674. The First World War: The Spy Who Took on the Germans (Part 4)

19:49Dominic Sandbrook:patch surely an eye patch but the rationale for this is that um you know he's a man of fighting age so if the germans say to him why are you not in the army he can gesture at his hunch and that will be the reason so edith takes these two blokes in she keeps them hidden in the clinic and she personally tends to their wounds and then after seven days the belgian guide returns to collect them and they're going to be passed from one person to another to escort them towards the frontier with the neutral netherlands so holland from where they will be able to escape back to britain now colonel boger or bodger didn't make it he could barely walk unfortunately because he'd been wounded in the thigh and the foot and he was captured on the outskirts of brussels when the germans discovered that he was carrying a false passport but this bloke meachin previously disguised as a hunchback has now disguised himself as a fish hawker so a man who sells fish fish poisson poisson it's an easy part to play yeah i mean yeah and i suppose if you smell very yeah horrible a very violently a fish people won't approach you so he got to holland he went home he came back to france and he ended up winning a medal in 1917 so that was nice so this is the beginning of edith cavill's connections with the belgian resistance now i mentioned we mentioned the occupation the belgian resistance is not one big organized group i mean this isn't the case with all resistance groups really it's basically about 300 different kind of interlocking groups that attract both men and women they're very informal you kind of come and go and they do some sabotage acts but by and large what the belgian resistance largely do is they distribute underground newspapers and pamphlets and they get intelligence on what the germans are up to so german troop movements and they send it across the border to the allies and the other thing of course they do which these two blokes have just uh been the beneficiaries of they smuggle allied soldiers to safety because there's a lot of allied soldiers that have been left behind enemy lines during the chaotic retreat at the end of 1914 and so through her friend marie de page the daughter of top belgian dr antoine de page edith is now connected to one of these resistance groups and this is a resistance group that has very aristocratic leanings because it is centered on prince reginal de croix and his sister princess marie and the croix the house of croix a kind of belgian aristocratic house dates back i read to medieval burgundy are they members of the golden fleece i don't think they are okay so they're not that posh they're not that posh but quite posh and during the fighting at the battle of mons the croix family had used their chateau at belligny which is not that far from mons they turned it into a hospital for wounded allied soldiers and they're now using their chateau to hide allied soldiers and to send them on to neutral holland so the way it works is this basically if you have a british and you've been hiding in someone's pig style something because you were left behind during the retreat from mons belgians will take you to the chateau and introduce you to the prince and princess and they will give you forged papers i mean how they are forging these papers i do not know whether the prince prince reginald has kind of got a machine in his his hand cranking a passport machine or something anyway they'll give you your forged papers and then they'll introduce you to a series of guides to take you to the Dutch frontier.

23:27Dominic Sandbrook:And the bloke is in charge of organizing the guides is an architect and Catholic social activist called Philippe Bouk. And Bouk is like a big resistance figure because he also distributes 200 grand papers, La Libre Belgique and Le Mot du Soldat. And there's about 200 people in this network. They say they have safe houses and there are people who are going to, you know, I'll take you from here to here, then I'll pass you on to this person, all of this. and it's very informal a lot of them are actually just rich posh belgians who've got big houses so they can hide you in you know in one of their many bedrooms or something and there's a slight sense i think about this of sort of rich people having having fun having a little bit of an adventure sure i shall smuggle some some british and french soldiers to safety all of this but i mean you do risk being shot don't you if you're found out by the germans it's sort of on the one hand you risk being shot on the other hand that it's a bit of a lark so their password for example is york which is y-o-r-c which is quiet backwards which doesn't seem to me like the it's a bit in a blighton in terms of passwords i suppose it's the beginning of the war so you know yeah they're having fun so edith's role in this is twofold i think one medical so they bring soldiers to training school in brussels where she looks after them and two the clinic itself becomes an important safe house so a link in the chain in the belgian capital now there probably also is an espionage dimension to all this it's impossible to say with any certainty she's a woman a mystery yeah but probably some of the men who are coming through her clinic are carrying intelligence for the allies we don't know really how formalized this was or whether this is just very informal but anyway in total between november 1914 and july 1915 edith is thought to have helped about about 60 British and 15 French soldiers.

