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Miss Cavell's execution has stirred us all to the bottom of our hearts. The mean trickiness of her trial, the refusal to let facts be known, and then the cold-blooded murder of a brave English woman at 2 a.m. on a Sunday morning in a prison yard! It is too awful to think about.
All day long lines of men waited to sign the papers of enlistment, and in Miss Cavell's home town every eligible man was sworn into the army. A bitter denunciation of the German act was made by Sir Edward Grey. The Germans themselves had only a poor excuse for what they had done.
Whitlock to take Miss Cavell's case and do whatever was possible in her behalf. He was not allowed to see the prisoner and was not even allowed to look at the documents in the case until the trial began. Another lawyer, who was a Belgian, suddenly appeared and told the Americans that there was not the least cause for them to worry as Miss Cavell was sure to receive only just treatment.
Out of hearing, Gräfin von Stachelberg who, however, to facilitate intercourse, begged Vivie to call her "Minna," "We may all be dead, my dear, before long of blood-poisoning, bombs from your aeroplanes, a rising against us in the Marolles quarter " said very plainly what she thought of Edith Cavell's execution.
The third was General von Sauberzweig, military governor of Brussels at the time of Miss Cavell's execution, and the man of final responsibility for her death. As a result of the excitement in Berlin because of the world-wide indignation over the Cavell affair he had been removed from Brussels by promotion to the Quartermaster Generalship at Great Headquarters!
No doubt, his somewhat censorious protests against the British blockade and the methods of its enforcement were primarily intended for domestic consumption, and even then their effect was severely discounted by the growing tale of German outrage; the world at large was in no mood to listen to the laments of profiteers when its ears were tingling with the story of Edith Cavell's execution.
Miss Cavell's mother, a widow, residing at Norwich, received the following letter of sympathy from the king and queen: "Buckingham Palace, "October 23, 1915. "Dear Madam: "By command of the King and Queen I write to assure you that the hearts of their Majesties go out to you in your bitter sorrow, and to express their horror at the appalling deed which has robbed you of your child.
Vivie, though still dazed with the reverberating horror of Edith Cavell's execution, tried to regain her mind balance and thank him for the kindness he had shown them. But it was now necessary to see her mother who might also be undergoing a shock. As she walked up to their bedroom she reflected that the departure of von Giesselin would have to be followed by their own exile to some other lodging.
And he remembered that he a boy had not been able, this very day, to take even a strapping! What if he had been asked to accept death? How far away yes, as if it were days and days ago! seemed that order of Big Tom's to go out and sell Cis's flowers! That was because this wonderful, heart-moving tragedy of Edith Cavell's had happened in between!
Von Bissing to mitigate the sentence, and at eleven in the evening he was told that Von Bissing refused to do anything to save Miss Cavell's life. At the same time that the Governor denied this appeal, Edith Cavell was allowed to see a British chaplain. She told him that she was not in the least afraid of death and willingly gave her life for her country.
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