Edith Cavell

by Diana Souhami

My dear Sister,

  Mr. Gahan will give you twenty francs from me to pay my little debts. Miss J. owes me (she will remember) a hundred francs. Take it to buy a clock for the entrance hall. At the end of the daily account book you will see the Red Cross accounts; money spent out from the School funds but not entered, which should have been covered by the two cheques I told you of and which is not entered either.

  I am asking you to take charge of my will and a few things for me. You have been very kind my dear, and I thank you and the nurses for all you have done for me in the last ten weeks.

  My love to you all, I am not afraid but quite happy.

  Yours

  E. Cavell

  October 11th 1915

  She had settled her accounts, written her letters, bequeathed a clock, prepared her soul. She had been taught that the reward for virtue was eternal life. “By the grace of God” was the caveat for what might not be so, for the landscape of heaven was less coherently mapped and charted than the fields and lanes of rural Norfolk. But in her mind the terrain of each was familiar.

  From her earliest years the concept of God was as everyday as blackberrying and Sunday dinner. In her demanding life as a nurse she had gone beyond church dogma to the meaning of quiescence. She had loved without consideration for profit or preferment. Devotion truly had been its own reward. She now could do no more than hope for Jack to be brushed and fed, her nurses to be conscientious, the new School to triumph, her mother to be consoled and for this malign war to end. For her cousin Eddy whom she had told in 1895, “I am going to do something useful … It will be something for people,” and to whom seven months previously she had written, “I like to look back on the days when we were young and life was fresh and beautiful and the country so desirable and sweet,” she now inscribed the flyleaf of her copy of The Imitation of Christ:

  Arrested August 5, 1915

  Brussels Prison de St. Gilles Aug 7, 1915.

  Court martialled Oct 7, 1915

  ” ” 8 ” ”

  Condemned to death Oct 8 in the Salle des deputés at 10:30 a.m.

  with 7 others. (The accused numbered in all 70 of whom 34 were

  present on these two dates)

  Died at 7 a.m. on Oct 12th 1915

  E. Cavell

  with love to E. D. Cavell

  The gas light in her cell burned for what was left of the night.

  47

  TUESDAY OCTOBER 12: DAY

  In the early hours of Tuesday morning, Sisters Elisabeth Wilkins and Beatrice Smith, and Nurses Pauline van Bockstaele and Jacqueline van Til, walked to the prison and waited outside the gates. At 5 a.m. Edith Cavell washed, folded her bed, tidied her clothes and possessions, secured her hair with a comb, again put on the clothes Elisabeth Wilkins had brought in for her trial: her blue coat and skirt, white blouse, her gray fur stole. She fixed the collar of her blouse with a gold stud, her hat with a tortoiseshell pin.

  An hour later, from the adjacent cell, Louise Thuliez and Jeanne de Belleville heard her door open and close. With the pastor Paul Le Seur beside her she walked down the long prison corridor. The German guards bowed. She acknowledged them but did not speak.

  Two cars with military drivers waited in the courtyard. She and Le Seur got into one. She sat between two helmeted soldiers. The car waited until Philippe Baucq and the Catholic priest Father Leyen-decker came through the courtyard door. Baucq shook hands with the guards. He had been allowed a meeting with his wife the previous night on condition he did not tell her he was to be shot at dawn. He left her a letter saying he died without regrets for what he had done, that his greatest suffering was to leave her and his daughters, whom he had always loved, and would love until his last breath.

  The two cars drove through the prison gate. The nurses glimpsed their matron who looked straight ahead. The cars drove through the dark streets of Brussels to the Tir National, the German shooting range on the edge of the city. A full company of 250 armed soldiers was there with Herr Stoeber the prosecutor, Lieutenant Behrens the German governor of St. Gilles Prison and Dr. Gottfried Benn, who had been present throughout the trial and had given privileged treatment to the Princess de Croÿ.

  The shooting range, a large field with a steep grassy slope to catch the bullets, was muddy from the rain. In front of the slope two new white posts, vertical stakes, had been driven into the ground. To the side were two yellow coffins. Two rows of eight armed soldiers were lined up facing the slope, six paces from it. The clergymen walked with the prisoners to the stakes. Stoeber addressed the soldiers. They need have no conscience about shooting a woman, he told them; she was not a mother and her crimes were heinous.

