILDHOOD. In the early seventies there were living at the country rectory of Swardeston, near Norwich, a clergyman and his wife and little family. There was a “New” and an “Old” Rectory. Both are still standing, much as they were then, except that the trees are older, and the “New” Rectory has long ago lost any signs of newness. It is one of the ways of Old England to call some of its most ancient things New, as if it could never learn to tolerate change kindly, even after centuries of wont. Th

LIFE IN THE RECTORY. Home life in the Rectory was tinged, as was that of most English homes at the time, with Evangelical strictness. On Sunday all books, needlework, and toys were put away. The day began with the learning of collect or Catechism. As soon as the children were big enough they attended services in the morning and afternoon. Evening services were not yet introduced in Swardeston. Light was not cheap, and the way across the country fields to church was no adventure for Sabbath cloth

WORK IN LONDON. Like Charlotte Brontë, another vicar’s daughter, Edith Cavell first learned something of the wider world in a Brussels school. It was commoner then than now—meaning by “now” before the war—for English girls to be sent to Belgium to school. Charlotte Brontë’s Brussels life has left us at least one imperishable book. Edith Cavell has left no written memorials of those times; but if we would reconstruct her life we may imagine some such background as that of “Villette”: the strangen

UPHILL WORK IN BRUSSELS. Edith Cavell needed all her strength of character in her first years in Brussels. When she went there nine years ago as Matron of a Surgical and Medical Home, English nursing methods were not appreciated on the Continent as they are now. Nursing was regarded as one of the functions of the Church. Miss Cavell was a Protestant as well as a foreigner. She was felt to be a rival of the nuns and sisters working under religious vows. The authorities of the Catholic Church look

THE COMING OF THE GERMANS. We reach now the last year of Edith Cavell’s life, for which all the others had been a preparation. When she arrived in Brussels, the Germans were shelling Liége. The gallant little Belgium Army stood drawn up across the path of the invaders. It was believed that the French and British would soon arrive to drive the Germans back. The Belgian Government was still in Brussels. Cheery Burgomaster Max kept order with his Civic Guard. In the autumn of 1915 we are all wiser.

WEAVING THE NET. The full story of the next few months of Edith Cavell’s life cannot be told until after the war is over. Brussels, as she had written, became cut off from the world. The hospitable old city became a nest of spies. “Newspapers were first stopped, then suppressed, and are now printed under German auspices. The few trains that run for passengers are in German hands, and wherever you go you must have, and pay for, a passport. No one speaks to his neighbour in the tram, for he may be

ARREST AND SILENCE. Early in the evening of the 5th of August, a loud knock came to the door of Nurse Cavell’s hospital in the Rue de la Culture. Five heavily-footed German soldiers and a corporal stood outside with a police officer. At that very moment the nurse was changing the bandages of a wounded German. The soldiers broke open the door with the butt-ends of their rifles, and rushed into the ward. At a sign from the police officer—one of the creatures Von Bissing had set to watch the nurse’

THE FALSE FRIEND. As Von Bissing had arrested Edith Cavell in secret, so he sought to judge her clandestinely. The trial took place before a court-martial on October 7th and 8th, with that of thirty-four other prisoners. Before this time Mr. Brand Whitlock, the American Minister, with his Secretary of Legation, Mr. Hugh Gibson, and his legal adviser, M. de Leval, a Belgian advocate, had stirred themselves actively on Miss Cavell’s behalf. The story of how they were deliberately hoodwinked is one

TRIAL IN SECRET. The conspirators had thus succeeded in drawing an impenetrable veil across their wicked purposes. Practically the only accounts of the trial are those printed in the German newspapers a fortnight after the execution. These tell us that the court-martial was held in the Court of the Brussels Senate-House. The judges are not named. The principal person accused (says the Hamburger Fremdenblatt , which in the true German way assesses titles higher than all personal characteristics)

FIGHTING FOR LIFE. Between the trial and the sentence some sinister influence intervened. It is a secret of the Germans what that influence was. But we cannot follow the incidents of the last day of Edith Cavell’s life without becoming aware that a design had been conceived in some brain to hurry on the last penalty before there was time for a reprieve. Mr. de Leval had heard privately on the evening before (Sunday, October 10th) that the trial was over, and that the death sentence had been dema

THE LAST SCENE. The most beautiful moments in Edith Cavell’s life were those which preceded her martyrdom. At eleven o’clock the British chaplain in Brussels, the Rev. H. S. T. Gahan, was admitted to the cell in which she had spent the past ten weeks. He found her calm and resigned. She told him that she wished all her friends to know that she gave her life willingly for her country. And then she used these imperishable words:— I have no fear nor shrinking. I have seen death so often that it is

EDITH CAVELL’S MESSAGE. The circumstances of Edith Cavell’s death became known in England on Trafalgar Day. The news reached the public through the newspapers the following morning. No one who was in London that day will ever forget the sense of horror that ran through the land. From early morning a dense crowd of people thronged round the only tangible symbol of her martyrdom, a wreath of laurels placed among those of the sailors who died for England. The armless Nelson looked down from his col

SIR EDWARD GREY’S SCATHING COMMENT. Sir Edward Grey to the American Ambassador in London. Foreign Office, October 20th, 1915. The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs presents his compliments to the United States Ambassador, and has the honour to acknowledge the receipt of His Excellency’s note of the 18th instant enclosing a copy of a despatch from the United States Minister at Brussels respecting the execution of Miss Edith Cavell at that place. Sir E. Grey is confident that the news of the

It is indeed hard that a woman has to be executed, but think what a State is to come to which is at war if it allows to pass unnoticed a crime against the safety of its armies because it is committed by women. No law book in the world, least of all those dealing with war regulations, makes such a differentiation, and the female sex has but one preference according to legal usage, namely, that women in a delicate condition may not be executed. Otherwise a man and woman are equal before the law, a

Countless British, Belgian and French soldiers are now again fighting in the Allies’ ranks who owe their escape from Belgium to the activity of the band now sentenced, at the head of which stood Miss Cavell. With such a situation under the very eyes of the authorities only the utmost severity can bring relief, and a Government violates the most elementary duty towards its army that does not adopt the strictest measures. These duties in war are greater than any other. All those convicted were ful

Once for all, the activity of our enemies has been stopped, and the sentence has been carried out to frighten those who might presume on their sex to take part in enterprises punishable with death. Should one recognise these presumptions it would open the door for the evil activities of women, who often are handier and cleverer in these things than the craftiest spy. If the others are shown mercy it will be at the cost of our army, for it is to be feared that new attempts will be made to injure