The Case of Edith Cavell A Study of the Rights of Non-Combatants

Those who have regarded the Supreme Court of Civilization--meaning thereby the moral sentiment of the world--as a mere rhetorical phrase or an idle illusion should take note how swiftly that court--sitting now as one of criminal assize--has pronounced sentence upon the murderers of Edith Cavell. The swift vengeance of the world's opinion has called to the bar General Baron von Bissing, and in executing him with the lightning of universal execration has forever degraded him.

Baron von der Lancken may possibly escape general obloquy, for his part in the crime was no greater than that of Pilate, who sought to wash his hands of innocent blood; but von Bissing will enjoy "until the last syllable of recorded time" the unenviable fame of Judge Jeffreys. He, too, was an able Judge and probably believed that he was executing justice, but because he did not execute it in mercy, but with a ferocity that has made his name a synonym for judicial tyranny, the world has condemned him to lasting infamy, and this notwithstanding the fact that he was made Chief Justice of the King's Bench, Lord High Chancellor of England, and a peer of the realm. All these titles are forgotten. Only that of "Bloody Jeffreys" remains.

Similarly, if his master shall be pleased to honor General Baron von Bissing with the iron cross for his action in the case of Miss Cavell, as the Kaiser honored the Captain of the submarine which destroyed the Lusitania--and what order could be more appropriate in both cases than the cross, which recalls how another innocent victim of judicial tyranny was sacrificed?--then even the Order of the Iron Cross will not save von Bissing from lasting obloquy. I do not question that he acted according to his lights and shared with Dr. Albert Zimmermann great "surprise" that the world should make such a sensation about the murder of one woman. Trajan once said that the possession of absolute power had a tendency to transform even the most humane man into a wild beast, and Judge Black in his great argument in the case of ex parte Milligan recalled the fact that Robespierre in his early life resigned his commission as Judge rather than pronounce the sentence of death, and that Caligula passed as a very amiable young man before he assumed the imperial purple. The story is as old as humanity that the appetite for blood, or at least the habit of murder, "grows by what it feeds upon."

The murder of Miss Cavell was one of exceptional brutality and stupidity. It never occurred to her judges that her murder would add an army corps to the forces of the Allies and that every English soldier will fight more bravely because of her shining example. So little was this appreciated either in Brussels or Berlin that the German Foreign Office, in its official apology for the crime, issued over the signature of Herr Doctor Albert Zimmermann, Under Secretary of Foreign Affairs, expresses its surprise

that the shooting of an Englishwoman and the condemnation of several women in Brussels for treason have caused a sensation.

What extraordinary moral naivete! How could they appreciate that after the firing squad had done its work and the body of the woman had been given hasty burial the victim's virtues would

"plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against The deep damnation of her taking off; And pity, like a naked new-born babe, Striding the blast, or Heaven's cherubim, horsed Upon the sightless couriers of the air, Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye, That tears shall drown the wind."

This happened with incredible rapidity, and the Kaiser made haste to respite the eight other intended victims--two of them being also women--and the Berlin Foreign Office also issued to the world its defense of its action.

It began with an expression of "pity that Miss Cavell had to be executed," but the sincerity of this pity can be measured by the fact that concurrently with Dr. Zimmermann's official apology there came from Berlin an "inspired" supplemental explanation, which sought to depreciate the character and services of the dead nurse by stating "that she earned a living by nursing, charging fees within the means of the wealthy only."

The world has an abundant refutation of this cruel and cowardly slur upon the memory of a dead woman, for one who first hazarded her life and then gave it freely to save the lives of others--for such was the charge for which she died--is not a woman to restrict her gracious ministrations of mercy for mercenary motives.

The Kaiser has been swift to see the deadly injury to his cause of this latest evidence of military tyranny. Not only has he respited Miss Cavell's alleged accomplices--as if to say with Macbeth, "thou canst not say I did it"--but it is said that he has summoned von Bissing and von der Lancken to explain their actions in the matter, but as the Kaiser is responsible for the invasion of Belgium and has hitherto condoned its attendant horrors, he can no more absolve himself from some share of responsibility than could Macbeth disavow his responsibility for the deeds of his two hirelings.

The stain of this murder rests upon Prussian militarism and not upon the German people, for it should not be forgotten that possibly the most chivalrous act which has happened since the beginning of the war, was the erection by a German community, where a detention camp was maintained, of a statue to the French and English soldiers who had died in captivity, with the beautiful inscription:

"To our Comrades, who here died for their dear Fatherland."

What could be more chivalrous or present a greater contrast to the assassination of Miss Cavell?