  Baucq took off his hat to the men arraigned to shoot him. “Bonjour messieurs,” he called. “Devant la mort nous sommes tous des camarades.” Stoeber silenced him and read the sentences. Behrens translated these into French.

  Le Seur pressed Edith Cavell’s hand and spoke of the grace of God. She asked that the reverend Gahan reassure her mother that her soul was safe. “Ma conscience est tranquille,” she said. “Je meurs pour Dieu et ma patrie.” He walked with her to the execution post. A soldier bound her to it and bandaged her eyes. Later he told Le Seur her eyes were filled with tears. Seconds passed while Leyendecker spoke with Baucq. “They seemed like an eternity,” Le Seur said.

  An officer gave the command to shoot. Baucq shouted “Vive la Belgique.” There was the crack of gunfire. Edith Cavell’s face streamed with blood. She jerked forward and three times her body raised up in a reflex action. One shot had gone through her forehead. There was a bullet hole as large as a fist through her heart. She remained upright at the post.

  “What I saw was terrible,” Le Seur wrote. He ran forward. The soldier untied her body. Dr. Benn checked she had no pulse, closed her eyes, pronounced her dead. The deed was done. Two soldiers put her in the yellow coffin then into the hastily dug grave. She was buried immediately and with no ceremony. “The place is to remain unknown,” Benn wrote. “She went to her death with a bearing which it is quite impossible to forget. But she acted as a man toward the Germans and deserved to be punished as a man … There is fear lest her death should lead to disorders … We must hurry, and silence and secrecy should surround her grave.”

  PART SIX

  48

  THE REMAINS OF THE DAY AND THE FOLLOWING DAYS

  Elisabeth Wilkins watched the car drive away from the gates of St. Gilles to the firing range. She went to the prison office and was told to collect Edith Cavell’s things in three days’ time. She was now the executor of her will and acting matron. At rue de la Culture Edith Cavell’s life was in place as if she had just gone out to walk the dog, except the dog was there and pining. There were her nursing books and prayer books, her walnut rocking chair, her armchair, framed photographs of family, the cushion in which were found fragments of her diary, possessions that were modest links to an unacquisitive life.

  Within hours of the killings the military authorities posted affiches on the trees, in the boulevards, on the walls of what once had been civic buildings. When the rain stopped there was a hazy sun. Crowds huddled to read:

  NOTICE

  By judgement of October 9, 1915, the military tribunal has pronounced the following sentences for treason committed in time of war (for having led recruits to the enemy):

  1. Philippe Baucq, architect of Brussels, to death.

  2. Louise Thuliez, teacher of Lille, to death.

  3. Edith Cavell, directress of a medical institution in Brussels, to death.

  4. Countess Jeanne de Belleville of Montignies, to death.

  5. Louis Séverin, pharmacist of Brussels, to death.

  6. Herman Capiau, engineer of Wasmes, to 15 years’ hard labour.

  7. Madame Ada Bodart of Brussels, to 15 years’ hard labour.

  8. Georges Derveau, pharmacist of Pâturages, to 15 years’ hard labour.

  9. Princess Marie de Croÿ of Bellignies, to 10 years’ hard labour. Seventeen other
accused have been sentenced to hard labour or imprisonment of from 2 to 8 years.

  Eight others accused of treason in time of war have been acquitted.

  The judgement rendered against Baucq and Cavell has already been executed.

  Brussels October 12 1915

  Government

  In the prison, Louise Thuliez and Jeanne de Belleville learned of the death of Edith Cavell and Philippe Baucq when they took their morning exercise. Later that morning their relatives brought in clothes. “We argued why let us have a change of clothes if we are to be shot?” Louise Thuliez was later to write.

  Because she and Jeanne de Belleville were French, they came under the protection of Spain’s Minister, the Marquis de Villalobar. Fearful for the two women’s lives, he called on Brand Whitlock that morning. Whitlock told him with some complacency that the “thirst for blood had been slaked” and there would be no more executions from that group.

