Belgians of military age to go to the front, and that she had also concealed French and English soldiers, providing them with funds and with guides whereby they had been enabled to cross the Dutch frontier.
That such a confession was made by Miss Cavell is probable enough. Nine weeks of solitary confinement, the absence of any adviser who might have insisted that she should put her accusers to the proof of their charges, the conviction that what she had done was morally right, though legally wrong—all these considerations might well have induced her to tell the full story. But for her confessions, however, the capital charge would seem not to have been sustainable. The prosecution appears to have had no evidence that she had succeeded in enabling military refugees to reach England. She stated at the trial, however, that she had received letters of thanks from those whom she had helped to repatriate. In the absence of this admission she could only have been found guilty of an attempt to conduct soldiers to the enemy. Her statement showed that her attempt had been successful. So the penalty was death. The trial ended on Friday, 8 October. At eight o’clock on the evening of the following Monday (11 October) an official of the United States Legation was told unofficially that three hours previously sentence of death had been pronounced on Miss Cavell and that she would be shot at 2 a.m. on the following morning (12 October). Strenuous, but unavailing, efforts were made both by Mr. Whitlock and the Spanish minister to obtain at least a respite. All that they were granted was permission for the chaplain of Christ Church, Brussels, the Rev. H. S. T. Gahan, to visit her before the end, and he brought away her last messages.
Memorials of Miss Cavell have been set up in England and elsewhere. On 15 May 1919 her body was brought to Norwich Cathedral after a memorial service in Westminster Abbey. A statue of her, the work of Sir George Frampton, R.A., stands in St. Martin’s Place, London, to record the price which she paid for doing what she conceived to be her duty.
To many English minds the execution of Miss Cavell was a judicial murder. British tribunals throughout the War avoided passing sentence of death upon women, even when found guilty of the most dangerous espionage. There is no evidence that Miss Cavell was in any sense a spy. She did nothing for pecuniary reward. Charity and the desire to aid the distressed were the mainsprings of her life. But the German military code prescribed the penalty of death for the offence of which she was found guilty. The procedure in this case was the same as that in other courts martial. Deference to her sex and some allowance for honourable motives might have been expected from humane judges. Presumably the judges were afraid to be humane and thought that the obedience of the Belgian population must be assured by severe sentences. The execution then was justified according to German standards. But, if legally justifiable, it was assuredly a blunder. Popular opinion in the allied countries considered Nurse Cavell to be a martyr.
[The Times, 16 and 22 October 1915; Correspondence with the United States Ambassador respecting the Execution of Miss Cavell at Brussels, Cd. 8013, 1915; La Vie et la Mort de Miss Edith Cavell, 1915; private information. Portraits, Royal Academy Pictures, 1916 and 1917.]
CECIL, Lord EDWARD HERBERT GASCOYNE- (1867-1918), soldier and civil servant, was born in London 12 July 1867, the fourth son of Robert Arthur Talbot Gascoyne-Cecil, third Marquess of Salisbury [q.v.], by his wife, Georgiana Caroline, daughter of Sir Edward Hall Alderson [q.v.]. Educated at Eton, Edward Cecil entered the army (Grenadier Guards) in 1887. At the earliest opportunity he escaped from routine duties. He served in the Dongola expedition (1896), accompanied a diplomatic mission to Abyssinia (1897), witnessed the capture of Khartoum (1898), and was besieged in Mafeking (1900). Still seeking experience, he joined the Egyptian army, and was appointed in 1903 agent-general of the Sudan government and director of intelligence at Cairo. He then passed into the Egyptian government, becoming under-secretary of state in the ministry of finance in 1905, and financial adviser in 1912. As adviser, he was not greatly concerned to increase Egyptian revenues, counting a contented people a greater blessing than an overflowing treasury. But he was not always able to reconcile his ideals with the stern responsibilities of his office.
The European War of 1914-1918 disclosed Cecil’s reserve of courage and resource. Being the chief British adviser, he had to assume both direction of, and responsibility for, the conduct of the Egyptian civil administration in the difficult interval between Lord Kitchener's
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