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Britannica Concise Encyclopedia:
Edith Louisa Cavell |
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Oxford Dictionary of British History:
Edith Cavell |
Cavell, Edith (1865-1915). The daughter of a Norfolk vicar, Edith Cavell was a governess in Brussels before training as a nurse. In 1907 she became matron of the hospital of St Gilles, Brussels, and remained there at the outbreak of war in 1914. She set up escape routes for hundreds of Belgian and allied fugitives and was arrested by the Germans in August 1915. Court-martialled on 7 October, she was shot on 12 October, dying with dignity and courage. The reaction world-wide to her death elevated her to the status of martyr. Her body was later reinterred in Norwich cathedral. A memorial was erected to her in St Martin's Place, off Trafalgar Square, London.
Columbia Encyclopedia:
Edith Cavell |
Bibliography
See biography by A. E. Clark-Kennedy (1965).
American Heritage Dictionary:
Cav·ell |
, Edith Louisa 1865-1915.
Quotes By:
Edith Cavell |
Quotes:
"I realize that patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone."
Wikipedia on Answers.com:
Edith Cavell |
| Edith Cavell | |
|---|---|
Edith Cavell |
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| Born | 4 December 1865 Swardeston, Norfolk, England |
| Died | 12 October 1915 (aged 49) Brussels, Belgium |
| Honored in | Anglican church |
| Feast | 12 October |
Edith Louisa Cavell (
/ˈkævəl/; 4 December 1865 – 12 October 1915) was a British nurse and patriot. She is celebrated for saving the lives of soldiers from all sides without distinction and in helping some 200 Allied soldiers escape from German-occupied Belgium during World War I, for which she was arrested. She was subsequently court-martialled, found guilty of treason and sentenced to death. Despite international pressure for mercy, she was shot by German firing squad. Her execution received worldwide condemnation and extensive press coverage.
She is well-known for her statement that "patriotism is not enough." Her strong Anglican beliefs propelled her to help all those who needed it, both German and Allied soldiers. She was quoted as saying, "I can’t stop while there are lives to be saved".[1] Cavell was also an influential pioneer of modern nursing in Belgium.
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Edith Cavell was born on 4 December 1865[2] in Swardeston, a village near Norwich, where her father, the Reverend Frederick Cavell, was vicar for 45 years.[3] She was the eldest of four children and was taught to always share with the less fortunate, despite her family’s meagre earnings.[2] After a period as a governess, including for a family in Brussels 1900 -1905, she trained as a nurse at the London Hospital under Matron Eva Luckes. In 1907, Cavell was recruited by Dr. Antoine Depage to be matron of a newly established nursing school by the name of L'École Belge d’Infirmières Diplômées on the Rue de la Culture in Brussels.[1] By 1910, "Miss Cavell 'felt that the profession of nursing had gained sufficient foothold in Belgium to warrant the publishing of a professional journal,' and therefore launched the nursing journal, L'infirmière.[1] A year later, she was a training nurse for three hospitals, 24 schools, and 13 kindergartens in Belgium.[4]
When World War I broke out, she was visiting her widowed mother in Norfolk in the East of England. She returned to Brussels where her clinic and nursing school were taken over by the Red Cross.[5]
In late 1914, after the German occupation of Brussels, Cavell began sheltering British soldiers and funnelling them out of occupied Belgium to the neutral Netherlands.[5] In the following months, an underground organisation developed, allowing her to guide some 200 Allied soldiers to safety, which placed Cavell in violation of German military law.[6][7] German authorities became increasingly suspicious of the nurse's actions, which were backed up by her outspokenness.[6]
She was arrested on 3 August 1915 and charged with harbouring Allied soldiers. She was held in St Gilles prison for 10 weeks, the last two in solitary confinement,[6] and was court-martialled. She was then prosecuted for aiding British and French soldiers, in addition to young Belgian men, to cross the border and enter Britain. She admitted her guilt when she signed a statement the day before the trial, thus reaffirming the crime in the presence of all other prisoners and lawyers present in the court at the beginning of the trial. Cavell gave the German prosecution a much stronger case against her when she declared that the soldiers she had helped escape thanked her in writing when arriving safely in Britain. This admission proved hard to ignore because it not only confirmed that Cavell had helped the soldiers navigate the Dutch frontier, but it also established that she helped them escape to a country at war with Germany.[8]
As the case stood, the sentence according to German military law was death. Paragraph 58 of the German Military Code says: “Will be sentenced to death for treason any person who, with the intention of helping the hostile Power, or of causing harm to the German or allied troops, is guilty of one of the crimes of paragraph 90 of the German Penal Code.”[8] The case referred to in the above-mentioned paragraph 90 consists of "Conducting soldiers to the enemy."[8] Additionally, the penalties according to paragraph 160 of the German Code, in case of war, apply to foreigners as well as Germans.
