Nurse Edith Cavell shot by German firing squad

......patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone. [Edith Cavell]

Edith Louisa Cavell, a nurse from England, was tried for 'treason' (aiding British, French and Belgian soldiers to escape across the border to neutral Holland) by the German military government in Belgium. Edith Cavell was sentenced to death. The German government stated:

She was judged justly ...... what would happen to a State, particularly in war, if it left crimes aimed at the safety of its armies to go unpunished because committed by women.

She was attended the day before her execution by the Anglican chaplain in Brussels, the Reverend H Stirling Gahan, 'a very pious Irishman'.

This postcard depicts the commander of the firing squad who, because the firing squad refused to open fire, shot Edith Cavell with his pistol after she had fainted and collapsed. This was the version of her final moments promoted by Allied propaganda. She was in fact shot by eight men at a range of six paces, one round passing through her forehead, at Tir National shooting range in Schaerbeek. Beside her, a Belgian national, Phillipe Baucq, was shot by the other half of what was a sixteen-man firing squad.

After the war, her body was exhumed from its Belgian grave and repatriated to Britain where she was re-interred at Norwich Cathedral on 15 May 1919. To watch a silent film footage that documents Edith's funeral procession, please click on the rare footage of The re-interment of Nurse Edith Cavell.
(Imperial War Museum, © IWM (IWM 1074))