Whatever may be the right or the wrong of the case, it is reasonably safe to apply to it the famous dictum of Fouché on Napoleon's execution of the Duc d'Enghien: "It is worse than a crime; it is a blunder." It certainly had the effect of still further embittering the enemies of Germany. Perhaps no incident of the great world war will be more indelibly imprinted on the British mind than this. Many thousands of young Englishmen who had hitherto held back rushed to join the colors. "Edith Cavell Recruiting Meetings" were held all over the United Kingdom. A great national memorial service was held in St. Paul's Cathedral in London, where representatives of the king and queen, statesmen, the nobility and thousands of officers and soldiers attended. The Dowager Queen Alexandra, who is the patron of the great institution now in course of erection and known as the "Queen Alexandra Nurses' Training School," expressed the desire that her name should give place to that of Miss Cavell, and that the institution shall be called "The Edith Cavell Nurses' Training School."
Within a month of her death it had been decided to erect a statue to the memory of Miss Cavell in Trafalgar Square. Sir George Frampton, R.A., President of the Royal Society of British Sculptors, undertook to execute the statue without charge.
The most permanent memorial of the death of Nurse Cavell will be a snow-clad peak in the Rocky Mountains, which the Canadian Government has decided to name "Mount Cavell." It is situated fifteen miles south of Jasper, on the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway, near the border of Alberta, at the junction of the Whirlpool and Athabasca Rivers, and has a height of more than 11,000 feet.
A curious sequel followed the execution of Miss Cavell. Nearly three months later, on January 6, 1916, a young Belgian was found shot dead in Schaerbeek, a suburb of Brussels. The German authorities took the matter in hand for investigation, but in the meantime General von Bissing fined the city of Brussels 500,000 marks and the suburb of Schaerbeek 50,000 marks on the plea that the murder had been committed with a revolver, the Germans having ordered that all arms should be surrendered at the town hall. But there was more in this affair than an ordinary crime. The "Écho Belge," published in Amsterdam since the German occupation of Belgium, revealed that the punitive action by the German authorities was prompted by something other than an infringement of the regulations. The body found was that of a certain Niels de Rode, and he it was who denounced Miss Cavell and also betrayed several Belgians—his own countrymen—who were trying to cross the frontier to join the army. The "Écho Belge" asserted that De Rode was executed by Belgian patriots to avenge the betrayal of Miss Cavell. The anger of the German authorities was explained by the loss of their informer.
On October 22, 1915, London was officially informed that "The king is in France, where he has gone to visit his army. His majesty also hopes to see some of the allied troops." This was not the king's first visit to the battle line, and, as before, his departure from England and arrival on the Continent had been kept a secret until he had reached his destination. The king traveled by automobile from Havre to various parts of the British and French lines, "somewhere in France," inspecting troops and visiting hospitals. The royal tour was brought to a premature close on the morning of the 28th owing to an unfortunate accident. The king had just finished the second of two reviews of troops representing corps of the First Army when his horse, frightened by the cheers of the men, reared and fell, and his majesty was severely bruised. Twice the horse (a mare) reared up when the soldiers burst suddenly into cheers at only a few yards' distance. The first time the mare came down again on her forefeet, but the second time she fell over and, in falling, rolled slightly on to the king's leg. The announcement of the king's mishap came with dramatic suddenness to the assembled officers and troops. The troops of the corps which he had first inspected could hear from where they stood the cheers of their comrades about a mile away, which told them that the second review was over, and that the king would pass down the road fronting them in a few minutes. The orders to raise their caps and cheer were shouted to the men by the company officers, and then the whole corps, with bayoneted rifles at the slope, advanced in brigade order across the huge fallow field in which they had been drawn up to within thirty yards or so of the road. In a few minutes a covered green automobile was seen tearing down the road at full speed, and as it drew up opposite the center of the corps the cheering began to spread all along the line. In the enthusiasm of the moment the majority did not notice that the car was not flying the royal standard, and even when an officer, with the pink and white brassard of an Army Corps Staff, jumped out of the car and began to shout hasty instructions few realized their mistake and his words were carried away down the tempestuous wind that raged at the time. Then the officer hurried here and there calling out that the