The British government said they could do nothing to help her. Sir Horace Rowland of the Foreign Office said, "I am afraid that it is likely to go hard with Miss Cavell; I am afraid we are powerless."[citation needed] The sentiment was echoed by Lord Robert Cecil, Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs. "Any representation by us", he advised, "will do her more harm than good."[citation needed] The United States however had not yet joined the war and was in a position to apply diplomatic pressure. Hugh S. Gibson, First Secretary of the U.S. legation at Brussels, made clear to the German government that executing Cavell would further harm Germany's already damaged reputation. Later, he wrote:
We reminded him (Baron von der Lancken) of the burning of Louvain and the sinking of the Lusitania, and told him that this murder would stir all civilized countries with horror and disgust. Count Harrach broke in at this with the remark that he would rather see Miss Cavell shot than have harm come to one of the humblest German soldiers, and his only regret was that they had not 'three or four English old women to shoot.'[citation needed]
The German civil governor, Baron von der Lancken, is known to have stated that Cavell should be pardoned because of her complete honesty and because she had helped save so many lives, German as well as Allied. However, the German military acted quickly to execute Cavell and so deny higher authorities the opportunity to consider clemency.[9][10] Of the 27 put on trial, Cavell and four others were condemned to death, among them Philippe Baucq, an architect in his thirties who had also been instrumental in the escapes.
Cavell was not arrested for espionage, as many were led to believe, but for treason.[11] However, Cavell was in fact a spy working for the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), who turned away from her espionage duties in order to help Allied soldiers escape.[12]
When in custody, Cavell was questioned in French, but the session was minuted in German. This gave the interrogator the opportunity to misinterpret her answers. Although she may have been misrepresented, she made no attempt to defend herself. Cavell was provided with a defender approved by the German military governor. A previous defender, who was chosen for Cavell by her assistant, Elizabeth Wilkins,[6] was ultimately rejected by the governor.[10]
The night before her execution, she told the Reverend Stirling Gahan, the Anglican chaplain who had been allowed to see her and to give her Holy Communion, "Patriotism is not enough, I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone."[13] These words are inscribed on her statue in St Martin's Place, near Trafalgar Square in London. Her final words to the German Lutheran prison chaplain, Paul Le Seur, were recorded as, "Ask Father Gahan to tell my loved ones later on that my soul, as I believe, is safe, and that I am glad to die for my country."[citation needed]
Despite efforts by Brand Whitlock, the U.S. minister to Belgium, and by the Marquis de Villalobar, the Spanish minister, on Cavell's behalf, on 11 October, Baron von der Lancken allowed the execution to proceed.[7] Sixteen men, forming two firing squads, carried out the sentence pronounced on her and on four Belgian men[4] at Tir National[6] shooting range[14] in Schaerbeek, at 6:00 am on 12 October 1915. There are conflicting reports of the details of Cavell's execution. However, according to the eyewitness account of the Reverend Le Seur, who attended Cavell in her final hours, eight soldiers fired at Cavell while the other eight executed Philippe Baucq.[11]
There is also a dispute over the sentencing imposed under the German Military Code. Supposedly, the death penalty relevant to the offence committed by Cavell was not officially declared until a few hours after her death.[15]
On instructions from the Spanish minister, Belgian women immediately buried her body next to St. Gilles Prison.[7] After the War, her body was taken back to Britain for a memorial service at Westminster Abbey and then transferred to Norwich, to be laid to rest at Life's Green.[5]
In the months and years following Cavell's death, countless newspaper articles, pamphlets, images, and books publicised her story. She became an iconic propaganda figure for military recruitment in Britain to help increase favourable sentiment towards the Allies in the United States. She was a popular icon because of her sex, her nursing profession, and her apparently heroic approach to death.[15] Her execution was represented as an act of German barbarism and moral depravity.
