When this work was done Sister Wilkins made arrangements to get out of Belgium. Her own safety was in question and it was now a benighted place of dark threat and harrowing memory. She had been through too much trauma, grief and fear. A new Belgian matron, Mlle. de Meyer, of no interest to the Germans, was appointed in November to head the new School. The President and all members of the committee signed a letter of reference for Sister Wilkins. It spoke of her closeness to Edith Cavell, her rapport with the student nurses and patients, and how circumstances forced her to leave Belgium. She returned to England in November taking Grace Jemmett with her.
As for Jack … At first José looked after him and kennelled him in the garden of a house in rue de la Culture, but he howled all the time. Mlle. de Meyer then took him, out of respect for Edith Cavell. She tried to keep him shut in her office but he bit the nurses and caused disturbance and the doctors wanted him put down.
Nor did life for Belgium’s citizens improve. The occupying army requisitioned everything: cattle, trees, rubber, wool. Even factory machinery was shipped off to Germany. Potatoes became scarce. There were incipient riots in the markets. Impoverished people sold such possessions as they had. Whitlock wrote in his memoir that misery acted on character and made people cruel: “the herders of the requisitioned cattle—lowing down the rue Belliard—would carelessly beat them over the muzzles with their clubs and the beasts would close their eyes and turn their heads away to escape the pain of those blows.”
What Edith Cavell had called the “terrible dogs of war” were all unleashed. Battles at Champagne and Loos raged from September to October 1915. Five hundred thousand British soldiers and 250,000 German soldiers died or were injured.
Without a free and responsible press, rumors abounded. In one afternoon Whitlock heard that America had broken off diplomatic relations with Germany, the King of Greece had abdicated, the Crown Prince of Turkey had been put to death because he was pro-Ally, there was revolution in Bulgaria, all Englishwomen in Belgium were to be interned in a camp near Antwerp …
Exaggeration of Edith Cavell’s activities was just another lie. “We wait for England,” she had written to her mother in August 1914, believing “the dear country” would swiftly send these dishonorable invaders home. A year on, and millions of men were slaughtering each other in grotesque carnage. She had helped some hundreds of men cross the border into Holland. About two hundred, she told the tribunal. It was more like fifteen hundred. She had asked her mother for news of some of them, but not many letters got through. Later findings showed that at most a dozen of the men she helped fought on.21
49
PROPAGANDA
Edith Cavell’s execution made headlines in British newspapers from Monday October 18 on. The Times, Daily Mail, Express, Evening Post, Chronicle and Eastern Daily Press were avid broadcasters of patriotic propaganda. Edith Cavell and Belgium had been violated by Prussian militarism. There was speculation about what “would befall our womanhood if the German invasion triumphed over our resistance.” Germany was the evil aggressor. Britain, its Empire of conquest forgotten, was the “crusader for the rights of small nations, for democracy and freedom.” There were calls for those responsible to be tried as war criminals.
“Boche” and “Hun” became shorthand for goose-stepping, helmeted, monocled sadists who killed blameless Englishwomen. On October 21, Trafalgar Day, at a service in the Church of St. Martin’s in the Fields in Trafalgar Square, the Bishop of London whipped up the spirit of vengeance: “Their foulest and latest crime was the murder in cold blood of a poor defenseless English girl—a crime dwarfing even that of the Lusitania. This will settle the matter once and for all about recruiting in Great Britain,” he said. “What would Nelson have done in such a case as Miss Cavell’s murder? He would not have resorted to diplomatic inquiries; he would have made inquiries with the thunder of his fleets and guns.”
Sauberzweig, Stoeber and their military tribunal had overlooked, as they enforced their understanding of justice, the law of unintended consequences. The battlefields were too hideous and deranged to record in detail, but here was a story to seduce the public. This was why each man must fight: to defend an innocent maiden, a nurse and carer. Edith Cavell’s death inspired men to join up, brought America closer to joining the war and portrayed the German military as murderers of public servants. Her execution turned into a propaganda scoop for the Allies.
