Edith Cavell

by Diana Souhami

  “What is it, gentlemen?” von der Lancken asked. “Has something serious happened?” Gibson told him. Von der Lancken raised his hands, said it was impossible, he had heard something that afternoon of a sentence for spying, but he did not think it had anything to do with Edith Cavell and anyway they would not put a woman to death that night. He was scornful that credence was being given to an unofficial report. What was the source of the information, he asked. “Really, to come and disturb me at such an hour you must have information from a serious source. (Car, enfin, pour venir me déranger à pareille heure il faut que vous ayez des renseignements sérieux.)” He insisted he be told the precise source. Gibson did not want to divulge this. He did not want further to implicate any of the nurses. Von der Lancken insisted it was improbable such a sentence had been pronounced, that even if it had, it would not be carried out in such a short space of time and anyway it would be quite impossible to do anything until the morning. “Come and see me tomorrow,” he said.

  The Marquis de Villalobar (1864–1926) Spanish Minister in Brussels. He pleaded with the German military to try to save Edith Cavell’s life

  “It was of course pointed out to him that if the facts were as we believed them to be, action would be useless unless taken at once,” Gibson wrote in his report of the meeting.

  Villalobar urged von der Lancken to ascertain the facts immediately. Reluctantly von der Lancken then telephoned Herr Werthmann, the presiding judge at the court martial. He came back to say yes, it was as they said, and it was intended that the sentence be carried out before morning.

  De Leval gave him Whitlock’s sickbed plea. Von der Lancken read it “with a little sarcastic smile” according to de Leval, then said it was necessary to have a plea for mercy too. Leval produced this. Gibson and de Leval, in their plea for delay, forcibly went through the case for the defense: they spoke of the horror of executing a woman, of how the death sentence had only been imposed for actual cases of espionage and Edith Cavell had not even been accused of that. Gibson pointed out how Secretary Conrad at the Politische Abteilung had failed to inform the Legation of the sentence, that Edith Cavell had been in prison for many weeks now; delay could not endanger the German cause. Villalobar warned that such summary execution would have a profound effect on public opinion in Brussels and abroad and would encourage reprisals. He urged clemency, delay, appeal to the Governor General.

  But they had left it all so late. Midnight horse-trading by a junior American diplomat was no match for Sauberzweig and his team. It needed sovereign intervention, a cutting-through of all the twine of bureacracy, protocol and rank, to save Edith Cavell’s life.

  Von der Lancken argued that the Military Governor was the supreme authority (Gerichtsherr) in these matters. He had discretionary power to accept or refuse any appeal for clemency. Only the Emperor could overrule him. The Governor General had no authority to intervene and anyway he was in Berlin.

  Eventually von der Lancken agreed to phone General von Sauberzweig, the Military Governor, to see if it was true that he had ratified the sentence and to ask if there was any chance of clemency. There was no reply, so he called on him. Sauberzweig was playing skat—a German card game of tricks and trumps—and angry at being disturbed. Von der Lancken put Whitlock’s letter of appeal on the table. Sauberzweig swept it to the floor. He said Cavell’s immediate execution was necessary to ensure the safety of German troops. Von der Lancken retrieved the letter, asked how Cavell’s execution, when she was in prison, could protect German troops and suggested it would cause a stir and be used as propaganda by the Allies. Sauberzweig got angrier, said he took responsibility for the decision and would not change his mind.

  Von der Lancken returned to the diplomats. He had been gone half an hour. Sauberzweig, he told them, had acted only after “mature deliberation”; he considered the death penalty imperative and declined to accept their appeal for clemency or any representation on the matter. Von der Lancken then handed Brand Whitlock’s note back to Gibson. Gibson demurred about taking it. Von der Lancken insisted.

  “Von der Lancken was deaf alike to pity, and to considerations of international opinion,” Gibson was to write. Villalobar became impassioned. He took von der Lancken by the shoulder and “literally dragged” him into a nearby room. They talked for about a quarter of an hour. “It is madness, what you are doing,” the others heard him say. “You’ll have another Louvain.” He urged von der Lancken to telephone to General Headquarters at Charleville, and have the matter laid before the Emperor. This von der Lancken refused to do: it was not possible at such an hour of the night. “I am not a personal friend of my Sovereign like you,” he sarcastically told Villalobar. “What a grand opportunity for becoming a personal friend of your Sovereign you are missing,” Villalobar is supposed to have said.

  Villalobar then asked von der Lancken for permission to phone the Kaiser himself. This would be invidious, von der Lancken argued. It was late at night. Ultimate authority lay with the military Governor. The Kaiser would not be able to get the advice of his ministers at this hour. If the Kaiser refused to override Sauberzweig, this would transfer opprobrium to himself, von der Lancken, with dire results.

  So nothing was done, the Kaiser was left to sleep, and Edith Cavell’s chance of life slipped away.

  While Villalobar and von der Lancken argued, de Leval and Gibson pleaded with the younger German officers. In such a power-based structure such pleading was no better than chat. Von Falkenhausen was young and sympathetic to England. Harrach said the life of one German soldier was more important to him than any number of these old English nurses. Gibson and de Leval reminded them that the American Ministry had worked for German subjects at the outset of the war and during the siege of Antwerp. “We persevered until it was only too clear that there was no hope of securing any consideration for the case.”

  It was all too little, too late. After a catalog of inactivity, this flurry of junior diplomats talking among themselves and appealing only to the man most complicit in this killing, a man known to favor harshness and to use the law to fit ruthless intention, was the last stage in unforceful diplomacy. Whitlock never met Edith Cavell or Sauberzweig. Von der Lancken in his memoirs said the Legation had not been much concerned about Edith Cavell’s trial.

  Villalobar returned. They all left the Politische Abteilung shortly after midnight. De Leval was as white as a sheet, Gibson said. He took him home then went back to the Legation. “It was a bitter business leaving the place feeling that we had failed and that the little woman was to be led out before a firing squad within a few hours,” he wrote in his diary.

  But it was worse to go back to the Legation to the little group of English women who were waiting in my office to learn the result of our visit. They had been there for nearly four hours while Mrs. Whitlock and Miss Larner sat with them and tried to sustain them through the hours of waiting. There were Mrs. Gahan, wife of the English chaplain, and several nurses from Miss Cavell’s School. One was a little wisp of a thing who had been mothered by Miss Cavell, and was nearly beside herself with grief. There was no way of breaking the news to them gently, for they could read the answer in our faces when we came in. All we could do was to give them each a stiff drink of sherry and send them home.

  From his bed Whitlock heard the street door open as the nurses went out into the rain.

  46

  WHAT WAS LEFT OF THE NIGHT

  The little woman was in a locked cell. Next door Louise Thuliez and Jeanne de Belleville had the comfort of each other, and whispered reassurance of hope from a Belgian warder. Edith Cavell was alone. Ada Bodart managed to see her for a couple of minutes at about six o’clock. She gave a German guard ten francs to be taken to her cell to say goodbye. He had worked for years in Birmingham. Edith Cavell kissed her and told her she would rather give her life than have “her soldiers” fall into the hands of the Germans. “She was wonderfully brave but a little nervous.”

  Edith Cavell then finalized the le
tters she had drafted the previous day: to her mother, her nurses, to Sister Wilkins. To her nurses she wrote in French in her clear forward-sloping script:

  My dear nurses,

  It is a very sad moment for me because I write to say my goodbyes. I recall that the 17th of September—a few weeks ago—marked eight years of my directorship of the School. I was so happy to have been called on to help organize the project our Committee had founded.

  On the 1st of October 1907 there were only four young probationers. Now there are many of you—about fifty or sixty in all I think, counting those who have gained their certificates and left the School.

  At various times I have told you about those early days and the difficulties we encountered—even down to the choice of words like “heures de service” and “hors de service” etc. Everything about the profession was new for Belgium.

  Little by little we built up one service after another: certificated nurses for home nursing, school nurses, nurses for the St. Gilles Hospital, for Dr. Depage’s Institute, for the Sanatorium at Buyssingham, for Dr. Mayer’s clinic and now many are called (as perhaps you will be later on) to tend the brave men wounded in the war.

  Edith Cavell’s farewell letter to her nurses, two days before she was shot

  If during the last year our work has diminished, the cause is to be found in the sad times we are going through. When better days come our work will again grow and resume all its power for doing good.

  If I speak to you of the past it is because it is good sometimes to stop and consider the path we have travelled and to take account of our progress and mistakes.

  In your new beautiful Institute you will have more patients and all that is necessary for their comfort and your own.

  To my sorrow I have not always been able to talk to each of you privately. You know I have always had much to do, but I hope you will not forget our evening conversations. In them I told you devotion would bring you true happiness and the thought that before God and in your own eyes you have done your duty well and with a good heart will sustain you in the hard moments of life and in the face of death.

  There are two or three of you who will recall the little talks we had together. Do not forget them. As I had already gone far along life’s road I was perhaps able to see more clearly than you and show you the right path.

  One word more. Beware of slander. I must tell you, I who love your country with all my heart, that this has been a great fault here. During these last eight years I have seen many misfortunes which would have been avoided or lessened if a little word had not been whispered here and there, perhaps without evil intention, but which destroyed the happiness or even the life of someone. Nurses all need to think of this and to cultivate loyalty and team spirit among themselves.

  If any of you has a grievance against me I beg you to forgive me; I have perhaps sometimes been too strict but never knowingly unjust, and I have loved you all much more than you can know.

  My good wishes for the happiness of all my girls, as much for those who have left the School as for those who are still there and thank you for the kindness you have always shown me.

  Your devoted Matron

  Edith Cavell

  Oct. 10 1915

  She then wrote a letter to her mother. A letter of love and reassurance no doubt, but it was never passed to her, or its contents revealed.