News reports shortly following Cavell's execution were found to be only true in part.[6] Even the American Journal of Nursing repeated the fictional account of Cavell's execution in which she fainted and fell because of her refusal to wear a blindfold in front of the firing squad.[6] Allegedly, while she lay unconscious, the German commanding officer shot her dead with a revolver.[7] Numerous accounts like these stimulated international outrage and general anti-German sentiments.
Along with the invasion of Belgium, and the sinking of the Lusitania, Cavell's execution was widely publicised in both Britain and North America by Wellington House, the British War Propaganda Bureau.[16]
Because of the British government's decision to use her story as propaganda, Cavell became the most prominent British female casualty of World War I.[17] The combination of heroic appeal and a resonant atrocity-story narrative made Cavell's case one of the most effective in British propaganda of World War I,[16] as well as a factor in enduring post-war anti-German sentiment.
Unlike the rest of the world, the German government thought that they had acted fairly towards Cavell. In a letter, the German Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Arthur Zimmermann, stated:
It was a pity that Miss Cavell had to be executed, but it was necessary. She was judged justly. We hope it will not be necessary to have any more executions.[18]
Their laws do not make distinctions between sexes, the only exception to this rule being that according to legal customs, women in a “delicate” (probably this means "pregnant") condition could not be executed;[18] Cavell was not considered delicate. From the Germans' perspective, had they released Cavell, there would have been an influx of women partaking in acts against Germany because the women knew they would not be severely punished. It was up to the responsible men to follow their legal duty to Germany and ignore the world’s condemnation.[18]
The German government also believed that all of the convicted people were thoroughly aware of the nature of their acts. The court paid particular attention to this point, releasing several accused persons because there was doubt as to whether the accused knew that their actions were punishable.[18] The condemned, on the other hand, knew full well what they were doing and the punishment for committing their crimes because “numerous public proclamations had pointed out the fact that aiding enemies’ armies was punishable with death.”[18]
Before the First World War, Cavell was not well known outside of nursing.[6] This allowed for the creation of two different depictions of her in British propaganda. British propaganda ignored anything that did not fit this image, including the suggestion that Cavell, during her interrogation, had given information that incriminated others. In November 1915, the British Foreign Office issued a denial that Cavell had implicated anyone else in her testimony.
One image commonly represented was of her as an innocent victim of a ruthless and dishonourable enemy.[10] This view depicted Edith Cavell as innocent of espionage, and was most commonly used in various forms of British propaganda, such as postcards and newspaper illustrations during the war.[10] Her story was presented in the British press as a means of fuelling a desire for revenge on the battlefield.[10] These images implied that men must enlist in the armed forces immediately in order to stop the murder of innocent British females.
The second representation of Cavell during World War I described her as a serious, reserved, brave, and patriotic woman who devoted her life to nursing and died to save others. This portrayal has been illustrated in numerous biographical sources, from personal first-hand experiences of the Red Cross nurse. Pastor Le Seur, the German army chaplain, recalled at the time of her execution, "I do not believe that Miss Cavell wanted to be a martyr…but she was ready to die for her country… Miss Cavell was a very brave woman and a faithful Christian".[6] Another account from British chaplain, the Reverend Mr Gahan, remembers Cavell's words, "I have no fear or shrinking; I have seen death so often it is not strange, or fearful to me!"[7] In this interpretation, her stoicism was seen as remarkable for a woman, and brought her even greater renown than a man in similar circumstances would have received.[10]
Her remains were returned to Britain after the war and a state funeral was held at Westminster Abbey. On 19 May 1919, her body was reburied at the east side of Norwich Cathedral; a graveside service is still held each October.[19]
Following her death, many memorials were created around the world to remember Cavell. One of the first was the one unveiled in October 1918 by Queen Alexandra on the grounds of Norwich Cathedral, near a home for nurses which also bore her name.[citation needed]
Other honours include:
Memorials:
Medical facilities:
Streets:
Schools:
Other:
The song "Que Sera" on the album Silent June by O'Hooley & Tidow was inspired by the execution of Edith Cavell.[citation needed]
The song "Amy Quartermaine" by Manning from the 2011 album Margaret's Children is based on the life of Edith Cavell.
The French singer Édith Piaf is said to have been named after Edith Cavell.[citation needed] In general, it was due to Cavell that "Edith" became a common female first name in France.
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