On October 20 Edward Gray warned Longworth Wainwright that Brand Whitlock’s report of her trial and execution had been passed to the press. He hoped publication would not cause “unnecessary pain” to her relatives. The report caused an explosion of eulogy for Edith Cavell and of vitriol for the enemy.
Mrs. Cavell was drawn into the furor. Two days previously she had received a warning from the Prince de Croÿ:
17 Hobart Place
Grosvenor Gardens
London
18th Oct. 1915
Dear Mrs. Cavell,
I have learned with deep sorrow the terrible news from Brussels.—It was my privilege to know and to visit your daughter often in the latter months. The great and noble work which she undertook with such admirable courage and patriotism has been deeply appreciated by all those who were associated with her; she was ever ready to come to the assistance of those who were suffering through the war. The crime for which she was convicted was Pity and Humanity which in the eyes of the Germans was a crime worthy of death.
May I beg you however to refuse to give any particulars concerning her work on behalf of the soldiers, as anything published now endangers the lives of the many others who are condemned but still unexecuted so far as we know, among whom is my own sister.
At the present moment I am writing in great haste, but I shall be very glad to give you any details in confidence concerning this most unhappy affair.
In deepest sympathy with you in your trouble which is our mutual trouble.
Believe me
Yours very sincerely
Prince Reginald de Croÿ
It was a disturbing letter for an eighty-one-year-old bereaved mother to receive, as unsettling as the one from the Countess de Borchgrave, warning her to watch out for a man with a reddish face and a flower shop in Forest Hill. It made her wonder what she might safely say to anyone, and about the extent of her daughter’s undercover work.
MI5 did not want Edith Cavell’s name linked to Reginald de Croÿ’s, with his high-level military and diplomatic contacts. Documents released into the National Archives in London in 2002 showed how innocent they wanted her to appear: “The British Military Authorities consider it highly undesirable that anything implicating Miss Cavell in matters of espionage should be published until the final settlement with the Germans has been made irrevocable.”
On the same day as Reginald de Croÿ’s letter, Mrs. Cavell also received one from Private Arthur Wood. He had survived in a turnip field after his battalion of the Cheshire Regiment was decimated at Mons. He had arrived at Edith Cavell’s Nursing School in February 1915 and worked as a ward orderly until she found a guide to lead him to Holland.
“It was with deepest regret that I read of the terrible calamity that overtook your daughter,” he wrote to Mrs. Cavell.
You will be surprised to receive this letter from me, a stranger, but had it not been for your daughter, I should undoubtedly have suffered the same fate. I escaped from the Germans after the battle of Mons & was in hiding in the vicinity of that town when I got into communication with your daughter.
It was your daughter who arranged for me to get to Brussels and afterwards to go from there into Holland.
I was hiding in the hospital of which your daughter was the Matron for five days and she treated me as my own Mother would have done and proved herself to be the very best friend I ever had. I am not the only English soldier that your daughter befriended, there are four more in my own Regiment besides the men of the other Regiments she helped.
I can only say she has done a gr
eat deal more for her country than most of the men who are in England at present, and although I feel the deepest sympathy for you I am sure you will be proud to have such a heroic daughter.
The letter Edith Cavell wrote the night before she died to console her mother was not passed to her. The military in Brussels said they would pass it to the American Legation if given assurance it would not be published. But they feared its propaganda effect and did not hand it over. Edith Cavell’s last request had been for her mother to know her soul was safe. The letter might have been reassurance of abiding love. MI5 obtained photographs of the scene of execution and sent these to Mrs. Cavell. “I have no doubt they will prove to you a sad but precious link to Miss Cavell’s memory,” an MI5 officer wrote.
In the press, accounts of Edith Cavell’s execution grew lurid: she was shot as she lay in a swoon; she refused to be blindfolded; she was a young English nurse martyred by savages. Prime Minister Asquith told the House of Commons she “had faced a terrible ordeal, worse than the battlefield:
She has taught the bravest man amongst us the supreme lesson of courage. Yes, and in the United Kingdom and throughout the Dominions of the Crown there are thousands of such women. A year ago we did not know it … Thank God we have living examples of all the qualities which have built up and sustained our Empire. Let us be worthy of them and endure to the end.
The objective for the government was to persuade the population to keep on fighting. “Let Cavell be the battle cry,” the Daily Graphic wrote, “let Cavell battalions be raised, pledged to avenge her.” Readers’ letters to the papers were full of ways in which her memory should be avenged: German cities should be destroyed by Edith Cavell battle planes; there should be an Edith Cavell Machine Gun Regiment.
“Remember Edith Cavell” became a recruiting slogan in Britain and France on posters, leaflets and postcards that depicted her being slain. In his war diaries the novelist Rider Haggard wrote on October 23, 1915 that “Emperor Wilhelm would have done better to lose an entire army corps than to butcher Miss Cavell.” The number of men she had helped to the Dutch border was as nothing compared to those inspired by her execution to enlist. Her death doubled recruitment in Britain from 5,000 to 10,000 a week for eight consecutive weeks—an extra 40,000 recruits. It contributed to public acceptance of military conscription which began on January 2, 1916.
“Who’ll avenge Nurse Cavell.” Edith Cavell’s photograph used for military recruitment, London 1915
The government changed its policy toward German women spies. “It is high time we put aside all false sentimentality when it comes to dealing with cases of espionage,” Colonel Vernon Kell, director general of MI5, wrote in a confidential report that October:
The employment of women as German spies in this country is on the increase and one must consider the fact that the class of information they can acquire is very often of more value than what the ordinary male spy can obtain.
We cannot afford to jeopardise the lives of our troops. We are dealing with an unscrupulous enemy who apparently do not even require evidence of espionage in order to execute a woman. I am advocating no vindictive methods but in a clear case of female espionage we should not hesitate to apply the full penalty.
“I never thought,” said Fanny Edgecombe, Edith Cavell’s friend from the London Hospital, “that all this would happen to the Edith Cavell we knew.” The propaganda and hyperbole seemed to be about someone else. “Remember me as a nurse who tried to do her duty,” Edith Cavell had asked. Her vain hope had been for peace and ordinary living to transcend the enmities of nation states.
The British government spent £120,000 a year on disseminating news via Reuters War Service. The agency wired press coverage of the story to Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, America. Headlines around the world told of Shock and Outrage. “Intense anger and horror has swept over Great Britain,” reported the Morning Leader in Canada on October 19. “Execution of Miss Cavell Stuns the World” declared the Cape Times in South Africa on the 23rd. “The Foulest Blot of All” announced the Star in Christchurch.
Such headlines stirred more men to offer their lives. “Murdered by the Huns: Enlist in the 99th and Help Stop Such Atrocities,” a Canadian recruitment poster read. “She gave all: You buy Peace Bonds” was the legend on an Australian poster. At a Sydney recruitment meeting “thousands stood bareheaded” in tribute to her memory.
In America allegiance to neutrality waned. The New York Times wrote, “Every neutral nation has heard with a shock of horror the news of the execution of Miss Cavell. The World at large prays that Germ-any’s enemies may triumph.” The Herald called Germany “the moral leper of civilisation.” The Tribune published a cartoon showing the Kaiser gloating over the body of a woman, a smoking gun in his hand and saying “Gott mit Uns.” There was praise for the work of Whitlock: “Miss Cavell was shot in haste as Whitlock pleaded for her life,” the Tribune wrote.
Each day brought quantities of mail to Mrs. Cavell, though not the letter she wanted. The Bishop of Norwich, Bertram Pollock, called on her in the last week of October. He found her bewildered: “her little room was strewn with letters and telegrams.” A letter from Queen Alex-andra’s private secretary conveyed the Queen Mother’s “utmost abhorrence” at the execution and “how deeply Her Majesty feels for you in the sad and tragic death of your daughter.” The President of the Royal British Nurses’ Association wrote, “Your daughter’s heroic death is one which will always remain a lasting memorial to devotion, courage and self-sacrifice and her name will be remembered amongst those heroes who have laid down their lives for this country.” Telegrams from the exiled Belgian government and the Paris Municipal Council conveyed respect, admiration and gratitude from “the entire population.”