  Villalobar was not so sanguine. He knew the ruthlessness of Sauberzweig and that standard diplomacy would not do. He telegraphed the King of Spain, Alfonso XIII, to intercede, urged the Belgian Legation in Rome to appeal to the Pope, asked the French Ambassador in Washington to appraise the President, Woodrow Wilson.

  Brand Whitlock got up from his sickbed and spent the remainder of the day writing letters. He first sent a telegram to Walter Hines Page, the American Ambassador in London:

  MR WHITLOCK, American Minister in Brussels to Mr. Page.

  AMERICAN LEGATION, BRUSSELS, October 12, 1915.

  Your letter of September 23 and my replies of October 9 and 11. Miss Cavell sentenced yesterday and executed at 2 o’clock this morning, despite our best efforts continued until the last moment. Full report follows by mail.WHITLOCK

  He had got the “last moment” wrong by five hours.

  The Reverend Gahan that morning managed to get a telegram sent from Holland to convey the news to Edith Cavell’s family. Longworth Wainwright received it at his home in Upton upon Thames on October 14.

  The president of the new Belgian School of Nurses, Monsieur Faider, called on Brand Whitlock on the morning of the 12th to appeal for the release of Edith Cavell’s body so that she might be buried respectfully in a Brussels cemetery. Whitlock, who disliked the phone, passed the request on in a note to von der Lancken who called at the Legation in the afternoon. It was not possible. Her body had been interred. He had no authority to ask permission to exhume it.

  Brand Whitlock then sent his account to the United States Ambassador in London, Walter Page. This was compiled from reports by his Secretary Hugh Gibson and Gaston de Leval. “I know that you will understand without my telling you,” he wrote to Page,

  that we exhausted every possible effort to prevent the infliction of the death penalty, and that our failure has been felt by us as a very severe blow. I am convinced however that no step was neglected which could have had any effect. From the date we first learned of Miss Cavell’s imprisonment we made frequent inquiries of the German authorities and reminded them of their promise that we should be fully informed as to developments.

  They were under no misapprehension as to our interest in the matter. Although the German authorities did not inform me when the sentence had actually been passed, I learned, through an unofficial source, that judgement had been delivered and that Miss Cavell was to be executed during the night. I immediately sent Mr. Gibson the Secretary of the Legation to present to Baron von der Lancken my appeal that execution of the sentence should be deferred until the Governor should consider my plea for clemency. Mr. Gibson was fortunate enough to find the Spanish Minister and got him to accompany him on his visit to Baron von der Lancken. The details of the visit you will find in Mr. Gibson’s report to me. The other papers which are attached speak for themselves and require no comment from me.

  I have, etc.

  BRAND WHITLOCK

  MR WHITLOCK, American Minister in Brussels, to Mr. Page

  AMERICAN LEGATION, BRUSSELS, October 13, 1915

  It was true he had no influence over the military tribunal, which offered no explanation why Edith Cavell and Philippe Baucq were so hastily slaughtered. Sauberzweig, determined to outwit any bid for clemency, intended to avenge himself on the English and warn the citizens of Brussels not to oppose his oppression. But efforts on Edith Cavell’s behalf had not been exhaustive and only at the eleventh hour was intervention attempted.

  In Brussels later that day more notices were posted by the military. One from von Bissing spoke of having uncovered and defeated a spy system, “un espionnage,” which “treacherously menaced the security of the German army.” Edith Cavell was now a spy and a threat to the German army. Another, from Sauberzweig, was the ex post facto law for which she had already been tried, condemned and shot. At the time of her killing her deeds were not a capital crime even under German military rule. There were, the Military Governor now wrote, people in hiding who belonged to an enemy army. If they declared themselves to the authorities within twenty-four hours they would be sent as prisoners of war to Germany. If not, they, “as well as all other persons who aid them in any manner whatsoever, whether by concealing them, giving them lodging or clothing, or nourishing them, will be punished with death or with hard labor and imprisonment by virtue of the Order hereinunder” to proclaim such a ruling now, suggested that hitherto to harbor Allied soldiers was not a capital offense. Nor had it been proved that Edith Cavell’s intentions were to aid the Allied army. “My aim was not to help your enemy but to help those men who asked for my help to reach the frontier. Once across the frontier they were free,” she had told the military tribunal.

