NURSE CAVELL

Waikato Independent, Volume XXXVI, Issue 3422, 20 February 1936, Page 3

NURSE CAVELL

ALLEGED BETRAYER RELEASED.

Gaston Quien, a Frenchman, who is alleged to be the betrayer of Nurse Cavell, has been released after serving 20 years’ imprisonment for espionage on behalf of Germany. Nurse Edith Louisa Cavell was born on December 4, 1865, in Norfolk, the eldest daughter of the Rev. Frederick Cavell. She completed her education in Brussels, travelled on the Continent, and having studied German methods of medicine and hygiene, returned to England and underwent the course of training as nurse at the London Hospital. In 1906 she returned to Brussels, where she became matron of the Ecole Beige dTnfirmieres Diplomees, later known as the Ecole Edith Cavell. When the war broke out and the German Army invaded Belgium she decided to remain at her post, where she continued to succour the sick and wounded. On August 5, 1915, she was arrested by the Germans, charged with harbouring refugees and assisting 130 of them to escape. On October 7 her trial took place; on October 11 she was sentenced to death, and, despite the mediation of neutral diplomatists, she was shot in the Tir National, Brussels, at 2 o’clock the following morning, among her last words being, “I am glad to die for my country.” In May, 1919, her body was brought to England, and, after a memorial service at Westminster Abbey, was buried in the precincts of Norwich Cathedral. It cannot be emphasised too clearly that Edith Cavell was not a spy, that she was not an agent of any secret service, nor did she supply any information to the allies. She was not accused of having done so. Article 58 of the German Military Code, under which she was charged, makes “the conveying and sheltering of enemy soldiers” a crime punishable with death. It was established that she was associated with an organisation, the Les Crues des Families, or The Clans, which helped soldiers and civilians across the border into Holland.