25:20Dominic Sandbrook:So these are people who've been left behind in the retreat, but she's also thought to have helped about a hundred young Frenchmen or young Belgians who want to get to Holland because they want to join the war on the Allied side. So they can't go west, as it were. So they go the long way around by going east to Holland, then to Britain, then back to France because they're desperate to fight. And to give you just one example of the people she saved this is on there's a there's an edith cavill website and this is where i discovered this story i recommend it to people just google it and this is a bloke called billy mapes who was a private and came from a village outside norwich so edith's uh neck of the woods yeah it's neck of the woods he fought in the first battalion of the norfolk regiment he was wounded in the british retreat he was cut off like these other blokes captured by the germans taken to a red cross convent escapes he shelters in the home of a family called the camu family like the uh no relation no relation at one point the germans actually searched the house of this family looking for british soldiers but they didn't find him the family put him in touch with this uh prince and princess to croix they smuggled him to brussels with it he's still mwinging the ankle but he makes his way to either's clinic she recognized his norfolk accent straight away so loads of norfolk bants which was great she knew his village she'd been to his village that was lovely she nursed him back to fitness and then she organized for him to escape to the Dutch border with six other men their first attempt to cross the border was a disaster it turned out the Germans had reinforced the border with electric wires and increased patrols now that tells you something that the Germans are kind of on to what's happening and we'll come back to this but they made a second successful attempt to escape they got across and they got back to England this bloke Mapes he'd been listed by the army as missing presumed dead and his local vicar in his Norfolk village had offered to organize a memorial service for him and his mother had said no I won't give up hope and when he walked down the street into the village everybody started crying because they were so it was so moved to see him back from the dead and when he was interviewed later he had he he had a Hollywood instinct this bloke because he said that before he left Edith Cavill made a point of kissing him on the cheek and saying to him, her final words were, Dear old Norfolk, I'd do anything to help a Norfolk man.

27:45Tom Holland:Okay, and hold on. So he's reporting this in a local newspaper in Norfolk?

27:50Dominic Sandbrook:Yeah, but years later. Oh, okay. So not at the time. Well, we should come to this because at the time, some of the people that escaped do give interviews to their local newspapers. Although by and large, they are quite circumspect about exactly how they got out. But we'll come back to this point because it's an important one. So as early as the spring of 1915, so just within months of really starting this operation, things are starting to go wrong. And the process de quoi is worried that the network has been compromised. now part of this is because you mentioned giving interviews part of this is because of this issue about people giving interviews when they get home to the kind of you know i don't know the nun eaten bugle or something to say i hid in somebody's in a barrel in a belgian family's place then i went to a safe house then a kindly nurse helped me and then i got home so the germans can you know it's not like the germans can't read there are many english nurses working in brussels some of the people actually write postcards to edith to thank her so that That way Billy Makes gave an interview to an East Anglian newspaper.

28:52Dominic Sandbrook:He didn't mention her. He didn't mention the nursing school, but it was kind of obvious that somebody must have helped him. And the prince, the prince de Croix, actually sent a message to the British and said, could you please stop this appearing in your newspapers? Because this is very dodgy for us if this keeps appearing. Sometime around May 1915, Princess Marie actually goes to Brussels to see Edith and to say, I'm worried that the Germans are going to find out. And Edith was very alarmed and said, you shouldn't have come. Like, you know, this is too public. And the princess said, we should think about shutting the operation down.

29:28Dominic Sandbrook:But then she mentioned almost casually, there are 30 more men in the Cambrai area. And Edith said, oh, we must save these men. If one of them were caught and shot, it would be our fault. And then one day, not long after that, a new fugitive arrives at her clinic. and his name is Georges Gaston Quillon. And he says to her, I'm a French officer. When the French captured my hometown, which is Saint-Quentin, I went into hiding and I need money and I need help to get to the Dutch border. And neither they're slightly puzzled by this story because Quillon, unlike most of the fugitives, says to her, can I have 300 francs?

30:07Dominic Sandbrook:I need 300 francs. Now, it's not clear to her why he needs this because if he is who he says he is, then when he gets to holland he can go to the french consulate and they'll give him loads of money but anyway you know she gives him the money and the other thing that's weird is that he doesn't seem in a hurry to leave so when she says i've got you a guide to take you to the dutch frontier he says i'm not really ready yet i'd like to wait a few days longer and he's kind of watching her the whole time as though he's observing everything anyway after about two weeks he says okay i'm ready to go now the truth is of course he's learned everything he needs and he is a spy he is in fact not a French officer he was a convicted criminal who was in prison when the Germans captured his hometown Saint-Quentin he was short of money and he basically offered his services to the Germans as an informant and in this hometown he befriended a girl called Jean Baligon and she was connected to the Coyne network and he sold her this story Jean about being a French officer and she fell for it incredibly she took him to the castle of the prince and princess and they gave him false papers and then he was passed on to a school teacher and then she took him to brussels and she took him to edith's clinic so edith has now fallen for his story as well she helps him to get to holland he goes to holland he goes to the french consulate they give him yet more money he's rolling and he's got another 500 francs but once he's got this money he goes straight back across the border all the way back to Brussels to report to his German handlers.