  As a result of this new edict 4,000 Belgian and French soldiers presented themselves next day at the École Militaire in rue du Méridien and were sent to German prisons. This caused administrative chaos, and anger in blockaded Germany because it meant more people to feed.

  Longworth Wainwright received the telegram from Stirling Gahan about Edith Cavell’s death on October 14. He wrote at once to the Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Gray:

  Dear Sir,

  Forgive my worrying you again so soon, I had a wire dated from Holland yesterday morning. “Miss Edith Cavell died this morning” from Gahan chaplain, Brussels. Have you any information on what this implies?

  In-house memos then winged around the Foreign Office. “I had hoped that the Germans wouldn’t go beyond imprisoning her in Germany. Their action in this matter is part and parcel of their policy of frightfulness and also I venture to think a sign of weakness,” Sir Horace Rowland, Undersecretary of State for Foreign Affairs, wrote. “I am afraid we are powerless,” he had written about the “Cavell Case” and his own weakness eight days before. Sir Edward Gray wired the details to Longworth Wainwright.

  Deeply regret to inform you that Miss Edith Cavell has been executed by German authorities on charge of assisting escape of British soldiers. She has died as she lived devoted to service of her country.

  Edward Grey

  His words set the tone for a propaganda assault. He authorized a press release for the following day: “The Foreign Office desire to state that in this country no woman convicted of assisting the King’s enemies, even found guilty of espionage, has hitherto been subject to a greater penalty than a term of penal servitude.”

  After the Marquis de Villalobar’s intervention on behalf of Louise Thuliez and Jeanne de Belleville, the King of Spain, Alfonso XIII, asked the Kaiser for clemency to be shown them. In Rome Cardinal Bourne sent a telegram to Cardinal Hartmann, Archbishop of Cologne, requesting him to urge Wilhelm II immediately to postpone and reconsider these executions. In America, Ambassador Jusserand asked Woodrow Wilson to intercede. A telegram was sent from the President’s office to the American Minister in Berlin.

  Such bold high-level intervention worked. On October 20 the Kaiser told King Alfonso he granted reprieve to the three condemned to death with Edith Cavell and Philippe Baucq. He requested a full report on the whole affair. Jeanne de Belleville
and Louise Thuliez were sent to prison in Siegburg. The chemist Louis Séverin was incarcerated at Rheinbach.

  The King, Kaiser, President, Foreign Secretary, Prime Minister, Governor General, Military Governor … These were the men who signed the papers that felled cities, sent young men, horses and dogs to die, and ordered plows and iron railings to be turned to armaments—or that reprieved lives and agreed peace treaties. No one had asked for their intercession on behalf of Edith Cavell.

  Three days after the killing Sister Wilkins collected her matron’s things from the St. Gilles prison office. The governor allowed release of Edith Cavell’s last letters to do with money and administrative matters but kept back the one she had written to her mother, fearing its effect on anti-German propaganda.

  Sister Wilkins took the modest parcel to Mme. Graux who headed the committee for the new Institute. “I shall put the parcel as it is in my safe and this afternoon will tell the conseil d’administration what has been done,” Mme. Graux told her.

  Working with the School’s accountant Monsieur Lespagnole, Sister Wilkins then drew up an inventory of Edith Cavell’s possessions and packed them away. All of them fitted into a trunk and a couple of wooden boxes. Her clothes were practical though there was a silk blouse and a black lace dress. They listed it all: the blue woolen cardigan her mother knitted, which she wore when coal was scarce and she was doing her accounts. It was a “great comfort,” she had told her. “I often wish you were here at teatime to pour the tea for me.” There were her night clothes and slippers, her bathing suit for holidays, six teaspoons, six dessertspoons, two soup ladles, one salt cellar, a tea service for six, a box of buttons, a drawing block, a camera, a scent bottle, two brushes, a few hatpins, a cafetière and milk jug, twenty-four paintings and photographs, a clock, a satin handkerchief box, some pieces of porcelain, three wine glasses, 133 books …