A very good biography that shows her life before the war, how and why she became involved in helping Allied soldiers escape and the circumstances surrounding her death. But there is something strange in this book and in the telling of her story. It is regularly stated that she hated war and that she was against nationalism, which seems to be a substitute for the word patriotism. However as a practical women she didn't really seem to have much time for hate, instead she wanted to help those in need, even Germans. But she went out of her way to help Belgians and British, even when she realised that she would be caught and imprisoned. She wasn't even that shocked when she was sentenced to death., To say that she was not patriotic, as so many do, doesn't make sense. I offer up these quotes from her letters that are on the second last page of the book.

'I am but a looker-on, after all. It is not my country whose soul is desecrated and whose sacred places are laid waste. I can only feel the pity of the stranger within the gates, and admire the courage of a people enduring a long and terrible agony'

'My dearest love to you, my darling Mother. I am glad to think of you all safe and I hope well, with the fleet to keep away all harm from the dear country.'

There was a reason that she was viewed as a heroine and a patriot, and that's because she was. ( )

This is a quietly brilliant biography of a heroic self-effacing woman. As a poor clergyman’s daughter Edith Cavells’ options were limited to being a governess. This was frustrating for a woman who wanted ‘do something useful, something for people.” She found her calling in nursing, working her way from the lowliest position until she was accepted at the London hospital under its formidable grande dame Matron Eva Luckes. Devoutly Christian, obedient and self-contained, Cavell was never going to be a favourite of the theatrical Luckes. What followed is familiar to every career woman , interviews for jobs, rejections, dashed hopes and time running out. Her break came when she was appointed matron of a major Brussels hospital.

When the First World War broke out and Belgium was invaded by Germany, Cavell nursed the conquered and conquerors. It was her humanitarianism that ensured she treated and sheltered ‘the lost children’, those allied soldiers abandoned behind enemy lines helping them escape to freedom. When the Germans finally caught her she was tried for treason and condemned to be shot at dawn on 12th October 1915.

Her death became an international sensation and men joined up to avenge Cavell’s death. The real Cavell, horrified by war and nationalism, was forgotten as were her words: “I realise that patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone.” It was nine years after her death that these actual words were added to her monument in St Martin’s Place London at the bequest of the National Council of Women of Great Britain and Ireland. They were denounced as pro-German pacifists. Cavell was a ‘national’ heroine her country of birth couldn’t wholly comprehend because she was beyond any one race, party or religion with, quite simply, a love and compassion for all people and especially the victims of war and those politicians and generals who laid wreaths on her monument – then without her offending words.