31:38Dominic Sandbrook:And so two days later, on the 31st of July, 1915, the Germans spring into action. First, they raid the house of this architect bloke who runs the network, Philippe Boek. And they arrest him, and they arrest this schoolteacher who'd been helping him, who was called Louise Tullier. And when they search Boek's house, they find a list of names. And one of the names is Edith Cavill. on the 4th of august the germans raid the nursing school and edith is very calm she's hidden her journal inside a cushion and she's destroyed any incriminating papers and she and miss wilkins managed to keep the germans talking while the british soldier they've gone in the clinic escapes out through the garden the germans go away but the next day the 5th of august the germans come back and this time they come into the clinic they look around but when they leave they take edith with them not miss wilkins not miss wilkins edith is under arrest she is charged with war treason and war treason is a crime punishable by death oh my goodness well let's find out what happens after the break hello it's marina hyde from the rest is entertainment now

32:49Tom Holland:tom it's fair to say there isn't normally a huge amount of crossover between our podcasts well Well, Marina, I know that we have both on our respective podcasts discussed Vin Diesel's ambition to play Hannibal. So I've always thought that perhaps there is potential here for the rest of history and the rest of his entertainment to combine and produce something beautiful. Yes. In a crossover nobody saw coming, the worlds of reality TV and historical high society collide live on the South Bank Centre stage. Yeah. The real housewives of Regency England will see us cast a TV reality show eye onto the women of the early 19th century.

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35:26Tom Holland:hello and welcome back to the rest is history it is august 1915 and the germans have finally moved against the network of the prince and princess de croix um these very posh belgians although dominic is you're anxious to make clear that they're not uber posh they're quite posh i mean they're pretty posh enough um so the prince himself he escapes to holland doesn't he but his sister the princess de croix um and some of the other key figures in their network they get rounded up and among them as you described just before the break is our heroine edith yes and so she is

36:03Dominic Sandbrook:taken to the prison at saint gil and she's held in this prison for the next 10 weeks and for much of that time she's in solitary confinement and she's interrogated three times on the 8th 18th and 22nd of august and she gives statements to the germans and there's a slight complexity here edith was interrogated in french which she was very good at remember because she'd done 10 minutes a day at school in Peterborough but her answers were then translated into German and there's a biography of her by Diana Suhami and Diana Suhami says she thinks that the answers were slightly mistranslated to make them sound more incriminating so she thinks that when Kaval was asked about her motivation she said that she was saving injured men from death if I hadn't saved them they would have been shot but the german translation made it sound as though she was motivated by eagerness to help the allies which is a slightly different thing and that's a subtle difference and that of course can mean the difference between life and death i mean you could be motivated by both i think and i think she probably is but there's an ambiguity that runs through this story anyway the important thing is she doesn't make any effort to deny what she's been doing and in fact the figures that I quoted earlier for the number of men that she helped to smuggle to safety, they come from her own testimony.

37:28Dominic Sandbrook:She says to the Germans, I've helped almost 200 men, some of them soldiers, some of them civilians. And her biographers and people have written about this case have often wondered why she was so candid. So one explanation is obviously that she's a pious Victorian Christian, and she can't tell a lie. You know, it's not in her repertoire are to be dishonest there's also people who think she's just naive she doesn't realize the gravity of her situation and then there are also people who say well the germans told her that the other suspects had already confessed and you know she was gullible and she fell for it and so she thought what if the others have confessed i might as well confess myself i think there is definitely an unworldliness to her i don't think she quite realizes the severity of the situation or do you

38:16Tom Holland:think perhaps she does and she is I mean prepared to accept a form of martyrdom we would need to

38:23Dominic Sandbrook:know more about her inner life to get a sense of that I mean that's obviously a possibility that she willingly embraces martyrdom and sacrifices herself almost deliberately but that can only be supposition because we know so little about what's going on behind the sort of you know behind the slightly prim nursing facade I mean she's clearly an unbelievably brave woman Yeah, and very, very serious and earnest. So she describes her time in prison, for example, as a solemn fast from earthly distractions. If you're the kind of person who says that about your time in the German prison, then you're not a very, I suspect you're not a very worldly person.

39:02Tom Holland:Or you're a person who is steeped in the narratives of Christian martyrs, because that's exactly how they talk, you know, in the early martyrologies.

39:11Dominic Sandbrook:Of course. And I think she is. She grew up in a vicarage. She's a nurse. Absolutely. She's part of all that.

39:16Tom Holland:I feel that she, you know, she is aware of the script in a situation like this.

39:21Dominic Sandbrook:Yeah, quite possibly. Quite possibly. I still don't think this makes her a brilliant dinner party companion. You and I may differ on this. After 10 weeks in prison, she's taken out on the 2nd of October to face the charges. Now, this is not an ordinary court. It is a court-martial. And it's a court-martial because she's being charged with war treason under Section 58 of the German Military Code. And this reads as follows, that in time of war, anyone who with the intention of aiding a hostile power or out of causing harm to German troops, anyone who commits one of a series of named crimes shall be punished with death for war treason.

39:56Dominic Sandbrook:So even if she's English? Even if she's English. The code is absolutely explicit about this, that this applies to anybody in the war zone or in the occupation zone. And her specific offense is conveying troops to the enemy. Now later, you see it a lot in accounts of the trial, sort of popular accounts and things. It is described as a show trial. It absolutely was not a show trial. So she has a defense lawyer. miss wilkins chose a lawyer for her who they knew and the germans said no that person's not right that's just some mate of yours so miss wilkins is fine she's she's off the hook yeah miss wilkins is fine uh but the germans found her a replacement who was a brussels lawyer called sadie kirchen and there's no suggestion that this defense lawyer let her down or or you know was inadequate or anything like this well it's tricky isn't it because she's confessed everything she doesn't deny the charges so this is a report by a belgian official in her oral statement before the court Miss Cavill disclosed almost all the facts of the whole prosecution.

40:54Dominic Sandbrook:She was questioned in German, an interpreter translating all the questions in French, with which language Miss Cavill was well acquainted. She spoke without trembling and showed a clear mind. Often she added some greater precision to her previous depositions. When she was asked why she helped these soldiers to go to England, she replied that she thought that if she had not done so they would have been shot by the Germans and that therefore she thought she only did her duty to her country in saving their lives. But I think it's here that the issue of the translation is so damaging because the Germans say, well, hold on, are you doing this to save their lives or are you doing this to do your duty to your country?

41:32Dominic Sandbrook:Those are two slightly different things. Are you helping your country or is this just about pure humanitarianism? Right, because she's saving Belgians as well, isn't she? And getting them out to go and join the Allies. Yes. So the military prosecutor said, but you haven't just helped injured soldiers. You have also helped young Belgians who were not in danger at all, but wanted to get out of the country to join the Allied armies. You're not saving their lives. You're actually, you know, aiding and abetting them to take up arms against us, against the Germans. And because of that point, it's very hard for them, actually, to pardon her.

42:10Dominic Sandbrook:I know this sounds like a massively team Teuton. Again. The German military code, Tom, is very clear. I don't know how familiar you are with that.

42:18Tom Holland:They're only obeying orders.

42:19Dominic Sandbrook:Well, the penalty for her crime, right, in the code is death. And section, you asked about her being foreign. I don't know how familiar you are with section 160 of the German military code. But this explicitly says that in time of war, the penalties will apply to foreigners as well as to German nationals. Now, you might not want to take this unwelcome news from me, but surely you would take it from Sir Horace Rowland of the Foreign Office. Because Sir Horace Rowland, as we know now from Declassified Files, wrote about this to his colleagues and said, She's in a mess and with nothing we can do to save her.

42:56Dominic Sandbrook:I am afraid it is likely to go hard with Miss Cavill. I am afraid we are powerless. now he's right because you know given the legal framework conviction is a foregone conclusion and a couple of days later on the afternoon of monday the 11th of october the sentences are handed down so nine people are found guilty four of them are sentenced to hard labor five of them as condemned to death and the people who are condemned to death are edith cavill this bloke the architect the school teacher tulyer who was helping him and two other people i mean the prince

43:30Tom Holland:The process gets off, doesn't she?

43:32Dominic Sandbrook:She gets off, exactly.

43:33Tom Holland:And she then pops up in the Second World War doing exactly the same thing. She's a very impressive woman.

43:37Dominic Sandbrook:She can't get enough of it. Thulier, the schoolteacher, and two of the others are given reprieves. But Philippe Bouk and Edith Cavill are seen as the worst offenders. Edith, because she has confessed and made such a sort of... She's made no secret about what she's done. And she's unrepentant. And she's unrepentant. And as a result of this, she is sentenced to death by firing squad. and the German military commander in Brussels, who has the excellent name, General Traugott von Saubertzweig, he says, I want the sentence carried out straight away because otherwise there's going to be a massive hullabaloo.

44:16Dominic Sandbrook:Like, come on, we're not going to have a massive faff and a back and forth about this. Let's just get this done. So that very night, 11th of October, the German Lutheran chaplain of the prison, who's called Paul Le Ser, who you quoted at the beginning, he comes to see Edith and he says to her, you're going to be shot at dawn. And he describes it. For one moment, her cheeks were flushed and a moist film passed over her eyes, but only for a few seconds. I offered her my services as a pastor and I stated that I was at her disposal any hour of the day and night, but she declined it politely, but definitely.

44:48Dominic Sandbrook:And then this bloke, Leceur, says to her, can I not offer you some kindness? Please do not see me now the German, but only the servant of our Lord and Savior who places himself entirely at your disposal. And she says, well, okay, fine. Could you get word of what's happened to my mother? My mother is 80 and she's back in Norwich. And I don't want my mom to hear about this in the newspapers. And he says, I will. And actually he says in his account, I kept my promise. I don't know how they, they must've sent a message somehow to the British. Telegram or something. Yeah, exactly. And then he makes a pretty big offer to her, I think.

45:24Dominic Sandbrook:He says, I know that you're, you know very pious and you're a big Christian and I know you'll want to take communion before you die but I know you also will find it difficult if it's coming from and this is from his account a German in the uniform which she doubtless hated and he says I know the Anglican chaplain in Brussels who you also know who's a guy called Reverend Sterling Gahan and I'll bring him to your cell and he says her eyes lighted up and with great joy she accepted I mean I've got to say everyone is behaving very well exactly and this bloke the reverend sterling gahn he arrives that later that evening he already knew her the german authorities said fine you know you can come he finds this very very emotional to my astonishment and relief i found my friend perfectly calm and resigned but this could not lessen the tenderness and intensity of feeling on either part and she says to this bloke please tell all my friends that i willingly gave my life for my country i've seen death so often it's not strange or fearful to me and there's some very famous lines which end up being on their statue.

46:28Dominic Sandbrook:They have all been very kind to me here but this I would say standing as I do in view of God and eternity I realize that patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone. And then they pray, they take communion together and they talk quietly until the guards tell him it's time to go. He says later I said goodbye and she smiled and said we shall meet again. And then when he's gone she writes a farewell letter to her nurses very moving letter actually when better days come our work will again grow and resume all its power for doing good i told you that devotion would bring you true happiness and that the thought that before god you've done your duty well and with a good heart will sustain you in the hard moments of life and in the face of death i may have been strict but i have loved you more than you can know oh very sad now overnight while she's doing all this there is a chance of a lifeline and this comes from the americans people who listened to the last episode will recall that despite the sinking of the lusitania the americans have still not entered the war and the germans are keen not to antagonize them and the u.s ambassador in brussels of course he has a u.s ambassador's name he is called brand whitlock and brand whitlock sends the German Governor General a note asking him for mercy.

47:50Dominic Sandbrook:And he says, her career, Ms. Cavill's career as a servant of humanity, is such as to inspire the greatest sympathy and to call for pardon. And Brand Whitlock, he's actually ill that evening. He can't be bothered to go himself. So he sends a delegation from the US Embassy, and indeed some Spaniards, who are also neutral. And they go to see the governor. And at the head of this is a diplomat called Hugh Gibson, American diplomat. And he says, we reminded him of the burning of Louvain and of the sinking of the Lusitania. And we told him, this is the German governor, that this murder would rank with those two affairs and would stir all civilized countries with horror and disgust.

48:28Tom Holland:And one day, a podcast series will do them in succession.

48:33Dominic Sandbrook:Exactly, as we did. And at that, one of the German officials, who's called Count Harak, interrupts. And he says, hold on, hold on. I would rather see Miss Cavill shot than see any harm come to the humblest German soldier my only regret is that we don't have three or four more old English women to shoot well they've got Miss Wilkins yeah they could shoot

48:56Tom Holland:why aren't they shooting Miss Wilkins

48:58Dominic Sandbrook:yeah she's the one that got away no she is the Americans were really shocked by this so this bloke Gibson went back and wrote it down and said which is terrible form from the Germans is it a joke I think it's obviously a joke it's German banter very fargnerian quip it's fargnerian banter plus the germans have been woken up at like one in the morning by this group of people who aren't even in the war i think this bloke's just like come on leave us alone we're just you know we're not following orders they're just following the german military code yeah i'm glad that's very very clear yeah so now we come to the early hours of the 12th of october and there are different accounts what happened but the most reliable is from that Lutheran pastor, Paul the Sir.

49:38Dominic Sandbrook:It's very evocative. And that scene that you described, so he goes to the prison. She's been kneeling at her table, he's told. She's been kneeling in prayer. And he goes into the cell and she's packed up all her stuff. And there's just a little sort of flame, burning gas flame. And she's got ready. The two of them go out of the cell and they walk through the silent corridors of the prison. The scene that you described at the beginning, the Belgian prison guards have all lined up to sort of wish her well and as Le Sœur says they greeted her silently with the highest respect they get into a car and then the Catholic chaplain comes out of the prison with Philippe Boek he gets into a car he also behaves splendidly Philippe Boek he says to all the German centuries in Dutch he says let us bear no grudge and then he gets into the car and they drive off and they drive to the Tien Nationale which is the national shooting range which is where the germans usually hold their executions and there a company of 250 german soldiers is lined up waiting for them they present arms edith and this architect boke are led to the front and the sentences are read out in french and german boke cries out at this point he says comrades in the presence of death we are all comrades and then someone says pipe down you know stop talking le sir the lutheran is allowed a last word with edith and he sort of presses her hand and he says to her in English the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the communion of the Holy Ghost be with you forever amen and she says ask Mr.