We are advised by Dr. Zimmermann that Miss Cavell was given a fair trial and was justly convicted, but as the proceedings of the trial were not public and as Miss Cavell was denied knowledge in advance of the trial of the nature of the charges against her, and as we know little of the circumstances of her alleged offense except the reports of her judges and executioners, the world will be somewhat incredulous as to whether the trial was as just to the accused as Dr. Zimmermann would have us believe.

The difficulty with this assurance is that the German conception of what is a fair trial differs from that which prevails in Anglo-Saxon countries, just as the German word "Gerechtigkeit" does not convey the same mental or moral conception as the English word "justice." "Gerechtigkeit" means little more to the Teutonic mind than the exercise of the power of the State, and claims no further sanction than its authority. In England, France, and the United States the idea of justice is that an individual has certain fundamental and inalienable rights which even the State cannot override, and none of these fundamental rights have been more highly valued in the evolution of English liberty than the rights of a defendant who is charged with crime. Whether guilty or not guilty, he cannot be arrested without a judicial warrant on proof of probable cause; he may not be compelled to testify against himself; he is entitled to a speedy trial and shall be informed in advance thereof of the exact nature of the accusation; his trial shall be public and open, and he shall be confronted with the witnesses against him and have compulsory process for his own defense; in advance of trial he shall have permission to select his own counsel, and shall have the opportunity to confer freely with him.

Most of these fundamental rights were denied to Miss Cavell.

It is difficult to understand why, in view of the policy of terrorism, which has prevailed in Belgium from the time that the invader first crossed its frontier, the justice from the standpoint of military law should be referred to in Herr Zimmermann's defense. In the official textbook of the General Staff of the German Army the definite policy of terrorizing a conquered country is proclaimed as a military theory. Its leading axiom is that

"a war conducted with energy cannot be directed merely against the combatants of the enemy State and the positions they occupy, but it will and must in like manner seek to destroy the total intellectual and material resources of the latter. Humanitarian claims, such as the protection of men and their goods, can only be taken into consideration in so far as the nature and object of the war permit. Consequently the argument of war permits every belligerent State to have recourse to all means which enable it to obtain the object of the war."

Miss Cavell's fate only differs from that of hundreds of Belgium women and children in that she had the pretense of a trial and presumably had trespassed against military law, while other victims of the rape of Belgium were ruthlessly killed in order to effect a speedy subjugation of the territory. The question of the guilt or innocence of each individual was a matter of no importance. Hostages were taken and not for the alleged wrongs of others.

Did not General von Buelow on August 22nd announce to the inhabitants of Liege that

"_it is with my consent that the General in command has burned down the place [Andenne] and shot about 100 inhabitants._"

It was the same chivalrous and humane General who posted a proclamation at Namur on August 25th as follows:

"Before 4 o'clock all Belgian and French soldiers are to be delivered up as prisoners of war. Citizens who do not obey this will be condemned to hard labor for life in Germany. At 4 o'clock a rigorous inspection of all houses will be made. Every soldier found will be shot. The streets will be held by German guards, who will hold ten hostages for each street. These hostages will be shot if there is any trouble in that street. A crime against the German Army will compromise the existence of the whole town of Namur and every one in it."

Did not Field Marshal von der Goltz issue a proclamation in Brussels, on October 5th, stating that, if any individual disturbed the telegraphic or railway communications, all the inhabitants would be "_punished without pity, the innocent suffering with the guilty_"?

Individual guilt being thus a matter of minor importance, Dr. Zimmermann had no occasion on the accepted theory of Prussian militarism to justify the secret trial and midnight execution of Edith Cavell. Indeed, he freely intimates that his Government will not spare women, no matter how high and noble the motive may have been which inspires any infraction of military law, and to this sweeping statement he makes but one exception, namely, that women "in a delicate condition may not be executed." But why the exception? If it be permitted to destroy one life for the welfare of the military administration of Belgium, why stop at two? If the innocent living are to be sacrificed, why spare the unborn? The exception itself shows that the rigor of military law must have some limitation, and that its iron rigor must be softened by a discretion dictated by such considerations of chivalry and magnanimity as have hitherto been observed by all civilized nations. If the victim of yesterday had been an "expectant mother," Dr. Zimmermann suggests that her judges and executioners would have spared her, but no such exception can be found in the Prussian military code. "It is not so nominated in the bond," and the Under Secretary's recognition of one exception, based upon considerations of humanity and not the letter of the military code, destroys the whole fabric of his case, for it clearly shows that there was a power of discretion which von Bissing could have exercised, if he had so elected.