Edith Cavell

by Diana Souhami

  With a means of crossing the frontier found, the de Croÿs, Louise Thuliez, Henriette Moriamé, Jeanne de Belleville and others, sought out more enfants perdus and helped get them out of Belgium. From the château at Bellignies Reginald de Croÿ directed them to safe houses in Brussels. From these safe houses the men were guided to the frontier and to freedom. One of these safe houses was with Edith Cavell at the Nurses’ School in rue de la Culture. When de Croÿ called on Edith Cavell to get news of Colonel Boger, he learned of how she had nursed and sheltered him and helped orchestrate his escape, but that he had been arrested before he left Brussels. He learned that Edith Cavell too was a “patriot,” defying the German authorities despite the risk, and doing all she could to help Allied soldiers cut off from their regiments by the fighting. But whereas he was proactive in espionage and recruitment of soldiers, her role was to help those in peril who arrived at her door: to nurse their wounds, shield them and get them to safety. She told the Prince she would shelter any men he sent to her, either in the School, or in other safe houses known to her. By way of password the men were to say they came from Mr. Yorc.

  And so from November 1914 until July 1915 a steady stream of men, sent by the Prince, by Jeanne de Belleville, by Louise Thuliez or Henri-ette Moriamé, arrived at rue de la Culture.

  Private Harry Beaumont of the Royal West Kent Regiment came to the door in March 1915 after living as a fugitive for seven months. On the night of August 24, after the retreat from Mons, when he regained consciousness he had crawled through fields to the village of Wasmes. A villager gave him food and clothes. His wounds were treated in a makeshift hospital in the colliery. Herman Capiau provided him with a false identity card and papers. He survived rough in woodland and was sheltered for four months by an out-of-work family, Emile and Marie Neusy, who denied his existence to Reginald de Croÿ because they were not sure if they could trust him. He then lodged with a prostitute, Marie Godart, and feigned being deaf and mute so as not to reveal he was English. He then again contacted Capiau, who took him to the de Croÿs’ château, and from there, with a party of eight Irishmen from the Connaught Rangers, he was escorted to Mons, then Brussels:

  Late in the afternoon our tram arrived at its destination, the Place Rouppe. Here our party alighted and followed our guide by a devious route through the cobblestone streets of Brussels until we were ushered into a hospital clinic in rue de la Culture. Here we were surprised to be welcomed by an Englishwoman who appeared to be in charge. We had not expected that! She showed us a room where the only light came through a skylight in the roof as it was match-boarded all round so no prying eyes could peep in through the windows. It was plainly furnished with scrubbed wooden tables and benches and heated by a typical Belgian stove standing in the centre. A dozen or so British soldiers, waiting for an opportunity to be guided to the frontier, were there already. Most of the men were from the Munster Fusiliers.

  There were about twenty men to conceal. They were not as amenable to discipline as her probationer nurses. Edith Cavell told them they could go out in the evening for walks, singly or in pairs, but that they must be back by 9:00 when lights were put out in the wards. She warned there were many German officers billeted in houses close to the Clinic. On the third night, by 10:00, only two of them had returned. The others got drunk in a café, got into a fight and rolled back at midnight singing “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary.”

  Next day she broke them into small groups and lodged them in different safe houses. Beaumont and an Irishman, Michael Carey, stayed with Louis Séverin, a chemist in Uccle. Carey, with eleven others from the Munster Fusiliers, had sheltered for months with a miller at the village of Hiron. One morning when Carey was out the mill was raided, the other men from his regiment and the miller were shot, the mill and its outhouses were burned, and the miller’s wife and family were sent as prisoners to Germany.

  After seven days with the Séverins, Beaumont and Carey were led by guides to a monastery at Averbode and eventually crossed the border disguised as monks.

  The network of help interlaced, interacted and expanded, search parties became more assiduous and determined at finding lost men, and the number of helpers and safe havens increased. At the same time, the occupying army became more tenacious at flushing out hiding places, spying on protectors, apprehending guides, wire-fencing the borders, policing the trains and trams, tightening the curfews and increasing punishments. Spies were planted, suspects stalked, death threats posted in public places: house an English or French soldier and you may be shot, send a message by carrier pigeon and you may be shot, publish a clandestine newspaper and you may be shot. Sinister though such threats were, they did not deter Edith Cavell or her friends from giving such help as they could.

  25

  MY DARLING MOTHER

  So Edith Cavell, the most honest and straightforward of citizens, was drawn into deception and danger, alarm at the knock on the door, wariness of footsteps behind her or of appraisal by strangers, the concealment of sealed windows, disguises, false papers and coded exchange.

  She was concerned for her mother who lived alone. She was unable to send her money, or freely to write to her. She wanted news of her sisters and brother, birthday wishes conveyed, messages sent to Grace Jemmett’s parents, messages relayed to Sister White and Sister Burt when they left the clinic for the relative safety of home.

