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.