On November 20, however, nearly a month later, the British Foreign Office did make public one correction:
'The letter addressed by the United States Minister at Brussels to the Ambassador in London, under date October 14, to the effect that the German prosecutor had asked for a sentence of death against Miss Edith Cavell and eight other persons implicated by her testimony was due to erroneous information furnished to the United States Legation, and, so far as it has been possible to discover, no other person has been directly implicated by any testimony on the part of Miss Cavell.'
The acknowledgement of this mistake, however, could have afforded the Germans but little satisfaction, because its only effect was the removal of a slur on the loyalty of Miss Cavell to her friends.
In the clumsy attempt to justify their savagery the Germans have done nothing to prevent judgement going by default in the heart of all civilized nations. They omit all reference to their inhuman haste and calculated trickery, and their venomous refusal to allow exhumation and proper burial. No laws of war permit such outrages, no military necessities can excuse and no pedantic partisan can vindicate them.
XI
JUSTICE AND SAVAGERY CONTRASTED
Sir John Simon, the late Home Secretary, in an interview with a United States correspondent in London, averred that in the record of Britain's treatment of persons accused of military offences the case of Miss Cavell had and could have no parallel. To no woman, even in cases of clearly proved espionage, had Britain meted out a sentence of death; and in no case is a woman, whatever her nationality, tried in any but a civil court.
It may be urged that in an occupied territory such as Belgium the administration of the law may call for slight difference; but the Cavell case was not a sudden or unexpected discovery that called for a drumhead court-martial on a battle-field. The 'crime' was committed in Brussels, where the invaders claim to have restored orderly government under their own civil governor.