  Through the eternity of this war Edith Cavell had kept to her agenda of good. Now she wanted to die in a state of grace and without her affairs in disarray, rancor in her heart or love left undeclared. She turned to the faith that was an indivisible part of the rituals of her childhood, that taught the obligation of goodness and love, and led her to believe that mercy and justice might one day prevail. It had always been her way to direct her thoughts to God. To be not just a servant of life but a servant of the source of life, whatever that might be. She scored lines against the devotional words that gave her courage to get through this ordeal: Occasions of adversity best discover how great virtue or strength each one hath. For occasions do not make a man frail, but they shew what he is. She could not change the circumstances in which she found herself. The door was locked from the outside. She strived for the acceptance of the world: If it be Thy will I should be in darkness be Thou blessed; and if it be Thy will I should be in light be Thou again blessed. If Thou vouchsafe to comfort me, be Thou blessed; and if Thou wilt have me afflicted be Thou ever equally blessed. Such was her devotion. It had in itself to be its own reward. To love for gain seemed to her a diminishing of the idea of love.

  She had not sought martyrdom or thought it would be imposed on her. At this point of affliction she had either to question the faith by which she lived or surrender to it. The sentence of death imposed on her took her to the ultimate test of her faith: to the Crucifixion. Cast thy heart firmly on the Lord and fear not the judgment of men when conscience testifieth of thy dutifulness and innocency. These and others were the texts she highlighted. In a condemned cell she stayed true to her conscience and to the idea of heaven, as much on earth as beyond. And so her cell became not a prison but a sanctuary, away from the slaughter in the nearby fields. The texts urged her to stay true, have courage. Her enemies had judged and despised her. Against the words: It were more just that thou should accuse thyself and excuse thy brother she scored two lines and wrote “St. Gilles Oct 1915.” It was her way of saying she forgave them. She chose to ignore hate’s territory.

  Stirling Gahan arrived at the prison at 9:30 p.m. He rang at the gate. A German guard let him in when he showed he had dispensation to see Edith Cavell. The guard said of her that she was a fine woman. “Like this,” he said, and stiffened his back.

  Edith Cavell had given up hope of his coming and was in her dressing gown. Gahan had with him a silver Communion set: chalice, cruet, pyx and paten. He had been apprehensive as to her state of mind. Seeing her, he was reassured. She told him it was good of him to come and gestured to him to sit on the one wooden chair. He noticed that her cell was clean and adequate, but the flowers her nurses had sent her were dead.

  She did not complain about her trial. She did not know that the others who stood trial with her and whose involvement in resistance work had been greater would be reprieved. She said she willingly gave her life for her country. She perhaps did not know that the aid she had given to Allied soldiers was not sufficient, even under the maverick laws by which she was indicted, to justify the sentence passed on her. She told Gahan that the German pastor, Le Seur, had been kind, and she accepted that he be with her at the end. She was thankful for the imposed silence of her ten weeks’ imprisonment. It had been, she said, “like a solemn fast from earthly distractions and diversions.” She told him:

  I have no fear or shrinking. I have seen death so often that it is not strange or fearful to me. Life has always been hurried and full of difficulty. This time of rest has been a great mercy. Everyone here has been very kind.

  But this I would say, standing as I do in view of God and Eternity: I realise that patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone.

  They sat on the narrow bed, used the chair as the Communion table and shared the wine and wafer, the belief in connection to truth and love, of goodness incarnate, that a sip of wine might represent divine blood, a wafer divine flesh. That Communion might be to the best in a human, away from the impiety of war. They observed the ritual of two thousand years, said the consoling well-worn words: Come unto Me all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will bring you rest. Edith Cavell asked Gahan in his uniform of a priest for the forgiveness of her sins. They whispered the idea of everlasting love: “I draw near unto Thee with hope and reverence and I do truly believe that Thou art here present in this Sacrament both God and Man.”

  The ritual of Communion linked her to her childhood in Swardeston, to the always visible church, to her stern father and devoted mother, to the career decisions she had made, to her country which she looked to as a liberator from the in
justice of this brutal occupation.

  She spoke to Gahan of her unworthiness and her uncertainty about heaven. She asked him to send farewell messages to friends and relations. He said, “We shall remember you as a heroine and a martyr.” She replied, “Don’t think of me like that. Think of me as a nurse who tried to do her duty.”

  “At the close of the little service,” Gahan wrote, “I began to repeat the words ‘Abide With Me’ and she joined softly in the end:

  Swift to its close ebbs out life’s little day;

  Earth’s joys grow dim, its glories pass away;

  Change and decay in all around I see;

  O Thou who changest not, abide with me.

  I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless;

  Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness.

  Where is death’s sting? Where, grave, thy victory?

  I triumph still, if Thou abide with me.

  He had stayed with her an hour. He said, “Perhaps I had better go. You will want to rest.” She replied with her dry humor, “Yes, I have to be up at five.” She gave him her watch to give to Grace Jemmett, and twenty francs for Sister Wilkins to settle such debts as she had. She asked him to give Xavier Marin the assistant governor the letters she had written to her mother, to the nurses, to Grace Jemmett. By the cell door they shook hands. She smiled and said, “We shall meet again.” He replied, “Yes, we shall. God be with you.”

  The two German jailers guarding her cell let him out. After he left the lock was turned.

  She wrote a final letter to Elisabeth Wilkins: