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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Case of Edith Cavell, by James M. Beck
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Case of Edith Cavell
+       A Study of the Rights of Non-Combatants
+
+Author: James M. Beck
+
+Release Date: January 11, 2007 [EBook #20335]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CASE OF EDITH CAVELL ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Mark C. Orton, Tamise Totterdell, Linda McKeown
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE
+Case of Edith Cavell.
+
+A Study of the Rights
+of Non-Combatants.
+
+BY
+
+JAMES M. BECK,
+
+_Former Assistant Attorney-General of the United States,
+and Author of "The Evidence in the Case."_
+
+(_Reprinted from "New York Times."_)
+
+G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS,
+NEW YORK AND LONDON.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE CASE OF EDITH CAVELL.
+
+A Reply to Dr. Albert Zimmermann, Germany's
+Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs.
+
+By JAMES M. BECK,
+
+_Former Assistant Attorney-General of the United States, and Author of
+"The Dual Alliance v. The Triple Entente," and "The Evidence in the Case."_
+
+_Mr. Beck, who is one of the leaders of the New York Bar, is the author
+of the most widely read article written since the war began, entitled:
+"The Dual Alliance v. The Triple Entente," which was subsequently
+expanded into a book, called "The Evidence in the Case," pronounced by a
+distinguished publicist to be "the classic of the war." After its
+publication in THE NEW YORK TIMES this article was reprinted in nearly
+every language of the civilized nations and over a million copies of it
+were published._
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+Those who have regarded the Supreme Court of Civilization--meaning
+thereby the moral sentiment of the world--as a mere rhetorical phrase
+or an idle illusion should take note how swiftly that court--sitting now
+as one of criminal assize--has pronounced sentence upon the murderers of
+Edith Cavell. The swift vengeance of the world's opinion has called to
+the bar General Baron von Bissing, and in executing him with the
+lightning of universal execration has forever degraded him.
+
+Baron von der Lancken may possibly escape general obloquy, for his part
+in the crime was no greater than that of Pilate, who sought to wash his
+hands of innocent blood; but von Bissing will enjoy "until the last
+syllable of recorded time" the unenviable fame of Judge Jeffreys. He,
+too, was an able Judge and probably believed that he was executing
+justice, but because he did not execute it in mercy, but with a ferocity
+that has made his name a synonym for judicial tyranny, the world has
+condemned him to lasting infamy, and this notwithstanding the fact that
+he was made Chief Justice of the King's Bench, Lord High Chancellor of
+England, and a peer of the realm. All these titles are forgotten. Only
+that of "Bloody Jeffreys" remains.
+
+Similarly, if his master shall be pleased to honor General Baron von
+Bissing with the iron cross for his action in the case of Miss Cavell,
+as the Kaiser honored the Captain of the submarine which destroyed the
+Lusitania--and what order could be more appropriate in both cases than
+the cross, which recalls how another innocent victim of judicial tyranny
+was sacrificed?--then even the Order of the Iron Cross will not save von
+Bissing from lasting obloquy. I do not question that he acted according
+to his lights and shared with Dr. Albert Zimmermann great "surprise"
+that the world should make such a sensation about the murder of one
+woman. Trajan once said that the possession of absolute power had a
+tendency to transform even the most humane man into a wild beast, and
+Judge Black in his great argument in the case of _ex parte_ Milligan
+recalled the fact that Robespierre in his early life resigned his
+commission as Judge rather than pronounce the sentence of death, and
+that Caligula passed as a very amiable young man before he assumed the
+imperial purple. The story is as old as humanity that the appetite for
+blood, or at least the habit of murder, "grows by what it feeds upon."
+
+The murder of Miss Cavell was one of exceptional brutality and
+stupidity. It never occurred to her judges that her murder would add an
+army corps to the forces of the Allies and that every English soldier
+will fight more bravely because of her shining example. So little was
+this appreciated either in Brussels or Berlin that the German Foreign
+Office, in its official apology for the crime, issued over the signature
+of Herr Doctor Albert Zimmermann, Under Secretary of Foreign Affairs,
+expresses its surprise
+
+     _that the shooting of an Englishwoman and the condemnation of
+     several women in Brussels for treason have caused a sensation._
+
+What extraordinary moral naïveté! How could they appreciate that after
+the firing squad had done its work and the body of the woman had been
+given hasty burial the victim's virtues would
+
+      "plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against
+    The deep damnation of her taking off;
+    And pity, like a naked new-born babe,
+    Striding the blast, or Heaven's cherubim, horsed
+    Upon the sightless couriers of the air,
+    Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,
+    That tears shall drown the wind."
+
+This happened with incredible rapidity, and the Kaiser made haste to
+respite the eight other intended victims--two of them being also
+women--and the Berlin Foreign Office also issued to the world its
+defense of its action.
+
+It began with an expression of "pity that Miss Cavell had to be
+executed," but the sincerity of this pity can be measured by the fact
+that concurrently with Dr. Zimmermann's official apology there came from
+Berlin an "inspired" supplemental explanation, which sought to
+depreciate the character and services of the dead nurse by stating "that
+she earned a living by nursing, _charging fees within the means of the
+wealthy only_."
+
+The world has an abundant refutation of this cruel and cowardly slur
+upon the memory of a dead woman, for one who first hazarded her life and
+then gave it freely to save the lives of others--for such was the charge
+for which she died--is not a woman to restrict her gracious
+ministrations of mercy for mercenary motives.
+
+The Kaiser has been swift to see the deadly injury to his cause of this
+latest evidence of military tyranny. Not only has he respited Miss
+Cavell's alleged accomplices--as if to say with Macbeth, "thou canst not
+say I did it"--but it is said that he has summoned von Bissing and von
+der Lancken to explain their actions in the matter, but as the Kaiser is
+responsible for the invasion of Belgium and has hitherto condoned its
+attendant horrors, he can no more absolve himself from some share of
+responsibility than could Macbeth disavow his responsibility for the
+deeds of his two hirelings.
+
+_The stain of this murder rests upon Prussian militarism and not upon
+the German people_, for it should not be forgotten that possibly the
+most chivalrous act which has happened since the beginning of the war,
+was the erection by a German community, where a detention camp was
+maintained, of a statue to the French and English soldiers who had died
+in captivity, with the beautiful inscription:
+
+     "To our Comrades, who here died for their dear Fatherland."
+
+What could be more chivalrous or present a greater contrast to the
+assassination of Miss Cavell?
+
+We are advised by Dr. Zimmermann that Miss Cavell was given a fair trial
+and was justly convicted, but as the proceedings of the trial were not
+public and as Miss Cavell was denied knowledge in advance of the trial
+of the nature of the charges against her, _and as we know little of the
+circumstances of her alleged offense except the reports of her judges
+and executioners_, the world will be somewhat incredulous as to whether
+the trial was as just to the accused as Dr. Zimmermann would have us
+believe.
+
+The difficulty with this assurance is that the German conception of what
+is a fair trial differs from that which prevails in Anglo-Saxon
+countries, just as the German word "Gerechtigkeit" does not convey the
+same mental or moral conception as the English word "justice."
+"Gerechtigkeit" means little more to the Teutonic mind than the exercise
+of the power of the State, and claims no further sanction than its
+authority. In England, France, and the United States the idea of justice
+is that an individual has certain fundamental and inalienable rights
+which even the State cannot override, and none of these fundamental
+rights have been more highly valued in the evolution of English liberty
+than the rights of a defendant who is charged with crime. Whether guilty
+or not guilty, he cannot be arrested without a judicial warrant on proof
+of probable cause; he may not be compelled to testify against himself;
+he is entitled to a speedy trial and shall be informed in advance
+thereof of the exact nature of the accusation; his trial shall be public
+and open, and he shall be confronted with the witnesses against him and
+have compulsory process for his own defense; in advance of trial he
+shall have permission to select his own counsel, and shall have the
+opportunity to confer freely with him.
+
+_Most of these fundamental rights were denied to Miss Cavell._
+
+It is difficult to understand why, in view of the policy of terrorism,
+which has prevailed in Belgium from the time that the invader first
+crossed its frontier, the justice from the standpoint of military law
+should be referred to in Herr Zimmermann's defense. In the official
+textbook of the General Staff of the German Army the definite policy of
+terrorizing a conquered country is proclaimed as a military theory. Its
+leading axiom is that
+
+     "a war conducted with energy cannot be directed merely against the
+     combatants of the enemy State and the positions they occupy, _but
+     it will and must in like manner seek to destroy the total
+     intellectual and material resources of the latter_. Humanitarian
+     claims, such as the protection of men and their goods, can only be
+     taken into consideration in so far as the nature and object of the
+     war permit. Consequently the argument of war permits every
+     belligerent State _to have recourse to all means which enable it to
+     obtain the object of the war_."
+
+Miss Cavell's fate only differs from that of hundreds of Belgium women
+and children in that she had the pretense of a trial and presumably had
+trespassed against military law, while other victims of the rape of
+Belgium were ruthlessly killed in order to effect a speedy subjugation
+of the territory. The question of the guilt or innocence of each
+individual was a matter of no importance. Hostages were taken and not
+for the alleged wrongs of others.
+
+Did not General von Bülow on August 22nd announce to the inhabitants of
+Liège that
+
+     "_it is with my consent that the General in command has burned down
+     the place [Andenne] and shot about 100 inhabitants._"
+
+It was the same chivalrous and humane General who posted a proclamation
+at Namur on August 25th as follows:
+
+     "Before 4 o'clock all Belgian and French soldiers are to be
+     delivered up as prisoners of war. Citizens who do not obey this
+     will be condemned to hard labor for life in Germany. At 4 o'clock a
+     rigorous inspection of all houses will be made. _Every soldier
+     found will be shot._ * * * _The streets will be held by German
+     guards, who will hold ten hostages for each street. These hostages
+     will be shot if there is any trouble in that street._ * * * A crime
+     against the German Army will compromise the existence of the whole
+     town of Namur _and every one in it_."
+
+Did not Field Marshal von der Goltz issue a proclamation in Brussels, on
+October 5th, stating that, if any individual disturbed the telegraphic
+or railway communications, all the inhabitants would be "_punished
+without pity, the innocent suffering with the guilty_"?
+
+Individual guilt being thus a matter of minor importance, Dr. Zimmermann
+had no occasion on the accepted theory of Prussian militarism to justify
+the secret trial and midnight execution of Edith Cavell. Indeed, he
+freely intimates that his Government will not spare women, no matter how
+high and noble the motive may have been which inspires any infraction of
+military law, and to this sweeping statement he makes but one exception,
+namely, that women "in a delicate condition may not be executed." But
+why the exception? If it be permitted to destroy one life for the
+welfare of the military administration of Belgium, why stop at two? If
+the innocent living are to be sacrificed, why spare the unborn? The
+exception itself shows that the rigor of military law must have some
+limitation, and that its iron rigor must be softened by a discretion
+dictated by such considerations of chivalry and magnanimity as have
+hitherto been observed by all civilized nations. If the victim of
+yesterday had been an "expectant mother," Dr. Zimmermann suggests that
+her judges and executioners would have spared her, but no such exception
+can be found in the Prussian military code. "It is not so nominated in
+the bond," and the Under Secretary's recognition of one exception, based
+upon considerations of humanity and not the letter of the military code,
+destroys the whole fabric of his case, _for it clearly shows that there
+was a power of discretion which von Bissing could have exercised, if he
+had so elected_.
+
+That her case had its claims not only to magnanimity, but even to
+military justice, is shown by the haste with which, in the teeth of
+every protest, the unfortunate woman was hurried to her end. Sentenced
+at 5 o'clock in the afternoon, she was executed nine hours later. Of
+what was General Baron von Bissing afraid? She was in his custody. Her
+power to help her country--save by dying--was forever at an end. The hot
+haste of her execution and the duplicity and secrecy which attended it
+betray an unmistakable fear that if her life had been spared until the
+world could have known of her death sentence, public opinion would have
+prevented this cruel and cowardly deed. The labored apology of Dr.
+Zimmermann and the swift action of the Kaiser in pardoning those who
+were condemned with Miss Cavell indicate that the Prussian officials
+have heard the beating of the wings of those avenging angels of history
+who, like the Eumenides of classic mythology, are the avengers of the
+innocent and the oppressed.
+
+"_Greatness_," wrote Aeschylus, "_is no defense from utter destruction
+when a man insolently spurns the mighty altar of justice_."
+
+This is as true to-day as when it was written more than two thousand
+years ago. It is but a classic echo of the old Hebraic moral axiom that
+"the Lord God of recompenses shall surely requite."
+
+The most powerful and self-willed ruler of modern times learned this
+lesson to his cost. Probably no two instances contributed so powerfully
+to the ultimate downfall of Napoleon as his ruthless assassination under
+the forms of military law of the Duke d'Enghien and the equally brutal
+murder of the German bookseller, Palm. The one aroused the undying
+enmity of Russia, and the blood that was shed in the moat of Vincennes
+was washed out in the icy waters of the Beresina. The fate of the poor
+German bookseller, whom Napoleon caused to be shot because his writing
+menaced the security of French occupation, developed as no other event
+the dormant spirit of German nationality, and the Nuremberg bookseller,
+shot precisely as was Miss Cavell, was finally avenged when Blücher gave
+Napoleon the _coup de grâce_ at Waterloo. No one more clearly felt the
+invisible presence of his Nemesis than did Napoleon. All his life, and
+even in his confinement at St. Helena, he was ceaselessly attempting to
+justify to the moral conscience of the world his ruthless assassination
+of the last Prince of the house of Condé. The terrible judgment of
+history was never better expressed than by Lamartine in the following
+language:
+
+     "A cold curiosity carries the visitor to the battlefields of
+     Marengo, Austerlitz, Wagram, Leipsic, Waterloo; he wanders over
+     them with dry eyes, but one is shown at a corner of the wall near
+     the foundations of Vincennes, at the bottom of a ditch, a spot
+     covered with nettles and weeds. He says, 'There it is!' He utters a
+     cry and carries away with him undying pity for the victim and an
+     implacable resentment against the assassin. This resentment is
+     vengeance for the past and a lesson for the future. _Let the
+     ambitious, whether soldiers, tribunes, or kings, remember that if
+     they have hirelings to do their will, and flatterers to excuse
+     them while they reign, there yet comes afterward a human conscience
+     to judge them and pity to hate them. The murderer has but one hour;
+     the victim has eternity._"
+
+At the outbreak of the war Miss Cavell was living with her aged mother
+in England. Constrained by a noble and imperious sense of duty, she
+exchanged the security of her native country for her post of danger in
+Brussels. "My duty is there," she said simply.
+
+She reached Brussels in August, 1914, and at once commenced her
+humanitarian work. When the German army entered the gates of Brussels,
+she called upon Governor von Luttwitz and placed her staff of nurses at
+the services of the wounded under whatever flag they had fought. The
+services which she and her staff of nurses rendered many a wounded and
+dying German should have earned for her the generous consideration of
+the invader.
+
+But early in these ministrations of mercy she was obliged by the noblest
+of humanitarian motives to antagonize the German invaders. Governor von
+Luttwitz demanded of her that all nurses should give formal
+undertakings, when treating wounded French or Belgian soldiers, to act
+as jailers to their patients, but Miss Cavell answered this unreasonable
+demand by simply saying: "We are prepared to do all that we can to help
+wounded soldiers to recover, but to be their jailers--never."
+
+On another occasion, when appealing to a German Brigadier-General on
+behalf of some homeless women and children, the Prussian martinet--half
+pedant and half poltroon--answered her with a quotation from Nietzsche
+to the effect that "Pity is a waste of feeling--a moral parasite
+injurious to the health." She early felt the cruel and iron will of the
+invader, but, nothing daunted, she proceeded in the arduous work,
+supervised the work of three hospitals, gave six lectures on nursing a
+week and responded to many urgent appeals of individuals who were in
+need of immediate relief. "Others she saved, herself she could not
+save."
+
+When one of her associates, Miss Mary Boyle O'Reilly, who has recently
+contributed a moving account of Miss Cavell's work, was expelled from
+Belgium, she begged Miss Cavell to take the opportunity, while it
+presented itself, to leave that land of horror, and Miss Cavell, with
+characteristic bravery, replied smilingly: "Impossible, my friend, my
+duty is here."
+
+It was undoubtedly in connection with this humanitarian work that she
+violated the German military law by giving refuge to fugitive French and
+Belgian soldiers until such time as they could escape across the
+frontier to Holland. For this she suffered the penalty of death, and the
+validity of this sentence, even under Prussian military law, I will
+discuss later. It is enough to say that no instinct is so natural in
+every man and woman, and especially in woman with the maternal instinct
+characteristic of her sex, than to give a harbor of refuge to the
+helpless. All nations have respected this instinctive feeling as one of
+the redeeming traits of human nature and the history of war, at least in
+modern times, can be searched in vain for any instance in which anyone,
+especially a woman, has been condemned to death for yielding to the
+humanitarian impulse of giving temporary refuge to a fugitive soldier.
+Such an act is neither espionage nor treason, as those terms have been
+ordinarily understood in civilized countries.
+
+It is true, as suggested by a few in America who sought to excuse the
+Cavell crime, that Mrs. Surratt was tried, condemned and executed
+because she had permitted the band of assassins, whose conspiracy
+resulted in the assassination of Lincoln and the attempted murder of
+Secretary Seward, to hold their meetings in her house; but the
+difference between this conscious participation in the assassination of
+the head of the State, in a period of civil war, and the humanitarian
+aid which Miss Cavell gave to fugitive soldiers to save them from
+capture is manifest. I am assuming that Miss Cavell did give such
+protection to her compatriots, for all accessible information supports
+this view, and if so, however commendable her motive and heroic her
+conduct, she certainly was guilty of an infraction of military law,
+which justified some punishment and possibly her forcible detention
+during the period of the war.
+
+To regard her execution as an ordinary incident of war is an affront to
+civilization, and as it is symptomatic of the Prussian occupation of
+Belgium and not a sporadic incident, it acquires a significance which
+justifies a full recital of this black chapter of Prussianism. It
+illustrates the reign of terror which has existed in Belgium since the
+German occupation.
+
+When the German Chancellor made his famous speech in the Reichstag on
+August 4th, 1914, and admitted at the bar of the world the crime which
+was then being initiated, he said:
+
+     "The wrong--I speak openly--that we are committing we will endeavor
+     to make good as soon as our military goal has been reached."
+
+Within a few weeks the military goal was reached by the seizure of
+practically all of Belgium and by the voluntary surrender of Brussels to
+the invader, and since then, for a period of fourteen months, the
+Belgian people have been subjected to a state of tyranny for which it
+would be difficult to find a parallel, unless we turned to the history
+of the Netherlands in the Sixteenth Century and recalled its occupation
+by the Duke of Alva. It must be said in candor that the Prussian
+occupation of Belgium has not yet caused as many victims as the "Bloody
+Council" of the Duke of Alva, for the estimated number of
+non-combatants, who have been shot in Belgium during the last fourteen
+months, is only 6,000 as against the 18,000 whom it is estimated the
+Duke of Alva mercilessly put to death.
+
+It may also be the fact that the present oppression of Belgium is marked
+by some approach to the forms of law; but it may be doubted whether the
+difference is not more in appearance than in reality, for the
+administration of law in Belgium has been a mockery. Of this there can
+be no more striking or detailed proof than the protest which was
+presented to the German authorities on February 17th, 1915, by M. Léon
+Théodor, the head of the Brussels bar. The truth of this formal
+accusation may be fairly measured by the strong probability that the
+brave leader of the Brussels bar would never have ventured to have made
+the statements hereinafter referred to to the German Military Governor
+unless he was reasonably sure of his facts. What he said on behalf of
+the bar of Brussels was said in the shadow of possible death, and if he
+had consciously or deliberately maligned the Prussian administration of
+justice in this open and specific manner, he assuredly took his life
+into his hands. This brave and noble document will forever remain one of
+the gravest indictments of German misrule, and as it states, on the
+authority of one who was in a position to know, the details of the
+savage tyranny which masqueraded under the forms of law, it is appended,
+with some condensation, to this article.
+
+After stating the fact "that everything about the German judicial
+organisation in Belgium is contrary to the principles of law," and after
+showing that Belgian civilians were punished for the violations of law
+which had never been proclaimed and of which, therefore, they knew
+nothing, the distinguished President of the Order of Advocates says:
+
+     "_This absence of certainty is not only the negation of all the
+     principles of law; it weighs on the mind and on the conscience; it
+     bewilders one, it seems to be a permanent menace for all, and the
+     danger is all the more real, because these courts permit neither
+     public nor defensive procedure, nor do they permit the accused to
+     receive any communication regarding his case, nor is any right of
+     defense assured him._
+
+     "This is arbitrary injustice; the Judge left to himself, that is,
+     to his impressions, his prejudices, and his surroundings. This is
+     abandoning the accused in his distress, to grapple alone with his
+     all-powerful adversary.
+
+     "This justice uncontrolled, and consequently without guarantee,
+     constitutes for us the most dangerous and oppressive of
+     illegalities. _We cannot conceive justice as a judicial or moral
+     possibility without free defense._
+
+     "Free defense, that is, light thrown on all the elements of the
+     suit; public sentiment being heard in the bosom of the judgment
+     hall, the right to say everything in the most respectful manner,
+     and also the courage to dare everything, these must be put at the
+     service of the unfortunate one, of justice and law.
+
+     "It is one of the greatest conquests of our history. It is the
+     keystone of our individual liberty.
+
+     "_What are your sources of information?_
+
+     "Besides the judges, the men of the Secret Service and the
+     denouncers (in French: 'délateurs').
+
+     "The Secret Service men in civilian clothes, not bearing any
+     insignia, mixing with the crowds in the street, in the cafés, on
+     the platforms of street cars, listen to the conversations carried
+     on around them, ready to grasp any secret, on the watch not only
+     for acts but for intentions.
+
+     "These denouncers of our nation are ever multiplying. _What
+     confidence can be placed in their declarations, inspired by hate,
+     spite, or low cupidity?_ Such assistants can bring to the cause of
+     justice no useful collaboration.
+
+     "If we add to this total absence of control and of defense, these
+     preventive arrests, the long detentions, the searches in the
+     private domiciles, _we shall have an almost complete idea of the
+     moral tortures to which our aspirations, our convictions, and our
+     liberties are subjected at the present time_. * * *
+
+     "Will it be said that we are living under martial law: that we are
+     submitting to the hard necessities of war: that all should give way
+     before the superior interests of your armies?
+
+     "_I can understand martial law for armies in the field. It is the
+     immediate reply to an aggression against the troops, repression
+     without words, the summary justice of the commander of the army
+     responsible for his soldiers._
+
+     "_But our armies are far away; we are no longer in the zone of
+     military operations. Nothing here menaces your troops, the
+     inhabitants are calm._
+
+     "The people have taken up work again. You have bidden them do it.
+     Each one devotes himself, Magistrates, Judges, officials of the
+     provinces and cities, the clergy, all are at their post, united in
+     one outburst of national interest and brotherhood.
+
+     "However, this calm does not mean that they have forgotten.
+
+     "The Belgian people lived happily in their corner of the earth,
+     confident in their dream of independence. They saw this dream
+     dispelled, they saw their country ruined and devastated, its
+     ancient hospitable soil has been sown with thousands of tombs where
+     our own sleep; the war has made tears flow which no hand can dry.
+     _No, the murdered soul of Belgium will never forget._
+
+     "But this nation has a profound respect for its duty. It will
+     always respect it.
+
+     "Has not the hour come to consider as closed the period of invasion
+     and to substitute for the measures of exception the rules of
+     occupation as defined by international law and the treaty of The
+     Hague, which sets a limit to the occupying power and imposes
+     obligations on the country occupied?
+
+     "Has not the hour arrived to restore the Court House to the
+     judiciary corps? The military occupation of the Court House is a
+     violation of the treaty of The Hague.
+
+     "Among the moral forces does one exist that is superior to justice?
+     Justice dominates them all. _As ancient as humanity itself, eternal
+     as the need of man and nations to be and to feel protected, it is
+     the basis of all civilization._ The arts and sciences are its
+     tributaries. Religious creeds live and prosper in its shadow. Is it
+     not a religion in itself?
+
+     "Belgium raised a magnificent temple to Justice in its capital.
+
+     "This temple, which is our pride, has been converted into barracks
+     for the German soldiers. A small part of it, becoming smaller every
+     day, is reserved for the courts. The Magistrates and lawyers have
+     access to it by a small private staircase.
+
+     "Sad as are the conditions under which they are called to
+     administer justice, the Judges have decided, nevertheless, to sit.
+     The Bar has co-operated with them. Accustomed to live in an
+     atmosphere of deference and of dignity, they do not recognize
+     themselves in this sort of guard-room, and, in fact, justice
+     surrounded with so little respect, is it still justice?"
+
+As this dignified and noble protest did not lead to any amelioration of
+the harsh conditions, a month later the same brave jurist, M. Léon
+Théodor, appeared in Brussels before the so-called "German Court of
+Justice" and, in behalf of the entire Magistracy of Belgium, addressed
+to the Prussian Military Judges the following poignantly pathetic and
+nobly dignified address, which met with the same reception as the
+preceding communication.
+
+The address reads as follows:
+
+     "I present myself at the Bar, escorted by the Counsel of the Order,
+     surrounded by the sympathy and the confidence of all my colleagues
+     of Brussels, and I might add of all the Bars of the country. The
+     Bars of Liège, Ghent, Charleroi, Mons, Louvain, Antwerp have sent
+     to that of Brussels the expression of their professional solidarity
+     and have declared that they adhere to the resolutions taken by the
+     Counsel of the Order of Brussels. * * *
+
+     "We are not annexed. We are not conquered. We are not even
+     vanquished. Our army is fighting. Our colors float alongside those
+     of France, England and Russia. The country subsists. She is simply
+     unfortunate. More than ever, then, we now owe ourselves to her body
+     and soul. To defend her rights is also to fight for her.
+
+     "We are living hours now as tragic as any country has ever known.
+     All is destruction and ruin around us. Everywhere we see mourning.
+     Our army has lost half of its effective force. Its percentage in
+     dead and wounded will never be obtained by any of the belligerents.
+     There remains to us only a corner of ground over there by the sea.
+     The waters of the Yser flow through an immense plain peopled by the
+     dead. It is called the Belgian Cemetery. There sleep our children
+     by the thousands. There they are sleeping their last sleep. The
+     struggle goes on bitterly and without mercy.
+
+     "Your sons, Mr. President, are at the front; mine as well. For
+     months we have been living in anxiety regarding the morrow.
+
+     "Why these sacrifices, why this sorrow? _Belgium could have avoided
+     these disasters, saved her existence, her treasures, and the life
+     of her children, but she preferred her honor._"
+
+Not long after this second protest, M. Léon Théodor was arrested,
+deported to Germany and if now living, is suffering imprisonment for the
+offense of defending the oppressed civilian population from a system of
+espionage, drumhead courts-martial and secret executions, which in their
+malignity should excite the professional jealousy of Danton, Marat and
+Robespierre. It was in this manner that the lofty promise of the German
+Chancellor that his country would make good the wrong done to Belgium
+has been kept.
+
+Such was the condition of affairs in Belgium when Edith Cavell was
+arrested on August 5th, 1915.
+
+About the same time some thirty-five other prisoners were similarly
+arrested by the military authorities, _two-thirds of whom were women_.
+
+The arrest was evidently a secret one for it is obvious that for a time
+Miss Cavell's friends knew nothing of her whereabouts. Even the American
+Legation, which had assumed the care of British citizens in Belgium,
+apparently knew nothing of Miss Cavell's whereabouts until it learned
+after a second inquiry the fact of her arrest and the place of her
+imprisonment from the German Civil Governor of Belgium on September
+12th, 1915.
+
+As Miss Cavell was a well-known personage in Brussels, it is altogether
+unlikely that the fact of her arrest and imprisonment would have been
+unknown to the American Legation in Brussels if the fact of her arrest
+had been a matter of public information on August 5th or shortly
+thereafter. In other words, if the arrest had been an open and notorious
+one, it seems to me unlikely that the American Embassy would have been
+wholly without information on the subject and when the friends of Miss
+Cavell found an opportunity to send some information as to her
+disappearance to the British Foreign Office, it seems unlikely that they
+would not have given more specific details.
+
+Evidently some information had reached the Foreign Office as to Miss
+Cavell's disappearance, for on August 26th Sir Edward Grey requested the
+American Ambassador in London to ascertain through the American Legation
+in Brussels whether it was true that Miss Cavell had been arrested, and
+it seems clear from the diplomatic correspondence that the American
+Legation at Brussels knew nothing of the matter until it received this
+inquiry from the American Ambassador in London. The fact of her arrest
+by the German military authorities must have been known, but the place
+of her imprisonment and the nature of the charges against her were
+apparently withheld.
+
+This feature of the case and the manner in which Mr. Brand Whitlock, the
+American Minister, was prevented from rendering any effective aid to
+Miss Cavell, presents one aspect of the tragedy which especially
+concerns the honor and dignity of the United States and should receive
+its swift and effectual recognition.
+
+Her secret trial and hurried execution was a studied affront to the
+American Minister at Brussels, and therefore to the American nation. It
+is true that in all he did to save her life he was acting in behalf of
+and for the benefit of Great Britain, whose interests the United States
+Government has taken over in Belgium; but this cannot affect the fact
+that when Brand Whitlock intervened in behalf of the prisoner, sought to
+secure her a fair trial, and prevent her execution, and especially when
+he asked her life as a favor in return for the services our country had
+rendered Germany and German subjects in the earlier days of the war, _he
+spoke as an American and as the diplomatic representative of the United
+States_.
+
+So secret was Miss Cavell's arrest and so sinister the methods whereby
+her end was compassed, that the American Minister in Belgium was obliged
+to write on August 31st to Baron von der Lancken, the German Civil
+Governor of Belgium, and ask whether it was true that she was under
+arrest. _To this the German Military Governor did not even deign to make
+a reply, although it was clearly a matter of life and death._
+
+The discourtesy of such silence to a great and friendly nation needs no
+comment, and will simply serve to remind the American people that
+Germany has never yet replied to another request of the United States
+that Germany disavows the massacre of nearly 200 American men, women,
+and children on the Lusitania.
+
+Not hearing from Baron von der Lancken, our Minister on September 10th
+again wrote to him and again asked for a reply. He asked for the
+opportunity "_to take up the defense of Miss Cavell with the least
+possible delay_." To this, Baron Lancken deigned to reply by an ex parte
+statement that Miss Cavell had admitted
+
+     "having concealed in her house various English and French soldiers,
+     as well as Belgians of military age, all anxious to proceed to the
+     front. She also acknowledged having supplied these soldiers with
+     the funds necessary to proceed to the front and having facilitated
+     their departure from Belgium by finding guides to assist them in
+     clandestinely crossing the frontier."
+
+The Baron further answered that her defense had been intrusted to an
+advocate by the name of Braun, "_who is already in touch with the proper
+German authorities_," and added:
+
+     "In view of the fact that the Department of the Governor General
+     _as a matter of principle_ does not allow accused persons to have
+     any interviews whatever, I much regret my inability to procure for
+     M. de Leval permission to visit Miss Cavell as long as she is in
+     solitary confinement."
+
+It will thus be seen and will hereafter appear more fully that in
+advance of her trial Miss Cavell was kept in solitary confinement and
+was denied any opportunity to confer with counsel in order to prepare
+her defense. Her communication with the outside world was wholly cut
+off, with the exception of a few letters, which she was permitted to
+write under censorship to her assistants in the school for nurses, and
+it is probable that in this way the fact of her imprisonment first
+became known to her friends.
+
+The fact remains that the desire of the American Minister to have
+counsel see her with a view to the selection of such counsel as Miss
+Cavell might desire, was refused, and even the counsel whom the German
+Military Court permitted to act, was denied any opportunity to see his
+client until the trial. The counsel in question was a M. Braun, a
+Belgian advocate of recognised standing, but for some reason, which does
+not appear, he was unable or declined to act for Miss Cavell and he
+secured for her defense another Belgian lawyer, whose name was Kirschen.
+According to credible information, Kirschen was a German by birth,
+although a naturalized Belgian subject and a member of the Brussels bar,
+but it will hereafter appear that the steps which he took to keep the
+American Legation--the one possible salvation for Miss Cavell--advised
+as to the progress of events, were to say the least peculiar.
+
+Except for the explanations made by the German Civil Governor, we know
+very little as to what defense, if any, Miss Cavell made. From one of
+the inspired sources comes the statement that she freely admitted her
+guilt, and from her last interview with the English clergyman it would
+appear that she probably did admit some infraction of military law. But
+from another German source we learn the following:
+
+     "During the trial in the Senate Chamber the accused, almost without
+     exception, gave the impression of persons _cleverly simulating
+     naïve innocence_. It was not a mere coincidence that two-thirds of
+     the accused were women.
+
+     "The Englishwoman, Edith Cavell, who has already been executed,
+     declared that she had believed as an Englishwoman that she ought to
+     do her country service _by giving lodgings in her house to soldiers
+     and recruits who were in peril_. She naturally denied that she had
+     drawn other people into destruction by inducing them to harbor
+     refugees when her own institute was overtaxed."
+
+From this meagre information we can only infer that Miss Cavell did
+admit that she had sheltered some soldiers and recruits who were in
+peril, and while this undoubtedly constituted a grave infraction of
+military law, yet it does not present in a locality far removed from the
+actual war zone a case either of espionage or high treason, and is of
+that class of offenses which have always been punished on the highest
+considerations of humanity and chivalry and with great moderation.
+
+The difficulty is that the world is not yet fully informed what defense,
+if any, Miss Cavell made, or whether an adequate opportunity was given
+her to make any. The whole proceeding savours of the darkness of the
+mediaeval Inquisition.
+
+We have already seen that even if Miss Cavell's counsel, M. Kirschen,
+endeavored in good faith to make an adequate defense in her behalf, it
+was impossible for him to see her in advance of the trial, and M.
+Kirschen admitted this when he explained to the legal counsel of the
+American Embassy that
+
+     "lawyers defending prisoners before a German Military Court were
+     not allowed to see their clients before trial and were not
+     permitted to see any document of the prosecution."
+
+It is true that M. Kirschen so far defends the trial accorded to Miss
+Cavell as to say
+
+     "that the hearing of the trial of such cases is carried out very
+     carefully and that in his opinion, although it was not possible to
+     see the client before the trial, in fact the trial itself developed
+     itself so carefully and so slowly that it was generally possible to
+     have a fair knowledge of all the facts and to present a good
+     defense for the prisoner. This would especially be the case of Miss
+     Cavell, because the trial would be rather long, _as she was
+     prosecuted with 34 other prisoners_."
+
+This explanation of M. Kirschen is amazing to any lawyer who is familiar
+with the defense of men who are charged with a crime. Here was a case
+of life and death and the counsel for the defense intimates that he can
+adequately defend the prisoner at the bar without being previously
+advised as to the nature of the charges or obtaining an opportunity to
+confer with his client before the testimony begins.
+
+Still more remarkable is his explanation that as his client was to be
+tried with 34 others, the opportunity for a defense would be especially
+ample. As the writer had the honor for some years to be a prosecuting
+attorney for the United States Government and therefore has some
+familiarity with the trial of criminal causes, his opinion may possibly
+have some value in suggesting that the complexity of different issues
+when tried together, and the difficulty of distinguishing between
+various testimony, naturally increases with the simultaneous trial of a
+large number of defendants. Where each defendant is tried separately,
+the full force of the testimony for or against him can be weighed to
+some advantage, but where such evidence is intermingled and confused by
+the simultaneous trial of 34 separate issues, it is obvious, with the
+fallibility of human memory, that the separate testimony against each
+particular defendant cannot be fully weighed.
+
+The trial was apparently a secret one in the sense that it was a closed
+and not an open Court. Otherwise how can we account for the poverty of
+information as to what actually took place on the trial? The court sat
+for two days in the trial of the 35 cases in question, and the American
+Legation had been most anxious, in view of the nature of the case and
+the urgency of the inquiries, to ascertain something about the trial.
+The outside world apparently knew little or nothing of this wholesale
+trial of non-combatants, most of them being women, until some days
+thereafter, and the only intimation that the American Legation
+previously had was a letter of "a few lines" from M. Kirschen, stating
+that the trial would take place on October 7th. Notwithstanding the
+assurance of M. Kirschen that he would keep the American Legation fully
+advised and would even disclose to it in advance of the trial "the exact
+charges that were brought against Miss Cavell and the facts concerning
+her that would be disclosed at the trial," yet no further information
+reached the American Legation from Miss Cavell's counsel, who for some
+reason did not advise the American Legation that the trial had commenced
+on the 7th and had been concluded on the 8th. The American Legation only
+learned the fact of the trial from "an outsider," and it at once
+proceeded to look for M. Kirschen. Unfortunately he could not be
+located, and thereupon the counsel for the American Legation wrote him
+on Sunday, October 10th, and asked him to send his report to the
+Legation or to call on the following day.
+
+Having no word from M. Kirschen as late as October 11th (his last
+communication with the American Legation being on October 3rd), the
+counsel for the Legation twice called at his house and again failed to
+find him in or to receive any message from him. It is clear that if M.
+Kirschen had advised the American Legation as to the developments of the
+trial on October 7th and 8th and had further advised the Legation
+promptly as to the conclusion of the trial and its probable outcome,
+there is a reasonable possibility that Miss Cavell's life might have
+been saved; but for some reason, as to which M. Kirschen certainly owes
+an explanation to the civilized world, he failed to keep his positive
+promise to keep the American Legation fully advised, and in view of this
+fact his assurance to the American Legation "that the Military Court of
+Brussels was always perfectly fair, and that there was not the slightest
+danger of any miscarriage of justice," must be taken with a very large
+"grain of salt."
+
+The significant fact remains that the American Legation never heard that
+the trial had taken place until the day after, and then only learned it
+from "an outsider." Had the American Legation sent a representative to
+the trial, the world would then have a much clearer knowledge upon which
+to base its judgment; but when M. Deleval suggested his intention to
+attend the trial, as a representative of the Legation, he was advised by
+M. Kirschen that such an act "would cause great prejudice to the
+prisoner because the German judges would resent it."
+
+What an indictment of the court! Even to see a representative of the
+American Government at the trial, in the interests of fair play, would
+prejudice the minds of the Judges against the unfortunate woman who was
+being tried for a capital offense without any previous opportunity to
+confer with counsel. There may be a satisfactory explanation for M.
+Kirschen's conduct in the matter, but it has not yet appeared. It
+should, however, be added, in fairness to him, that the anonymous
+"outsider," from whom the American Legation got its only information as
+to the developments of the trial, stated that Kirschen "made a very good
+plea for Miss Cavell, using all arguments that could be brought in her
+favor before the court."
+
+This does not give the lover of fair play a great deal of comfort, for
+if the anonymous informant was not a lawyer, the value to be attached to
+his or her estimate of Kirschen's plea must be regarded as doubtful.
+
+The same unknown informant told the American Legation that Miss Cavell
+was prosecuted "for having helped English and French soldiers as well as
+Belgian young men to cross the frontier and to go over to England." It
+is stated on the same anonymous authority that Miss Cavell acknowledged
+the assistance thus given and admitted that some of them had "thanked
+her in writing when arriving in England."
+
+From the same source the world gets its only information as to the exact
+law which Miss Cavell was accused of violating. Paragraph 58 of the
+German Military Code inflicts a sentence of death upon
+
+     "any person who, with the intention of helping the hostile power,
+     or of causing harm to the German or allied troops, is guilty of one
+     of the crimes of paragraph 90 of the German Penal Code,"
+
+and the only pertinent section of paragraph 90, according to the same
+informant, is the specific offence of
+
+     "guiding soldiers to the enemy" (in German--"Dem Feinde
+     Mannschaften zuführt").
+
+I affirm with confidence that under this law Miss Cavell was innocent,
+and that the true meaning of the law was perverted in order to inflict
+the death sentence upon her.
+
+I admit that a general and strained construction of the language above
+quoted might be applicable to a defendant who gave refuge to hostile
+soldiers in Brussels and thus enabled them to escape across the frontier
+into Holland and thence into a belligerent country, but every penal law
+must receive a construction that is favorable to the defendant and
+agreeable to the dictates of humanity. Every civilized country construes
+its penal laws in favour of the liberty of the subject, and no
+punishment, especially one of death, is ever imposed unless the offence
+charged comes indubitably within a rigid construction of the law.
+
+Keeping in mind this elementary principle, it is obvious that the
+offense of guiding soldiers to the enemy refers to the physical act of
+guiding a fugitive soldier back into his lines. A soldier becomes
+detached from his lines. He finds shelter in a farm house. The farmer,
+knowing the roads, secretly guides him back into his lines, and this
+obviously is the offence which paragraph 90 had in mind, for the German
+word "zuführt" refers to a personal guidance.
+
+Miss Cavell simply gave shelter to soldiers and in some way facilitated
+their escape to Holland. Holland is a neutral country, and it was its
+duty to intern any fugitive soldiers who might escape from any one of
+the belligerent countries. The fact that these soldiers subsequently
+reached England is a matter that could not increase or diminish the
+essential nature of Miss Cavell's case. She enabled them to get to a
+neutral country, and this was not a case of "guiding soldiers to the
+enemy," for Holland was not an enemy of Germany.
+
+This fact must have impressed the Military Court, for according to the
+same informant it did not at once agree upon either the verdict of
+"Guilty" or the judgment of death, and it is stated that the Judges
+would not have sentenced her to death if the fugitive soldiers, who had
+crossed into Holland, had not subsequently arrived in England. But it
+will astound any lawyer to learn that the subsequent escape of these
+same prisoners from Holland to England could be reasonably regarded as a
+guidance by Miss Cavell of these soldiers _to England_. In all
+probability Miss Cavell had little or nothing to do with these soldiers
+after they left Brussels, but even assuming that she provided the means
+and gave the directions for their escape across the frontier between
+Belgium and Holland, that was "the head and front of her offending," and
+it does not come within the law under which she was sentenced to death.
+
+When she was asked by her Judges as to her reasons for sheltering these
+fugitives, "she replied that she thought that if she had not done so
+_they would have been shot by the Germans_ and that therefore she
+thought she only did her duty to her country in saving their lives."
+
+This fairly states what she did, and perhaps this brave and frank reply
+caused her death. She gave a temporary shelter to men who were in danger
+of death, and, as previously stated, in so doing yielded to a
+humanitarian impulse which all civilized nations have recognized as
+worthy of the most lenient treatment.
+
+When, therefore, Herr Dr. Albert Zimmermann, speaking for the German
+Foreign Office, expressed its "surprise" that Miss Cavell's execution
+should "have caused a sensation," it is well to remind Dr. Zimmermann
+that to offer a refuge to the fugitive is an impulse of humanity. It is
+likely that these soldiers were her wounded patients; at all events,
+they had found a refuge in her hospital. They claimed the protection of
+her roof and she gave it to them.
+
+In the first act of Walkyrie--which is not overburdened with the
+atmosphere of morality--even the black-hearted Hunding says to his
+blood-enemy,
+
+    "Heilig ist mein herd;
+      Heilig sei dir mein haus."
+    (Holy is my hearth!
+      Holy will be to them my house!)
+
+It must be remembered that all this did not take place in the zone of
+actual warfare. A spy caught in the lines of armies is summarily dealt
+with of necessity. But Brussels was miles away from the scene of actual
+hostilities. Its civil courts were open and a civil administration ruled
+its affairs of such reputed beneficence and efficiency as to evoke the
+ungrudging admiration of a distinguished college professor who bears the
+honored name of George B. McClellan. There was therefore no possible
+excuse under international law for a court-martial, as this trial
+plainly was. In the American civil war a similar military commission
+once sought to hold a similar trial in Indianapolis over civilians
+accused of treason, but the United States Supreme Court, in the case of
+ex parte Milligan, sternly repudiated this form of military tyranny.
+
+In that case the Supreme Court said:
+
+     "There are occasions when martial rule can be properly applied. If,
+     in foreign invasion or civil war, _the courts are actually closed_,
+     and it is impossible to administer criminal justice according to
+     law, then, _on the theatre of active military operations, where war
+     really prevails_, there is a necessity to furnish a substitute for
+     the civil authority, thus overthrown, to preserve the safety of the
+     army and society; * * * As necessity creates the rule, so it limits
+     its duration; for, if this government is continued _after_ the
+     courts are reinstated, it is a gross usurpation of power. Martial
+     rule can never exist where the courts are open, and in the proper
+     and unobstructed exercise of their jurisdiction. _It is also
+     confined to the locality of actual war._"
+
+All civilized countries, including Germany, have always recognized a
+difference between high treason, punishable with death, and ordinary
+treason. The German Strafgesetzbuch thus distinguishes between high
+treason (hochverrat) and the lesser crime of landesverrat. High treason
+consists in murdering or attempting to murder a sovereign or Prince of
+Germany or an attempt by violence to overthrow the Imperial Government
+or any State thereof. This alone is punishable with death.
+
+While this distinction of the German Civil Code may have no application
+when military law is being enforced, yet it illustrates a distinction,
+which all humane nations have recognized, between the treason which
+seeks to overthrow a State by rebellion and lesser offenses against the
+authority of a State.
+
+Assuming that Miss Cavell's offense could be regarded in any sense as
+treasonable, it certainly constituted the lesser offense under the
+distinction above quoted.
+
+The fact is that Miss Cavell was tried, condemned, and executed for her
+sympathy with the cause of Belgium and her willingness to save her
+compatriots from suffering and death. Military necessity--ever the
+tyrant's plea--demanded a victim further to terrorize the subjugated
+people. They chose Miss Cavell.
+
+Notwithstanding the request of the American Legation in its letter of
+October 5th that it be advised not only as to the charges, but also as
+to the sentence imposed upon Miss Cavell, and the express promise of M.
+Kirschen to inform it of all developments, it was kept in ignorance of
+the fact that sentence of death had been passed upon her. Minister
+Whitlock only heard this on October 11th, and he at once addressed a
+letter to Baron von der Lancken in which, after stating this fact, he
+appealed "to the sentiment of generosity and humanity in the Governor
+General in favor of Miss Cavell," with a view to commutation of the
+death sentence, and at the same time addressed a similar letter to Baron
+von Bissing, the Military Governor of Belgium, who did not deign to give
+to the American Government even the cold courtesy of a reply.
+
+On the morning of October 11th our Minister heard--not from the German
+authorities, but from unofficial sources--that the trial had been
+completed on the preceding Saturday afternoon, and he at once
+communicated with the Political Department of the German Military
+Government, and was expressly assured
+
+     "that no sentence had been pronounced and that there would probably
+     be a delay of a day or two before a decision was reached."
+
+The Director of the Political Department (Herr Conrad) gave a further
+
+     "_positive assurance that the [American] Legation would be fully
+     informed as to the developments in the case._"
+
+Notwithstanding this direct promise and further "repeated inquiries in
+the course of the day," no further word reached our Legation, and at
+6.20 p.m. it again inquired as to Miss Cavell's fate, and the Director
+of the Political Department again
+
+     "_stated that sentence had not yet been pronounced_,"
+
+and he specifically renewed his assurance. Two hours later our Minister
+_from unofficial sources_ heard that all that had been told him by the
+Political Department was untrue, and that the sentence had been passed
+at 5 o'clock p.m.; _before his last conversation with the Director_, and
+that the execution was to take place that night.
+
+Accordingly the Secretary of the American Legation proceeded at once to
+Baron von der Lancken, and again asked as a favor to this Government
+that clemency be extended. He brought with him a letter from the
+American Minister, which reads as follows:
+
+     "My dear Baron:
+
+     "I am too ill to put my request before you in person, but once more
+     I appeal to the generosity of your heart. Stand by and save from
+     death this unfortunate woman. Have pity on her. Your devoted
+     servant,
+                                                "BRAND WHITLOCK."
+
+Accompanying this purely personal note were two substantially similar
+communications, the one directed to Baron von Bissing and the other to
+Baron von der Lancken. These communications run as follows:
+
+     "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 sentence in the present case is
+     more severe than all the others that have been passed in similar
+     cases which have been tried by the same Court, and, without going
+     into the reasons for such a drastic sentence, I feel that I have
+     the right to appeal to your Excellency's feelings of humanity and
+     generosity in Miss Cavell's favour, and to ask that the death
+     penalty passed on Miss Cavell may be commuted and that this
+     unfortunate woman shall not be executed.
+
+     "Miss Cavell is the head of the Brussels Surgical Institute. She
+     has spent her life in alleviating the sufferings of others, and her
+     school has turned out many nurses who have watched at the bedside
+     of the sick all the world over, in Germany as in Belgium. At the
+     beginning of the war Miss Cavell bestowed her care as freely on the
+     German soldiers as on others. Even in default of all 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 in my
+     possession 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, which has aggravated the severity of the sentence passed
+     on her.
