Edit Cavell

Monday will mark the occasion for a bit more First World War rah-rah, being the centenary of Edith Cavell's execution. Cavell used her position as a nursing matron in Brussels to smuggle Allied soldiers into the Netherlands so that they could continue fighting Germany and killing Germans. The Germans took exception to this, and court-martialled and shot her in accordance with the usual wartime treatment of spies and traitors; thereby handing the British a propaganda coup which rivalled the sinking of the Lusitania five months earlier. Since she was quoted as saying, "Patriotism is not enough; I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone", Cavell's death was naturally used to fuel a metastasis of the patriotism (viz. hatred and bitterness towards Germany) which was already running rampant in Britain; and after the war her remains were brought back to Britain and given the sort of treatment later reserved for such saintly, peaceable figures as Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher.