Edith Cavell: nurse, martyr, and spy? | Vanessa Heggie

100 years ago today Edith Cavell was executed by a German firing squad for smuggling Allied soldiers out of occupied Belgium. Vanessa Heggie explains how a nurse became a spy

At dawn on 12 October 1915 the British nurse Edith Cavell was killed by a firing squad, after a German military court found her guilty of helping Allied soldiers escape from occupied Belgium. It was strongly implied that she was also involved in espionage, passing information about German military movements and plans back to the UK. The British Government denied that she was a spy, but recently the ex-head of MI5, Dame Stella Rimington, has revealed new evidence that strongly suggests Cavell was involved in smuggling information as well as men.

However much Cavell knew about the information being carried on the bodies of the men she saved - written on cloth and sewn into clothes, or hidden in shoes - her death made her a popular martyr, as her execution provoked a strong public reaction of horror. Author Arthur Conan Doyle said: