Lest We Forget Part 6

plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against The deep d.a.m.nation of her taking-off.

But not so, for German education and training have evidently made the German people look upon almost everything in a way different from that of Americans, Englishmen, and Frenchmen. And yet the common German people do at times show that they have a feeling of admiration, if not of affection, for peoples of other nations; for we are told of a German city erecting a statue to the French and English soldiers who died as captives in the German prison located there, with the inscription, _To our Comrades, who here died for their Fatherland_.

But we must remember that there are many kingdoms in Germany and cruel Prussia rules them all. It was Prussian savagery and barbarity that approved the ma.s.sacre by the Turks of almost an entire people, the Armenians, and it was done under the eyes of German officers. The same is true of the wholesale slaughter of non-combatant Serbian men, women, and children by the Bulgarians. A word from Germany would have stopped it all.

When the war broke out, Edith Cavell was living in England with her aged mother. She felt her duty was in Belgium and she went to Brussels and established a private hospital. An American woman, Mary Boyle O'Reilly of Boston, a daughter of the poet, John Boyle O'Reilly, worked with her for a time. When Miss O'Reilly was expelled from Belgium, she begged Miss Cavell to leave that land of horror, but Miss Cavell only said, "My duty is here."

She and her nurses cared for many a wounded German soldier and this alone should have insured her fair treatment, if not grat.i.tude, from Germany.

She was arrested, kept in solitary confinement for ten weeks without any charge being made against her; then was tried secretly for having sheltered French and Belgian soldiers who were seeking to escape to Holland.

It is probably true that Miss Cavell did this, but the history of war in modern times records no case where any one has been put to death for giving shelter for a short time to a fugitive soldier. Such an act does not, according to the custom of civilized countries, make one a spy, nor is it treason.

Those who have investigated the case carefully have come to the conclusion that the Germans decided to make a terrible example of some of the women in Brussels who were sympathizing with and perhaps helping French and Belgian soldiers to escape to Holland, for about the same time twenty-two other women were arrested on the same charge as that finally made against Edith Cavell.

When Brand Whitlock, the American minister, learned from an outsider (he could get no information from the German officials) that Edith Cavell had been condemned, he sent the following letters, one a personal one, the other an official one, to the German commandant:

Personal:

MY DEAR BARON:

I am too ill to put my request before you in person, but once more I appeal to the generosity of your heart. Stand by and save from death this unfortunate woman. Have pity on her.

Your devoted friend, BRAND WHITLOCK.

Official:

I have just heard that Miss Cavell, a British subject, and consequently under the protection of my Legation, was this morning condemned to death by court-martial.

If my information is correct, the sentence in the present case is more severe than all the others that have been pa.s.sed in similar cases which have been tried by the same Court, and, without going into the reasons for such a drastic sentence, I feel that I have the right to appeal to your Excellency's feelings of humanity and generosity in Miss Cavell's favor, and to ask that the death penalty pa.s.sed on Miss Cavell may be commuted and that this unfortunate woman shall not be executed.

Miss Cavell is the head of the Brussels Surgical Inst.i.tute. She has spent her life in alleviating the sufferings of others, and her school has turned out many nurses who have watched at the bedside of the sick all the world over, in Germany as in Belgium. At the beginning of the war Miss Cavell bestowed her care as freely on the German soldiers as on others. Even in default of all other reasons, her career as a servant of humanity is such as to inspire the greatest sympathy and to call for pardon. If the information in my possession is correct, Miss Cavell, far from shielding herself, has, with commendable straightforwardness, admitted the truth of all the charges against her, and it is the very information which she herself has furnished, which has aggravated the severity of the sentence pa.s.sed on her.

It is then with confidence, and in the hope of its favorable reception, that I have the honor to present to your Excellency my request for pardon on Miss Cavell's behalf.

BRAND WHITLOCK.

But no real attention was paid to the American notes. Edith Cavell was sentenced at five o'clock on the afternoon of October 11, and was put to death that same night.

Permission was refused to take her body for burial outside the prison.

It is doubtless still buried in the prison yard unless the Germans have removed it for fear a monument may be erected above it. The English are to erect a monument in her honor in London. Dr. James M. Beck, in writing about her case, says of her burial in the prison yard, "One can say of that burial place, as Byron said of the prison cell of Chillon: 'Let none these marks efface, for they appeal from tyranny to G.o.d.'"

SON[2]

He hurried away, young heart of joy, under our Devon sky!

And I watched him go, my beautiful boy, and a weary woman was I.

For my hair is gray, and his was gold; he'd the best of his life to live; And I'd loved him so, and I'm old, I'm old; and he's all I had to give.

Ah, yes, he was proud and swift and gay, but oh, how my eyes were dim!

With the sun in his heart he went away, but he took the sun with him.

For look! How the leaves are falling now, and the winter won't be long....

Oh, boy, my boy with the sunny brow, and the lips of love and of song!

How we used to sit at the day's sweet end, we two by the fire-light's gleam, And we'd drift to the Valley of Let's Pretend, on the beautiful River of Dream.

Oh, dear little heart! All wealth untold would I gladly, gladly pay Could I just for a moment closely hold that golden head to my gray.

For I gaze in the fire, and I'm seeing there a child, and he waves to me; And I run and I hold him up in the air, and he laughs and shouts with glee; A little bundle of love and mirth, crying: "Come, Mumsie dear!"

Ah, me! If he called from the ends of the earth I know that my heart would hear.

Yet the thought comes thrilling through all my pain: how worthier could he die?

Yea, a loss like that is a glorious gain, and pitiful proud am I.

For Peace must be bought with blood and tears, and the boys of our hearts must pay; And so in our joy of the after-years, let us bless them every day.

And though I know there's a hasty grave with a poor little cross at its head, And the gold of his youth he so gladly gave, yet to me he'll never be dead.

And the sun in my Devon lane will be gay, and my boy will be with me still, So I'm finding the heart to smile and say: "Oh G.o.d, if it be Thy Will!"

ROBERT W. SERVICE.

FOOTNOTES:

[2] COPYRIGHT BY Ba.r.s.e AND HOPKINS.

THE CASE OF SERBIA

But Belgium is not the only little nation that has been attacked in this war, and I make no excuse for referring to the case of the other little nation--the case of Serbia. The history of Serbia is not unblotted. What history in the list of nations is unblotted? The first nation that is without sin, let her cast a stone at Serbia--a nation trained in a horrible school. But she won her freedom with her tenacious valor, and she has maintained it by the same courage. If any Serbians were mixed up in the a.s.sa.s.sination of the Grand Duke, they ought to be punished. Serbia admits that. The Serbian Government had nothing to do with it. Not even Austria claimed that. The Serbian Prime Minister is one of the most capable and honored men in Europe. Serbia was willing to punish any one of her subjects who had been proved to have any complicity in that a.s.sa.s.sination. What more could you expect?

What were the Austrian demands? Serbia sympathized with her fellow-countrymen in Bosnia. That was one of her crimes. She must do so no more. Her newspapers were saying nasty things about Austria. They must do so no longer. That is the Austrian spirit. How dare you criticize a Prussian official? And if you laugh, it is a capital offense. Serbian newspapers must not criticize Austria. I wonder what would have happened had we taken up the same line about German newspapers. Serbia said: "Very well, we will give orders to the newspapers that they must not criticize Austria in future, neither Austria, nor Hungary, nor anything that is theirs." She promised not to sympathize with Bosnia; promised to write no critical articles about Austria. She would hold no public meetings at which anything unkind was said about Austria. That was not enough. She must dismiss from her army officers whom Austria should subsequently name. But these officers had just emerged from a war where they were adding l.u.s.ter to the Serbian arms--gallant, brave, efficient. I wonder whether it was their guilt or their efficiency that prompted Austria's action. Serbia was to undertake in advance to dismiss them from the army--the names to be sent in subsequently. Can you name a country in the world that would have stood that? Supposing Austria or Germany had issued an ultimatum of that kind to this country. "You must dismiss from your army and from your navy all those officers whom we shall subsequently name." Well, I think I could name them now. Lord Kitchener would go. Sir John French would be sent about his business. General Smith-Dorrien would be no more, and I am sure that Sir John Jellicoe would go. And there is another gallant old warrior who would go--Lord Roberts.

It was a difficult situation for a small country. Here was a demand made upon her by a great military power who could put five or six men in the field for every one she could; and that power supported by the greatest military power in the world. How did Serbia behave? It is not what happens to you in life that matters; it is the way in which you face it. And Serbia faced the situation with dignity. She said to Austria: "If any officers of mine have been guilty and are proved to be guilty, I will dismiss them." Austria said, "That is not good enough for me." It was not guilt she was after, but capacity.

Then came Russia's turn. Russia has a special regard for Serbia. She has a special interest in Serbia. Russians have shed their blood for Serbian independence many a time. Serbia is a member of her family, and she cannot see Serbia maltreated. Austria knew that. Germany knew that, and Germany turned around to Russia and said: "I insist that you shall stand by with your arms folded whilst Austria is strangling your little brother to death." What answer did the Russian Slav give? He gave the only answer that becomes a man. He turned to Austria and said: "You lay hands on that little fellow and I will tear your ramshackle empire limb from limb."

DAVID LLOYD GEORGE, 1914.

THE MURDER OF CAPTAIN FRYATT