It was all too severe a test for Edith’s mother. She was old, her eyes were failing. She wanted her daughter’s ordinary quiet presence, loving letters, holidays in West Runton, the rituals of teatime and tending the garden.
The Bishop of Durham, Handley Dunelm22, visited her then wrote hyperbolic letters from his palace, Auckland Castle. He promised much: everlasting life for Edith and the Reverend Cavell “in the presence of the Lord” and a place reserved for her, the Mother.’ He told her she reminded him of his own mother, “a wonderful sheet anchor of faith.” “I am myself the child (youngest of eight sons) of a country vicarage.” His niece and Edith had been at school together at Miss Gibson’s Laurel Court in Peterborough23. Edith, the Bishop told Mrs. Cavell, was now living “all light and love” with their “once suffering heartbroken Saviour.”
Oh how she lives on earth in grateful memory, in Paradise in perfect bliss!! … in joy and felicity with Him. And HE is with you. And HIS heart knows all about grief and how another day he will turn it all into perfect joy.
The Lord JESUS can and will lay His wounded hand on the aching wound of your soul and be your Peace. And ere long He will come and make an end of death.
Maybe Mrs. Cavell found consolation in the Bishop’s startling epistles. She told him she often found herself talking to a photograph she had of Edith, and how continually it hurt that the last letter Edith wrote to her was kept from her. God, the Bishop claimed, “knows exactly what the pang is of the cruel keeping of those letters from you. It hurts Him! And He is preparing oh such an ‘overweight of joy’ beyond the veil.”
Edith Cavell’s moderate voice was lost in the fallout from her execution, though fighting soldiers mirrored her moderation. “What a miserable business the Cavell agitation was,” Sergeant-Major Frederic Hillersdon Keeling wrote in a letter home:
I believe a large proportion of the men out here who think at all share my sentiments about it. I have no sympathy with people who want to execrate the whole German nation as much as possible … I will not hate Germans to the order of any bloody politician and the first thing I shall do after I am free will be to go to Germany and create all the ties I can with German life … When you are lying at rest and hear a bombardment g
oing on you can’t help thinking of the poor devils of infantry in the trenches on both sides with sympathy. You are none the worse soldier or fighter for that … how one dreams of the end! Of course I don’t want peace to be made as things are. The job must be finished off … Only let it be a definite well-established peace when it does come. The Prussian monarchy must be smashed but the German people must be given a chance to live an honourable life in the world if they will dissociate themselves from the bloody system of militarism …
When I dream of après la guerre I just think of the world—this good old cheery ball of earth—as a place of exquisite beauty, adventure, joy, love and experience … By God! I can see the scene—before the peace, even during the armistice. The infantrymen will swarm over the parapets of the trenches on both sides and exchange every damned thing they can spare off their persons—down to their buttons and hats and bits of equipment as “souvenirs.”
Every morning in spring in the front-line trenches I heard the larks singing soon after we stood-to about dawn. But those wretched larks made me more sad than almost anything else out here … Their songs are so closely associated in my mind with peaceful summer days in gardens or pleasant landscapes in Blighty. Here one knows that the larks sing at seven and the guns begin at nine or ten …
Have been reading Anatole France, Voltaire, and Maupassant while I have been ill … Voltaire is one of the great figures of all the ages—his combination of luminous sanity and passion for human rights makes him stand out even among the great. I have always ranked him far above Rousseau.
His dream of après la guerre was denied him. He was a writer and Cambridge scholar. He was killed on August 18, 1916, aged thirty.
Luminous sanity, a passion for human rights, the singing of larks, peaceful summer days in gardens, an end to militarism, no hatred of anyone … those were thoughts with which Edith Cavell concurred. Her preoccupation was not to be against the Germans but to be for the Belgians. She had always liked “the Germans.” Her father studied in Heidelberg; she had happy memories of a family holiday there and in St. Goar. It was Germans in their capacity of uniformed conquerors of the Belgians whom she despised.
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