+
+     "It is then with confidence, and in the hope of its favourable
+     reception, that I have the honour to present to your Excellency my
+     request for pardon on Miss Cavell's behalf."
+
+This note was read aloud to Baron von der Lancken, the very official who
+had refused to answer the first communication of the Legation with
+reference to the matter, and he
+
+     "expressed disbelief in the report that sentence had actually been
+     passed and manifested some surprise that we should give credence to
+     any report not emanating from official sources. He was quite
+     insistent in knowing the exact source of our information, but this
+     I did not feel at liberty to communicate to him."
+
+Baron von der Lancken proceeded to express his belief "that it was quite
+improbable that sentence had been pronounced," and that in any event no
+execution would follow. After some hesitation he telephoned to the
+Presiding Judge of the Court-Martial and then reported that the
+embassy's unofficial information was only too true.
+
+His attention was further called to the express promise of the German
+Director of the Political Department to inform the American Legation of
+the sentence, and he was asked to grant the American Government the
+courtesy of a "delay in carrying out the sentence."
+
+To this appeal for mercy Baron von der Lancken replied that the Military
+Governor (von Bissing) was the supreme authority and that he "had
+discretionary power to accept or to refuse acceptance of an appeal for
+clemency." He thereupon left the representative of the American Legation
+and apparently called upon von Bissing, and after half an hour he
+returned with the statement that not only would von Bissing decline to
+revoke the sentence of death, but "that in view of the circumstances of
+this case, he must decline to accept your plea for clemency or any
+representation in regard to the matter."
+
+Thereupon Baron von der Lancken insisted that Mr. Brand Whitlock's
+representative (Mr. Hugh Gibson, Secretary of the Legation) should take
+back the formal appeal for clemency addressed both to him and to von
+Bissing, and as both German officials had been fully advised as to the
+nature of the plea, Mr. Gibson finally consented. Baron von der Lancken
+assured Mr. Gibson that under the circumstances "even the Emperor
+himself could not intervene," a statement that was very quickly refuted
+when the Emperor--aroused by the world-wide condemnation of Miss
+Cavell's execution--did commute the sentences imposed upon six of the
+seven persons who were condemned to death with Miss Cavell.
+
+During the earnest conversation which took place in this last attempt to
+save Miss Cavell's life, the American representative took occasion to
+remind Baron von der Lancken's official associates--although it should
+not have been necessary--of the great services rendered by the United
+States, and especially by Mr. Brand Whitlock, in the earlier period of
+the German occupation, and this was urged as a reason why as a matter of
+courtesy to the United States Government some more courteous
+consideration should be accorded to its request. At the outbreak of the
+war, thousands of German residents in Belgium returned to their country
+in such haste that they left their families behind them. Mr. Whitlock
+gathered these women and children--numbering, it is said, over
+10,000--and provided them with the necessaries of life, and ultimately
+with safe transportation into Germany, and having thus placed this
+inestimable service to thousands of German civilians in one scale, the
+American representative simply asked, as "the only request" made by the
+United States upon grounds of reciprocal generosity, that some clemency
+should be given to Miss Cavell. The refusal to give this clemency or
+even to accept in a formal way the plea for clemency, is one of the
+blackest cases of ingratitude in the history of diplomacy.
+
+On October 22nd there was issued from Brussels a "semi-official" but
+_anonymous_ statement, charging that in the reports of the Secretary of
+the American Embassy, from which the above quoted statements are mainly
+taken, "most of the important events are inaccurately reproduced."
+
+No specification of any inaccuracy is however made, except the general
+denial "that the German authorities with empty promises put off the
+American Minister" and also the equally general statement that no
+promise was given to our embassy to advise it of developments in the
+case.
+
+A vague, general, and _anonymous_ denial, issued by men who seek to wash
+their hands of innocent blood, cannot avail against Mr. Gibson's clear,
+specific, and circumstantial statement. The Secretary of our embassy
+states that on October 11th "_repeated_" inquiries were made of Herr
+Conrad, the official in charge of the Political Department of the German
+Government in Belgium, _the last inquiry being at 6.20 p.m. by the
+clock_ (an hour after the victim had been sentenced to death), and that
+on each occasion assurance was given to the Legation that "sentence had
+not been pronounced" and that he (Conrad) would not fail to inform us as
+soon as there was any news.
+
+Does Herr Conrad deny this?
+
+The Brussels "semi-official" statement has the hardihood to state to the
+world that the American Minister (Brand Whitlock) had admitted that "no
+such promise or assurance was given," and it places the responsibility
+upon M. Deleval, the Belgian legal counselor of the American Embassy.
+But this impudent lie is speedily overthrown by the positive statement
+of our Minister at Belgium to our Ambassador in London as follows:
+
+     "From the date we first learned of Miss Cavell's imprisonment we
+     made frequent inquiries of the German authorities and reminded
+     them of their promise that we should be fully informed as to
+     developments. They were under no misapprehension as to our interest
+     in the matter."
+
+Will the American people or the people of any nation hesitate to accept
+the clear, positive, and circumstantial statements of Minister Whitlock,
+Secretary Gibson, and Counselor Deleval, at least two of whom are wholly
+disinterested in the matter, as against the self-exculpatory, general,
+and anonymous denials of a "semi-official" press bureau, especially when
+it is recalled that from the beginning of the great war, the German
+Foreign Office, with whom military honor is supposed to be almost a
+religion, has stooped to the most shameful and barefaced mendacity?
+
+When the world recalls how Austrian Ambassadors in Paris, London, and
+Petrograd made the most emphatic statements that the forthcoming
+ultimatum to Serbia would be "pacific and conciliatory," and assured the
+Russian Ambassador that he could therefore safely leave Vienna on his
+vacation on the very eve of the ultimatum, and when the German
+Ambassadors in the same capitals gave the most solemn and unequivocal
+assurances that
+
+     "the German Government had no knowledge of the text of the Austrian
+     note before it was handed in and had not exercised any influence on
+     its contents,"
+
+and later admitted, when the lie had served its purpose by lulling the
+world into a sense of false security, that it had been fully consulted
+by its ally before the ultimatum was prepared and had given it carte
+blanche to proceed, when these notable examples of Prussian
+Machiavellism are recalled, little attention will be given to these
+futile attempts to wash from the shield of German honor the blood of
+Edith Cavell.
+
+One can to some extent understand the Berserker fury which caused von
+Bissing to say in effect to this gentle-faced English nurse, "You are in
+our way. You menace our security. You must die, as countless thousands
+have already died, to secure the results of our seizure of Belgium"; but
+can we understand or in any way palliate the attempt to hide the stains
+of blood on that prison floor of Brussels with a cobweb of self-evident
+falsehoods?
+
+These stains can never be washed out to the eye of imagination.
+
+        "Let none these marks efface,
+    For they appeal from tyranny to God."
+
+In the last interview between our representative and Baron von der
+Lancken, which took place a few hours before the execution, our
+representative reminded these Prussian officials
+
+     "of our untiring efforts on behalf of German subjects at the
+     outbreak of the war and during the siege of Antwerp. I pointed out
+     that, while our services had been gladly rendered and without any
+     thought of future favors, they should certainly entitle you to some
+     consideration for the only request of this sort you [the American
+     Minister] had made since the beginning of the war."
+
+Even our Minister's appeal to gratitude and to one of the most ordinary
+and natural courtesies of diplomatic life proved unavailing, and at
+midnight the Secretary of the American Legation and the Spanish
+Minister, who was acting with him, left in despair. At 2 o'clock that
+morning Miss Cavell was secretly executed.
+
+Even the ordinary courtesy accorded to the vilest criminal, of being
+permitted before dying to have a clergyman of her own selection, was
+denied her until a few hours before her death, for the legal counselor
+of the American Legation on October 10th applied in behalf of this
+country for permission for an English clergyman to see Miss Cavell, and
+this, too, was refused, as her jailers preferred to assign her the
+prison chaplains as well as her counsel. Even the final appeal of our
+Minister for the surrender of her mutilated body was denied, on the
+ground that only the Minister of War in Berlin could grant it.
+
+Apart from the brutality of the whole incident there is one circumstance
+that makes it of peculiar interest to the American people and which
+gives to it the character of rank ingratitude. Our representative, as
+above stated, did advise the German officials that a little delay was
+asked by our Legation _as a slight return for the innumerable acts of
+kindness which our Legation had done for German soldiers and interned
+prisoners in the earlier days of the war before the German invasion had
+swept over the land_. The charge of ingratitude may rest soundly upon
+far greater and broader grounds.
+
+This great nation had contributed in money and merchandise a sum
+estimated at many millions for the relief of the people in Belgium. In
+so doing it did to the German nation an inestimable service, for when
+Germany conquered Belgium the duty and burden rested upon it to support
+its population to the extent that it might become necessary. The burden
+of supporting 8,000,000 civilians was no light one, especially as there
+existed in Germany a scarcity of food. As bread tickets were then being
+issued in Germany to its people, the supplies would have been
+substantially less if a portion of its food products had been required
+for the civilian population of Belgium, for obviously the German nation
+could not permit a people, whom it had so ruthlessly trampled under
+foot, to starve to death. Every dollar that was raised in America for
+the Belgian people, therefore, operated to relieve Germany from a heavy
+burden.
+
+Moreover, when the war broke out, Germany needed some friendly nation to
+take over the care of its nationals in the hostile countries, and in
+England, France, Belgium, and Russia the interests of German citizens
+were assumed by the American Government as a courtesy to Germany, and no
+one can question how faithfully in the last fourteen months Page in
+London, Sharp in Paris, and Whitlock in Brussels have labored to
+alleviate the inevitable suffering to German prisoners or interned
+civilians.
+
+In view of these services, it surely was not much for the American
+Minister to ask that a little delay should be granted to a woman whose
+error, if any, had arisen from impulses of humanity and from
+considerations of patriotism. To spare her life a little longer could
+not have done the German cause any possible harm, for she was in their
+custody and beyond the power of rendering any help to her compatriots.
+To condemn any human being, even if he were the vilest criminal, at 5
+o'clock in the afternoon and execute him at 2 a.m., was an act of
+barbarism for which no possible condemnation is adequate.
+
+Under these circumstances, it would be incredible, if the facts were not
+beyond dispute, that the request of the United States for a little
+delay was not only brutally refused, _but that our Legation was
+deliberately misled and deceived until the death sentence had been
+inflicted_.
+
+This makes the fate of Miss Cavell our affair as much as that of the
+Lusitania. And yet we have the already familiar semi-official assurance
+from Washington that while our officials "unofficially deplore the act,
+officially they can do nothing." Concurrently we are told in the
+President's Thanksgiving proclamation that we should be thankful because
+we have "been able to assert our rights and the rights of mankind," and
+that this "has been a year of special blessing for us," for, so the
+proclamation adds, "we have prospered while other nations were at war."
+
+I venture to say in all reverence that the God of nations will be better
+pleased on the coming Thanksgiving Day--which also should be one of
+penitence and humiliation--if we do a little more _in fact_ and less in
+words to safeguard the rights of humanity. Our initial blunder was in
+turning away the Belgian Commissioners, when they first presented the
+wrongs of their crucified nation, with icy phrases as to a mysterious
+day of reckoning in the indefinite future. An act of justice now will be
+worth a thousand future "accountings" after the long agony of the world
+is over. "Now is the accepted time, this the day of salvation."
+
+_Let our nation begin with the case of Edith Cavell, and demand of
+Germany the dismissal of the officers who flouted, deceived, and mocked
+the representative of the United States. That concerns our honor as a
+nation._
+
+The final scene of the tragedy is best stated in the simple but
+poignantly pathetic words of the Chaplain, who was permitted to see the
+victim a few hours before her death:
+
+     "On Monday evening, 11th October, I was admitted by special
+     passport from the German authorities to the prison of St. Gilles,
+     where Miss Edith Cavell had been confined for ten weeks. The final
+     sentence had been given early that afternoon.
+
+     "To my astonishment and relief I found my friend perfectly calm and
+     resigned. But this could not lessen the tenderness and intensity of
+     feeling on either part during that last interview of almost an
+     hour.
+
+     "Her first words to me were upon a matter concerning herself
+     personally, but the solemn asseveration which accompanied them was
+     made expressedly in the light of God and eternity. She then added
+     that she wished all her friends to know that she willingly gave her
+     life for her country, and said: 'I have no fear nor shrinking; I
+     have seen death so often that it is not strange or fearful to me.'
+     She further said: 'I thank God for this ten weeks' quiet before the
+     end.' 'Life has always been hurried and full of difficulty.' 'This
+     time of rest has been a great mercy.' 'They have all been very kind
+     to me here. 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.'
+
+     "We partook of the Holy Communion together, and she received the
+     Gospel message of consolation with all her heart. At the close of
+     the little service I began to repeat the words 'Abide with me,' and
+     she joined softly in the end.
+
+     "We sat quietly talking until it was time for me to go. She gave me
+     parting messages for relations and friends. She spoke of her soul's
+     needs at the moment, and she received the assurance of God's Word
+     as only the Christian can do.
+
+     "Then I said 'Good-bye,' and she smiled and said, 'We shall meet
+     again.'
+
+     "The German military chaplain was with her at the end and
+     afterwards gave her Christian burial.
+
+     "He told me: 'She was brave and bright to the last. She professed
+     her Christian faith and that she was glad to die for her country.'
+     'She died like a heroine.'"
+
+It would be interesting to compare these last hours of one of the
+noblest women in English history to those of that rare and radiant Greek
+maiden, whom the genius of Sophocles has glorified in his immortal
+tragedy. The comparison is altogether in favour of the English heroine,
+for while Antigone went to her death bravely, yet her final words were
+those of bitter complaint and almost whining lamentation. Compare with
+these words the Christlike simplicity of Miss Cavell's last message to
+the world, and the difference between the noblest Paganism and the best
+of Christianity is apparent. Truly the light of Calvary illumined her
+dark cell! Standing "in view of God and eternity," she uttered the
+deeply pregnant sentence that "patriotism is not enough." Her
+executioners had illustrated this, for the ruthless killing of Edith
+Cavell for military purposes was actuated by that perverted spirit of
+patriotism which believes that any wrong is sanctified if it serves the
+State.
+
+No one suggests that General von Bissing had any personal feeling
+against Miss Cavell. Indeed his conduct would be the more tolerable if
+it had been actuated by the spirit of anger. He killed her in cold blood
+and to strengthen the German occupation in Belgium. News of the very
+recent successes of the Allies in Flanders and in the Champagne
+districts in the great offensive had reached Belgium and had caused a
+perceptible ferment in that down-trodden people. It therefore seemed
+necessary to show the iron hand again and to the Prussian ideal, as
+already illustrated by official proclamations of Prussian Generals, it
+was a matter of no consequence whose life was taken or whose right was
+invaded. It served to terrorize the Belgian people--Such was its real
+purpose.
+
+And you, women of America and of the World! Will you not honor the
+memory of this martyr of your sex, who for all time will be mourned as
+was the noblest Greek maiden, Antigone, who also gave her life that her
+brother might have the rites of sepulture? Will you not carry on in her
+name and for her memory those sacred ministrations of mercy which were
+her lifework?
+
+_Make her cause--the cause of justice and mercy--your own!_
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_Printed in Great Britain._
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Case of Edith Cavell, by James M. Beck
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Case of Edith Cavell, by James M. Beck
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Case of Edith Cavell
+       A Study of the Rights of Non-Combatants
+
+Author: James M. Beck
+
+Release Date: January 11, 2007 [EBook #20335]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CASE OF EDITH CAVELL ***
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+Produced by Mark C. Orton, Tamise Totterdell, Linda McKeown
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+</pre>
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p>
+<h3>THE</h3>
+
+<h1>Case of Edith Cavell.</h1>
+
+<p class='center'>A Study of the Rights
+of Non-Combatants.</p>
+
+<h3>BY</h3>
+
+<h2>JAMES M. BECK,</h2>
+
+<p class='center'><i>Former Assistant Attorney-General of the United States,
+and Author of "The Evidence in the Case."</i></p>
+
+<p class='center'>(<i>Reprinted from "New York Times."</i>)</p>
+
+<p class='center'>G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS,
+NEW YORK AND LONDON.
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span></p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<h2>THE CASE OF EDITH CAVELL.</h2>
+
+<p class='center'>A Reply to Dr. Albert Zimmermann, Germany's<br />
+Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs.<br />
+<br />
+By JAMES M. BECK,<br />
+<br />
+<i>Former Assistant Attorney-General of the United States, and Author of "The<br />
+Dual Alliance</i> v. <i>The Triple Entente," and "The Evidence in the Case."</i><br />
+</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p><i>Mr. Beck, who is one of the leaders of the New York Bar, is the author
+of the most widely read article written since the war began, entitled:
+"The Dual Alliance</i> v. <i>The Triple Entente," which was subsequently
+expanded into a book, called "The Evidence in the Case," pronounced by a
+distinguished publicist to be "the classic of the war." After its
+publication in</i> <span class="smcap">The New York Times</span> <i>this article was reprinted in nearly
+every language of the civilized nations and over a million copies of it
+were published.</i></p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Those who have regarded the Supreme Court of Civilization&mdash;meaning
+thereby the moral sentiment of the world&mdash;as a mere rhetorical<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> phrase
+or an idle illusion should take note how swiftly that court&mdash;sitting now
+as one of criminal assize&mdash;has pronounced sentence upon the murderers of
+Edith Cavell. The swift vengeance of the world's opinion has called to
+the bar General Baron von Bissing, and in executing him with the
+lightning of universal execration has forever degraded him.</p>
+
+<p>Baron von der Lancken may possibly escape general obloquy, for his part
+in the crime was no greater than that of Pilate, who sought to wash his
+hands of innocent blood; but von Bissing will enjoy "until the last
+syllable of recorded time" the unenviable fame of Judge Jeffreys. He,
+too, was an able Judge and probably believed that he was executing
+justice, but because he did not execute it in mercy, but with a ferocity
+that has made his name a synonym for judicial tyranny, the world has
+condemned him to lasting infamy, and this notwithstanding the fact that
+he was made Chief Justice of the King's Bench, Lord High Chancellor of
+England, and a peer of the realm. All these titles are forgotten. Only
+that of "Bloody Jeffreys" remains.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Similarly, if his master shall be pleased to honor General Baron von
+Bissing with the iron cross for his action in the case of Miss Cavell,
+as the Kaiser honored the Captain of the submarine which destroyed the
+Lusitania&mdash;and what order could be more appropriate in both cases than
+the cross, which recalls how another innocent victim of judicial tyranny
+was sacrificed?&mdash;then even the Order of the Iron Cross will not save von
+Bissing from lasting obloquy. I do not question that he acted according
+to his lights and shared with Dr. Albert Zimmermann great "surprise"
+that the world should make such a sensation about the murder of one
+woman. Trajan once said that the possession of absolute power had a
+tendency to transform even the most humane man into a wild beast, and
+Judge Black in his great argument in the case of <i>ex parte</i> Milligan
+recalled the fact that Robespierre in his early life resigned his
+commission as Judge rather than pronounce the sentence of death, and
+that Caligula passed as a very amiable young man before he assumed the
+imperial purple. The story is as old as humanity that the appetite for
+blood, or at least the habit of murder, "grows by what it feeds upon."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The murder of Miss Cavell was one of exceptional brutality and
+stupidity. It never occurred to her judges that her murder would add an
+army corps to the forces of the Allies and that every English soldier
+will fight more bravely because of her shining example. So little was
+this appreciated either in Brussels or Berlin that the German Foreign
+Office, in its official apology for the crime, issued over the signature
+of Herr Doctor Albert Zimmermann, Under Secretary of Foreign Affairs,
+expresses its surprise</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p><i>that the shooting of an Englishwoman and the condemnation of
+several women in Brussels for treason have caused a sensation.</i></p></div>
+
+<p>What extraordinary moral na&iuml;vet&eacute;! How could they appreciate that after
+the firing squad had done its work and the body of the woman had been
+given hasty burial the victim's virtues would</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i2">"plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The deep damnation of her taking off;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">And pity, like a naked new-born babe,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Striding the blast, or Heaven's cherubim, horsed<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Upon the sightless couriers of the air,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">That tears shall drown the wind."<br /></span>
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span></div></div>
+
+<p>This happened with incredible rapidity, and the Kaiser made haste to
+respite the eight other intended victims&mdash;two of them being also
+women&mdash;and the Berlin Foreign Office also issued to the world its
+defense of its action.</p>
+
+<p>It began with an expression of "pity that Miss Cavell had to be
+executed," but the sincerity of this pity can be measured by the fact
+that concurrently with Dr. Zimmermann's official apology there came from
+Berlin an "inspired" supplemental explanation, which sought to
+depreciate the character and services of the dead nurse by stating "that
+she earned a living by nursing, <i>charging fees within the means of the
+wealthy only</i>."</p>
+
+<p>The world has an abundant refutation of this cruel and cowardly slur
+upon the memory of a dead woman, for one who first hazarded her life and
+then gave it freely to save the lives of others&mdash;for such was the charge
+for which she died&mdash;is not a woman to restrict her gracious
+ministrations of mercy for mercenary motives.</p>
+
+<p>The Kaiser has been swift to see the deadly injury to his cause of this
+latest evidence of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> military tyranny. Not only has he respited Miss
+Cavell's alleged accomplices&mdash;as if to say with Macbeth, "thou canst not
+say I did it"&mdash;but it is said that he has summoned von Bissing and von
+der Lancken to explain their actions in the matter, but as the Kaiser is
+responsible for the invasion of Belgium and has hitherto condoned its
+attendant horrors, he can no more absolve himself from some share of
+responsibility than could Macbeth disavow his responsibility for the
+deeds of his two hirelings.</p>
+
+<p><i>The stain of this murder rests upon Prussian militarism and not upon
+the German people</i>, for it should not be forgotten that possibly the
+most chivalrous act which has happened since the beginning of the war,
+was the erection by a German community, where a detention camp was
+maintained, of a statue to the French and English soldiers who had died
+in captivity, with the beautiful inscription:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"To our Comrades, who here died for their dear Fatherland."</p></div>
+
+<p>What could be more chivalrous or present a greater contrast to the
+assassination of Miss Cavell?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>We are advised by Dr. Zimmermann that Miss Cavell was given a fair trial
+and was justly convicted, but as the proceedings of the trial were not
+public and as Miss Cavell was denied knowledge in advance of the trial
+of the nature of the charges against her, <i>and as we know little of the
+circumstances of her alleged offense except the reports of her judges
+and executioners</i>, the world will be somewhat incredulous as to whether
+the trial was as just to the accused as Dr. Zimmermann would have us
+believe.</p>
+
+<p>The difficulty with this assurance is that the German conception of what
+is a fair trial differs from that which prevails in Anglo-Saxon
+countries, just as the German word "Gerechtigkeit" does not convey the
+same mental or moral conception as the English word "justice."
+"Gerechtigkeit" means little more to the Teutonic mind than the exercise
+of the power of the State, and claims no further sanction than its
+authority. In England, France, and the United States the idea of justice
+is that an individual has certain fundamental and inalienable rights
+which even<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> the State cannot override, and none of these fundamental
+rights have been more highly valued in the evolution of English liberty
+than the rights of a defendant who is charged with crime. Whether guilty
+or not guilty, he cannot be arrested without a judicial warrant on proof
+of probable cause; he may not be compelled to testify against himself;
+he is entitled to a speedy trial and shall be informed in advance
+thereof of the exact nature of the accusation; his trial shall be public
+and open, and he shall be confronted with the witnesses against him and
+have compulsory process for his own defense; in advance of trial he
+shall have permission to select his own counsel, and shall have the
+opportunity to confer freely with him.</p>
+
+<p><i>Most of these fundamental rights were denied to Miss Cavell.</i></p>
+
+<p>It is difficult to understand why, in view of the policy of terrorism,
+which has prevailed in Belgium from the time that the invader first
+crossed its frontier, the justice from the standpoint of military law
+should be referred to in Herr Zimmermann's defense. In the official<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span>
+textbook of the General Staff of the German Army the definite policy of
+terrorizing a conquered country is proclaimed as a military theory. Its
+leading axiom is that</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"a war conducted with energy cannot be directed merely against the
+combatants of the enemy State and the positions they occupy, <i>but
+it will and must in like manner seek to destroy the total
+intellectual and material resources of the latter</i>. Humanitarian
+claims, such as the protection of men and their goods, can only be
+taken into consideration in so far as the nature and object of the
+war permit. Consequently the argument of war permits every
+belligerent State <i>to have recourse to all means which enable it to
+obtain the object of the war</i>."</p></div>
+
+<p>Miss Cavell's fate only differs from that of hundreds of Belgium women
+and children in that she had the pretense of a trial and presumably had
+trespassed against military law, while other victims of the rape of
+Belgium were ruthlessly killed in order to effect a speedy subjugation
+of the territory. The question of the guilt or innocence of each
+individual was a matter of no importance. Hostages were taken and not
+for the alleged wrongs of others.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Did not General von B&uuml;low on August 22nd announce to the inhabitants of
+Li&egrave;ge that</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"<i>it is with my consent that the General in command has burned down
+the place [Andenne] and shot about 100 inhabitants.</i>"</p></div>
+
+<p>It was the same chivalrous and humane General who posted a proclamation
+at Namur on August 25th as follows:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"Before 4 o'clock all Belgian and French soldiers are to be
+delivered up as prisoners of war. Citizens who do not obey this
+will be condemned to hard labor for life in Germany. At 4 o'clock a
+rigorous inspection of all houses will be made. <i>Every soldier
+found will be shot.</i>&nbsp;*&nbsp;*&nbsp;*&nbsp;<i>The streets will be held by German
+guards, who will hold ten hostages for each street. These hostages
+will be shot if there is any trouble in that street.</i>&nbsp;*&nbsp;*&nbsp;*&nbsp;A crime
+against the German Army will compromise the existence of the whole
+town of Namur <i>and every one in it</i>."</p></div>
+
+<p>Did not Field Marshal von der Goltz issue a proclamation in Brussels, on
+October 5th, stating that, if any individual disturbed the telegraphic
+or railway communications, all the inhabitants would be "<i>punished
+without pity, the innocent suffering with the guilty</i>"?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Individual guilt being thus a matter of minor importance, Dr. Zimmermann
+had no occasion on the accepted theory of Prussian militarism to justify
+the secret trial and midnight execution of Edith Cavell. Indeed, he
+freely intimates that his Government will not spare women, no matter how
+high and noble the motive may have been which inspires any infraction of
+military law, and to this sweeping statement he makes but one exception,
+namely, that women "in a delicate condition may not be executed." But
+why the exception? If it be permitted to destroy one life for the
+welfare of the military administration of Belgium, why stop at two? If
+the innocent living are to be sacrificed, why spare the unborn? The
+exception itself shows that the rigor of military law must have some
+limitation, and that its iron rigor must be softened by a discretion
+dictated by such considerations of chivalry and magnanimity as have
+hitherto been observed by all civilized nations. If the victim of
+yesterday had been an "expectant mother," Dr. Zimmermann suggests that
+her judges and executioners would have spared her, but no such exception
+can be found in the Prussian military code. "It is<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span> not so nominated in
+the bond," and the Under Secretary's recognition of one exception, based
+upon considerations of humanity and not the letter of the military code,
+destroys the whole fabric of his case, <i>for it clearly shows that there
+was a power of discretion which von Bissing could have exercised, if he
+had so elected</i>.</p>
+
+<p>That her case had its claims not only to magnanimity, but even to
+military justice, is shown by the haste with which, in the teeth of
+every protest, the unfortunate woman was hurried to her end. Sentenced
+at 5 o'clock in the afternoon, she was executed nine hours later. Of
+what was General Baron von Bissing afraid? She was in his custody. Her
+power to help her country&mdash;save by dying&mdash;was forever at an end. The hot
+haste of her execution and the duplicity and secrecy which attended it
+betray an unmistakable fear that if her life had been spared until the
+world could have known of her death sentence, public opinion would have
+prevented this cruel and cowardly deed. The labored apology of Dr.
+Zimmermann and the swift action of the Kaiser in pardoning those who
+were condemned with Miss Cavell indicate that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> the Prussian officials
+have heard the beating of the wings of those avenging angels of history
+who, like the Eumenides of classic mythology, are the avengers of the
+innocent and the oppressed.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Greatness</i>," wrote Aeschylus, "<i>is no defense from utter destruction
+when a man insolently spurns the mighty altar of justice.</i>"</p>
+
+<p>This is as true to-day as when it was written more than two thousand
+years ago. It is but a classic echo of the old Hebraic moral axiom that
+"the Lord God of recompenses shall surely requite."</p>
+
+<p>The most powerful and self-willed ruler of modern times learned this
+lesson to his cost. Probably no two instances contributed so powerfully
+to the ultimate downfall of Napoleon as his ruthless assassination under
+the forms of military law of the Duke d'Enghien and the equally brutal
+murder of the German bookseller, Palm. The one aroused the undying
+enmity of Russia, and the blood that was shed in the moat of Vincennes
+was washed out in the icy waters of the Beresina. The fate of the poor
+German<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> bookseller, whom Napoleon caused to be shot because his writing
+menaced the security of French occupation, developed as no other event
+the dormant spirit of German nationality, and the Nuremberg bookseller,
+shot precisely as was Miss Cavell, was finally avenged when Bl&uuml;cher gave
+Napoleon the <i>coup de gr&acirc;ce</i> at Waterloo. No one more clearly felt the
+invisible presence of his Nemesis than did Napoleon. All his life, and
+even in his confinement at St. Helena, he was ceaselessly attempting to
+justify to the moral conscience of the world his ruthless assassination
+of the last Prince of the house of Cond&eacute;. The terrible judgment of
+history was never better expressed than by Lamartine in the following
+language:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"A cold curiosity carries the visitor to the battlefields of
+Marengo, Austerlitz, Wagram, Leipsic, Waterloo; he wanders over
+them with dry eyes, but one is shown at a corner of the wall near
+the foundations of Vincennes, at the bottom of a ditch, a spot
+covered with nettles and weeds. He says, 'There it is!' He utters a
+cry and carries away with him undying pity for the victim and an
+implacable resentment against the assassin. This resentment is
+vengeance for the past and a lesson for the future. <i>Let the
+ambitious, whether soldiers, tribunes, or kings, remember that if
+they have</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span> <i>hirelings to do their will, and flatterers to excuse
+them while they reign, there yet comes afterward a human conscience
+to judge them and pity to hate them. The murderer has but one hour;
+the victim has eternity.</i>"</p></div>
+
+<p>At the outbreak of the war Miss Cavell was living with her aged mother
+in England. Constrained by a noble and imperious sense of duty, she
+exchanged the security of her native country for her post of danger in
+Brussels. "My duty is there," she said simply.</p>
+
+<p>She reached Brussels in August, 1914, and at once commenced her
+humanitarian work. When the German army entered the gates of Brussels,
+she called upon Governor von Luttwitz and placed her staff of nurses at
+the services of the wounded under whatever flag they had fought. The
+services which she and her staff of nurses rendered many a wounded and
+dying German should have earned for her the generous consideration of
+the invader.</p>
+
+<p>But early in these ministrations of mercy she was obliged by the noblest
+of humanitarian motives to antagonize the German invaders. Governor von
+Luttwitz demanded of her that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> all nurses should give formal
+undertakings, when treating wounded French or Belgian soldiers, to act
+as jailers to their patients, but Miss Cavell answered this unreasonable
+demand by simply saying: "We are prepared to do all that we can to help
+wounded soldiers to recover, but to be their jailers&mdash;never."</p>
+
+<p>On another occasion, when appealing to a German Brigadier-General on
+behalf of some homeless women and children, the Prussian martinet&mdash;half
+pedant and half poltroon&mdash;answered her with a quotation from Nietzsche
+to the effect that "Pity is a waste of feeling&mdash;a moral parasite
+injurious to the health." She early felt the cruel and iron will of the
+invader, but, nothing daunted, she proceeded in the arduous work,
+supervised the work of three hospitals, gave six lectures on nursing a
+week and responded to many urgent appeals of individuals who were in
+need of immediate relief. "Others she saved, herself she could not
+save."</p>
+
+<p>When one of her associates, Miss Mary Boyle O'Reilly, who has recently
+contributed a moving account of Miss Cavell's work, was expelled<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> from
+Belgium, she begged Miss Cavell to take the opportunity, while it
+presented itself, to leave that land of horror, and Miss Cavell, with
+characteristic bravery, replied smilingly: "Impossible, my friend, my
+duty is here."</p>
+
+<p>It was undoubtedly in connection with this humanitarian work that she
+violated the German military law by giving refuge to fugitive French and
+Belgian soldiers until such time as they could escape across the
+frontier to Holland. For this she suffered the penalty of death, and the
+validity of this sentence, even under Prussian military law, I will
+discuss later. It is enough to say that no instinct is so natural in
+every man and woman, and especially in woman with the maternal instinct
+characteristic of her sex, than to give a harbor of refuge to the
+helpless. All nations have respected this instinctive feeling as one of
+the redeeming traits of human nature and the history of war, at least in
+modern times, can be searched in vain for any instance in which anyone,
+especially a woman, has been condemned to death for yielding to the
+humanitarian impulse of giving temporary refuge to a fugitive<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> soldier.
+Such an act is neither espionage nor treason, as those terms have been
+ordinarily understood in civilized countries.</p>
+
+<p>It is true, as suggested by a few in America who sought to excuse the
+Cavell crime, that Mrs. Surratt was tried, condemned and executed
+because she had permitted the band of assassins, whose conspiracy
+resulted in the assassination of Lincoln and the attempted murder of
+Secretary Seward, to hold their meetings in her house; but the
+difference between this conscious participation in the assassination of
+the head of the State, in a period of civil war, and the humanitarian
+aid which Miss Cavell gave to fugitive soldiers to save them from
+capture is manifest. I am assuming that Miss Cavell did give such
+protection to her compatriots, for all accessible information supports
+this view, and if so, however commendable her motive and heroic her
+conduct, she certainly was guilty of an infraction of military law,
+which justified some punishment and possibly her forcible detention
+during the period of the war.</p>
+
+<p>To regard her execution as an ordinary incident of war is an affront to
+civilization, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> as it is symptomatic of the Prussian occupation of
+Belgium and not a sporadic incident, it acquires a significance which
+justifies a full recital of this black chapter of Prussianism. It
+illustrates the reign of terror which has existed in Belgium since the
+German occupation.</p>
+
+<p>When the German Chancellor made his famous speech in the Reichstag on
+August 4th, 1914, and admitted at the bar of the world the crime which
+was then being initiated, he said:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"The wrong&mdash;I speak openly&mdash;that we are committing we will endeavor
+to make good as soon as our military goal has been reached."</p></div>
+
+<p>Within a few weeks the military goal was reached by the seizure of
+practically all of Belgium and by the voluntary surrender of Brussels to
+the invader, and since then, for a period of fourteen months, the
+Belgian people have been subjected to a state of tyranny for which it
+would be difficult to find a parallel, unless we turned to the history
+of the Netherlands in the Sixteenth Century and recalled its occupation
+by the Duke of Alva. It must be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> said in candor that the Prussian
+occupation of Belgium has not yet caused as many victims as the "Bloody
+Council" of the Duke of Alva, for the estimated number of
+non-combatants, who have been shot in Belgium during the last fourteen
+months, is only 6,000 as against the 18,000 whom it is estimated the
+Duke of Alva mercilessly put to death.</p>
+
+<p>It may also be the fact that the present oppression of Belgium is marked
+by some approach to the forms of law; but it may be doubted whether the
+difference is not more in appearance than in reality, for the
+administration of law in Belgium has been a mockery. Of this there can
+be no more striking or detailed proof than the protest which was
+presented to the German authorities on February 17th, 1915, by M. L&eacute;on
+Th&eacute;odor, the head of the Brussels bar. The truth of this formal
+accusation may be fairly measured by the strong probability that the
+brave leader of the Brussels bar would never have ventured to have made
+the statements hereinafter referred to to the German Military Governor
+unless he was reasonably sure of his facts. What he said on behalf of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span>
+the bar of Brussels was said in the shadow of possible death, and if he
+had consciously or deliberately maligned the Prussian administration of
+justice in this open and specific manner, he assuredly took his life
+into his hands. This brave and noble document will forever remain one of
+the gravest indictments of German misrule, and as it states, on the
+authority of one who was in a position to know, the details of the
+savage tyranny which masqueraded under the forms of law, it is appended,
+with some condensation, to this article.</p>
+
+<p>After stating the fact "that everything about the German judicial
+organisation in Belgium is contrary to the principles of law," and after
+showing that Belgian civilians were punished for the violations of law
+which had never been proclaimed and of which, therefore, they knew
+nothing, the distinguished President of the Order of Advocates says:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"<i>This absence of certainty is not only the negation of all the
+principles of law; it weighs on the mind and on the conscience; it
+bewilders one, it seems to be a permanent menace for all, and the
+danger is all the more real, because these courts permit neither
+public nor defensive procedure, nor do they permit the accused to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span>
+receive any communication regarding his case, nor is any right of
+defense assured him.</i></p>
+
+<p>"This is arbitrary injustice; the Judge left to himself, that is,
+to his impressions, his prejudices, and his surroundings. This is
+abandoning the accused in his distress, to grapple alone with his
+all-powerful adversary.</p>
+
+<p>"This justice uncontrolled, and consequently without guarantee,
+constitutes for us the most dangerous and oppressive of
+illegalities. <i>We cannot conceive justice as a judicial or moral
+possibility without free defense.</i></p>
+
+<p>"Free defense, that is, light thrown on all the elements of the
+suit; public sentiment being heard in the bosom of the judgment
+hall, the right to say everything in the most respectful manner,
+and also the courage to dare everything, these must be put at the
+service of the unfortunate one, of justice and law.</p>
+
+<p>"It is one of the greatest conquests of our history. It is the
+keystone of our individual liberty.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>What are your sources of information?</i></p>
+
+<p>"Besides the judges, the men of the Secret Service and the
+denouncers (in French: 'd&eacute;lateurs').</p>
+
+<p>"The Secret Service men in civilian clothes, not bearing any
+insignia, mixing with the crowds in the street, in the caf&eacute;s, on
+the platforms of street cars, listen to the conversations carried
+on around them, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span>ready to grasp any secret, on the watch not only
+for acts but for intentions.</p>
+
+<p>"These denouncers of our nation are ever multiplying. <i>What
+confidence can be placed in their declarations, inspired by hate,
+spite, or low cupidity?</i> Such assistants can bring to the cause of
+justice no useful collaboration.</p>
+
+<p>"If we add to this total absence of control and of defense, these
+preventive arrests, the long detentions, the searches in the
+private domiciles, <i>we shall have an almost complete idea of the
+moral tortures to which our aspirations, our convictions, and our
+liberties are subjected at the present time</i>.&nbsp;*&nbsp;*&nbsp;*</p>
+
+<p>"Will it be said that we are living under martial law: that we are
+submitting to the hard necessities of war: that all should give way
+before the superior interests of your armies?</p>
+
+<p>"<i>I can understand martial law for armies in the field. It is the
+immediate reply to an aggression against the troops, repression
+without words, the summary justice of the commander of the army
+responsible for his soldiers.</i></p>
+
+<p>"<i>But our armies are far away; we are no longer in the zone of
+military operations. Nothing here menaces your troops, the
+inhabitants are calm.</i></p>
+
+<p>"The people have taken up work again. You have bidden them do it.
+Each one devotes himself, Magistrates, Judges, officials of the
+provinces and cities, the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span>clergy, all are at their post, united in
+one outburst of national interest and brotherhood.</p>
+
+<p>"However, this calm does not mean that they have forgotten.</p>
+
+<p>"The Belgian people lived happily in their corner of the earth,
+confident in their dream of independence. They saw this dream
+dispelled, they saw their country ruined and devastated, its
+ancient hospitable soil has been sown with thousands of tombs where
+our own sleep; the war has made tears flow which no hand can dry.
+<i>No, the murdered soul of Belgium will never forget.</i></p>
+
+<p>"But this nation has a profound respect for its duty. It will
+always respect it.</p>
+
+<p>"Has not the hour come to consider as closed the period of invasion
+and to substitute for the measures of exception the rules of
+occupation as defined by international law and the treaty of The
+Hague, which sets a limit to the occupying power and imposes
+obligations on the country occupied?</p>
+
+<p>"Has not the hour arrived to restore the Court House to the
+judiciary corps? The military occupation of the Court House is a
+violation of the treaty of The Hague.</p>
+
+<p>"Among the moral forces does one exist that is superior to justice?
+Justice dominates them all. <i>As ancient as humanity itself, eternal
+as the need of man and nations to be and to feel protected, it is
+the basis of</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> <i>all civilization.</i> The arts and sciences are its
+tributaries. Religious creeds live and prosper in its shadow. Is it
+not a religion in itself?</p>
+
+<p>"Belgium raised a magnificent temple to Justice in its capital.</p>
+
+<p>"This temple, which is our pride, has been converted into barracks
+for the German soldiers. A small part of it, becoming smaller every
+day, is reserved for the courts. The Magistrates and lawyers have
+access to it by a small private staircase.</p>
+
+<p>"Sad as are the conditions under which they are called to
+administer justice, the Judges have decided, nevertheless, to sit.
+The Bar has co-operated with them. Accustomed to live in an
+atmosphere of deference and of dignity, they do not recognize
+themselves in this sort of guard-room, and, in fact, justice
+surrounded with so little respect, is it still justice?"</p></div>
+
+<p>As this dignified and noble protest did not lead to any amelioration of
+the harsh conditions, a month later the same brave jurist, M. L&eacute;on
+Th&eacute;odor, appeared in Brussels before the so-called "German Court of
+Justice" and, in behalf of the entire Magistracy of Belgium, addressed
+to the Prussian Military Judges the following poignantly pathetic and
+nobly dignified address, which met with the same reception as the
+preceding communication.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The address reads as follows:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"I present myself at the Bar, escorted by the Counsel of the Order,
+surrounded by the sympathy and the confidence of all my colleagues
+of Brussels, and I might add of all the Bars of the country. The
+Bars of Li&egrave;ge, Ghent, Charleroi, Mons, Louvain, Antwerp have sent
+to that of Brussels the expression of their professional solidarity
+and have declared that they adhere to the resolutions taken by the
+Counsel of the Order of Brussels.&nbsp;*&nbsp;*&nbsp;*</p>
+
+<p>"We are not annexed. We are not conquered. We are not even
+vanquished. Our army is fighting. Our colors float alongside those
+of France, England and Russia. The country subsists. She is simply
+unfortunate. More than ever, then, we now owe ourselves to her body
+and soul. To defend her rights is also to fight for her.</p>
+
+<p>"We are living hours now as tragic as any country has ever known.
+All is destruction and ruin around us. Everywhere we see mourning.
+Our army has lost half of its effective force. Its percentage in
+dead and wounded will never be obtained by any of the belligerents.
+There remains to us only a corner of ground over there by the sea.
+The waters of the Yser flow through an immense plain peopled by the
+dead. It is called the Belgian Cemetery. There sleep our children
+by the thousands. There they are sleeping their last sleep. The
+struggle goes on bitterly and without mercy.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Your sons, Mr. President, are at the front; mine as well. For
+months we have been living in anxiety regarding the morrow.</p>
+
+<p>"Why these sacrifices, why this sorrow? <i>Belgium could have avoided
+these disasters, saved her existence, her treasures, and the life
+of her children, but she preferred her honor.</i>"</p></div>
+
+<p>Not long after this second protest, M. L&eacute;on Th&eacute;odor was arrested,
+deported to Germany and if now living, is suffering imprisonment for the
+offense of defending the oppressed civilian population from a system of
+espionage, drumhead courts-martial and secret executions, which in their
+malignity should excite the professional jealousy of Danton, Marat and
+Robespierre. It was in this manner that the lofty promise of the German
+Chancellor that his country would make good the wrong done to Belgium
+has been kept.</p>
+
+<p>Such was the condition of affairs in Belgium when Edith Cavell was
+arrested on August 5th, 1915.</p>
+
+<p>About the same time some thirty-five other prisoners were similarly
+arrested by the military authorities, <i>two-thirds of whom were women</i>.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The arrest was evidently a secret one for it is obvious that for a time
+Miss Cavell's friends knew nothing of her whereabouts. Even the American
+Legation, which had assumed the care of British citizens in Belgium,
+apparently knew nothing of Miss Cavell's whereabouts until it learned
+after a second inquiry the fact of her arrest and the place of her
+imprisonment from the German Civil Governor of Belgium on September
+12th, 1915.</p>
+
+<p>As Miss Cavell was a well-known personage in Brussels, it is altogether
+unlikely that the fact of her arrest and imprisonment would have been
+unknown to the American Legation in Brussels if the fact of her arrest
+had been a matter of public information on August 5th or shortly
+thereafter. In other words, if the arrest had been an open and notorious
+one, it seems to me unlikely that the American Embassy would have been
+wholly without information on the subject and when the friends of Miss
+Cavell found an opportunity to send some information as to her
+disappearance to the British Foreign Office, it seems unlikely that they
+would not have given more specific details.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Evidently some information had reached the Foreign Office as to Miss
+Cavell's disappearance, for on August 26th Sir Edward Grey requested the
+American Ambassador in London to ascertain through the American Legation
+in Brussels whether it was true that Miss Cavell had been arrested, and
+it seems clear from the diplomatic correspondence that the American
+Legation at Brussels knew nothing of the matter until it received this
+inquiry from the American Ambassador in London. The fact of her arrest
+by the German military authorities must have been known, but the place
+of her imprisonment and the nature of the charges against her were
+apparently withheld.</p>
+
+<p>This feature of the case and the manner in which Mr. Brand Whitlock, the
+American Minister, was prevented from rendering any effective aid to
+Miss Cavell, presents one aspect of the tragedy which especially
+concerns the honor and dignity of the United States and should receive
+its swift and effectual recognition.</p>
+
+<p>Her secret trial and hurried execution was a studied affront to the
+American Minister at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> Brussels, and therefore to the American nation. It
+is true that in all he did to save her life he was acting in behalf of
+and for the benefit of Great Britain, whose interests the United States
+Government has taken over in Belgium; but this cannot affect the fact
+that when Brand Whitlock intervened in behalf of the prisoner, sought to
+secure her a fair trial, and prevent her execution, and especially when
+he asked her life as a favor in return for the services our country had
+rendered Germany and German subjects in the earlier days of the war, <i>he
+spoke as an American and as the diplomatic representative of the United
+States</i>.</p>
+
+<p>So secret was Miss Cavell's arrest and so sinister the methods whereby
+her end was compassed, that the American Minister in Belgium was obliged
+to write on August 31st to Baron von der Lancken, the German Civil
+Governor of Belgium, and ask whether it was true that she was under
+arrest. <i>To this the German Military Governor did not even deign to make
+a reply, although it was clearly a matter of life and death.</i></p>
+
+<p>The discourtesy of such silence to a great and friendly nation needs no
+comment, and will<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> simply serve to remind the American people that
+Germany has never yet replied to another request of the United States
+that Germany disavows the massacre of nearly 200 American men, women,
+and children on the Lusitania.</p>
+
+<p>Not hearing from Baron von der Lancken, our Minister on September 10th
+again wrote to him and again asked for a reply. He asked for the
+opportunity "<i>to take up the defense of Miss Cavell with the least
+possible delay</i>." To this, Baron Lancken deigned to reply by an ex parte
+statement that Miss Cavell had admitted</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"having concealed in her house various English and French soldiers,
+as well as Belgians of military age, all anxious to proceed to the
+front. She also acknowledged having supplied these soldiers with
+the funds necessary to proceed to the front and having facilitated
+their departure from Belgium by finding guides to assist them in
+clandestinely crossing the frontier."</p></div>
+
+<p>The Baron further answered that her defense had been intrusted to an
+advocate by the name of Braun, "<i>who is already in touch with the proper
+German authorities</i>," and added:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"In view of the fact that the Department of the Governor General
+<i>as a matter of principle</i> does not <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span>allow accused persons to have
+any interviews whatever, I much regret my inability to procure for
+M. de Leval permission to visit Miss Cavell as long as she is in
+solitary confinement."</p></div>
+
+<p>It will thus be seen and will hereafter appear more fully that in
+advance of her trial Miss Cavell was kept in solitary confinement and
+was denied any opportunity to confer with counsel in order to prepare
+her defense. Her communication with the outside world was wholly cut
+off, with the exception of a few letters, which she was permitted to
+write under censorship to her assistants in the school for nurses, and
+it is probable that in this way the fact of her imprisonment first
+became known to her friends.</p>
+
+<p>The fact remains that the desire of the American Minister to have
+counsel see her with a view to the selection of such counsel as Miss
+Cavell might desire, was refused, and even the counsel whom the German
+Military Court permitted to act, was denied any opportunity to see his
+client until the trial. The counsel in question was a M. Braun, a
+Belgian advocate of recognised standing, but for some reason, which does
+not appear, he was unable or<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> declined to act for Miss Cavell and he
+secured for her defense another Belgian lawyer, whose name was Kirschen.
