Cavell, Edith, 1865-1915

Edith Louisa Cavell ( KAV-əl; 4 December 1865 – 12 October 1915) was a British nurse. She is celebrated for treating wounded soldiers from both sides without discrimination during the First World War and for helping some 200 Allied soldiers escape from German-occupied Belgium and return to active service through the spy ring known as La Dame Blanche. Cavell was arrested, convicted following court-martial under German military law of violating medical neutrality, and sentenced to death by firing squad. Despite international pressure for mercy, General Traugott von Sauberzweig, the military governor of Brussels, refused to commute her sentence. The night before her execution, Cavell said, "Patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone". She was executed the next morning in the presence of Imperial German Army medic and war poet Gottfried Benn. Cavell, who was 49 at the time of her death, was already notable as a pioneer of modern nursing in Belgium. Unlike the subsequent execution by the French Army of two German Red Cross nurses, also for smuggling escaped POWs through the lines, Cavell's trial and execution received worldwide condemnation and extensive press coverage. In response, Kaiser Wilhelm II decreed that no more women were to be executed by the German military without his express permission. Cavell's words on the night before her death were inscribed on the Edith Cavell Memorial opposite the entrance to the National Portrait Gallery near Trafalgar Square. Her deeply Christian beliefs propelled Cavell to help all those who needed it, including both German and Allied soldiers. She was quoted as saying, "I can't stop while there are lives to be saved." The Church of England commemorates her in its Calendar of Saints on 12 October.