last words of Edith Cavell, 1865-1915)
"I expected my sentence and believe it was just. Standing, as I do, in the view of God and eternity I realize that patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness to anyone."
Edith Cavell was the Senior Matron of a British Red Cross Hospital stationed in Brussels during the first months of World War One. After the German Army overran neutral Belgium, Cavell and a team of nurses secretly treated hundreds of Allied soldiers. When the soldiers were well enough to travel, Cavell provided them with civilian clothes, false identification, money, and an escort to the border. In August, 1915, she was arrested, court-martialed for spying, and sentenced to death; she was shot by a German firing squad the following October. An unfounded rumor circulated throughout the Allies nations that Cavell fainted as she faced her executioners. When the firing squad balked at shooting an unconscious nurse who was lying on the ground, a German officer drew his pistol, placed the barrel against her temple, and killed her with a shot to the head. Cavell's execution provided Great Britain with and unprecedented propaganda windfall, and army recruiters quickly capitalized upon it. Enlistments had been flagging in September but soared to record levels in October and November.
Cavell's last words were said to have been recorded by an English Chaplain who visited with her the night before her death. He, in turn, passed them on to a reporter who published them in The Times.