+According to credible information, Kirschen was a German by birth,
+although a naturalized Belgian subject and a member of the Brussels bar,
+but it will hereafter appear that the steps which he took to keep the
+American Legation&mdash;the one possible salvation for Miss Cavell&mdash;advised
+as to the progress of events, were to say the least peculiar.</p>
+
+<p>Except for the explanations made by the German Civil Governor, we know
+very little as to what defense, if any, Miss Cavell made. From one of
+the inspired sources comes the statement that she freely admitted her
+guilt, and from her last interview with the English clergyman it would
+appear that she probably did admit some infraction of military law. But
+from another German source we learn the following:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"During the trial in the Senate Chamber the accused, almost without
+exception, gave the impression of persons <i>cleverly simulating
+na&iuml;ve innocence</i>. It was not a mere coincidence that two-thirds of
+the accused were women.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"The Englishwoman, Edith Cavell, who has already been executed,
+declared that she had believed as an Englishwoman that she ought to
+do her country service <i>by giving lodgings in her house to soldiers
+and recruits who were in peril</i>. She naturally denied that she had
+drawn other people into destruction by inducing them to harbor
+refugees when her own institute was overtaxed."</p></div>
+
+<p>From this meagre information we can only infer that Miss Cavell did
+admit that she had sheltered some soldiers and recruits who were in
+peril, and while this undoubtedly constituted a grave infraction of
+military law, yet it does not present in a locality far removed from the
+actual war zone a case either of espionage or high treason, and is of
+that class of offenses which have always been punished on the highest
+considerations of humanity and chivalry and with great moderation.</p>
+
+<p>The difficulty is that the world is not yet fully informed what defense,
+if any, Miss Cavell made, or whether an adequate opportunity was given
+her to make any. The whole proceeding savours of the darkness of the
+mediaeval Inquisition.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>We have already seen that even if Miss Cavell's counsel, M. Kirschen,
+endeavored in good faith to make an adequate defense in her behalf, it
+was impossible for him to see her in advance of the trial, and M.
+Kirschen admitted this when he explained to the legal counsel of the
+American Embassy that</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"lawyers defending prisoners before a German Military Court were
+not allowed to see their clients before trial and were not
+permitted to see any document of the prosecution."</p></div>
+
+<p>It is true that M. Kirschen so far defends the trial accorded to Miss
+Cavell as to say</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"that the hearing of the trial of such cases is carried out very
+carefully and that in his opinion, although it was not possible to
+see the client before the trial, in fact the trial itself developed
+itself so carefully and so slowly that it was generally possible to
+have a fair knowledge of all the facts and to present a good
+defense for the prisoner. This would especially be the case of Miss
+Cavell, because the trial would be rather long, <i>as she was
+prosecuted with 34 other prisoners</i>."</p></div>
+
+<p>This explanation of M. Kirschen is amazing to any lawyer who is familiar
+with the defense of men who are charged with a crime. Here<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> was a case
+of life and death and the counsel for the defense intimates that he can
+adequately defend the prisoner at the bar without being previously
+advised as to the nature of the charges or obtaining an opportunity to
+confer with his client before the testimony begins.</p>
+
+<p>Still more remarkable is his explanation that as his client was to be
+tried with 34 others, the opportunity for a defense would be especially
+ample. As the writer had the honor for some years to be a prosecuting
+attorney for the United States Government and therefore has some
+familiarity with the trial of criminal causes, his opinion may possibly
+have some value in suggesting that the complexity of different issues
+when tried together, and the difficulty of distinguishing between
+various testimony, naturally increases with the simultaneous trial of a
+large number of defendants. Where each defendant is tried separately,
+the full force of the testimony for or against him can be weighed to
+some advantage, but where such evidence is intermingled and confused by
+the simultaneous trial of 34 separate issues, it is obvious, with the
+fallibility of human<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> memory, that the separate testimony against each
+particular defendant cannot be fully weighed.</p>
+
+<p>The trial was apparently a secret one in the sense that it was a closed
+and not an open Court. Otherwise how can we account for the poverty of
+information as to what actually took place on the trial? The court sat
+for two days in the trial of the 35 cases in question, and the American
+Legation had been most anxious, in view of the nature of the case and
+the urgency of the inquiries, to ascertain something about the trial.
+The outside world apparently knew little or nothing of this wholesale
+trial of non-combatants, most of them being women, until some days
+thereafter, and the only intimation that the American Legation
+previously had was a letter of "a few lines" from M. Kirschen, stating
+that the trial would take place on October 7th. Notwithstanding the
+assurance of M. Kirschen that he would keep the American Legation fully
+advised and would even disclose to it in advance of the trial "the exact
+charges that were brought against Miss Cavell and the facts concerning
+her that would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> be disclosed at the trial," yet no further information
+reached the American Legation from Miss Cavell's counsel, who for some
+reason did not advise the American Legation that the trial had commenced
+on the 7th and had been concluded on the 8th. The American Legation only
+learned the fact of the trial from "an outsider," and it at once
+proceeded to look for M. Kirschen. Unfortunately he could not be
+located, and thereupon the counsel for the American Legation wrote him
+on Sunday, October 10th, and asked him to send his report to the
+Legation or to call on the following day.</p>
+
+<p>Having no word from M. Kirschen as late as October 11th (his last
+communication with the American Legation being on October 3rd), the
+counsel for the Legation twice called at his house and again failed to
+find him in or to receive any message from him. It is clear that if M.
+Kirschen had advised the American Legation as to the developments of the
+trial on October 7th and 8th and had further advised the Legation
+promptly as to the conclusion of the trial and its probable outcome,
+there is a reasonable possibility that Miss Cavell's life<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> might have
+been saved; but for some reason, as to which M. Kirschen certainly owes
+an explanation to the civilized world, he failed to keep his positive
+promise to keep the American Legation fully advised, and in view of this
+fact his assurance to the American Legation "that the Military Court of
+Brussels was always perfectly fair, and that there was not the slightest
+danger of any miscarriage of justice," must be taken with a very large
+"grain of salt."</p>
+
+<p>The significant fact remains that the American Legation never heard that
+the trial had taken place until the day after, and then only learned it
+from "an outsider." Had the American Legation sent a representative to
+the trial, the world would then have a much clearer knowledge upon which
+to base its judgment; but when M. Deleval suggested his intention to
+attend the trial, as a representative of the Legation, he was advised by
+M. Kirschen that such an act "would cause great prejudice to the
+prisoner because the German judges would resent it."</p>
+
+<p>What an indictment of the court! Even to see a representative of the
+American Government at the trial, in the interests of fair play,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> would
+prejudice the minds of the Judges against the unfortunate woman who was
+being tried for a capital offense without any previous opportunity to
+confer with counsel. There may be a satisfactory explanation for M.
+Kirschen's conduct in the matter, but it has not yet appeared. It
+should, however, be added, in fairness to him, that the anonymous
+"outsider," from whom the American Legation got its only information as
+to the developments of the trial, stated that Kirschen "made a very good
+plea for Miss Cavell, using all arguments that could be brought in her
+favor before the court."</p>
+
+<p>This does not give the lover of fair play a great deal of comfort, for
+if the anonymous informant was not a lawyer, the value to be attached to
+his or her estimate of Kirschen's plea must be regarded as doubtful.</p>
+
+<p>The same unknown informant told the American Legation that Miss Cavell
+was prosecuted "for having helped English and French soldiers as well as
+Belgian young men to cross the frontier and to go over to England." It
+is stated on the same anonymous authority that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> Miss Cavell acknowledged
+the assistance thus given and admitted that some of them had "thanked
+her in writing when arriving in England."</p>
+
+<p>From the same source the world gets its only information as to the exact
+law which Miss Cavell was accused of violating. Paragraph 58 of the
+German Military Code inflicts a sentence of death upon</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"any person who, with the intention of helping the hostile power,
+or of causing harm to the German or allied troops, is guilty of one
+of the crimes of paragraph 90 of the German Penal Code,"</p></div>
+
+<p>and the only pertinent section of paragraph 90, according to the same
+informant, is the specific offence of</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"guiding soldiers to the enemy" (in German&mdash;"Dem Feinde
+Mannschaften zuf&uuml;hrt").</p></div>
+
+<p>I affirm with confidence that under this law Miss Cavell was innocent,
+and that the true meaning of the law was perverted in order to inflict
+the death sentence upon her.</p>
+
+<p>I admit that a general and strained construction of the language above
+quoted might be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> applicable to a defendant who gave refuge to hostile
+soldiers in Brussels and thus enabled them to escape across the frontier
+into Holland and thence into a belligerent country, but every penal law
+must receive a construction that is favorable to the defendant and
+agreeable to the dictates of humanity. Every civilized country construes
+its penal laws in favour of the liberty of the subject, and no
+punishment, especially one of death, is ever imposed unless the offence
+charged comes indubitably within a rigid construction of the law.</p>
+
+<p>Keeping in mind this elementary principle, it is obvious that the
+offense of guiding soldiers to the enemy refers to the physical act of
+guiding a fugitive soldier back into his lines. A soldier becomes
+detached from his lines. He finds shelter in a farm house. The farmer,
+knowing the roads, secretly guides him back into his lines, and this
+obviously is the offence which paragraph 90 had in mind, for the German
+word "zuf&uuml;hrt" refers to a personal guidance.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Cavell simply gave shelter to soldiers and in some way facilitated
+their escape to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> Holland. Holland is a neutral country, and it was its
+duty to intern any fugitive soldiers who might escape from any one of
+the belligerent countries. The fact that these soldiers subsequently
+reached England is a matter that could not increase or diminish the
+essential nature of Miss Cavell's case. She enabled them to get to a
+neutral country, and this was not a case of "guiding soldiers to the
+enemy," for Holland was not an enemy of Germany.</p>
+
+<p>This fact must have impressed the Military Court, for according to the
+same informant it did not at once agree upon either the verdict of
+"Guilty" or the judgment of death, and it is stated that the Judges
+would not have sentenced her to death if the fugitive soldiers, who had
+crossed into Holland, had not subsequently arrived in England. But it
+will astound any lawyer to learn that the subsequent escape of these
+same prisoners from Holland to England could be reasonably regarded as a
+guidance by Miss Cavell of these soldiers <i>to England</i>. In all
+probability Miss Cavell had little or nothing to do with these soldiers
+after they left Brussels, but even assuming that she provided the means
+and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> gave the directions for their escape across the frontier between
+Belgium and Holland, that was "the head and front of her offending," and
+it does not come within the law under which she was sentenced to death.</p>
+
+<p>When she was asked by her Judges as to her reasons for sheltering these
+fugitives, "she replied that she thought that if she had not done so
+<i>they would have been shot by the Germans</i> and that therefore she
+thought she only did her duty to her country in saving their lives."</p>
+
+<p>This fairly states what she did, and perhaps this brave and frank reply
+caused her death. She gave a temporary shelter to men who were in danger
+of death, and, as previously stated, in so doing yielded to a
+humanitarian impulse which all civilized nations have recognized as
+worthy of the most lenient treatment.</p>
+
+<p>When, therefore, Herr Dr. Albert Zimmermann, speaking for the German
+Foreign Office, expressed its "surprise" that Miss Cavell's execution
+should "have caused a sensation," it is well to remind Dr. Zimmermann
+that to offer a refuge to the fugitive is an impulse of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> humanity. It is
+likely that these soldiers were her wounded patients; at all events,
+they had found a refuge in her hospital. They claimed the protection of
+her roof and she gave it to them.</p>
+
+<p>In the first act of Walkyrie&mdash;which is not overburdened with the
+atmosphere of morality&mdash;even the black-hearted Hunding says to his
+blood-enemy,</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"Heilig ist mein herd;<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Heilig sei dir mein haus."<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">(Holy is my hearth!<br /></span>
+<span class="i2">Holy will be to them my house!)<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>It must be remembered that all this did not take place in the zone of
+actual warfare. A spy caught in the lines of armies is summarily dealt
+with of necessity. But Brussels was miles away from the scene of actual
+hostilities. Its civil courts were open and a civil administration ruled
+its affairs of such reputed beneficence and efficiency as to evoke the
+ungrudging admiration of a distinguished college professor who bears the
+honored name of George B. McClellan. There was therefore no possible
+excuse under international law for a court-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span>martial, as this trial
+plainly was. In the American civil war a similar military commission
+once sought to hold a similar trial in Indianapolis over civilians
+accused of treason, but the United States Supreme Court, in the case of
+ex parte Milligan, sternly repudiated this form of military tyranny.</p>
+
+<p>In that case the Supreme Court said:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"There are occasions when martial rule can be properly applied. If,
+in foreign invasion or civil war, <i>the courts are actually closed</i>,
+and it is impossible to administer criminal justice according to
+law, then, <i>on the theatre of active military operations, where war
+really prevails</i>, there is a necessity to furnish a substitute for
+the civil authority, thus overthrown, to preserve the safety of the
+army and society;&nbsp;*&nbsp;*&nbsp;*&nbsp;As necessity creates the rule, so it limits
+its duration; for, if this government is continued <i>after</i> the
+courts are reinstated, it is a gross usurpation of power. Martial
+rule can never exist where the courts are open, and in the proper
+and unobstructed exercise of their jurisdiction. <i>It is also
+confined to the locality of actual war.</i>"</p></div>
+
+<p>All civilized countries, including Germany, have always recognized a
+difference between high treason, punishable with death, and ordinary
+treason. The German Strafgesetzbuch thus distinguishes between high
+treason<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> (hochverrat) and the lesser crime of landesverrat. High treason
+consists in murdering or attempting to murder a sovereign or Prince of
+Germany or an attempt by violence to overthrow the Imperial Government
+or any State thereof. This alone is punishable with death.</p>
+
+<p>While this distinction of the German Civil Code may have no application
+when military law is being enforced, yet it illustrates a distinction,
+which all humane nations have recognized, between the treason which
+seeks to overthrow a State by rebellion and lesser offenses against the
+authority of a State.</p>
+
+<p>Assuming that Miss Cavell's offense could be regarded in any sense as
+treasonable, it certainly constituted the lesser offense under the
+distinction above quoted.</p>
+
+<p>The fact is that Miss Cavell was tried, condemned, and executed for her
+sympathy with the cause of Belgium and her willingness to save her
+compatriots from suffering and death. Military necessity&mdash;ever the
+tyrant's plea&mdash;demanded a victim further to terrorize the subjugated
+people. They chose Miss Cavell.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Notwithstanding the request of the American Legation in its letter of
+October 5th that it be advised not only as to the charges, but also as
+to the sentence imposed upon Miss Cavell, and the express promise of M.
+Kirschen to inform it of all developments, it was kept in ignorance of
+the fact that sentence of death had been passed upon her. Minister
+Whitlock only heard this on October 11th, and he at once addressed a
+letter to Baron von der Lancken in which, after stating this fact, he
+appealed "to the sentiment of generosity and humanity in the Governor
+General in favor of Miss Cavell," with a view to commutation of the
+death sentence, and at the same time addressed a similar letter to Baron
+von Bissing, the Military Governor of Belgium, who did not deign to give
+to the American Government even the cold courtesy of a reply.</p>
+
+<p>On the morning of October 11th our Minister heard&mdash;not from the German
+authorities, but from unofficial sources&mdash;that the trial had been
+completed on the preceding Saturday afternoon, and he at once
+communicated with the Political Department of the German Military
+Government, and was expressly assured<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"that no sentence had been pronounced and that there would probably
+be a delay of a day or two before a decision was reached."</p></div>
+
+<p>The Director of the Political Department (Herr Conrad) gave a further</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"<i>positive assurance that the [American] Legation would be fully
+informed as to the developments in the case.</i>"</p></div>
+
+<p>Notwithstanding this direct promise and further "repeated inquiries in
+the course of the day," no further word reached our Legation, and at
+6.20 p.m. it again inquired as to Miss Cavell's fate, and the Director
+of the Political Department again</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"<i>stated that sentence had not yet been pronounced</i>,"</p></div>
+
+<p>and he specifically renewed his assurance. Two hours later our Minister
+<i>from unofficial sources</i> heard that all that had been told him by the
+Political Department was untrue, and that the sentence had been passed
+at 5 o'clock p.m.; <i>before his last conversation with the Director</i>, and
+that the execution was to take place that night.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Accordingly the Secretary of the American Legation proceeded at once to
+Baron von der Lancken, and again asked as a favor to this Government
+that clemency be extended. He brought with him a letter from the
+American Minister, which reads as follows:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"My dear Baron:</p>
+
+<p>"I am too ill to put my request before you in person, but once more
+I appeal to the generosity of your heart. Stand by and save from
+death this unfortunate woman. Have pity on her. Your devoted
+servant,
+servant,</p>
+<p class='signoff'>"BRAND&nbsp;WHITLOCK."
+</p></div>
+
+<p>Accompanying this purely personal note were two substantially similar
+communications, the one directed to Baron von Bissing and the other to
+Baron von der Lancken. These communications run as follows:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"If my information is correct, the sentence in the present case is
+more severe than all the others that have been passed in similar
+cases which have been tried by the same Court, and, without going
+into the reasons for <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span>such a drastic sentence, I feel that I have
+the right to appeal to your Excellency's feelings of humanity and
+generosity in Miss Cavell's favour, and to ask that the death
+penalty passed on Miss Cavell may be commuted and that this
+unfortunate woman shall not be executed.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Cavell is the head of the Brussels Surgical Institute. She
+has spent her life in alleviating the sufferings of others, and her
+school has turned out many nurses who have watched at the bedside
+of the sick all the world over, in Germany as in Belgium. At the
+beginning of the war Miss Cavell bestowed her care as freely on the
+German soldiers as on others. Even in default of all 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 in my
+possession 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, which has aggravated the severity of the sentence passed
+on her.</p>
+
+<p>"It is then with confidence, and in the hope of its favourable
+reception, that I have the honour to present to your Excellency my
+request for pardon on Miss Cavell's behalf."</p></div>
+
+<p>This note was read aloud to Baron von der Lancken, the very official who
+had refused to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> answer the first communication of the Legation with
+reference to the matter, and he</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"expressed disbelief in the report that sentence had actually been
+passed and manifested some surprise that we should give credence to
+any report not emanating from official sources. He was quite
+insistent in knowing the exact source of our information, but this
+I did not feel at liberty to communicate to him."</p></div>
+
+<p>Baron von der Lancken proceeded to express his belief "that it was quite
+improbable that sentence had been pronounced," and that in any event no
+execution would follow. After some hesitation he telephoned to the
+Presiding Judge of the Court-Martial and then reported that the
+embassy's unofficial information was only too true.</p>
+
+<p>His attention was further called to the express promise of the German
+Director of the Political Department to inform the American Legation of
+the sentence, and he was asked to grant the American Government the
+courtesy of a "delay in carrying out the sentence."</p>
+
+<p>To this appeal for mercy Baron von der Lancken replied that the Military
+Governor (von Bissing) was the supreme authority and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> that he "had
+discretionary power to accept or to refuse acceptance of an appeal for
+clemency." He thereupon left the representative of the American Legation
+and apparently called upon von Bissing, and after half an hour he
+returned with the statement that not only would von Bissing decline to
+revoke the sentence of death, but "that in view of the circumstances of
+this case, he must decline to accept your plea for clemency or any
+representation in regard to the matter."</p>
+
+<p>Thereupon Baron von der Lancken insisted that Mr. Brand Whitlock's
+representative (Mr. Hugh Gibson, Secretary of the Legation) should take
+back the formal appeal for clemency addressed both to him and to von
+Bissing, and as both German officials had been fully advised as to the
+nature of the plea, Mr. Gibson finally consented. Baron von der Lancken
+assured Mr. Gibson that under the circumstances "even the Emperor
+himself could not intervene," a statement that was very quickly refuted
+when the Emperor&mdash;aroused by the world-wide condemnation of Miss
+Cavell's execution&mdash;did commute the sentences imposed upon six of the
+seven<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> persons who were condemned to death with Miss Cavell.</p>
+
+<p>During the earnest conversation which took place in this last attempt to
+save Miss Cavell's life, the American representative took occasion to
+remind Baron von der Lancken's official associates&mdash;although it should
+not have been necessary&mdash;of the great services rendered by the United
+States, and especially by Mr. Brand Whitlock, in the earlier period of
+the German occupation, and this was urged as a reason why as a matter of
+courtesy to the United States Government some more courteous
+consideration should be accorded to its request. At the outbreak of the
+war, thousands of German residents in Belgium returned to their country
+in such haste that they left their families behind them. Mr. Whitlock
+gathered these women and children&mdash;numbering, it is said, over
+10,000&mdash;and provided them with the necessaries of life, and ultimately
+with safe transportation into Germany, and having thus placed this
+inestimable service to thousands of German civilians in one scale, the
+American representative simply asked, as "the only request" made by the
+United<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> States upon grounds of reciprocal generosity, that some clemency
+should be given to Miss Cavell. The refusal to give this clemency or
+even to accept in a formal way the plea for clemency, is one of the
+blackest cases of ingratitude in the history of diplomacy.</p>
+
+<p>On October 22nd there was issued from Brussels a "semi-official" but
+<i>anonymous</i> statement, charging that in the reports of the Secretary of
+the American Embassy, from which the above quoted statements are mainly
+taken, "most of the important events are inaccurately reproduced."</p>
+
+<p>No specification of any inaccuracy is however made, except the general
+denial "that the German authorities with empty promises put off the
+American Minister" and also the equally general statement that no
+promise was given to our embassy to advise it of developments in the
+case.</p>
+
+<p>A vague, general, and <i>anonymous</i> denial, issued by men who seek to wash
+their hands of innocent blood, cannot avail against<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> Mr. Gibson's clear,
+specific, and circumstantial statement. The Secretary of our embassy
+states that on October 11th "<i>repeated</i>" inquiries were made of Herr
+Conrad, the official in charge of the Political Department of the German
+Government in Belgium, <i>the last inquiry being at 6.20 p.m. by the
+clock</i> (an hour after the victim had been sentenced to death), and that
+on each occasion assurance was given to the Legation that "sentence had
+not been pronounced" and that he (Conrad) would not fail to inform us as
+soon as there was any news.</p>
+
+<p>Does Herr Conrad deny this?</p>
+
+<p>The Brussels "semi-official" statement has the hardihood to state to the
+world that the American Minister (Brand Whitlock) had admitted that "no
+such promise or assurance was given," and it places the responsibility
+upon M. Deleval, the Belgian legal counselor of the American Embassy.
