Edith Cavell

by Diana Souhami

  “That’s only the usual exaggeration of the prosecutor; they all ask for the extreme penalty, everywhere, when they sum up their cases,” Whitlock said.

  “Yes,” Gaston de Leval replied. “And in German courts they always get it.”

  De Leval sent a note to Sadi Kirschen’s Brussels house asking him to come on Monday morning at 8:30 to the Legation or to send information regarding Miss Cavell. He received no acknowledgment so he went to the house of one of the other lawyers20 to clarify what had taken place at the trial. This lawyer said no judgment had been pronounced, the judges did not seem to be in agreement, and that he did not think Edith Cavell would be condemned to death.

  So much for the effort of the day. It was Sunday. It was wily of Stoeber and Sauberzweig to finalize their plan on what was for the defendants’ representatives a day of such rest. News of confirmation of the judgment was not given to anyone who might move to help the accused.

  That night Edith Cavell had an intimation of the gravity of her plight. When she put out her gas lamp, her Belgian warder opened the wicket, passed matches to her and told her to relight it. This, he said, was an order from the prison governor, Lieutenant Behrens. The previous night Maurice Pansaers, a Brussels coffeehouse keeper convicted for lodging Allied soldiers, had hanged himself in his cell. The military authorities did not want such self-determination from its prisoners. So, at fifteen-minute intervals on the night after Sauberzweig confirmed her death sentence, the wicket in Edith Cavell’s cell door creaked open and torchlight was shone over her.

  43

  MONDAY OCTOBER 11: DAY

  At 8:30 in the morning on Monday October 11 Gaston de Leval went to the Politische Abteilung in rue Lambermont to get news of Edith Cavell. He spoke to Herr Conrad, the Secretary, who was “always and unfailingly kind,” according to Brand Whitlock. He asked if, now the trial was over, he—Leval—and the Reverend Stirling Gahan, the British chaplain in Brussels and rector of the English church where Edith Cavell worshipped, might be allowed to see her in prison.

  Conrad said he would make inquiries and send news to Leval by one of the Legation’s messengers who would be bringing papers to the Politische Abteilung later in the morning.

  Leval went back to his desk. The messenger duly returned with news that neither Leval nor Gahan would be allowed to see Edith Cavell until after judgment was officially pronounced. At 11:30 Leval phoned Conrad who repeated what the messenger had already told him. Conrad assured Leval he would inform him as soon as judgment was confirmed. He thought this would probably be on Tuesday or the day after. But even then, he said, to be ratified it would have to be signed by the Military Governor. All this would take some days. Leval, but not the Reverend Gahan, would then be permitted to see Miss Cavell. For security reasons she could not see anyone English. There were German pastors at the prison, and if she needed spiritual counseling she could call on one of them to minister to her.

  After this conversation Leval went to Sadi Kirschen’s house. There was no sign of him so he left his card, then went on to another of the defending lawyers who said he had been told no judgment would be pronounced until the following day. Leval went back to the Legation and recounted to the Secretary, Hugh Gibson, who was in charge while Whitlock was ill in bed, all he had ascertained. At around 4:00 in the afternoon he left for home. Before leaving, he asked Gibson to phone Conrad again before he himself went home. At 6:20 a clerk, Mr. Topping, phoned Conrad on Gibson’s behalf and heard the same story: judgment had not been pronounced; the Politische Abteilung would inform the Legation as soon as they had news. And so all the lawyers, secretaries, clerks and messengers left their desks and went home for the night.

  But those in German military uniform had been busy throughout the day. At three o’clock a warder opened Edith Cavell’s cell door and told her to come and receive her sentence. She was taken to the central hall of the prison. The other prisoners were standing in a semicircle. Stoeber arrived flanked by two officers, the German Catholic prison chaplain Father Leyendecker, the interpreter Herr Brueck and the German prison governor Lieutenant Behrens. In German he read the sentences conferred by the judges and confirmed and signed by von Sauberzweig the previous day, “as if he was reading a list of honours.” Five times the prisoners heard the word todesstrafe: for Philippe Baucq, Louise Thuliez, Edith Cavell, Louis Séverin, Jeanne de Belleville. Then Brueck translated: la mort …

  Baucq, according to Georges Hostelet, cried out in despair, “his cheeks flushed and knees bent.” Séverin handed in a plea for mercy which he had already written. Edith Cavell leaned against a wall, seemingly impassive, though Jeanne de Belleville said her face had flushed almost violet. Hostelet went over to her and urged her to make an appeal for mercy. “It is useless,” she answered. “They want my life.” Jeanne de Belleville asked the prison chaplain Father Leyendecker what they could do. He told them they could still appeal to the Governor General. Louise Thuliez asked Edith Cavell if she would do so. “No” she replied. “It is useless. I am English.”

  They were ushered out of the hall. Baucq turned and shouted his innocence. He was dragged out. The others were taken to their cells. As they walked through the corridor the prison chaplains, the prison governor and the warders bowed. Louise Thuliez asked the officer escorting them if she and Jeanne de Belleville might share the same cell. “If we are to die together may we please pass our last hours together?” He did not answer. She repeated the request to Father Leyendecker. He agreed. She moved her mattress from her cell, number 32, and carried it to Jeanne de Belleville’s—22, adjacent to Edith Cavell’s. She asked him if Edith Cavell might join them too. No, he said, that could not be. There could not be three prisoners in a cell. He then helped them write their appeals for mercy.

  After he left, the two women hugged each other, “forgetting for a moment our mutual distress.” The Belgian warder instructed them to position their mattresses in the middle of the cell so he could see them through the wicket. As on the previous night they were to keep the gas lamp alight. At about 7:00 in the evening he opened the wicket, whispered “There is hope,” then closed it. The two women talked until 2:00 in the morning. “We had so much to say to one another and so many messages to leave for our respective families because we hoped against hope that one or other of us might be spared.” Next door Edith Cavell was alone. Several times during the night they heard her cell door open and shut.

  The chaplain passed their appeals to Stoeber. Stoeber passed these to von Sauberzweig and updated him on proceedings: “The sentence together with its confirmation was made known to the prisoners through the interpreter Brueck.” Sauberzweig’s reply was immediate:

  Court of the German Imperial Government

  Brussels

  11.10.15

  Brussels 11b 3301/15

  I deem that the interests of the State demand that the sentence against Philippe Baucq and Edith Cavell be carried out immediately [underlined in red] and I hereby order this.

  I adjourn the death sentence on the other prisoners until a decision has been reached concerning the appeals for clemency now pending.

  Brigadier General von Sauberzweig

  Lieutenant Behrens replied with equal speed: “The death penalty against Baucq and Cavell will be carried out on 12.10.15 at seven a.m.” Late in the afternoon Edith Cavell was taken from her cell, to a side room of the prison, to be told this news by the German prison chaplain, Pastor Le Seur:

  It was intolerably difficult for me to carry out my task but she came to my aid.

  “How much time will they give me?” she asked.

  I replied “Unfortunately only until tomorrow morning.”

  For a moment her cheeks flushed and a film passed over her eyes, but it was only for a few seconds and I offered her my services as a pastor saying I was at her service any hour of the day or night. She politely declined.

  “Can I not show you some kindness?” I said. “Please do not see in me now the German but only the servant
of our Lord who places himself entirely at your disposal.”

  She asked if it would be possible to tell her mother in England. I promised to do all I could to ensure this and I kept my promise. But it was a burden on my heart that I could not serve her in her bitter need. I knew that from me, as a German, in the uniform she must have hated, she could not receive spiritual help. Also, according to the principles of her Church it was not possible for her to receive the sacrament from a Pastor who did not subscribe to them, but I knew the Anglican chaplain in Brussels, the Reverend Stirling Gahan, a pious Irishman who had been allowed to continue his religious duties throughout the Occupation. So I asked Miss Cavell if she wanted him to come to her to take the Holy Sacrament.

  Her eyes lit up and she accepted gratefully. Finally I told her it was my duty to stand by her side at the end and I asked if she would prefer the Reverend Gahan to be there instead.

  She declined and said it would be too much for him. He was not used to such things. “Miss Cavell,” I said, “I too am not used to such things but I would be rendering you a service if, instead of meeting you outside the Tir National rifle range I came here to the prison to collect you.” She accepted this offer. I said a few words of comfort from a deeply moved heart and we parted.

  Le Seur went straight to the Reverend Stirling Gahan’s house. He and his wife were out. He left a penciled note, “An Englishwoman is about to die.” He asked him to visit him at once.

  Elisabeth Wilkins and another Sister, Beatrice Smith, desperate for news, went to the St. Gilles prison in the late afternoon. The Belgian deputy governor Xavier Marin saw them. He told them that the death sentences had already been made known to the prisoners and that Edith Cavell and Philippe Baucq were to be shot at 7:00 in the morning. He advised the two nurses to go at once to the American Legation’s lawyer, Gaston de Leval, at his house in the avenue de la Toison d’Or.

  44

  MONDAY OCTOBER 11: EVENING

  The Reverend Gahan got home at about 6:30 on the evening of Monday October 11 with his wife Muriel. He found Le Seur’s note. He had met the German military chaplain once before, in July, when he had asked him for a prayer book for a wounded English soldier. “Found him Christian and courteous,” he wrote in his diary.

  He did not know to whom this current note referred. “I went at once to his lodgings at 18 rue de Berlaimont.” He was shown into the sitting room. It was 7:00 p.m.

  The Pastor arrived. I thought he was looking rather pale and distressed. To my surprise he opened the conversation by asking me if I knew Nurse Cavell. This was a necessary formality he was bound to observe. I answered “Yes, I know her very well, she attends my church and I have often visited her in the Nursing School.”

  Then he said quietly “I am sorry to have to tell you that she has been condemned to death and is to be shot tomorrow morning.”

  My feelings at this intelligence I will not attempt to describe.

  I asked a few questions, and then he proceeded to say “I asked her if she would like to receive the Sacrament at your hands and she said ‘Yes.’ I also asked her if she would like you to be with her at the time of her execution tomorrow morning, but she answered ‘No, Mr. Gahan is not used to such things.’”

  Then I said I should be quite willing, but Pastor le Seur answered “I am very sorry but it is now too late to obtain that permission.”

  Then he continued “I have here the permit which will give you admission to St. Gilles prison this evening.”

  Gahan took the permit, went home and told his wife, then set off for the prison with his Communion set. Muriel Gahan left to plead with Whitlock at the American Legation.

  Sisters Wilkins and Smith arrived at Gaston de Leval’s house at about 8 p.m. He was at his desk writing an appeal for Edith Cavell’s pardon, in Brand Whitlock’s name, to be given to both the Governor General von Bissing and to von der Lancken, Head of the Politische Abteilung. Elisabeth Wilkins was in tears (toute en larmes). Beatrice Smith was calmer. Sister Wilkins told de Leval how she had just learned the court had condemned Edith Cavell to death, that the judgment had been read to her at 4:30 that afternoon, that she was to be shot at 2:00 in the morning.

  De Leval was disbelieving. He had feared swift judgment, but not so swift as this. An hour previously he had heard from the Secretary’s office at the Politische Abteilung that judgment had not been pronounced and would not be, until the following day. The nurses impressed on him that they had been given the news directly by the deputy governor of the prison and that it was he who had told them to come straight to him.

  De Leval added the information they gave him to the clemency appeal he was drafting in Brand Whitlock’s name, then went with them to the Legation. He, more than any other of the bureaucrats, had absorbed how serious this situation was.

  The two nursing Sisters waited downstairs with Whitlock’s wife, the Legation Second Secretary Caroline Larner, and Muriel Gahan. De Leval went up to Whitlock’s bedroom. “And there he stood pale and shaken,” Whitlock was later to write. From his sickbed Whitlock signed the documents de Leval had prepared:

  Mr. Whitlock, American Minister in Brussels to Baron von

  Bissing, Governor General in Belgium.

