Nurse Cavell Executed: Firing Squad Shocks the World
Edith Cavell was executed by German firing squad in 1915 for helping over 200 Allied soldiers escape from occupied Belgium to neutral Netherlands. She was a British nurse running a Red Cross hospital in Brussels. She didn't deny the charges — she'd kept records of every soldier she'd helped. The Germans offered her a deal: plead for mercy and be spared. She refused. "Patriotism is not enough," she said the night before her execution. "I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone." Her death turned her into a propaganda symbol she'd explicitly rejected being.
October 12, 1915
111 years ago
Key Figures & Places
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