+But this impudent lie is speedily overthrown by the positive statement
+of our Minister at Belgium to our Ambassador in London as follows:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"From the date we first learned of Miss Cavell's imprisonment we
+made frequent inquiries of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span>German authorities and reminded
+them of their promise that we should be fully informed as to
+developments. They were under no misapprehension as to our interest
+in the matter."</p></div>
+
+<p>Will the American people or the people of any nation hesitate to accept
+the clear, positive, and circumstantial statements of Minister Whitlock,
+Secretary Gibson, and Counselor Deleval, at least two of whom are wholly
+disinterested in the matter, as against the self-exculpatory, general,
+and anonymous denials of a "semi-official" press bureau, especially when
+it is recalled that from the beginning of the great war, the German
+Foreign Office, with whom military honor is supposed to be almost a
+religion, has stooped to the most shameful and barefaced mendacity?</p>
+
+<p>When the world recalls how Austrian Ambassadors in Paris, London, and
+Petrograd made the most emphatic statements that the forthcoming
+ultimatum to Serbia would be "pacific and conciliatory," and assured the
+Russian Ambassador that he could therefore safely leave Vienna on his
+vacation on the very eve of the ultimatum, and when the German<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span>
+Ambassadors in the same capitals gave the most solemn and unequivocal
+assurances that</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"the German Government had no knowledge of the text of the Austrian
+note before it was handed in and had not exercised any influence on
+its contents,"</p></div>
+
+<p>and later admitted, when the lie had served its purpose by lulling the
+world into a sense of false security, that it had been fully consulted
+by its ally before the ultimatum was prepared and had given it carte
+blanche to proceed, when these notable examples of Prussian
+Machiavellism are recalled, little attention will be given to these
+futile attempts to wash from the shield of German honor the blood of
+Edith Cavell.</p>
+
+<p>One can to some extent understand the Berserker fury which caused von
+Bissing to say in effect to this gentle-faced English nurse, "You are in
+our way. You menace our security. You must die, as countless thousands
+have already died, to secure the results of our seizure of Belgium"; but
+can we understand or in any way palliate the attempt to hide the stains
+of blood on that prison floor of Brussels with a cobweb of self-evident
+falsehoods?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>These stains can never be washed out to the eye of imagination.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i4">"Let none these marks efface,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">For they appeal from tyranny to God."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>In the last interview between our representative and Baron von der
+Lancken, which took place a few hours before the execution, our
+representative reminded these Prussian officials</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"of our untiring efforts on behalf of German subjects at the
+outbreak of the war and during the siege of Antwerp. I pointed out
+that, while our services had been gladly rendered and without any
+thought of future favors, they should certainly entitle you to some
+consideration for the only request of this sort you [the American
+Minister] had made since the beginning of the war."</p></div>
+
+<p>Even our Minister's appeal to gratitude and to one of the most ordinary
+and natural courtesies of diplomatic life proved unavailing, and at
+midnight the Secretary of the American Legation and the Spanish
+Minister, who was acting with him, left in despair. At 2 o'clock that
+morning Miss Cavell was secretly executed.</p>
+
+<p>Even the ordinary courtesy accorded to the vilest criminal, of being
+permitted before dying<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> to have a clergyman of her own selection, was
+denied her until a few hours before her death, for the legal counselor
+of the American Legation on October 10th applied in behalf of this
+country for permission for an English clergyman to see Miss Cavell, and
+this, too, was refused, as her jailers preferred to assign her the
+prison chaplains as well as her counsel. Even the final appeal of our
+Minister for the surrender of her mutilated body was denied, on the
+ground that only the Minister of War in Berlin could grant it.</p>
+
+<p>Apart from the brutality of the whole incident there is one circumstance
+that makes it of peculiar interest to the American people and which
+gives to it the character of rank ingratitude. Our representative, as
+above stated, did advise the German officials that a little delay was
+asked by our Legation <i>as a slight return for the innumerable acts of
+kindness which our Legation had done for German soldiers and interned
+prisoners in the earlier days of the war before the German invasion had
+swept over the land</i>. The charge of ingratitude may rest soundly upon
+far greater and broader grounds.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>This great nation had contributed in money and merchandise a sum
+estimated at many millions for the relief of the people in Belgium. In
+so doing it did to the German nation an inestimable service, for when
+Germany conquered Belgium the duty and burden rested upon it to support
+its population to the extent that it might become necessary. The burden
+of supporting 8,000,000 civilians was no light one, especially as there
+existed in Germany a scarcity of food. As bread tickets were then being
+issued in Germany to its people, the supplies would have been
+substantially less if a portion of its food products had been required
+for the civilian population of Belgium, for obviously the German nation
+could not permit a people, whom it had so ruthlessly trampled under
+foot, to starve to death. Every dollar that was raised in America for
+the Belgian people, therefore, operated to relieve Germany from a heavy
+burden.</p>
+
+<p>Moreover, when the war broke out, Germany needed some friendly nation to
+take over the care of its nationals in the hostile countries, and in
+England, France, Belgium, and Russia the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> interests of German citizens
+were assumed by the American Government as a courtesy to Germany, and no
+one can question how faithfully in the last fourteen months Page in
+London, Sharp in Paris, and Whitlock in Brussels have labored to
+alleviate the inevitable suffering to German prisoners or interned
+civilians.</p>
+
+<p>In view of these services, it surely was not much for the American
+Minister to ask that a little delay should be granted to a woman whose
+error, if any, had arisen from impulses of humanity and from
+considerations of patriotism. To spare her life a little longer could
+not have done the German cause any possible harm, for she was in their
+custody and beyond the power of rendering any help to her compatriots.
+To condemn any human being, even if he were the vilest criminal, at 5
+o'clock in the afternoon and execute him at 2 a.m., was an act of
+barbarism for which no possible condemnation is adequate.</p>
+
+<p>Under these circumstances, it would be incredible, if the facts were not
+beyond dispute, that the request of the United States for a little<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span>
+delay was not only brutally refused, <i>but that our Legation was
+deliberately misled and deceived until the death sentence had been
+inflicted</i>.</p>
+
+<p>This makes the fate of Miss Cavell our affair as much as that of the
+Lusitania. And yet we have the already familiar semi-official assurance
+from Washington that while our officials "unofficially deplore the act,
+officially they can do nothing." Concurrently we are told in the
+President's Thanksgiving proclamation that we should be thankful because
+we have "been able to assert our rights and the rights of mankind," and
+that this "has been a year of special blessing for us," for, so the
+proclamation adds, "we have prospered while other nations were at war."</p>
+
+<p>I venture to say in all reverence that the God of nations will be better
+pleased on the coming Thanksgiving Day&mdash;which also should be one of
+penitence and humiliation&mdash;if we do a little more <i>in fact</i> and less in
+words to safeguard the rights of humanity. Our initial blunder was in
+turning away the Belgian Commissioners, when they first presented the
+wrongs of<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> their crucified nation, with icy phrases as to a mysterious
+day of reckoning in the indefinite future. An act of justice now will be
+worth a thousand future "accountings" after the long agony of the world
+is over. "Now is the accepted time, this the day of salvation."</p>
+
+<p><i>Let our nation begin with the case of Edith Cavell, and demand of
+Germany the dismissal of the officers who flouted, deceived, and mocked
+the representative of the United States. That concerns our honor as a
+nation.</i></p>
+
+<p>The final scene of the tragedy is best stated in the simple but
+poignantly pathetic words of the Chaplain, who was permitted to see the
+victim a few hours before her death:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"On Monday evening, 11th October, I was admitted by special
+passport from the German authorities to the prison of St. Gilles,
+where Miss Edith Cavell had been confined for ten weeks. The final
+sentence had been given early that afternoon.</p>
+
+<p>"To my astonishment and relief I found my friend perfectly calm and
+resigned. But this could not lessen the tenderness and intensity of
+feeling on either part during that last interview of almost an
+hour.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span></p>
+<p>"Her first words to me were upon a matter concerning herself
+personally, but the solemn asseveration which accompanied them was
+made expressedly in the light of God and eternity. She then added
+that she wished all her friends to know that she willingly gave her
+life for her country, and said: 'I have no fear nor shrinking; I
+have seen death so often that it is not strange or fearful to me.'
+She further said: 'I thank God for this ten weeks' quiet before the
+end.' 'Life has always been hurried and full of difficulty.' 'This
+time of rest has been a great mercy.' 'They have all been very kind
+to me here. 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.'</p>
+
+<p>"We partook of the Holy Communion together, and she received the
+Gospel message of consolation with all her heart. At the close of
+the little service I began to repeat the words 'Abide with me,' and
+she joined softly in the end.</p>
+
+<p>"We sat quietly talking until it was time for me to go. She gave me
+parting messages for relations and friends. She spoke of her soul's
+needs at the moment, and she received the assurance of God's Word
+as only the Christian can do.</p>
+
+<p>"Then I said 'Good-bye,' and she smiled and said, 'We shall meet
+again.'</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span></p>
+<p>"The German military chaplain was with her at the end and
+afterwards gave her Christian burial.</p>
+
+<p>"He told me: 'She was brave and bright to the last. She professed
+her Christian faith and that she was glad to die for her country.'
+'She died like a heroine.'"</p></div>
+
+<p>It would be interesting to compare these last hours of one of the
+noblest women in English history to those of that rare and radiant Greek
+maiden, whom the genius of Sophocles has glorified in his immortal
+tragedy. The comparison is altogether in favour of the English heroine,
+for while Antigone went to her death bravely, yet her final words were
+those of bitter complaint and almost whining lamentation. Compare with
+these words the Christlike simplicity of Miss Cavell's last message to
+the world, and the difference between the noblest Paganism and the best
+of Christianity is apparent. Truly the light of Calvary illumined her
+dark cell! Standing "in view of God and eternity," she uttered the
+deeply pregnant sentence that "patriotism is not enough." Her
+executioners had illustrated this, for the ruthless killing of Edith
+Cavell for military purposes was actuated by that perverted spirit of
+patriotism which<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> believes that any wrong is sanctified if it serves the
+State.</p>
+
+<p>No one suggests that General von Bissing had any personal feeling
+against Miss Cavell. Indeed his conduct would be the more tolerable if
+it had been actuated by the spirit of anger. He killed her in cold blood
+and to strengthen the German occupation in Belgium. News of the very
+recent successes of the Allies in Flanders and in the Champagne
+districts in the great offensive had reached Belgium and had caused a
+perceptible ferment in that down-trodden people. It therefore seemed
+necessary to show the iron hand again and to the Prussian ideal, as
+already illustrated by official proclamations of Prussian Generals, it
+was a matter of no consequence whose life was taken or whose right was
+invaded. It served to terrorize the Belgian people&mdash;Such was its real
+purpose.</p>
+
+<p>And you, women of America and of the World! Will you not honor the
+memory of this martyr of your sex, who for all time will be mourned as
+was the noblest Greek maiden, Antigone, who also gave her life that her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span>
+brother might have the rites of sepulture? Will you not carry on in her
+name and for her memory those sacred ministrations of mercy which were
+her lifework?</p>
+
+<p><i>Make her cause&mdash;the cause of justice and mercy&mdash;your own!</i></p>
+
+<p class='figcenter'><img class='endnote' src='images/end-decoration.png' alt='End Decoration' /></p>
+
+<p class='end'><i>Printed in Great Britain.</i></p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Case of Edith Cavell, by James M. Beck
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Case of Edith Cavell, by James M. Beck
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Case of Edith Cavell
+       A Study of the Rights of Non-Combatants
+
+Author: James M. Beck
+
+Release Date: January 11, 2007 [EBook #20335]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CASE OF EDITH CAVELL ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Mark C. Orton, Tamise Totterdell, Linda McKeown
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
+http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE
+Case of Edith Cavell.
+
+A Study of the Rights
+of Non-Combatants.
+
+BY
+
+JAMES M. BECK,
+
+_Former Assistant Attorney-General of the United States,
+and Author of "The Evidence in the Case."_
+
+(_Reprinted from "New York Times."_)
+
+G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS,
+NEW YORK AND LONDON.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE CASE OF EDITH CAVELL.
+
+A Reply to Dr. Albert Zimmermann, Germany's
+Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs.
+
+By JAMES M. BECK,
+
+_Former Assistant Attorney-General of the United States, and Author of
+"The Dual Alliance v. The Triple Entente," and "The Evidence in the Case."_
+
+_Mr. Beck, who is one of the leaders of the New York Bar, is the author
+of the most widely read article written since the war began, entitled:
+"The Dual Alliance v. The Triple Entente," which was subsequently
+expanded into a book, called "The Evidence in the Case," pronounced by a
+distinguished publicist to be "the classic of the war." After its
+publication in THE NEW YORK TIMES this article was reprinted in nearly
+every language of the civilized nations and over a million copies of it
+were published._
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+Those who have regarded the Supreme Court of Civilization--meaning
+thereby the moral sentiment of the world--as a mere rhetorical phrase
+or an idle illusion should take note how swiftly that court--sitting now
+as one of criminal assize--has pronounced sentence upon the murderers of
+Edith Cavell. The swift vengeance of the world's opinion has called to
+the bar General Baron von Bissing, and in executing him with the
+lightning of universal execration has forever degraded him.
+
+Baron von der Lancken may possibly escape general obloquy, for his part
+in the crime was no greater than that of Pilate, who sought to wash his
+hands of innocent blood; but von Bissing will enjoy "until the last
+syllable of recorded time" the unenviable fame of Judge Jeffreys. He,
+too, was an able Judge and probably believed that he was executing
+justice, but because he did not execute it in mercy, but with a ferocity
+that has made his name a synonym for judicial tyranny, the world has
+condemned him to lasting infamy, and this notwithstanding the fact that
+he was made Chief Justice of the King's Bench, Lord High Chancellor of
+England, and a peer of the realm. All these titles are forgotten. Only
+that of "Bloody Jeffreys" remains.
+
+Similarly, if his master shall be pleased to honor General Baron von
+Bissing with the iron cross for his action in the case of Miss Cavell,
+as the Kaiser honored the Captain of the submarine which destroyed the
+Lusitania--and what order could be more appropriate in both cases than
+the cross, which recalls how another innocent victim of judicial tyranny
+was sacrificed?--then even the Order of the Iron Cross will not save von
+Bissing from lasting obloquy. I do not question that he acted according
+to his lights and shared with Dr. Albert Zimmermann great "surprise"
+that the world should make such a sensation about the murder of one
+woman. Trajan once said that the possession of absolute power had a
+tendency to transform even the most humane man into a wild beast, and
+Judge Black in his great argument in the case of _ex parte_ Milligan
+recalled the fact that Robespierre in his early life resigned his
+commission as Judge rather than pronounce the sentence of death, and
+that Caligula passed as a very amiable young man before he assumed the
+imperial purple. The story is as old as humanity that the appetite for
+blood, or at least the habit of murder, "grows by what it feeds upon."
+
+The murder of Miss Cavell was one of exceptional brutality and
+stupidity. It never occurred to her judges that her murder would add an
+army corps to the forces of the Allies and that every English soldier
+will fight more bravely because of her shining example. So little was
+this appreciated either in Brussels or Berlin that the German Foreign
+Office, in its official apology for the crime, issued over the signature
+of Herr Doctor Albert Zimmermann, Under Secretary of Foreign Affairs,
+expresses its surprise
+
+     _that the shooting of an Englishwoman and the condemnation of
+     several women in Brussels for treason have caused a sensation._
+
+What extraordinary moral naivete! How could they appreciate that after
+the firing squad had done its work and the body of the woman had been
+given hasty burial the victim's virtues would
+
+      "plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against
+    The deep damnation of her taking off;
+    And pity, like a naked new-born babe,
+    Striding the blast, or Heaven's cherubim, horsed
+    Upon the sightless couriers of the air,
+    Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,
+    That tears shall drown the wind."
+
+This happened with incredible rapidity, and the Kaiser made haste to
+respite the eight other intended victims--two of them being also
+women--and the Berlin Foreign Office also issued to the world its
+defense of its action.
+
+It began with an expression of "pity that Miss Cavell had to be
+executed," but the sincerity of this pity can be measured by the fact
+that concurrently with Dr. Zimmermann's official apology there came from
+Berlin an "inspired" supplemental explanation, which sought to
+depreciate the character and services of the dead nurse by stating "that
+she earned a living by nursing, _charging fees within the means of the
+wealthy only_."
+
+The world has an abundant refutation of this cruel and cowardly slur
+upon the memory of a dead woman, for one who first hazarded her life and
+then gave it freely to save the lives of others--for such was the charge
+for which she died--is not a woman to restrict her gracious
+ministrations of mercy for mercenary motives.
+
+The Kaiser has been swift to see the deadly injury to his cause of this
+latest evidence of military tyranny. Not only has he respited Miss
+Cavell's alleged accomplices--as if to say with Macbeth, "thou canst not
+say I did it"--but it is said that he has summoned von Bissing and von
+der Lancken to explain their actions in the matter, but as the Kaiser is
+responsible for the invasion of Belgium and has hitherto condoned its
+attendant horrors, he can no more absolve himself from some share of
+responsibility than could Macbeth disavow his responsibility for the
+deeds of his two hirelings.
+
+_The stain of this murder rests upon Prussian militarism and not upon
+the German people_, for it should not be forgotten that possibly the
+most chivalrous act which has happened since the beginning of the war,
+was the erection by a German community, where a detention camp was
+maintained, of a statue to the French and English soldiers who had died
+in captivity, with the beautiful inscription:
+
+     "To our Comrades, who here died for their dear Fatherland."
+
+What could be more chivalrous or present a greater contrast to the
+assassination of Miss Cavell?
+
+We are advised by Dr. Zimmermann that Miss Cavell was given a fair trial
+and was justly convicted, but as the proceedings of the trial were not
+public and as Miss Cavell was denied knowledge in advance of the trial
+of the nature of the charges against her, _and as we know little of the
+circumstances of her alleged offense except the reports of her judges
+and executioners_, the world will be somewhat incredulous as to whether
+the trial was as just to the accused as Dr. Zimmermann would have us
+believe.
+
+The difficulty with this assurance is that the German conception of what
+is a fair trial differs from that which prevails in Anglo-Saxon
+countries, just as the German word "Gerechtigkeit" does not convey the
+same mental or moral conception as the English word "justice."
+"Gerechtigkeit" means little more to the Teutonic mind than the exercise
+of the power of the State, and claims no further sanction than its
+authority. In England, France, and the United States the idea of justice
+is that an individual has certain fundamental and inalienable rights
+which even the State cannot override, and none of these fundamental
+rights have been more highly valued in the evolution of English liberty
+than the rights of a defendant who is charged with crime. Whether guilty
+or not guilty, he cannot be arrested without a judicial warrant on proof
+of probable cause; he may not be compelled to testify against himself;
+he is entitled to a speedy trial and shall be informed in advance
+thereof of the exact nature of the accusation; his trial shall be public
+and open, and he shall be confronted with the witnesses against him and
+have compulsory process for his own defense; in advance of trial he
+shall have permission to select his own counsel, and shall have the
+opportunity to confer freely with him.
+
+_Most of these fundamental rights were denied to Miss Cavell._
+
+It is difficult to understand why, in view of the policy of terrorism,
+which has prevailed in Belgium from the time that the invader first
+crossed its frontier, the justice from the standpoint of military law
+should be referred to in Herr Zimmermann's defense. In the official
+textbook of the General Staff of the German Army the definite policy of
+terrorizing a conquered country is proclaimed as a military theory. Its
+leading axiom is that
+
+     "a war conducted with energy cannot be directed merely against the
+     combatants of the enemy State and the positions they occupy, _but
+     it will and must in like manner seek to destroy the total
+     intellectual and material resources of the latter_. Humanitarian
+     claims, such as the protection of men and their goods, can only be
+     taken into consideration in so far as the nature and object of the
+     war permit. Consequently the argument of war permits every
+     belligerent State _to have recourse to all means which enable it to
+     obtain the object of the war_."
+
+Miss Cavell's fate only differs from that of hundreds of Belgium women
+and children in that she had the pretense of a trial and presumably had
+trespassed against military law, while other victims of the rape of
+Belgium were ruthlessly killed in order to effect a speedy subjugation
+of the territory. The question of the guilt or innocence of each
+individual was a matter of no importance. Hostages were taken and not
+for the alleged wrongs of others.
+
+Did not General von Buelow on August 22nd announce to the inhabitants of
+Liege that
+
+     "_it is with my consent that the General in command has burned down
+     the place [Andenne] and shot about 100 inhabitants._"
+
+It was the same chivalrous and humane General who posted a proclamation
+at Namur on August 25th as follows:
+
+     "Before 4 o'clock all Belgian and French soldiers are to be
+     delivered up as prisoners of war. Citizens who do not obey this
+     will be condemned to hard labor for life in Germany. At 4 o'clock a
+     rigorous inspection of all houses will be made. _Every soldier
+     found will be shot._ * * * _The streets will be held by German
+     guards, who will hold ten hostages for each street. These hostages
+     will be shot if there is any trouble in that street._ * * * A crime
+     against the German Army will compromise the existence of the whole
+     town of Namur _and every one in it_."
+
+Did not Field Marshal von der Goltz issue a proclamation in Brussels, on
+October 5th, stating that, if any individual disturbed the telegraphic
+or railway communications, all the inhabitants would be "_punished
+without pity, the innocent suffering with the guilty_"?
+
+Individual guilt being thus a matter of minor importance, Dr. Zimmermann
+had no occasion on the accepted theory of Prussian militarism to justify
+the secret trial and midnight execution of Edith Cavell. Indeed, he
+freely intimates that his Government will not spare women, no matter how
+high and noble the motive may have been which inspires any infraction of
+military law, and to this sweeping statement he makes but one exception,
+namely, that women "in a delicate condition may not be executed." But
+why the exception? If it be permitted to destroy one life for the
+welfare of the military administration of Belgium, why stop at two? If
+the innocent living are to be sacrificed, why spare the unborn? The
+exception itself shows that the rigor of military law must have some
+limitation, and that its iron rigor must be softened by a discretion
+dictated by such considerations of chivalry and magnanimity as have
+hitherto been observed by all civilized nations. If the victim of
+yesterday had been an "expectant mother," Dr. Zimmermann suggests that
+her judges and executioners would have spared her, but no such exception
+can be found in the Prussian military code. "It is not so nominated in
+the bond," and the Under Secretary's recognition of one exception, based
+upon considerations of humanity and not the letter of the military code,
+destroys the whole fabric of his case, _for it clearly shows that there
+was a power of discretion which von Bissing could have exercised, if he
+had so elected_.
+
+That her case had its claims not only to magnanimity, but even to
+military justice, is shown by the haste with which, in the teeth of
+every protest, the unfortunate woman was hurried to her end. Sentenced
+at 5 o'clock in the afternoon, she was executed nine hours later. Of
+what was General Baron von Bissing afraid? She was in his custody. Her
+power to help her country--save by dying--was forever at an end. The hot
+haste of her execution and the duplicity and secrecy which attended it
+betray an unmistakable fear that if her life had been spared until the
+world could have known of her death sentence, public opinion would have
+prevented this cruel and cowardly deed. The labored apology of Dr.
+Zimmermann and the swift action of the Kaiser in pardoning those who
+were condemned with Miss Cavell indicate that the Prussian officials
+have heard the beating of the wings of those avenging angels of history
+who, like the Eumenides of classic mythology, are the avengers of the
+innocent and the oppressed.
+
+"_Greatness_," wrote Aeschylus, "_is no defense from utter destruction
+when a man insolently spurns the mighty altar of justice_."
+
+This is as true to-day as when it was written more than two thousand
+years ago. It is but a classic echo of the old Hebraic moral axiom that
+"the Lord God of recompenses shall surely requite."
+
+The most powerful and self-willed ruler of modern times learned this
+lesson to his cost. Probably no two instances contributed so powerfully
+to the ultimate downfall of Napoleon as his ruthless assassination under
+the forms of military law of the Duke d'Enghien and the equally brutal
+murder of the German bookseller, Palm. The one aroused the undying
+enmity of Russia, and the blood that was shed in the moat of Vincennes
+was washed out in the icy waters of the Beresina. The fate of the poor
+German bookseller, whom Napoleon caused to be shot because his writing
+menaced the security of French occupation, developed as no other event
+the dormant spirit of German nationality, and the Nuremberg bookseller,
+shot precisely as was Miss Cavell, was finally avenged when Bluecher gave
+Napoleon the _coup de grace_ at Waterloo. No one more clearly felt the
+invisible presence of his Nemesis than did Napoleon. All his life, and
+even in his confinement at St. Helena, he was ceaselessly attempting to
+justify to the moral conscience of the world his ruthless assassination
+of the last Prince of the house of Conde. The terrible judgment of
+history was never better expressed than by Lamartine in the following
+language:
+
+     "A cold curiosity carries the visitor to the battlefields of
+     Marengo, Austerlitz, Wagram, Leipsic, Waterloo; he wanders over
+     them with dry eyes, but one is shown at a corner of the wall near
+     the foundations of Vincennes, at the bottom of a ditch, a spot
+     covered with nettles and weeds. He says, 'There it is!' He utters a
+     cry and carries away with him undying pity for the victim and an
+     implacable resentment against the assassin. This resentment is
+     vengeance for the past and a lesson for the future. _Let the
+     ambitious, whether soldiers, tribunes, or kings, remember that if
+     they have hirelings to do their will, and flatterers to excuse
+     them while they reign, there yet comes afterward a human conscience
+     to judge them and pity to hate them. The murderer has but one hour;
+     the victim has eternity._"
+
+At the outbreak of the war Miss Cavell was living with her aged mother
+in England. Constrained by a noble and imperious sense of duty, she
+exchanged the security of her native country for her post of danger in
+Brussels. "My duty is there," she said simply.
+
+She reached Brussels in August, 1914, and at once commenced her
+humanitarian work. When the German army entered the gates of Brussels,
+she called upon Governor von Luttwitz and placed her staff of nurses at
+the services of the wounded under whatever flag they had fought. The
+services which she and her staff of nurses rendered many a wounded and
+dying German should have earned for her the generous consideration of
+the invader.
+
+But early in these ministrations of mercy she was obliged by the noblest
+of humanitarian motives to antagonize the German invaders. Governor von
+Luttwitz demanded of her that all nurses should give formal
+undertakings, when treating wounded French or Belgian soldiers, to act
+as jailers to their patients, but Miss Cavell answered this unreasonable
+demand by simply saying: "We are prepared to do all that we can to help
+wounded soldiers to recover, but to be their jailers--never."