51:11Dominic Sandbrook:Gahan to tell my loved ones later that my soul as I believe is safe and that I'm glad to die for my country and then she's led to the pole she's loosely tied to this pole a bandage is put over her eyes which the sir says as the soldier who put it on told me were full of tears and then a few seconds passed which appeared to me like eternity immediately the sharp commands were given two salvos crashed at the same time each of eight men at a distance of six paces and the two condemned persons sank to the ground without a sound now that makes it sound as though it's all very clean and very clinical but actually not that's not the case the sir goes on to say my eyes were fixed exclusively on miss Cavill and what they now saw was terrible with a face streaming with blood one shot had gone through her forehead Miss Cavill had sunk down forwards but three times she raised herself up without a sound with her hands stretched upwards and he runs forward with the doctor and the doctor says to him don't worry this these are just the sort of last automatic reflexes before death and then she does die and Lecler said the bullet holes as large as a fist in the back proved without any doubt that she was killed immediately i only mention this fact because untrue rumors have been connected with it we will come back to these rumors so keep these rumors in your heads then a few minutes later he says the coffins were lowered into the graves and i prayed over edith cavill's grave and i invoked the lord's blessing over her poor corpse then i went home almost sick in my soul so this is just one death or two deaths if you include the architect against the backdrop of a war in which thousands of people are dying every month on the Western and Eastern fronts.

52:58Dominic Sandbrook:But it becomes a massive story on both sides of the Atlantic, because Edith Cavill is turned immediately into a martyr, into an innocent victim of German barbarism. So to quote Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who is very enthusiastically pouring out propaganda for the British government at this point, everybody must feel disgusted at the barbarous actions of the German soldiery in murdering this great and glorious specimen of womanhood the new york herald the official report received today will cause a wave of horror to sweep over the world at the thought of the possibility of a nation which will perpetrate such a terrible thing succeeding in this war and dominating europe and basically the newspaper goes on to say you know the thought of the germans winning must be complete anathema to any democratic american having read this story and the funny thing of course is that nobody up to this point had ever heard of eith cavill it's not like she's a celebrity or something but in a way that works brilliantly because it means that she's a blank slate and people can project onto her this sort of idealized portrait of a kind of christian womanhood she's a nurse so her kind of white white uniform and the red cross on it and perfect exactly so the british war propaganda bureau which was operating to spread the word in America, takes her story and it puts it alongside the Belgian atrocities and the Lusitania in the sort of chamber of horrors of German crimes.

54:27Dominic Sandbrook:And the newspapers, both in America and in Britain, print ever more lurid accounts of her final moments. So this is what Le Sœur was talking about when he said about untrue rumours. So there were stories that German soldiers refused to fire on her and that the officers had to do it or the most common story that she'd fainted before the firing squad and then an officer stood over her with his revolver pressed against her head and basically blew her brains out i mean this is not true but it becomes again a little bit like the stories that we talked about last time about german school children being given the day off to celebrate the sinking of the lusitania it becomes a widely accepted urban legend.

55:09Dominic Sandbrook:And you can find, you know, you can see them online, loads of examples of posters and postcards about the execution of Edith Cavill. They always show her in a nurse's uniform, which she would not have worn at the execution, marked with a big red cross.

55:24Tom Holland:It does seem like the Lusitania in that you can see the military justification for it, if that is your perspective. But it just seems insane to have done it. Of course. Insensitive. Well, it's not just insensitive. I mean, it's worse than a crime. It's a mistake.

55:39Dominic Sandbrook:Yeah, I think that's fair. You know, you were shooting a nurse. It's just mad. Yeah, it is mad. I mean, one last thing about the propaganda. Interestingly, the pictures always show her as young. Yeah, and she's what, 49 or something? Exactly. So they always show her as young, maidenly, beautiful, you know, and the fact that she was unknown meant to cease to do that.

56:02Tom Holland:But also it's feeding into all those images that we were talking about earlier of the kind of Simeon hum holding the kind of the maiden who has fainted and is dressed in flowing white robes. I mean, it's tapping into all of that.

56:19Dominic Sandbrook:But just on your thing about it being a mistake, Tom, there is a counter argument to that. And this is as follows. The German position at the time is this person is very, very clearly guilty. There's no question of that. and she confessed and their argument is this we have issued a lot of public proclamations telling people that to help enemy soldiers escape is a crime punishable by death she knew this and one of the things that actually really condemned her was in court they said to her did you know this now if she'd been sensible she would have said i didn't actually know that it was a crime punishable by death because some people did say that and they got off she said yeah i knew that perfectly well but i did it anyway and at that point they're like oh come on now the issue about her being a woman right this because this is the the main thing the fact that she's a woman it's not even the fact that she's a nurse it's the fact that she's a woman i think the fact that she's a nurse is is massive of course i know that but the germans debated this internally we know that they debated this should we let her off because she's a woman and their argument was well no our legal code makes no distinction between men and women that's not how the law works so this is a guy uh alfred zimmerman not the zimmerman from the zimmerman telegram but another zimmerman who was the under secretary for foreign affairs and he was briefing the press he said it was a pity that miss cavill had to be executed but it was necessary she was judged justly it's undoubtedly a terrible thing that a woman has been executed but consider what would happen to a state particularly in war if it left crimes aimed at the safety of its armies to go unpunished because they were committed by women yeah i understand that but i still think that you have to weigh you know if you're in the

58:08Tom Holland:german high command you have to weigh up you know which is the worst and i think you could you know send it to prison whatever yeah i agree i mean deep down i agree with you of course it's

58:17Dominic Sandbrook:a deep error i think it's a political mistake rather than a moral mistake i would say and

58:22Tom Holland:And it kind of reinforces the possibility that she knew what she was doing and she was consciously martyring herself.