  Your Excellency,

  I have just heard that Miss Cavell, a British subject and consequently under the protection of my Legation, was this morning condemned to death by court martial.

  If my information is correct, the judgement in the present case is more severe than all others passed in similar cases tried by the same Court. Without going into the reasons for such a drastic sentence, I appeal to your Excellency’s humanity and generosity and ask that the death penalty passed on Miss Cavell be commuted, and that this unfortunate woman should not be executed.

  Miss Cavell is the head nurse of the Brussels Surgical Institute. She has spent her life in alleviating the suffering of others, and her School has sent out nurses who have watched at the bedside of the sick the world over—in Germany as in Belgium. At the outset of the war Miss Cavell gave her care as freely to German soldiers as to others. Even without going into other reasons, her career as a servant of humanity is such as to inspire the greatest sympathy and to call for pardon.

  If the information I have is correct Miss Cavell, far from shielding herself has, with commendable straightforwardness, admitted the truth of all the charges against her, and it is the very information which she herself has furnished and which she alone was in a position to furnish that has aggravated the severity of the sentence passed against her.

  Therefore with confidence, and in the hope of its favourable reception, I have the honour to present to Your Excellency my request for pardon on Miss Cavell’s behalf.

  I avail etc.

  Brand Whitlock

  De Leval had drafted the same letter for von der Lancken. The only amendment was in the final paragraph where he wrote, “I beg your Excellency to submit to the Governor-General my request for pardon on Miss Cavell’s behalf.”

  As he signed, Whitlock “at the last minute” wrote on the bottom of von der Lancken’s copy,

  My dear Baron,

  I am too ill to present my request to you in person, but I appeal to your generosity of heart to support it and save this unfortunate woman from death. Have pity on her!

  Votre bien dévoué

  Brand Whitlock

  Whitlock told de Leval to send a messenger to find the Legation First Secretary, Hugh Gibson, and get him personally to present the pleas. If possible Gibson should also find the Marquis de Villalobar, the Spanish Minister in Brussels, and ask him, too, to plead with von der Lancken. Whitlock then sent a telegram to London: “Miss Cavell’s trial has been completed and the German prosecutor has asked for sentence of death penalty against her. I have some hope that the court martial may decline to pass the rigorous sentence proposed.”

  The women downstairs were joined by Pauline Randall and Grace Jemmett and other nurses from the School who had heard the news. All
were disbelieving. No court, not even a German court martial, would condemn a woman to death at half past four in the afternoon then shoot her before dawn. It was cold and raining outside. Quite what was wrong with Whitlock was unspecified.

  45

  MONDAY OCTOBER 11: NIGHT

  The messenger found Hugh Gibson. Together Gibson and de Leval then went in search of the Spanish Minister, the Marquis de Villalobar. He was dining at the house of Baron Lambert of the Rothschild dynasty and Émile Francqui, a Belgian banker who chaired the committee for relief work. They were on their coffee. Gibson, Leval and Villalobar then went to the offices of the Politische Abteilung in rue Lambermont.

  The offices were in darkness. They rang until the concierge showed up. Everyone was gone, he said. The Governor General was in Berlin. Baron von der Lancken was at the theater. Which theater, they asked. He did not know. They told him to find out. He went up and downstairs a few times then came back with an official. Von der Lancken was at a variety theater, he told them, Le Bois Sacré in the rue d’Arenberg. They said they must see him, told the man to fetch him, gave him use of their car and waited in the salon on the Louis XVI white-lacquered chairs upholstered in yellow satin.

  Von der Lancken was irritated at being disturbed. He would come when the show was finished, he said. At about ten o’clock he reached rue Lambermont. He was joined soon after by two of his assistants: Count Harrach and Baron von Falkenhausen. Harrach, from a rich German family, had been a sculptor at the outbreak of the war. He spoke several languages and was head of the Press-Zentrale. His job was to make news disappear. Falkenhausen had been educated at Cambridge, was polite and had no clout.