MURDERS AND MARTYRS
Many examples might be cited to show that the Central empires were dead
to the humanities. There were apparently no limits to the brutality of
the German war-makers. Among the outstanding deeds of the Teutons that
sickened the world was the killing of Miss Edith Cavell, an English
nurse working in Belgian hospitals.
A shudder of horror circled the world when announcement was formally
made that this splendid woman was sentenced to death and murdered by a
German firing squad at two o’clock on the morning of October 12, 1915.
The killing of this gentle-natured, brave woman typified to the world
Germany’s essentially brutal militarism. It placed the German military
command in a niche of dishonor unique in all history.
The specific charge against Miss Cavell was that she had helped English
and French soldiers and Belgian young male civilians to cross the
border into Holland. The direct evidence against her was in the form of
letters intercepted by the Germans in which some of these soldiers and
civilians writing from England thanked her for the aid she had given to
them.
Upon the farcical trial that resulted in the predetermined sentence of
death, Miss Cavell courageously and freely admitted her assistance in
the specified cases of escape. When she was asked why she did it, she
declared her fear that if she had not done so the men would have been
shot by the Germans. Her testimony was given in a clear conversational
tone that betrayed no nervousness and her entire bearing was such as to
win the sympathy of everyone except her stony-hearted judges.
The German officers in command at Brussels made it impossible for Miss
Cavell to see counsel before the trial, and a number of able lawyers
who were solicited to undertake her defense declined to do so
because of their fear of the Germans.
[Illustration: NURSE EDITH CAVELL
A victim of German savagery. An English lady whose life had been
devoted to works of mercy, was shot after summary trial, at Brussels
on October 11, 1915, for helping British and Belgian fugitives.]
[Illustration: © _Underwood and Underwood, N. Y._
CAPTAIN CHARLES A. FRYATT
The martyred British Merchant-Marine Captain, who was executed by the
Germans because his ship attempted to sink a German submarine which
attacked her.]
Sentence was imposed upon her at five o’clock on the afternoon of
October 11th. In accordance with its terms, she was taken from her
cell and placed against a blank wall at two o’clock the following
morning--the darkness of the hour vying with the blackness of the
deed. Mr. Gahan, the English clergyman connected with the prison, was
permitted to see her a short time before her murder. He gave her Holy
Communion at ten o’clock on the night of October 11th. To him she
declared she was happy in her contemplation of death; that she had no
regret for what she had done; and that she was glad to die for her
country.
Brand Whitlock, American Minister to Belgium, and Hugh Gibson,
Secretary of the Legation, did all that was humanly possible to avert
the crime, but without avail. They were told that, “the Emperor himself
could not intervene.”
Defending the murder, Dr. Alfred Zimmermann, German Under-Secretary for
Foreign Affairs, callously disposed of the matter thus:
“I see from the English and American press that the shooting of an
Englishwoman and the condemnation of several other women in Brussels
for treason has caused a sensation, and capital against us is being
made out of the fact. It is undoubtedly a terrible thing that the
woman has been executed; but consider what would happen to a state,
particularly in war, if it left crimes aimed at the safety of its
armies to go unpunished because committed by women. No criminal code
in the world--least of all the laws of war--makes such a distinction;
and the feminine sex has but one preference, according to legal usages,
namely, that women in a delicate condition may not be executed.
Otherwise man and woman are equal before the law, and only the degree
of guilt makes a difference in the sentence for the crime and its
consequences.”
In reply to Dr. Zimmermann, statesmen throughout the civilized world
declared that it was not merely a political mistake, not merely a
national blunder, to kill Miss Cavell, but that it was a crime
unjustified by the facts. These statements were entirely outside of the
humanitarian aspect of the case; outside of the promptings of manhood
to show clemency toward a woman whose actions had been inspired by the
loftiest sympathies and emotions.
Monuments to Edith Cavell were reared in widely scattered communities.
A mountain was named in her honor. Her murder multiplied enlistments
and fed the fires of patriotism throughout the Allied countries. In the
end, Germany lost heavily. The Teutons aimed to strike terror into the
hearts of men and women. They only succeeded in arousing a righteous
anger that ultimately destroyed the Imperial government.
Another instance equally flagrant of the utter callousness of the men
who at that time ruled Germany, was the murder of Captain Fryatt, a
gallant British seaman, who had dared to attack the pirates of the
under-seas.
Captain Charles Fryatt was the master of the steamship Brussels, a
merchant vessel owned by the Great Eastern Railway. It was captured by
the Germans on June 23, 1916. Captain Fryatt was taken to Zeebrugge.
A court-martial went through the motions of a trial at Bruges on July
27th. The charge against Captain Fryatt was that of attempting to ram
the German submarine U-33.
Mute testimony against Captain Fryatt was a gold watch found upon his
person. This carried an inscription testifying that the watch had been
presented by the mayor and people of Harwich in recognition of the
Captain’s bravery in attempting to ram a submarine, and his successful
escape when the U-boat called upon him to surrender.
The prisoners who were captured with Captain were sent to the prison
camp at Ruhlaben, but Captain Fryatt was condemned to death as a
“franc-tireur.” The news of the murder was sent to the world through a
German communiqué dated July 28th. It stated:
The accused was condemned to death because, although he was not a
member of a combatant force, he made an attempt on the afternoon
of March 20, 1915, to ram the German submarine U-33 near the Maas
lightship. The accused, as well as the first officer and the chief
engineer of the steamer, received at the time from the British
Admiralty a gold watch as a reward of his brave conduct on that
occasion, and his action was mentioned with praise in the House of
Commons.
On the occasion in question, disregarding the U-boat’s signal to stop
and show his national flag, he turned at a critical moment at high
speed on the submarine, which escaped the steamer by a few meters
only by immediately diving. He confessed that in so doing he had
acted in accordance with the instructions of the Admiralty.
One of the many nefarious franc-tireur proceedings of the British
merchant marine against our war vessels has thus found a belated but
merited expiation.
This brutal action by Germany coming after the murder of Edith Cavell
created intense indignation throughout the world. It ranked with the
poison gas at Ypres, the Lusitania, the Belgian atrocities, the killing
of Edith Cavell and the unrestricted submarine sinkings, as a factor in
arousing the democratic peoples of the world to a fighting pitch.
The world will not soon forget these martyrs to a splendid cause; and
it will be many a long year before the stain on the German peoples who
tolerated these crimes can be wiped out.
Germany sowed its seeds of destruction in the wind that bore the fumes
of poison gas, and in the ruthless brutality that decreed the sinking
of the Lusitania and the murders of Edith Cavell and Captain Fryatt.
It reaped the whirlwind in the world-wide wrath that brought America
into the war, and that visited disgrace and defeat upon the German
Empire.