58:27Dominic Sandbrook:Yeah, quite possibly. I mean, all through the 20th century, the perception of her in Britain was as a sort of saintly martyr. But actually in the last, I don't know, 30, 40 years, the perception has slightly begun to change. So in 2015, Stella Remington, who used to run MI5, did a documentary on Radio 4. looking at the they went into the belgian archives and it looks as though some of the fugitives that she was helping were carrying information about trench systems and munitions dumps and things like this whether she knew about that is unclear but there was definitely an espionage dimension to the story which is still very murky it doesn't undermine her courage or anything like that but perhaps it slightly strengthens the case that the germans you know didn't have that much choice and the other interesting thing i always think about it is that her you know that what's written on the statue patriotism is not enough this implies that she is a christian heroine whose story kind of transcends the war and the rivalry between nations but actually her last words to paul the sir i'm glad to die for my country there's a slight tension there i think i don't think she would have necessarily recognized the tension herself of course because she would have thought that her christian duty and her country were the same thing because you know god was on britain's side but i think there is a slight not contradiction exactly on the one hand she says patriotism is not enough but on the other hand she's doing this for britain so which is it you know you're doing it for the world or for britain well i suppose she would say

1:00:06Tom Holland:i love my country but i have no hard feelings against the country that's going to you know it's like like the beginning when she sees the germans she says oh how sad that they're very tired but equally they are invaders she was a tremendous cakeist no i mean that's that would be an unsympathetic way of framing i'm never i'm never unsympathetic anyway what happened to her

1:00:26Dominic Sandbrook:so she was buried at the prison initially under a plain uh wooden cross but in 1919 when the war was over her body was brought back to britain with great honor and they had a memorial service at westminster abbey for her attended by queen alexandra and lots of bigwigs and then she was re-interred at norwich cathedral and in 1920 the statue which you can see today went up just off trafalgar square with the message patriotism is not enough i must have no hatred or bitterness for anyone very similar message on the memorial unveiled in melbourne australia six years later and then you have all of these hospitals and schools and streets all over the world and actually i think there's a case that she's more famous in belgium and even france than in britain so i don't know whether you followed tom the competition in 2005 les plus grands belges the greatest belgians so this was a big public vote in belgium to decide the greatest ever belgians in history did you follow this who won i think it was some form of none not kingly uphold do you know he actually did quite well did he i think would you be allowed to have a kind of burgundian painter or something okay we could fall down a massive rabbit hole here bizarrely interesting so they held different versions of the program in different languages french and flemish so the bloke who won in uh the german speaking and uh flemish speaking bits of Belgium was a guy called Father Damien, who's some form of missionary, Victorian missionary.

1:02:01Dominic Sandbrook:Loads of people that I don't recognize at all. But one of them is Edith Cavell. Edith Cavell. She came 48th.

1:02:08Tom Holland:That's not bad, considering she's not Belgian.

1:02:10Dominic Sandbrook:I mean, she did well. She came ahead of the tennis player, Kim Clysters. She came ahead of Bruegel.

1:02:17Tom Holland:Well, I mean, it's an instance of our insularity in Britain, isn't it? That in the 100 greatest britons we didn't have a belgian hercule poirot no did we not have hercule

1:02:25Dominic Sandbrook:no i don't think we did so i said that she's very famous in belgium and what about france well she's actually incredibly famous in france but in an indirect way so two months after she was shot on the 19th of december 1915 a baby girl was born at the hôpital tunnel in paris and this girl's father was a circus performer and her mother was a cabaret singer and kind of performer as well and they had clearly been reading about the edith cavill case in the french newspapers i mean it was a big story in france because even though the name edith was at that point pretty unknown in france these two people chose it for their baby and their baby's full name was edith giovanna gassion but Tom we know her better by her stage name Edith Piaf can I just mention one other instance of her

1:03:21Tom Holland:celebrity in France which I think is fascinating because it also demonstrates the consciousness that the Germans had of the damage that her story had done to Germany's reputation and this relates to Hitler's visit to Paris in the wake of the fall of France in 1940. You know, he's a tourist. He goes to the Eiffel Tower and Napoleon's tomb and all of that. But he specifically orders the destruction of two monuments. And one is to a general who had fought against the Germans in the First World War by the name of Charles Magin. And he had occupied the Rhineland in 1918. And among the troops under his command had been Senegalese soldiers.

