14. Acts of Mercy, That Also Happened to be Illegal Under the Laws of War
By August 20th, 1914, the Germans had occupied Brussels, and Edith Cavell’s nursing school was transformed into a Red Cross hospital that treated soldiers from all sides, as well as civilians. In September 1914, she was asked to help two wounded British soldiers trapped behind enemy lines. She treated them, then helped smuggle them out of German-occupied Belgium and across the border into the neutral Netherlands. That was the start of her involvement in a clandestine network that sheltered Allied soldiers and Belgian men of military age and arranged for their escape from German-occupied territory.
In the eleven months that followed, Cavell helped over 200 British, French, and Belgian soldiers and civilians. She sheltered them in her hospital, furnished them with false identity papers, and arranged to smuggle them across the border to safety. As she put it: “I can’t stop while there are lives to be saved“. Her efforts to help others were honorable, but they were also illegal under the laws of war. The Germans suspected Cavell but could find no evidence against her, until she was betrayed by a collaborator. She was arrested on August 3rd, 1915, and imprisoned for ten weeks – the last two in solitary confinement.