  “We are all well—have no fear for us,” she wrote to her mother on September 9. “Brussels is quiet and life goes on the same; don’t be afraid if the papers give alarming reports—we are not interfered with at all …”

  The alarming reports in the papers were of the bloodbath of war. By September 1, 1914 it seemed Germany would achieve its goal of conquering France. Their First and Second armies got within 40 kilometers of Paris. For ten consecutive days British and French forces had been in retreat. The French government left Paris for Bordeaux, expecting defeat. Instructed by their commander Alexander von Kluck, Germany’s First Army began to encircle Paris from the east. But when they reached the River Marne, France’s commander-in-chief Joseph Joffre launched a massive counter-offensive, aided by Britain’s Sir John French, who agreed to it after being prompted by Lord Kitchener.

  It became known as the Battle of the Marne. It lasted from 6 to September 9. On the morning of September 6 the French Sixth Army of 150,000 men attacked the German First Army. As the First Army turned to meet this attack, a 40-kilometer-wide gap formed between them and their Second Army. French and British soldiers poured into this gap. To add to the force of this assault, on September 7, 6,000 French infantry troops were taxied out from Paris.

  On September 9 the German armies began to retreat, pursued by the French and British. In those few days 250,000 French soldiers died, the same number of Germans, and 12,733 British from the Expeditionary Force. Thus the Battle of the Marne: a battle that saved Paris, and turned what might have been a six-week conquest by Germany into a four-year world war. The German army stopped its retreat after 50 kilometers, just north of the River Aisne. Its First and Second Armies then dug in, by preparing trenches. Stalemate and years of trench warfare followed. “All my thoughts, all my prospective plans, all my possible alternatives of action were concentrated upon a war of movement and manouevre,” Field Marshal Sir John French, who led the British Expeditionary Force, had written. He, like the other generals, had expected this war to be over in weeks, or at worst months. None of them had anticipated hundreds of thousands of men spending years slaughtering each other in trenches that became ready-made graves.

  Failure at the the Marne made the occupying army in Belgium more vicious. Surveillance was stepped up. Edith Cavell was reminded by the Military Governor, General Baron Arthur von Luttwitz, second in command to the Governor General, of her obligations in nursing British soldiers. All must be reported to the authorities. When her nurses went to market in search of food, their baskets were searched to see if they were carrying clothes to help Allied soldiers escape in disguise. L
uttwitz, a large, pink, strong-jawed man, wore the black-and-white ribbon of the Iron Cross and the white Maltese Cross of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem on his uniform. He had been complicit in the destruction of Louvain. He canceled payment for requisitioned property and food, tightened censorship, seized ironwork for weaponry—even bronze and copper doorknobs and cooking utensils, and commandeered the park for German officers to exercise their horses—the Bois de la Cambre, at the end of avenue Louise, where all of Brussels liked to go, and where in her governess days Edith Cavell had so often walked with the François children.

  Belgians eager for uncensored news paid 15 francs merely to read a smuggled copy of Le Figaro or The Times. Most information about the war was by word of mouth, but also through clandestine news-sheets: Les Petits Mots du Soldat for news of and to fugitive soldiers, and La Libre Belgique, a four-page “seditious pamphlet” published weekly “somewhere in Belgium.” Entirely defiant, it mocked the occupation and incensed the Kommandantur, not least by its sardonic tone. Eugene van Doren, in a cupboard-sized room in an outbuilding of his cardboard factory, printed 25,000 copies an issue. It called itself “a bulletin of patriotic propaganda,” contained news censored by the German press, and leading articles from other papers, urged readers to pass copies on, and said its objective was to unite Belgian citizens, defy the Germans and tell the truth. “It will live in spite of persecution and official censure because there is something stronger than might, stronger than Kultur, something stronger than the Germans—the truth! And Belgium is the land of truth and liberty.” On seven occasions, disguised as a German officer, van Doren took documents from the office of the Governor General, and left copies of La Libre Belgique in their place. Philippe Baucq, a Brussels architect, was the paper’s most intrepid distributor. He was Catholic, a patriot, flamboyant in a long black cloak and wide-brimmed hat, and lived with his wife Marie and their two daughters in Schaerbeek, a suburb of Brussels.

  Philippe Baucq (1880–1935)

  Edith Cavell was circumspect in her letters home. “My darling mother,” she wrote on September 15:

  I have written to you on every possible chance but do not know whether all or any of my letters have arrived. I am most anxious to hear from you and hope soon to be able to send you an address to which you may write. Even now I dare not tell you our news in detail as letters must be left open and are not safe … I hope you have not been worrying about me … everything is quiet at our end of the town and except that we have practically no work, life goes on as usual … no trains are running to convey letters and the telegraphic communications are cut … so do not be anxious because you do not hear. There are a great many wounded in town, but very few Belgians or English—our nurses are busy at work among them. … It has turned wet now & chilly & I am very anxious about coal of which our supply is small—none is coming in with no trains—I only hope we may be able to get a good supply before the winter sets in. We are busy making garments for the poor, there will be great need of them this winter—there are so many refugees and so many homeless…

  My dearest love—don’t be anxious.