king had met with an accident and that there was to be no cheering. A few of those in the center caught his words, but the news had not spread to more than a fraction of the whole body before the king's car drove past. A curious spectacle now presented itself. Along one portion of the front the men stood silently at attention, while their comrades on either side of them, and yet other troops farther away down the road, were raising their caps on their bayonets and cheering with true British lustiness. Some could catch a glimpse of the king as his car dashed swiftly by. He was sitting half-bent in the corner of the vehicle, and his face wore a faint smile of acknowledgment. The king's injuries proved to be worse than was at first supposed, necessitating his removal to London on a stretcher.[Back to Contents]
CHAPTER XII
OPERATIONS IN CHAMPAGNE AND ARTOIS—PREPARATIONS FOR WINTER CAMPAIGN
By the middle of October operations on the western front centralized almost entirely in the Champagne and Artois districts, where the Germans, fully appreciating the menace to their lines created by the results of the allied offensive, sought by continuous violent counterattacks to recover the territory from which they had been dislodged and to prevent the Allies from consolidating and strengthening their gains. Their attacks in the Artois fell chiefly between Hulluch and Hill 70, and southeast of Givenchy, against the heights of Petit Vimy. The Germans succeeded in retaking small sections of first-line trenches, but lost some of their new trenches in return. Whereas the Allies held practically all they had gained, the Germans were considerably the losers by the transaction. The British attempted to continue their offensive by driving between Loos and Hulluch, the most important and at the same time the most dangerous section on the British front. By steadily forging ahead southeast of Loos toward Hill 70, the British were driving a wedge into the German line and creating a perilous salient around the town of Angres as the center. To obviate the danger from counterattacks against the sides of the salient, the British endeavored to flatten out the point of the wedge by capturing more ground north of Hill 70 toward Hulluch. To some extent the plan succeeded; they advanced east of the Lens-La Bassée road for about 500 yards, an apparently insignificant profit, but it had the effect of strengthening the British position.
Uninterrupted fighting in Champagne had made little difference to either side, save that the French had managed to straighten out their line somewhat, though they were by no means nearer to their desired goal—the Challerange-Bazancourt railway. If that could be taken, the Germans facing them would be cut off from the crown prince's army operating in the Argonne. Bulgaria had meanwhile entered the conflict and started the finishing campaign of Serbia with the assistance of her Teutonic allies.
Between October 19 and October 24, 1915, the Germans made eight distinct attacks in the Souchez sector in Artois, attempting to loosen the French grip on Hill 140. In this venture the First Bavarian Army Corps was practically wiped out by terrible losses. Each attack was reported to have been repulsed. Commenting on the same event, the German report said that "... enemy advances were repulsed. Detachments which penetrated our positions were immediately driven back." Both sides of the battle line now settled down to the same round of seesaw battles of the preceding midsummer; attacks and counterattacks; trenches captured and recaptured; here a hundred yards won, there a hundred yards lost. After almost every one of these events the three headquarters issued statements to the effect that "the enemy was repelled with heavy losses," or that some place or other had been "recaptured by our troops." On October 24, 1915, the French in Champagne made some important progress. In front of their (the French) position the Germans occupied a very strongly organized salient which had resisted all previous attacks. In its southwestern part, on the northern slopes of Hill 196, at a point one and a quarter miles to the north of Mesnil-les-Hurlus, this salient included a valuable strategic position called La Courtine (The Curtain), which the French took after some severe fighting. La Courtine extended for a distance of 1,200 yards with an average depth of 250 yards, and embracing three or four lines of trenches connected up with underground tunnels and the customary communication trenches, all of which had been thoroughly prepared for defense. In spite of the excellence of these works and the ferocious resistance of the German soldiers, the French succeeded in taking this position by storm after preparatory artillery fire. On the same day that this was announced, the Berlin report put it thus: "In Champagne the French attacked near Tahure and against our salient north of Le Mesnil, after a strong preparation with their artillery. Near Tahure their attack was not carried out to its completion, having been stopped by our fire. Late in the afternoon stubborn fighting was in progress on the salient north of Le Mesnil. North and east of this salient an attack was repulsed with severe French losses."