Volume 2 — THROWN TO THE SWINE
Reading edition
On August 5, 1915, Miss Cavell, an English woman, directress of a large nursing home at Brussels, was quietly arrested by the German authorities and confined in the prison of St. Gilles on the charge that she had aided stragglers from the Allied Armies to escape across the frontier from Belgium to Holland, furnishing them with money, clothing and information concerning the route to be followed.
We reminded him (Baron Von der Lancken) of the burning of Louvain and the sinking of the Lusitania, and told him that this murder would stir all civilized countries with horror and disgust. Count Harrach broke in at this with the rather irrelevant remark that he would rather see Miss Cavell shot than have harm come to one of the humblest German soldiers, and his only regret was that they had not "three or four English old women to shoot."
The day brought forth another loathsome fact in connection with the case. It seems the sentence of Miss Cavell was not pronounced in open court. Her executioners, apparently in hope of concealing their intentions from us, went into her cell and there behind locked doors pronounced sentence upon her. It is all a piece with the other things they have done.
Hugh Gibson, First Secretary of the American Legation at Brussels.