+
+On another occasion, when appealing to a German Brigadier-General on
+behalf of some homeless women and children, the Prussian martinet--half
+pedant and half poltroon--answered her with a quotation from Nietzsche
+to the effect that "Pity is a waste of feeling--a moral parasite
+injurious to the health." She early felt the cruel and iron will of the
+invader, but, nothing daunted, she proceeded in the arduous work,
+supervised the work of three hospitals, gave six lectures on nursing a
+week and responded to many urgent appeals of individuals who were in
+need of immediate relief. "Others she saved, herself she could not
+save."
+
+When one of her associates, Miss Mary Boyle O'Reilly, who has recently
+contributed a moving account of Miss Cavell's work, was expelled from
+Belgium, she begged Miss Cavell to take the opportunity, while it
+presented itself, to leave that land of horror, and Miss Cavell, with
+characteristic bravery, replied smilingly: "Impossible, my friend, my
+duty is here."
+
+It was undoubtedly in connection with this humanitarian work that she
+violated the German military law by giving refuge to fugitive French and
+Belgian soldiers until such time as they could escape across the
+frontier to Holland. For this she suffered the penalty of death, and the
+validity of this sentence, even under Prussian military law, I will
+discuss later. It is enough to say that no instinct is so natural in
+every man and woman, and especially in woman with the maternal instinct
+characteristic of her sex, than to give a harbor of refuge to the
+helpless. All nations have respected this instinctive feeling as one of
+the redeeming traits of human nature and the history of war, at least in
+modern times, can be searched in vain for any instance in which anyone,
+especially a woman, has been condemned to death for yielding to the
+humanitarian impulse of giving temporary refuge to a fugitive soldier.
+Such an act is neither espionage nor treason, as those terms have been
+ordinarily understood in civilized countries.
+
+It is true, as suggested by a few in America who sought to excuse the
+Cavell crime, that Mrs. Surratt was tried, condemned and executed
+because she had permitted the band of assassins, whose conspiracy
+resulted in the assassination of Lincoln and the attempted murder of
+Secretary Seward, to hold their meetings in her house; but the
+difference between this conscious participation in the assassination of
+the head of the State, in a period of civil war, and the humanitarian
+aid which Miss Cavell gave to fugitive soldiers to save them from
+capture is manifest. I am assuming that Miss Cavell did give such
+protection to her compatriots, for all accessible information supports
+this view, and if so, however commendable her motive and heroic her
+conduct, she certainly was guilty of an infraction of military law,
+which justified some punishment and possibly her forcible detention
+during the period of the war.
+
+To regard her execution as an ordinary incident of war is an affront to
+civilization, and as it is symptomatic of the Prussian occupation of
+Belgium and not a sporadic incident, it acquires a significance which
+justifies a full recital of this black chapter of Prussianism. It
+illustrates the reign of terror which has existed in Belgium since the
+German occupation.
+
+When the German Chancellor made his famous speech in the Reichstag on
+August 4th, 1914, and admitted at the bar of the world the crime which
+was then being initiated, he said:
+
+     "The wrong--I speak openly--that we are committing we will endeavor
+     to make good as soon as our military goal has been reached."
+
+Within a few weeks the military goal was reached by the seizure of
+practically all of Belgium and by the voluntary surrender of Brussels to
+the invader, and since then, for a period of fourteen months, the
+Belgian people have been subjected to a state of tyranny for which it
+would be difficult to find a parallel, unless we turned to the history
+of the Netherlands in the Sixteenth Century and recalled its occupation
+by the Duke of Alva. It must be said in candor that the Prussian
+occupation of Belgium has not yet caused as many victims as the "Bloody
+Council" of the Duke of Alva, for the estimated number of
+non-combatants, who have been shot in Belgium during the last fourteen
+months, is only 6,000 as against the 18,000 whom it is estimated the
+Duke of Alva mercilessly put to death.
+
+It may also be the fact that the present oppression of Belgium is marked
+by some approach to the forms of law; but it may be doubted whether the
+difference is not more in appearance than in reality, for the
+administration of law in Belgium has been a mockery. Of this there can
+be no more striking or detailed proof than the protest which was
+presented to the German authorities on February 17th, 1915, by M. Leon
+Theodor, the head of the Brussels bar. The truth of this formal
+accusation may be fairly measured by the strong probability that the
+brave leader of the Brussels bar would never have ventured to have made
+the statements hereinafter referred to to the German Military Governor
+unless he was reasonably sure of his facts. What he said on behalf of
+the bar of Brussels was said in the shadow of possible death, and if he
+had consciously or deliberately maligned the Prussian administration of
+justice in this open and specific manner, he assuredly took his life
+into his hands. This brave and noble document will forever remain one of
+the gravest indictments of German misrule, and as it states, on the
+authority of one who was in a position to know, the details of the
+savage tyranny which masqueraded under the forms of law, it is appended,
+with some condensation, to this article.
+
+After stating the fact "that everything about the German judicial
+organisation in Belgium is contrary to the principles of law," and after
+showing that Belgian civilians were punished for the violations of law
+which had never been proclaimed and of which, therefore, they knew
+nothing, the distinguished President of the Order of Advocates says:
+
+     "_This absence of certainty is not only the negation of all the
+     principles of law; it weighs on the mind and on the conscience; it
+     bewilders one, it seems to be a permanent menace for all, and the
+     danger is all the more real, because these courts permit neither
+     public nor defensive procedure, nor do they permit the accused to
+     receive any communication regarding his case, nor is any right of
+     defense assured him._
+
+     "This is arbitrary injustice; the Judge left to himself, that is,
+     to his impressions, his prejudices, and his surroundings. This is
+     abandoning the accused in his distress, to grapple alone with his
+     all-powerful adversary.
+
+     "This justice uncontrolled, and consequently without guarantee,
+     constitutes for us the most dangerous and oppressive of
+     illegalities. _We cannot conceive justice as a judicial or moral
+     possibility without free defense._
+
+     "Free defense, that is, light thrown on all the elements of the
+     suit; public sentiment being heard in the bosom of the judgment
+     hall, the right to say everything in the most respectful manner,
+     and also the courage to dare everything, these must be put at the
+     service of the unfortunate one, of justice and law.
+
+     "It is one of the greatest conquests of our history. It is the
+     keystone of our individual liberty.
+
+     "_What are your sources of information?_
+
+     "Besides the judges, the men of the Secret Service and the
+     denouncers (in French: 'delateurs').
+
+     "The Secret Service men in civilian clothes, not bearing any
+     insignia, mixing with the crowds in the street, in the cafes, on
+     the platforms of street cars, listen to the conversations carried
+     on around them, ready to grasp any secret, on the watch not only
+     for acts but for intentions.
+
+     "These denouncers of our nation are ever multiplying. _What
+     confidence can be placed in their declarations, inspired by hate,
+     spite, or low cupidity?_ Such assistants can bring to the cause of
+     justice no useful collaboration.
+
+     "If we add to this total absence of control and of defense, these
+     preventive arrests, the long detentions, the searches in the
+     private domiciles, _we shall have an almost complete idea of the
+     moral tortures to which our aspirations, our convictions, and our
+     liberties are subjected at the present time_. * * *
+
+     "Will it be said that we are living under martial law: that we are
+     submitting to the hard necessities of war: that all should give way
+     before the superior interests of your armies?
+
+     "_I can understand martial law for armies in the field. It is the
+     immediate reply to an aggression against the troops, repression
+     without words, the summary justice of the commander of the army
+     responsible for his soldiers._
+
+     "_But our armies are far away; we are no longer in the zone of
+     military operations. Nothing here menaces your troops, the
+     inhabitants are calm._
+
+     "The people have taken up work again. You have bidden them do it.
+     Each one devotes himself, Magistrates, Judges, officials of the
+     provinces and cities, the clergy, all are at their post, united in
+     one outburst of national interest and brotherhood.
+
+     "However, this calm does not mean that they have forgotten.
+
+     "The Belgian people lived happily in their corner of the earth,
+     confident in their dream of independence. They saw this dream
+     dispelled, they saw their country ruined and devastated, its
+     ancient hospitable soil has been sown with thousands of tombs where
+     our own sleep; the war has made tears flow which no hand can dry.
+     _No, the murdered soul of Belgium will never forget._
+
+     "But this nation has a profound respect for its duty. It will
+     always respect it.
+
+     "Has not the hour come to consider as closed the period of invasion
+     and to substitute for the measures of exception the rules of
+     occupation as defined by international law and the treaty of The
+     Hague, which sets a limit to the occupying power and imposes
+     obligations on the country occupied?
+
+     "Has not the hour arrived to restore the Court House to the
+     judiciary corps? The military occupation of the Court House is a
+     violation of the treaty of The Hague.
+
+     "Among the moral forces does one exist that is superior to justice?
+     Justice dominates them all. _As ancient as humanity itself, eternal
+     as the need of man and nations to be and to feel protected, it is
+     the basis of all civilization._ The arts and sciences are its
+     tributaries. Religious creeds live and prosper in its shadow. Is it
+     not a religion in itself?
+
+     "Belgium raised a magnificent temple to Justice in its capital.
+
+     "This temple, which is our pride, has been converted into barracks
+     for the German soldiers. A small part of it, becoming smaller every
+     day, is reserved for the courts. The Magistrates and lawyers have
+     access to it by a small private staircase.
+
+     "Sad as are the conditions under which they are called to
+     administer justice, the Judges have decided, nevertheless, to sit.
+     The Bar has co-operated with them. Accustomed to live in an
+     atmosphere of deference and of dignity, they do not recognize
+     themselves in this sort of guard-room, and, in fact, justice
+     surrounded with so little respect, is it still justice?"
+
+As this dignified and noble protest did not lead to any amelioration of
+the harsh conditions, a month later the same brave jurist, M. Leon
+Theodor, appeared in Brussels before the so-called "German Court of
+Justice" and, in behalf of the entire Magistracy of Belgium, addressed
+to the Prussian Military Judges the following poignantly pathetic and
+nobly dignified address, which met with the same reception as the
+preceding communication.
+
+The address reads as follows:
+
+     "I present myself at the Bar, escorted by the Counsel of the Order,
+     surrounded by the sympathy and the confidence of all my colleagues
+     of Brussels, and I might add of all the Bars of the country. The
+     Bars of Liege, Ghent, Charleroi, Mons, Louvain, Antwerp have sent
+     to that of Brussels the expression of their professional solidarity
+     and have declared that they adhere to the resolutions taken by the
+     Counsel of the Order of Brussels. * * *
+
+     "We are not annexed. We are not conquered. We are not even
+     vanquished. Our army is fighting. Our colors float alongside those
+     of France, England and Russia. The country subsists. She is simply
+     unfortunate. More than ever, then, we now owe ourselves to her body
+     and soul. To defend her rights is also to fight for her.
+
+     "We are living hours now as tragic as any country has ever known.
+     All is destruction and ruin around us. Everywhere we see mourning.
+     Our army has lost half of its effective force. Its percentage in
+     dead and wounded will never be obtained by any of the belligerents.
+     There remains to us only a corner of ground over there by the sea.
+     The waters of the Yser flow through an immense plain peopled by the
+     dead. It is called the Belgian Cemetery. There sleep our children
+     by the thousands. There they are sleeping their last sleep. The
+     struggle goes on bitterly and without mercy.
+
+     "Your sons, Mr. President, are at the front; mine as well. For
+     months we have been living in anxiety regarding the morrow.
+
+     "Why these sacrifices, why this sorrow? _Belgium could have avoided
+     these disasters, saved her existence, her treasures, and the life
+     of her children, but she preferred her honor._"
+
+Not long after this second protest, M. Leon Theodor was arrested,
+deported to Germany and if now living, is suffering imprisonment for the
+offense of defending the oppressed civilian population from a system of
+espionage, drumhead courts-martial and secret executions, which in their
+malignity should excite the professional jealousy of Danton, Marat and
+Robespierre. It was in this manner that the lofty promise of the German
+Chancellor that his country would make good the wrong done to Belgium
+has been kept.
+
+Such was the condition of affairs in Belgium when Edith Cavell was
+arrested on August 5th, 1915.
+
+About the same time some thirty-five other prisoners were similarly
+arrested by the military authorities, _two-thirds of whom were women_.
+
+The arrest was evidently a secret one for it is obvious that for a time
+Miss Cavell's friends knew nothing of her whereabouts. Even the American
+Legation, which had assumed the care of British citizens in Belgium,
+apparently knew nothing of Miss Cavell's whereabouts until it learned
+after a second inquiry the fact of her arrest and the place of her
+imprisonment from the German Civil Governor of Belgium on September
+12th, 1915.
+
+As Miss Cavell was a well-known personage in Brussels, it is altogether
+unlikely that the fact of her arrest and imprisonment would have been
+unknown to the American Legation in Brussels if the fact of her arrest
+had been a matter of public information on August 5th or shortly
+thereafter. In other words, if the arrest had been an open and notorious
+one, it seems to me unlikely that the American Embassy would have been
+wholly without information on the subject and when the friends of Miss
+Cavell found an opportunity to send some information as to her
+disappearance to the British Foreign Office, it seems unlikely that they
+would not have given more specific details.
+
+Evidently some information had reached the Foreign Office as to Miss
+Cavell's disappearance, for on August 26th Sir Edward Grey requested the
+American Ambassador in London to ascertain through the American Legation
+in Brussels whether it was true that Miss Cavell had been arrested, and
+it seems clear from the diplomatic correspondence that the American
+Legation at Brussels knew nothing of the matter until it received this
+inquiry from the American Ambassador in London. The fact of her arrest
+by the German military authorities must have been known, but the place
+of her imprisonment and the nature of the charges against her were
+apparently withheld.
+
+This feature of the case and the manner in which Mr. Brand Whitlock, the
+American Minister, was prevented from rendering any effective aid to
+Miss Cavell, presents one aspect of the tragedy which especially
+concerns the honor and dignity of the United States and should receive
+its swift and effectual recognition.
+
+Her secret trial and hurried execution was a studied affront to the
+American Minister at Brussels, and therefore to the American nation. It
+is true that in all he did to save her life he was acting in behalf of
+and for the benefit of Great Britain, whose interests the United States
+Government has taken over in Belgium; but this cannot affect the fact
+that when Brand Whitlock intervened in behalf of the prisoner, sought to
+secure her a fair trial, and prevent her execution, and especially when
+he asked her life as a favor in return for the services our country had
+rendered Germany and German subjects in the earlier days of the war, _he
+spoke as an American and as the diplomatic representative of the United
+States_.
+
+So secret was Miss Cavell's arrest and so sinister the methods whereby
+her end was compassed, that the American Minister in Belgium was obliged
+to write on August 31st to Baron von der Lancken, the German Civil
+Governor of Belgium, and ask whether it was true that she was under
+arrest. _To this the German Military Governor did not even deign to make
+a reply, although it was clearly a matter of life and death._
+
+The discourtesy of such silence to a great and friendly nation needs no
+comment, and will simply serve to remind the American people that
+Germany has never yet replied to another request of the United States
+that Germany disavows the massacre of nearly 200 American men, women,
+and children on the Lusitania.
+
+Not hearing from Baron von der Lancken, our Minister on September 10th
+again wrote to him and again asked for a reply. He asked for the
+opportunity "_to take up the defense of Miss Cavell with the least
+possible delay_." To this, Baron Lancken deigned to reply by an ex parte
+statement that Miss Cavell had admitted
+
+     "having concealed in her house various English and French soldiers,
+     as well as Belgians of military age, all anxious to proceed to the
+     front. She also acknowledged having supplied these soldiers with
+     the funds necessary to proceed to the front and having facilitated
+     their departure from Belgium by finding guides to assist them in
+     clandestinely crossing the frontier."
+
+The Baron further answered that her defense had been intrusted to an
+advocate by the name of Braun, "_who is already in touch with the proper
+German authorities_," and added:
+
+     "In view of the fact that the Department of the Governor General
+     _as a matter of principle_ does not allow accused persons to have
+     any interviews whatever, I much regret my inability to procure for
+     M. de Leval permission to visit Miss Cavell as long as she is in
+     solitary confinement."
+
+It will thus be seen and will hereafter appear more fully that in
+advance of her trial Miss Cavell was kept in solitary confinement and
+was denied any opportunity to confer with counsel in order to prepare
+her defense. Her communication with the outside world was wholly cut
+off, with the exception of a few letters, which she was permitted to
+write under censorship to her assistants in the school for nurses, and
+it is probable that in this way the fact of her imprisonment first
+became known to her friends.
+
+The fact remains that the desire of the American Minister to have
+counsel see her with a view to the selection of such counsel as Miss
+Cavell might desire, was refused, and even the counsel whom the German
+Military Court permitted to act, was denied any opportunity to see his
+client until the trial. The counsel in question was a M. Braun, a
+Belgian advocate of recognised standing, but for some reason, which does
+not appear, he was unable or declined to act for Miss Cavell and he
+secured for her defense another Belgian lawyer, whose name was Kirschen.
+According to credible information, Kirschen was a German by birth,
+although a naturalized Belgian subject and a member of the Brussels bar,
+but it will hereafter appear that the steps which he took to keep the
+American Legation--the one possible salvation for Miss Cavell--advised
+as to the progress of events, were to say the least peculiar.
+
+Except for the explanations made by the German Civil Governor, we know
+very little as to what defense, if any, Miss Cavell made. From one of
+the inspired sources comes the statement that she freely admitted her
+guilt, and from her last interview with the English clergyman it would
+appear that she probably did admit some infraction of military law. But
+from another German source we learn the following:
+
+     "During the trial in the Senate Chamber the accused, almost without
+     exception, gave the impression of persons _cleverly simulating
+     naive innocence_. It was not a mere coincidence that two-thirds of
+     the accused were women.
+
+     "The Englishwoman, Edith Cavell, who has already been executed,
+     declared that she had believed as an Englishwoman that she ought to
+     do her country service _by giving lodgings in her house to soldiers
+     and recruits who were in peril_. She naturally denied that she had
+     drawn other people into destruction by inducing them to harbor
+     refugees when her own institute was overtaxed."
+
+From this meagre information we can only infer that Miss Cavell did
+admit that she had sheltered some soldiers and recruits who were in
+peril, and while this undoubtedly constituted a grave infraction of
+military law, yet it does not present in a locality far removed from the
+actual war zone a case either of espionage or high treason, and is of
+that class of offenses which have always been punished on the highest
+considerations of humanity and chivalry and with great moderation.
+
+The difficulty is that the world is not yet fully informed what defense,
+if any, Miss Cavell made, or whether an adequate opportunity was given
+her to make any. The whole proceeding savours of the darkness of the
+mediaeval Inquisition.
+
+We have already seen that even if Miss Cavell's counsel, M. Kirschen,
+endeavored in good faith to make an adequate defense in her behalf, it
+was impossible for him to see her in advance of the trial, and M.
+Kirschen admitted this when he explained to the legal counsel of the
+American Embassy that
+
+     "lawyers defending prisoners before a German Military Court were
+     not allowed to see their clients before trial and were not
+     permitted to see any document of the prosecution."
+
+It is true that M. Kirschen so far defends the trial accorded to Miss
+Cavell as to say
+
+     "that the hearing of the trial of such cases is carried out very
+     carefully and that in his opinion, although it was not possible to
+     see the client before the trial, in fact the trial itself developed
+     itself so carefully and so slowly that it was generally possible to
+     have a fair knowledge of all the facts and to present a good
+     defense for the prisoner. This would especially be the case of Miss
+     Cavell, because the trial would be rather long, _as she was
+     prosecuted with 34 other prisoners_."
+
+This explanation of M. Kirschen is amazing to any lawyer who is familiar
+with the defense of men who are charged with a crime. Here was a case
+of life and death and the counsel for the defense intimates that he can
+adequately defend the prisoner at the bar without being previously
+advised as to the nature of the charges or obtaining an opportunity to
+confer with his client before the testimony begins.
+
+Still more remarkable is his explanation that as his client was to be
+tried with 34 others, the opportunity for a defense would be especially
+ample. As the writer had the honor for some years to be a prosecuting
+attorney for the United States Government and therefore has some
+familiarity with the trial of criminal causes, his opinion may possibly
+have some value in suggesting that the complexity of different issues
+when tried together, and the difficulty of distinguishing between
+various testimony, naturally increases with the simultaneous trial of a
+large number of defendants. Where each defendant is tried separately,
+the full force of the testimony for or against him can be weighed to
+some advantage, but where such evidence is intermingled and confused by
+the simultaneous trial of 34 separate issues, it is obvious, with the
+fallibility of human memory, that the separate testimony against each
+particular defendant cannot be fully weighed.
+
+The trial was apparently a secret one in the sense that it was a closed
+and not an open Court. Otherwise how can we account for the poverty of
+information as to what actually took place on the trial? The court sat
+for two days in the trial of the 35 cases in question, and the American
+Legation had been most anxious, in view of the nature of the case and
+the urgency of the inquiries, to ascertain something about the trial.
+The outside world apparently knew little or nothing of this wholesale
+trial of non-combatants, most of them being women, until some days
+thereafter, and the only intimation that the American Legation
+previously had was a letter of "a few lines" from M. Kirschen, stating
+that the trial would take place on October 7th. Notwithstanding the
+assurance of M. Kirschen that he would keep the American Legation fully
+advised and would even disclose to it in advance of the trial "the exact
+charges that were brought against Miss Cavell and the facts concerning
+her that would be disclosed at the trial," yet no further information
+reached the American Legation from Miss Cavell's counsel, who for some
+reason did not advise the American Legation that the trial had commenced
+on the 7th and had been concluded on the 8th. The American Legation only
+learned the fact of the trial from "an outsider," and it at once
+proceeded to look for M. Kirschen. Unfortunately he could not be
+located, and thereupon the counsel for the American Legation wrote him
+on Sunday, October 10th, and asked him to send his report to the
+Legation or to call on the following day.
+
+Having no word from M. Kirschen as late as October 11th (his last
+communication with the American Legation being on October 3rd), the
+counsel for the Legation twice called at his house and again failed to
+find him in or to receive any message from him. It is clear that if M.
+Kirschen had advised the American Legation as to the developments of the
+trial on October 7th and 8th and had further advised the Legation
+promptly as to the conclusion of the trial and its probable outcome,
+there is a reasonable possibility that Miss Cavell's life might have
+been saved; but for some reason, as to which M. Kirschen certainly owes
+an explanation to the civilized world, he failed to keep his positive
+promise to keep the American Legation fully advised, and in view of this
+fact his assurance to the American Legation "that the Military Court of
+Brussels was always perfectly fair, and that there was not the slightest
+danger of any miscarriage of justice," must be taken with a very large
+"grain of salt."
+
+The significant fact remains that the American Legation never heard that
+the trial had taken place until the day after, and then only learned it
+from "an outsider." Had the American Legation sent a representative to
+the trial, the world would then have a much clearer knowledge upon which
+to base its judgment; but when M. Deleval suggested his intention to
+attend the trial, as a representative of the Legation, he was advised by
+M. Kirschen that such an act "would cause great prejudice to the
+prisoner because the German judges would resent it."
+
+What an indictment of the court! Even to see a representative of the
+American Government at the trial, in the interests of fair play, would
+prejudice the minds of the Judges against the unfortunate woman who was
+being tried for a capital offense without any previous opportunity to
+confer with counsel. There may be a satisfactory explanation for M.
+Kirschen's conduct in the matter, but it has not yet appeared. It
+should, however, be added, in fairness to him, that the anonymous
+"outsider," from whom the American Legation got its only information as
+to the developments of the trial, stated that Kirschen "made a very good
+plea for Miss Cavell, using all arguments that could be brought in her
+favor before the court."
+
+This does not give the lover of fair play a great deal of comfort, for
+if the anonymous informant was not a lawyer, the value to be attached to
+his or her estimate of Kirschen's plea must be regarded as doubtful.
+
+The same unknown informant told the American Legation that Miss Cavell
+was prosecuted "for having helped English and French soldiers as well as
+Belgian young men to cross the frontier and to go over to England." It
+is stated on the same anonymous authority that Miss Cavell acknowledged
+the assistance thus given and admitted that some of them had "thanked
+her in writing when arriving in England."
+
+From the same source the world gets its only information as to the exact
+law which Miss Cavell was accused of violating. Paragraph 58 of the
+German Military Code inflicts a sentence of death upon
+
+     "any person who, with the intention of helping the hostile power,
+     or of causing harm to the German or allied troops, is guilty of one
+     of the crimes of paragraph 90 of the German Penal Code,"
+
+and the only pertinent section of paragraph 90, according to the same
+informant, is the specific offence of
+
+     "guiding soldiers to the enemy" (in German--"Dem Feinde
+     Mannschaften zufuehrt").
