German proclamation announcing the execution of Miss Cavell[]
The trial began on Thursday, October 7th, and ended the following day.
On Sunday afternoon the Legation learned from persons who had been present at the trial some of the facts.
It seems that Miss Cavell was prosecuted for having helped English and French soldiers, as well as Belgian young men, to cross the frontier into Holland in order that they might get over to England. She had made a signed statement admitting the truth of these charges and had further made public acknowledgment in court. She frankly admitted that not only had she helped the soldiers to cross the frontier but that some of them had written her from England thanking her for her assistance. This last admission made the case more serious for her because if it had been proven only that she had helped men to cross the frontier into Holland, she could have been sentenced only for a violation of the passport regulations, and not for the "crime" of assisting soldiers to reach a country at war with Germany.
Miss Cavell was tried under Paragraph 58 of the German Military Code, which says:
Any person who, with the intention of aiding the hostile Power or causing harm to German or allied troops, is guilty of one of the crimes of Paragraph 90 of the German Penal Code, will be sentenced to death for treason.
The "crime" referred to by Paragraph 90 was that of "conducting soldiers to the enemy" (viz.: dem Feinde Mannschaften zuführt).
It is manifest that this was a strained reading of the provisions of military law; that a false interpretation was wilfully put upon these provisions in order to secure a conviction. This law was obviously framed to cover the case of those who assist stragglers or lost soldiers to get back to their own lines and join their units. It is doubtful whether the framers of the military law had foreseen anything so indirect and unprecedented as that of helping soldiers cross into a neutral country in the hope that they might find their way back through two other countries to their own army. Miss Cavell assisted these soldiers to escape into a neutral country which was bound, if possible, to apprehend and intern them. If these soldiers succeeded in outwitting the Dutch authorities and making their way to England, their success would not, to any fair-minded person, increase the offense committed by Miss Cavell.
Miss Cavell's conduct before the court was marked by the greatest frankness and courage. She stated that she had assisted these men to escape into Holland because she thought that if she had not done so they would have been seized and shot by the Germans; that she felt that she had only done her duty in helping to save their lives.