Happy Birthday to the “Martyred Nurse”

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Today, December 4, is the 149th anniversary of the birth of Edith Louisa Cavell. Her name may not be well-known in America these days (if it ever was), but her life — more precisely, her death — is a story of heroism. Cavell was born December 4, 1865 in Swardeston, Norfolk, England, the daughter of a Church of England vicar. She didn’t receive her “calling,” as it were, until her late 20s, when her father was ill and she returned home from Brussels to tend to him. Her love for the work made her decide, at the age of 30, to become a nurse. Early on she made her mark, helping stem a typhoid epidemic in 1897 (for which she was awarded a medal). Her nursing work took her to various hospitals in England, and eventually back to Brussels, where the founder of the Belgian Red Cross Dr. Antoine Depage hired her to run a nursing school. Everything was fine until the “Great War” broke out. While Belgium was neutral, Germany didn’t care because going through Belgium was the shortest route to France. This put Brussels under control of the German army as occupiers. During this time, Cavell’s nursing school became a hospital to treat wounded soldiers from the war. She didn’t care which side they were on: if they were wounded, her facility cared for them. However, she also became involved in helping wounded British and French soldiers escape to the neutral Netherlands, where they were free to travel back to their home countries and re-join their armies. The underground also worked to help Belgians, who were bring forced into military service for the occupying German forces, to escape to neutral territory. Of course, that constitutes “espionage” in wartime, but Cavell didn’t care. Her upbringing in the home of a minister set her feet on a path of helping others, regardless of the cost. The cost, sadly, was her life. On August 3, 1915 several people in the hospital, including Cavell, were arrested and charged with aiding and abetting the “enemy” in wartime. The underground network was discovered by a Frenchman who collaborated with the Germans. Partly to save other nurses from being arrested and imprisoned, Cavell freely admitted that she treated all soldiers, including the enemies of the occupying forces, and helped them leave Brussels. She was convicted of treason during war, and the Germans sentenced her to death. The outcry was great, although it fell on deaf ears. While the Geneva Convention protected medical people, even those in opposing armies, someone who’d admitted to harboring enemy soldiers lost that protection. Officials from several countries, including Great Britain and the United States, petitioned the German officials to not execute a civilian nurse, warning them that the already-heavy “court of public opinion” would turn more sharply against Germany (in light of the torpedoing of the ocean liner Lusitania and other events) if they executed a nurse. Five people were convicted; however, in the end, only two were executed. One of them was Edith Cavell. She was shot by a firing squad on October 12, 1915. She was 49 years old. The Germans added insult to injury by not releasing her body to an international agency such as the Red Cross so she could be buried in England; rather, they buried her near the shooting range where she was executed. Recorded as some of her final words, Cavell told the visiting minister shortly before her execution, “Standing as i do in view of God and Eternity, I realize that patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness toward anyone.” Despite that Christian attitude toward her captors and assassins, her death was presented in England as “martyrdom” and a rallying cry for enlistment. After the end of the Great War Cavell’s body was exhumed and returned to England. She was buried in Norfolk, where her father had worked as a clergyman, at the Norwich Cathedral. She is well remembered in England for her sacrifice to her country. The Church of England as a commemoration day for her, as does the Episcopal Church in the U.S. Mount Edith Cavell in Alberta, Canada was named in her honor. Today, the anniversary of her birth, is a good day for everyone to remember her. Here’s a brief synopsis of her (much longer biographies are available on YouTube as well):