Murder of Edith Cavell

Bellows, George, 1882-1925 · 1918

One of the war series. (Bellows) / Little material is available at present about the precise conditions of her execution. She was aroused at 2 a.m. with no time allowed for dressing. She appeared in her wrapper unattended except by the regular prison chaplain at the military prison of St. Giles. -GB No single episode in World War I aroused as much indignation about the Germans as did the execution of Edith Louisa Cavell, a British Red Cross nurse in charge of a hospital in occupied Belgium. (CHM, p. 220) Found guilty of helping wounded Allied soldiers to escape, Cavell was sentenced to death. Pleas from around the world went unheeded; she was executed by a firing squad on October 12, 1915. On viewing Bellows' painting of this subject, the printmaker Joseph Pennell questioned how it could have been painted when the artist had not witnessed the gruesome episode. Bellows answered, "It is true, Mr. Pennell, that I was not present at Miss Cavell's execution, but I've never heard that Leonardo Da Vinci had a ticket of admission to the last Supper, either." This lithograph was reproduced in "Everybody's Magazine," October 1918, illustrating the ninth installment of a series entitled "Belgium," by Brand Whitlock, then United States minister to Belgium. The lithograph was also one of those that illustrated "The Hun," in the November 1918 issue of "Vanity Fair." (Mason)