Home > World War I > Edith Cavell Biography

December 4, 1865
Swardeston, Norfolk, England
October 12, 1915
Brussels, Belgium

Nurse, humanitarian, martyr

Accused of helping Allied prisoners escape their German captors during World War I, British-born nurse Edith Cavell was executed by a German firing squad in Brussels in 1915. Cavell had helped Belgian hospitals establish a modernized system of nursing education and patient care and had sheltered Allied soldiers in the clinic she supervised. Her death caught the notice of British propagandists (people who spread information to further or damage a cause), who portrayed this execution of a humanitarian as yet another example of German brutality. Cavell's death caused such a storm of protest that Kaiser Wilhelm (1859–1941) decreed that any future execution of a woman would require his personal approval. When Cavell's body was brought back to England after the war,...