1:04:06Tom Holland:so black soldiers and the story was among germans that he had licensed these soldiers to rape german women and had said that basically german women weren't good enough for his black soldiers and the statue to him in paris showed him with a kind of a guard of honor formed up of senegalese soldiers so you could see why hitler would want that destroyed because it's sell it's a french statues celebrating um french aggression as hitler would see it against germany you know occupying the rhineland um there's the sense of the injustice of versailles that he's there as as you know in the wake of the armistice and also hitler is obviously obsessed by the whole notion of miscegenation so he he's an obvious baddie and so hitler duly orders it to be destroyed and it's blown up and the other statue that he orders destroyed is of Edith Carvel.

1:05:07Tom Holland:And clearly, her story is as offensive to him as the war record of this French general. And it's a kind of amazing demonstration of how haunted by this story in the wake of the First World War, even Nazis were. They wanted to erase all memory of it. So interesting.

1:05:29Dominic Sandbrook:So interesting. Well, anyway, if you want to go and commune with her spirit, you can go to the statue in London or indeed in Melbourne I suppose or go to one of the streets named after her or I suppose indirectly you could listen to a song by Edith Piaf but next week we will be going east we will be turning our attention to the Ottoman Empire to the Straits of Constantinople and to one of the greatest military disasters of modern history and this is a story with a really tremendous cast so you've got Winston Churchill you've got Clement Attlee you've got mustafa kemel ataturk and we welcome onto the show thousands upon thousands of australians and new zealanders because great to have the anzacs as people no doubt said at the time in the streets of istanbul because this is the story the long-awaited story of the allied attempt

1:06:19Tom Holland:to seize gallipoli thank you dominic um and listeners to the rest of history club of course can hear both of them right now and to hear them and to get the full range of benefits that come with this sensational offer of membership go to the rest is history.com thank you dominic over everyone see you soon au revoir

1:06:51Dominic Sandbrook:hi everybody we are back with another absolutely colossal update about the

1:06:55Tom Holland:rest is history festival well it's massive so on the 4th and 5th of july we will be at hampton court palace we have a weekend of brilliant talks live music exclusive access to historic royal palaces collections and yes dominic most exciting of all this is the thing i have been pushing for and i'm so looking forward to it we have medieval combat a terrifying brutal yet completely thrilling sport it is going to be an unforgettable two days it is indeed and um at the core of the festival

1:07:28Dominic Sandbrook:of these talks we've got some more talks to add to the lineup so i will be talking to the brilliant tudor historian tracy borman about the secrets of the six wives of henry the eighth i'll be talking to friend of the show and irish national treasure paul rouse about whether there is an alternative universe in which irelands could have remained part of the united kingdom we'll be talking to Katja Hoyer about Weimar Germany and in particular the town of Weimar through history and Professor Adam Smith will be telling the story of America through three presidents and on top of all that I'll be doing a special event with Ian Hislop about the history of satire.

1:08:10Tom Holland:And I will be on stage with Mary Beard and we will be talking about just how strange, just how alien, just how different to us Rome was, or maybe it wasn't. I will be talking to Helen Castor about Elizabeth I, and we'll be discussing whether she truly was England's greatest ruler, or maybe whether that title should still be claimed by Athelstan. I will be talking to Ali Ansari about all things Persian, with Dan Jackson about the pit of death. And I will be talking to friend of the show, Willie Dalrymple, about the links between ancient India and Greece and Rome.

1:08:48Dominic Sandbrook:Absolutely incredible scenes. And of course, on both days, Tom and I will be on stage doing a show together as well. So on the first day, we'll be answering all our club members' questions. And then to close the festival, we will do a definitive ranking of the all-time top friends of the show.

1:09:06Tom Holland:So lots to look forward to. And beyond that, there is so much else that will be happening across the weekend. So think of it as the ultimate summer history hangout. And your tickets will give you full access to explore the great Tudor Palace of Hampton Court and indeed the Royal Tennis Court. So that'll be very exciting. There'll be food and drink fit for a king, which sounds very enticing.

1:09:29Dominic Sandbrook:I picture the very glamorous people that are our club members in their summer garb. They're on the lawn at Hampton Court Palace. They're chatting about history in delightful surroundings, sipping on a refreshing gin and tonic. And it's probably the most civilised festival there's ever been.

1:09:49Tom Holland:I mean, that's what I imagine anyway. Just a reminder, the tickets are exclusive to club members. And if you are not a member, now is the perfect time to join. So head over to therestishistory.com to sign up and grab your tickets. and of course have access to a whole range of supplementary benefits once you have signed up to the rest is history.com all you do then is log into the members area and you select festival and

1:10:17Dominic Sandbrook:it's all very obvious but you know what there is a twist if you do this you will be entered into a genuinely unbelievable prize draw and that prize draw if you win you and three other people it's like the golden ticket in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, because you will be given the chance to be upgraded to the premium experience. And the premium experience will give you, among other things, unlimited food and drink for free all day. Do not miss it. Can't wait to see you there.