After occupying Belgium, the Germans converted Cavell’s nursing home into a Red Cross hospital, but they allowed Edith to continue as Matron. German authorities supervised her as she cared for wounded German soldiers. Regardless of their nationality, she gave all her patients the finest possible treatment.

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She carried on with her regular duties of supervising her nurses, delivering her regular lectures to them while maintaining her official records of food costs and other expenses. Despite the reduced food allowances ordinarily found in an occupied nation, she managed to feed not only the patients and staff, but also the hidden soldiers. She secreted the escapees in whatever nursing home space she could, even placing them in unoccupied beds and listing them as patients, or putting them in the cellar away from prying eyes and suspicious minds. At times she cooked their food at night, served it to them herself, and then washed the dishes before morning to remove all traces of what she had done.

By 1915 she had lodged more than 100 British and an additional 100 French and Belgian soldiers. Comings and goings at the Institute had become so frequent that Germans grew suspicious, especially after they heard whispered reports of Edith’s Allied sympathies and actions.

One day, a man who called himself Jacobs came to Edith one day claiming to have heard of her from peasants near Mons after escaping from a German labour camp. He knew neither her address nor the password but had found her by asking neighbours where she lived. Although his story was doubtful, she admitted him. He remained a week, evaded personal questions, and departed, leaving papers that were suspiciously torn into small pieces.

Shortly thereafter came Gaston Quien, a handsome French soldier who also gained admission to the Institute and absorbed as much information about it as he could. Affable and flirtatious, he took undue liberties with the ladies and resisted all attempts to have him discharged from the Institute until Edith herself insisted that he go. He escaped with a group to Holland but returned a week later, claiming that French officials had ordered him back to gather information for them.

The German secret police grew more interested in the activities at the Institute and made a number of visits but found nothing incriminating. They placed it under surveillance as well, but careful precautions by those inside helped avoid serious consequence.

Gradually, though, the evidence against Edith mounted. Collegues urged her to escape while she could, but she refused. In addition, a recent event had stunned her: Marie Depage, returning from a successful fund-raising tour of the United States, had gone down in the ocean waters on the ill-fated Luisitania.

On 31st July, 1915, the Germans seized Phillipe Baucq and on 5th August, they arrested Edith. After three days of fruitless questioning, they tricked her into talking by feigning they already had the necessary information and that the best way to save her friends would be to make a full confession. Edith, ever trusting, believed them and poured out names, dates, and places. The trial in October lasted only two days. When she heard the death sentence pronounced, she accepted it stoically, still unable to bend.

Despite appeals from both the American and Spanish ambassadors for clemency, Edith fell before a firing squad on the morning of 12th October, 1915, and was buried nearby. In May 1919 her body was exhumed and returned to Britain where a memorial service was held at Westminster Abbey, attended by His Majesty, King George V. She was then reburied at the Cathedral in Norwich, just a few miles from her native Swardeston. Her statue in St. Martin’s Place bears the words, ‘Humanity, Fortitude, Devotion, Sacrifice’–fitting tributes to the life she led.

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