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Selfless British nurse Edith Cavell was shot as a spy by a German firing squad in Brussels, Belgium, on October 12, 1915. Cavell, the 47-year-old matron of a Brussels training school for nurses, was known for her compassion and sense of duty. As World War I broke out in Europe, Cavell helped 60 British student nurses return home but she remained in Belgium. Even though she knew that helping soldiers escape from German-occupied territory meant the death penalty, Cavell agreed when asked to participate in an escape ring that helped more than 200 fugitive Allied soldiers return home after the British Expeditionary Force’s retreat from Mons. Such a large conspiracy could not long remain a secret and in August 1915, Cavell and 35 other members of her organization were arrested. At her hasty trial, she was condemned to death for ‘conducting soldiers to the enemy.’ Although their action may have been justified under the rules of war, the Germans seriously blundered when they shot Edith Cavell. Within days of her death, the selfless nurse was elevated to martyr status and the Germans were internationally condemned as ‘murdering monsters.’