Edith Cavell
Executed by the Germans by firing squad, WW1
Despite appeals from both the American and Spanish ambassadors for clemency,
Edith fell before a firing squad on the morning of 12th October, 1915,
and was buried
nearby.
Two firing squads, each of eight men, carried out the execution at dawn
on October 12,
1915, at the national rifle range in Brussels. Cavell was still wearing
her nurse's uniform.
The words she spoke to her last English visitor, Stirling Gahan, the English
chaplain in
Brussels, became almost as famous as Admiral Horatio Nelson's at Trafalgar.
"I know now
that patriotism is not enough," she said. "I must have no hatred and no
bitterness towards
anyone."
Edith's body is returned to England.
Although the German action was justified according to the rules of war,
the shooting of Edith
Cavell was a serious blunder. Within days, the heroic nurse became a worldwide
martyr, and
the Germans were universally described as "murdering monsters." As a result
of her
execution, Allied morale was strengthened, and recruitment doubled for
eight weeks after her
death was announced.