+
+I affirm with confidence that under this law Miss Cavell was innocent,
+and that the true meaning of the law was perverted in order to inflict
+the death sentence upon her.
+
+I admit that a general and strained construction of the language above
+quoted might be applicable to a defendant who gave refuge to hostile
+soldiers in Brussels and thus enabled them to escape across the frontier
+into Holland and thence into a belligerent country, but every penal law
+must receive a construction that is favorable to the defendant and
+agreeable to the dictates of humanity. Every civilized country construes
+its penal laws in favour of the liberty of the subject, and no
+punishment, especially one of death, is ever imposed unless the offence
+charged comes indubitably within a rigid construction of the law.
+
+Keeping in mind this elementary principle, it is obvious that the
+offense of guiding soldiers to the enemy refers to the physical act of
+guiding a fugitive soldier back into his lines. A soldier becomes
+detached from his lines. He finds shelter in a farm house. The farmer,
+knowing the roads, secretly guides him back into his lines, and this
+obviously is the offence which paragraph 90 had in mind, for the German
+word "zufuehrt" refers to a personal guidance.
+
+Miss Cavell simply gave shelter to soldiers and in some way facilitated
+their escape to Holland. Holland is a neutral country, and it was its
+duty to intern any fugitive soldiers who might escape from any one of
+the belligerent countries. The fact that these soldiers subsequently
+reached England is a matter that could not increase or diminish the
+essential nature of Miss Cavell's case. She enabled them to get to a
+neutral country, and this was not a case of "guiding soldiers to the
+enemy," for Holland was not an enemy of Germany.
+
+This fact must have impressed the Military Court, for according to the
+same informant it did not at once agree upon either the verdict of
+"Guilty" or the judgment of death, and it is stated that the Judges
+would not have sentenced her to death if the fugitive soldiers, who had
+crossed into Holland, had not subsequently arrived in England. But it
+will astound any lawyer to learn that the subsequent escape of these
+same prisoners from Holland to England could be reasonably regarded as a
+guidance by Miss Cavell of these soldiers _to England_. In all
+probability Miss Cavell had little or nothing to do with these soldiers
+after they left Brussels, but even assuming that she provided the means
+and gave the directions for their escape across the frontier between
+Belgium and Holland, that was "the head and front of her offending," and
+it does not come within the law under which she was sentenced to death.
+
+When she was asked by her Judges as to her reasons for sheltering these
+fugitives, "she replied that she thought that if she had not done so
+_they would have been shot by the Germans_ and that therefore she
+thought she only did her duty to her country in saving their lives."
+
+This fairly states what she did, and perhaps this brave and frank reply
+caused her death. She gave a temporary shelter to men who were in danger
+of death, and, as previously stated, in so doing yielded to a
+humanitarian impulse which all civilized nations have recognized as
+worthy of the most lenient treatment.
+
+When, therefore, Herr Dr. Albert Zimmermann, speaking for the German
+Foreign Office, expressed its "surprise" that Miss Cavell's execution
+should "have caused a sensation," it is well to remind Dr. Zimmermann
+that to offer a refuge to the fugitive is an impulse of humanity. It is
+likely that these soldiers were her wounded patients; at all events,
+they had found a refuge in her hospital. They claimed the protection of
+her roof and she gave it to them.
+
+In the first act of Walkyrie--which is not overburdened with the
+atmosphere of morality--even the black-hearted Hunding says to his
+blood-enemy,
+
+    "Heilig ist mein herd;
+      Heilig sei dir mein haus."
+    (Holy is my hearth!
+      Holy will be to them my house!)
+
+It must be remembered that all this did not take place in the zone of
+actual warfare. A spy caught in the lines of armies is summarily dealt
+with of necessity. But Brussels was miles away from the scene of actual
+hostilities. Its civil courts were open and a civil administration ruled
+its affairs of such reputed beneficence and efficiency as to evoke the
+ungrudging admiration of a distinguished college professor who bears the
+honored name of George B. McClellan. There was therefore no possible
+excuse under international law for a court-martial, as this trial
+plainly was. In the American civil war a similar military commission
+once sought to hold a similar trial in Indianapolis over civilians
+accused of treason, but the United States Supreme Court, in the case of
+ex parte Milligan, sternly repudiated this form of military tyranny.
+
+In that case the Supreme Court said:
+
+     "There are occasions when martial rule can be properly applied. If,
+     in foreign invasion or civil war, _the courts are actually closed_,
+     and it is impossible to administer criminal justice according to
+     law, then, _on the theatre of active military operations, where war
+     really prevails_, there is a necessity to furnish a substitute for
+     the civil authority, thus overthrown, to preserve the safety of the
+     army and society; * * * As necessity creates the rule, so it limits
+     its duration; for, if this government is continued _after_ the
+     courts are reinstated, it is a gross usurpation of power. Martial
+     rule can never exist where the courts are open, and in the proper
+     and unobstructed exercise of their jurisdiction. _It is also
+     confined to the locality of actual war._"
+
+All civilized countries, including Germany, have always recognized a
+difference between high treason, punishable with death, and ordinary
+treason. The German Strafgesetzbuch thus distinguishes between high
+treason (hochverrat) and the lesser crime of landesverrat. High treason
+consists in murdering or attempting to murder a sovereign or Prince of
+Germany or an attempt by violence to overthrow the Imperial Government
+or any State thereof. This alone is punishable with death.
+
+While this distinction of the German Civil Code may have no application
+when military law is being enforced, yet it illustrates a distinction,
+which all humane nations have recognized, between the treason which
+seeks to overthrow a State by rebellion and lesser offenses against the
+authority of a State.
+
+Assuming that Miss Cavell's offense could be regarded in any sense as
+treasonable, it certainly constituted the lesser offense under the
+distinction above quoted.
+
+The fact is that Miss Cavell was tried, condemned, and executed for her
+sympathy with the cause of Belgium and her willingness to save her
+compatriots from suffering and death. Military necessity--ever the
+tyrant's plea--demanded a victim further to terrorize the subjugated
+people. They chose Miss Cavell.
+
+Notwithstanding the request of the American Legation in its letter of
+October 5th that it be advised not only as to the charges, but also as
+to the sentence imposed upon Miss Cavell, and the express promise of M.
+Kirschen to inform it of all developments, it was kept in ignorance of
+the fact that sentence of death had been passed upon her. Minister
+Whitlock only heard this on October 11th, and he at once addressed a
+letter to Baron von der Lancken in which, after stating this fact, he
+appealed "to the sentiment of generosity and humanity in the Governor
+General in favor of Miss Cavell," with a view to commutation of the
+death sentence, and at the same time addressed a similar letter to Baron
+von Bissing, the Military Governor of Belgium, who did not deign to give
+to the American Government even the cold courtesy of a reply.
+
+On the morning of October 11th our Minister heard--not from the German
+authorities, but from unofficial sources--that the trial had been
+completed on the preceding Saturday afternoon, and he at once
+communicated with the Political Department of the German Military
+Government, and was expressly assured
+
+     "that no sentence had been pronounced and that there would probably
+     be a delay of a day or two before a decision was reached."
+
+The Director of the Political Department (Herr Conrad) gave a further
+
+     "_positive assurance that the [American] Legation would be fully
+     informed as to the developments in the case._"
+
+Notwithstanding this direct promise and further "repeated inquiries in
+the course of the day," no further word reached our Legation, and at
+6.20 p.m. it again inquired as to Miss Cavell's fate, and the Director
+of the Political Department again
+
+     "_stated that sentence had not yet been pronounced_,"
+
+and he specifically renewed his assurance. Two hours later our Minister
+_from unofficial sources_ heard that all that had been told him by the
+Political Department was untrue, and that the sentence had been passed
+at 5 o'clock p.m.; _before his last conversation with the Director_, and
+that the execution was to take place that night.
+
+Accordingly the Secretary of the American Legation proceeded at once to
+Baron von der Lancken, and again asked as a favor to this Government
+that clemency be extended. He brought with him a letter from the
+American Minister, which reads as follows:
+
+     "My dear Baron:
+
+     "I am too ill to put my request before you in person, but once more
+     I appeal to the generosity of your heart. Stand by and save from
+     death this unfortunate woman. Have pity on her. Your devoted
+     servant,
+                                                "BRAND WHITLOCK."
+
+Accompanying this purely personal note were two substantially similar
+communications, the one directed to Baron von Bissing and the other to
+Baron von der Lancken. These communications run as follows:
+
+     "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 sentence in the present case is
+     more severe than all the others that have been passed in similar
+     cases which have been tried by the same Court, and, without going
+     into the reasons for such a drastic sentence, I feel that I have
+     the right to appeal to your Excellency's feelings of humanity and
+     generosity in Miss Cavell's favour, and to ask that the death
+     penalty passed on Miss Cavell may be commuted and that this
+     unfortunate woman shall not be executed.
+
+     "Miss Cavell is the head of the Brussels Surgical Institute. She
+     has spent her life in alleviating the sufferings of others, and her
+     school has turned out many nurses who have watched at the bedside
+     of the sick all the world over, in Germany as in Belgium. At the
+     beginning of the war Miss Cavell bestowed her care as freely on the
+     German soldiers as on others. Even in default of all 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 in my
+     possession 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, which has aggravated the severity of the sentence passed
+     on her.
+
+     "It is then with confidence, and in the hope of its favourable
+     reception, that I have the honour to present to your Excellency my
+     request for pardon on Miss Cavell's behalf."
+
+This note was read aloud to Baron von der Lancken, the very official who
+had refused to answer the first communication of the Legation with
+reference to the matter, and he
+
+     "expressed disbelief in the report that sentence had actually been
+     passed and manifested some surprise that we should give credence to
+     any report not emanating from official sources. He was quite
+     insistent in knowing the exact source of our information, but this
+     I did not feel at liberty to communicate to him."
+
+Baron von der Lancken proceeded to express his belief "that it was quite
+improbable that sentence had been pronounced," and that in any event no
+execution would follow. After some hesitation he telephoned to the
+Presiding Judge of the Court-Martial and then reported that the
+embassy's unofficial information was only too true.
+
+His attention was further called to the express promise of the German
+Director of the Political Department to inform the American Legation of
+the sentence, and he was asked to grant the American Government the
+courtesy of a "delay in carrying out the sentence."
+
+To this appeal for mercy Baron von der Lancken replied that the Military
+Governor (von Bissing) was the supreme authority and that he "had
+discretionary power to accept or to refuse acceptance of an appeal for
+clemency." He thereupon left the representative of the American Legation
+and apparently called upon von Bissing, and after half an hour he
+returned with the statement that not only would von Bissing decline to
+revoke the sentence of death, but "that in view of the circumstances of
+this case, he must decline to accept your plea for clemency or any
+representation in regard to the matter."
+
+Thereupon Baron von der Lancken insisted that Mr. Brand Whitlock's
+representative (Mr. Hugh Gibson, Secretary of the Legation) should take
+back the formal appeal for clemency addressed both to him and to von
+Bissing, and as both German officials had been fully advised as to the
+nature of the plea, Mr. Gibson finally consented. Baron von der Lancken
+assured Mr. Gibson that under the circumstances "even the Emperor
+himself could not intervene," a statement that was very quickly refuted
+when the Emperor--aroused by the world-wide condemnation of Miss
+Cavell's execution--did commute the sentences imposed upon six of the
+seven persons who were condemned to death with Miss Cavell.
+
+During the earnest conversation which took place in this last attempt to
+save Miss Cavell's life, the American representative took occasion to
+remind Baron von der Lancken's official associates--although it should
+not have been necessary--of the great services rendered by the United
+States, and especially by Mr. Brand Whitlock, in the earlier period of
+the German occupation, and this was urged as a reason why as a matter of
+courtesy to the United States Government some more courteous
+consideration should be accorded to its request. At the outbreak of the
+war, thousands of German residents in Belgium returned to their country
+in such haste that they left their families behind them. Mr. Whitlock
+gathered these women and children--numbering, it is said, over
+10,000--and provided them with the necessaries of life, and ultimately
+with safe transportation into Germany, and having thus placed this
+inestimable service to thousands of German civilians in one scale, the
+American representative simply asked, as "the only request" made by the
+United States upon grounds of reciprocal generosity, that some clemency
+should be given to Miss Cavell. The refusal to give this clemency or
+even to accept in a formal way the plea for clemency, is one of the
+blackest cases of ingratitude in the history of diplomacy.
+
+On October 22nd there was issued from Brussels a "semi-official" but
+_anonymous_ statement, charging that in the reports of the Secretary of
+the American Embassy, from which the above quoted statements are mainly
+taken, "most of the important events are inaccurately reproduced."
+
+No specification of any inaccuracy is however made, except the general
+denial "that the German authorities with empty promises put off the
+American Minister" and also the equally general statement that no
+promise was given to our embassy to advise it of developments in the
+case.
+
+A vague, general, and _anonymous_ denial, issued by men who seek to wash
+their hands of innocent blood, cannot avail against Mr. Gibson's clear,
+specific, and circumstantial statement. The Secretary of our embassy
+states that on October 11th "_repeated_" inquiries were made of Herr
+Conrad, the official in charge of the Political Department of the German
+Government in Belgium, _the last inquiry being at 6.20 p.m. by the
+clock_ (an hour after the victim had been sentenced to death), and that
+on each occasion assurance was given to the Legation that "sentence had
+not been pronounced" and that he (Conrad) would not fail to inform us as
+soon as there was any news.
+
+Does Herr Conrad deny this?
+
+The Brussels "semi-official" statement has the hardihood to state to the
+world that the American Minister (Brand Whitlock) had admitted that "no
+such promise or assurance was given," and it places the responsibility
+upon M. Deleval, the Belgian legal counselor of the American Embassy.
+But this impudent lie is speedily overthrown by the positive statement
+of our Minister at Belgium to our Ambassador in London as follows:
+
+     "From the date we first learned of Miss Cavell's imprisonment we
+     made frequent inquiries of the German authorities and reminded
+     them of their promise that we should be fully informed as to
+     developments. They were under no misapprehension as to our interest
+     in the matter."
+
+Will the American people or the people of any nation hesitate to accept
+the clear, positive, and circumstantial statements of Minister Whitlock,
+Secretary Gibson, and Counselor Deleval, at least two of whom are wholly
+disinterested in the matter, as against the self-exculpatory, general,
+and anonymous denials of a "semi-official" press bureau, especially when
+it is recalled that from the beginning of the great war, the German
+Foreign Office, with whom military honor is supposed to be almost a
+religion, has stooped to the most shameful and barefaced mendacity?
+
+When the world recalls how Austrian Ambassadors in Paris, London, and
+Petrograd made the most emphatic statements that the forthcoming
+ultimatum to Serbia would be "pacific and conciliatory," and assured the
+Russian Ambassador that he could therefore safely leave Vienna on his
+vacation on the very eve of the ultimatum, and when the German
+Ambassadors in the same capitals gave the most solemn and unequivocal
+assurances that
+
+     "the German Government had no knowledge of the text of the Austrian
+     note before it was handed in and had not exercised any influence on
+     its contents,"
+
+and later admitted, when the lie had served its purpose by lulling the
+world into a sense of false security, that it had been fully consulted
+by its ally before the ultimatum was prepared and had given it carte
+blanche to proceed, when these notable examples of Prussian
+Machiavellism are recalled, little attention will be given to these
+futile attempts to wash from the shield of German honor the blood of
+Edith Cavell.
+
+One can to some extent understand the Berserker fury which caused von
+Bissing to say in effect to this gentle-faced English nurse, "You are in
+our way. You menace our security. You must die, as countless thousands
+have already died, to secure the results of our seizure of Belgium"; but
+can we understand or in any way palliate the attempt to hide the stains
+of blood on that prison floor of Brussels with a cobweb of self-evident
+falsehoods?
+
+These stains can never be washed out to the eye of imagination.
+
+        "Let none these marks efface,
+    For they appeal from tyranny to God."
+
+In the last interview between our representative and Baron von der
+Lancken, which took place a few hours before the execution, our
+representative reminded these Prussian officials
+
+     "of our untiring efforts on behalf of German subjects at the
+     outbreak of the war and during the siege of Antwerp. I pointed out
+     that, while our services had been gladly rendered and without any
+     thought of future favors, they should certainly entitle you to some
+     consideration for the only request of this sort you [the American
+     Minister] had made since the beginning of the war."
+
+Even our Minister's appeal to gratitude and to one of the most ordinary
+and natural courtesies of diplomatic life proved unavailing, and at
+midnight the Secretary of the American Legation and the Spanish
+Minister, who was acting with him, left in despair. At 2 o'clock that
+morning Miss Cavell was secretly executed.
+
+Even the ordinary courtesy accorded to the vilest criminal, of being
+permitted before dying to have a clergyman of her own selection, was
+denied her until a few hours before her death, for the legal counselor
+of the American Legation on October 10th applied in behalf of this
+country for permission for an English clergyman to see Miss Cavell, and
+this, too, was refused, as her jailers preferred to assign her the
+prison chaplains as well as her counsel. Even the final appeal of our
+Minister for the surrender of her mutilated body was denied, on the
+ground that only the Minister of War in Berlin could grant it.
+
+Apart from the brutality of the whole incident there is one circumstance
+that makes it of peculiar interest to the American people and which
+gives to it the character of rank ingratitude. Our representative, as
+above stated, did advise the German officials that a little delay was
+asked by our Legation _as a slight return for the innumerable acts of
+kindness which our Legation had done for German soldiers and interned
+prisoners in the earlier days of the war before the German invasion had
+swept over the land_. The charge of ingratitude may rest soundly upon
+far greater and broader grounds.
+
+This great nation had contributed in money and merchandise a sum
+estimated at many millions for the relief of the people in Belgium. In
+so doing it did to the German nation an inestimable service, for when
+Germany conquered Belgium the duty and burden rested upon it to support
+its population to the extent that it might become necessary. The burden
+of supporting 8,000,000 civilians was no light one, especially as there
+existed in Germany a scarcity of food. As bread tickets were then being
+issued in Germany to its people, the supplies would have been
+substantially less if a portion of its food products had been required
+for the civilian population of Belgium, for obviously the German nation
+could not permit a people, whom it had so ruthlessly trampled under
+foot, to starve to death. Every dollar that was raised in America for
+the Belgian people, therefore, operated to relieve Germany from a heavy
+burden.
+
+Moreover, when the war broke out, Germany needed some friendly nation to
+take over the care of its nationals in the hostile countries, and in
+England, France, Belgium, and Russia the interests of German citizens
+were assumed by the American Government as a courtesy to Germany, and no
+one can question how faithfully in the last fourteen months Page in
+London, Sharp in Paris, and Whitlock in Brussels have labored to
+alleviate the inevitable suffering to German prisoners or interned
+civilians.
+
+In view of these services, it surely was not much for the American
+Minister to ask that a little delay should be granted to a woman whose
+error, if any, had arisen from impulses of humanity and from
+considerations of patriotism. To spare her life a little longer could
+not have done the German cause any possible harm, for she was in their
+custody and beyond the power of rendering any help to her compatriots.
+To condemn any human being, even if he were the vilest criminal, at 5
+o'clock in the afternoon and execute him at 2 a.m., was an act of
+barbarism for which no possible condemnation is adequate.
+
+Under these circumstances, it would be incredible, if the facts were not
+beyond dispute, that the request of the United States for a little
+delay was not only brutally refused, _but that our Legation was
+deliberately misled and deceived until the death sentence had been
+inflicted_.
+
+This makes the fate of Miss Cavell our affair as much as that of the
+Lusitania. And yet we have the already familiar semi-official assurance
+from Washington that while our officials "unofficially deplore the act,
+officially they can do nothing." Concurrently we are told in the
+President's Thanksgiving proclamation that we should be thankful because
+we have "been able to assert our rights and the rights of mankind," and
+that this "has been a year of special blessing for us," for, so the
+proclamation adds, "we have prospered while other nations were at war."
+
+I venture to say in all reverence that the God of nations will be better
+pleased on the coming Thanksgiving Day--which also should be one of
+penitence and humiliation--if we do a little more _in fact_ and less in
+words to safeguard the rights of humanity. Our initial blunder was in
+turning away the Belgian Commissioners, when they first presented the
+wrongs of their crucified nation, with icy phrases as to a mysterious
+day of reckoning in the indefinite future. An act of justice now will be
+worth a thousand future "accountings" after the long agony of the world
+is over. "Now is the accepted time, this the day of salvation."
+
+_Let our nation begin with the case of Edith Cavell, and demand of
+Germany the dismissal of the officers who flouted, deceived, and mocked
+the representative of the United States. That concerns our honor as a
+nation._
+
+The final scene of the tragedy is best stated in the simple but
+poignantly pathetic words of the Chaplain, who was permitted to see the
+victim a few hours before her death:
+
+     "On Monday evening, 11th October, I was admitted by special
+     passport from the German authorities to the prison of St. Gilles,
+     where Miss Edith Cavell had been confined for ten weeks. The final
+     sentence had been given early that afternoon.
+
+     "To my astonishment and relief I found my friend perfectly calm and
+     resigned. But this could not lessen the tenderness and intensity of
+     feeling on either part during that last interview of almost an
+     hour.
+
+     "Her first words to me were upon a matter concerning herself
+     personally, but the solemn asseveration which accompanied them was
+     made expressedly in the light of God and eternity. She then added
+     that she wished all her friends to know that she willingly gave her
+     life for her country, and said: 'I have no fear nor shrinking; I
+     have seen death so often that it is not strange or fearful to me.'
+     She further said: 'I thank God for this ten weeks' quiet before the
+     end.' 'Life has always been hurried and full of difficulty.' 'This
+     time of rest has been a great mercy.' 'They have all been very kind
+     to me here. 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.'
+
+     "We partook of the Holy Communion together, and she received the
+     Gospel message of consolation with all her heart. At the close of
+     the little service I began to repeat the words 'Abide with me,' and
+     she joined softly in the end.
+
+     "We sat quietly talking until it was time for me to go. She gave me
+     parting messages for relations and friends. She spoke of her soul's
+     needs at the moment, and she received the assurance of God's Word
+     as only the Christian can do.
+
+     "Then I said 'Good-bye,' and she smiled and said, 'We shall meet
+     again.'
+
+     "The German military chaplain was with her at the end and
+     afterwards gave her Christian burial.
+
+     "He told me: 'She was brave and bright to the last. She professed
+     her Christian faith and that she was glad to die for her country.'
+     'She died like a heroine.'"
+
+It would be interesting to compare these last hours of one of the
+noblest women in English history to those of that rare and radiant Greek
+maiden, whom the genius of Sophocles has glorified in his immortal
+tragedy. The comparison is altogether in favour of the English heroine,
+for while Antigone went to her death bravely, yet her final words were
+those of bitter complaint and almost whining lamentation. Compare with
+these words the Christlike simplicity of Miss Cavell's last message to
+the world, and the difference between the noblest Paganism and the best
+of Christianity is apparent. Truly the light of Calvary illumined her
+dark cell! Standing "in view of God and eternity," she uttered the
+deeply pregnant sentence that "patriotism is not enough." Her
+executioners had illustrated this, for the ruthless killing of Edith
+Cavell for military purposes was actuated by that perverted spirit of
+patriotism which believes that any wrong is sanctified if it serves the
+State.
+
+No one suggests that General von Bissing had any personal feeling
+against Miss Cavell. Indeed his conduct would be the more tolerable if
+it had been actuated by the spirit of anger. He killed her in cold blood
+and to strengthen the German occupation in Belgium. News of the very
+recent successes of the Allies in Flanders and in the Champagne
+districts in the great offensive had reached Belgium and had caused a
+perceptible ferment in that down-trodden people. It therefore seemed
+necessary to show the iron hand again and to the Prussian ideal, as
+already illustrated by official proclamations of Prussian Generals, it
+was a matter of no consequence whose life was taken or whose right was
+invaded. It served to terrorize the Belgian people--Such was its real
+purpose.
+
+And you, women of America and of the World! Will you not honor the
+memory of this martyr of your sex, who for all time will be mourned as
+was the noblest Greek maiden, Antigone, who also gave her life that her
+brother might have the rites of sepulture? Will you not carry on in her
+name and for her memory those sacred ministrations of mercy which were
+her lifework?
+
+_Make her cause--the cause of justice and mercy--your own!_
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+_Printed in Great Britain._
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Case of Edith Cavell, by James M. Beck
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