33. A Courageous English Nurse in German-occupied Belgium
Edith Cavell was visiting her mother in England, when Germany kicked off WWI in the west by invading Belgium. She felt it was her duty to return to Brussels immediately. By August 20th, 1914, Brussels was occupied by the Germans, and Cavell’s nursing school was transformed into a Red Cross hospital that treated soldiers from all sides, as well as civilians.
In September 1914, Cavell was asked to help two wounded British soldiers trapped behind enemy lines. She treated them, then helped smuggle them out of occupied Belgium into the neighboring and neutral Netherlands. That was the start of her involvement in a clandestine network that sheltered Allied soldiers and Belgian men of military age, and arranged for their escape. Over the following 11 months, Cavell helped over 200 British, French, and Belgian soldiers and civilians. She sheltered them in her hospital, furnished them with false identity papers, and arranged to smuggle them across the border to safety. As she put it: “I can’t stop while there are lives to be saved“.