  She was marginally less cautious to her sister Florence. “Dearest Flor,” she wrote on September 18:

  Your letter was the greatest pleasure to me the first I have had of any sort since Aug. 15th. I have tried to write a great many times or rather to send but I am afraid that the letters—which cost anything up to 3 francs, don’t arrive—I am glad that Mother has at last received one as she must have been horribly anxious—indeed she says so—I got a letter from her by the same channel. Of course she urges me to come home & equally of course that is out of the question—we are actually doing no work among the wounded, as everything is out of our hands at present and the enemy have made their own arrangements. I cannot give you any details as our letters may fall into hands not intended for them; this will be carried to Holland & I hope will reach you from there … All is quiet just now & life goes on in many ways as usual. At present we have few patients but are affiliated to the Red Cross & may later under different conditions have much work to do. Little Jack is well and would like to bite certain legs … Thousands and thousands are homeless. The poverty and misery this winter is likely to be terrible—we spend any spare time making clothes.

  Sending letters became ever more hazardous. She sent those from a Dutch address, a M. Sturman in Vecht. Her mother wanted her home. She could not see why, if there was little nursing for her, her daughter should stay in harm’s way. Because she was English, Edith Cavell was vulnerable. But for as long as she could help she would remain in Belgium. She was relieved when her mother went to stay with Lilian in Henley: “It will shorten the winter for you.” It also meant her mother was not alone with her fears.

  “I am afraid you must have been anxious but I have not been able to find any means of sending this letter up till the present,” she wrote ten days later on October 19. An Englishman, Giles Hibbard, posted it from London, and offered to deliver a reply when he returned to Brussels.

  The route by which the others went is closed and I can give you no address to which you can write. I only hope you are quite well and not worrying about us. Everything goes on as usual, tho’ all around the unusual is happening. We have very little news, you will know a great deal more than I of the world in general. We are short of nothing at present tho’ there is scarcity in the poor quarters & there will be much misery all thro’ the winter. We are engaged in making up the stuff we can get into garments for the children of the refugees and the other poor. Coal is scarce but we hope that supplies will soon come in as a means of transit has been opened. I shall have much to tell you later on but cannot write it now. Gracie is much better but still not up. She has had a long spell of illness this time. I hope though it is nearly over.

  Don’t write again till I give you an address as no letters reach us now—& keep the envelopes of my letters so that we can see by what means they arrived when I return home. I am glad to think of you all safe & I hope well, with the fleet to keep away all harm from the dear country. The weather is beginning to be cold and dull now but we have had a beautiful autumn. Think of us going steadily on with our work here & at the hospital & living from day to day cheerfully & with good hope for the future.

  My dear love to you & the girls & to any of my friends who may write for news.

  Gracie sends her love to you & often speaks of you with affection.

  As soon as the way is open I will send you an address, but it will probably not be possible for some time yet.

  My dearest love to you my darling Mother,

  Ever your affectionate daughter

  Edith

  Building materials for the new clinic were stuck in railway sidings, German hospitals had their own staff, wounded Allied soldiers were taken as prisoners of war … What changed was not her dedication, but the kind of work she could do. The divide between nursing, helping the hungry and poor, and shielding vulnerable soldiers was slight. What was new was the need to deceive.

  “I seize every opportunity of letting you know that all is well here,” she wrote again to her mother on November 22,

  tho’ there is no news that I can give you. It is bitterly cold with thick snow and hard frost, but bright sunshine. I suppose you are at Henley and I shall be glad to hear about your journey and arrival and about Lil and the children.

  Gracie is staying with some American friends in Brussels who thought a change after her long illness would do her good; she seems much better but is still very pale and thin.

  All English men of a certain age have been taken prisoner and we are very closely surrounded. There is a curious shut in feeling and the atmosphere (moral) presses more and more heavily, tho’ if you, as a stranger, walked thro’ the city you would see little to indicate a state of war—life goes on just the same and yet with an immense difference. We have had more news lately—people coming from Holland or England—think prospects are brighter and are much more hopeful than we a
re.

  We have had some interesting work but are quiet again now. Our people who left last week must have arrived safely as they have not returned—if so you will have had my hastily scribbled letter—and will have sent £2 for me to Miss Millicent White c/o Dr. White whose address you know; it is the rest of her salary which I owe her.

  We are preparing for our Xmas Tree and the nurses are spending all their spare time in dressing dolls and making war clothes and little odds and ends for our poor children. It is terrible to think of all the misery and suffering, and the cold has begun so unfortunately early.

  You said you had heard from several of my friends some time ago—I should be glad to know who has written to you. Did the lady next door to Cumberland Cottage make enquiries?

  Several of our nurses and others have been ill with a kind of colic that appears to be due to the black bread, which is not bad, but very heavy to digest. The hospital’s half empty. The authorities cannot afford to take in many patients as money is very scarce. A great deal is owing to us which we cannot get and many others are in the same difficulty. Quite rich people are practically penniless and are having to live in the cheapest way possible, some are irretrievably ruined. Numbers and numbers have left the country not to return till conditions are totally changed—servants and employees have been dismissed and great numbers are out of work. You remember how difficult it used to be to get a cook or a housemaid? There is no difficulty now, many men are working for quarter wages. One employer told me some are working for their bread and butter—no wages. Little children are always coming to our door for tartines—Marie saves them our bread and butter and when they see her pass the door with the tray there is a rush.