Patriotism is Not Enough

A major new study of Edith Cavell as a spymaster, uncovering the true story of her espionage workIn mid-August 1914, shortly after the outbreak of war, British nurse Edith Cavell received a mysterious visit at her nursing clinic in Brussels from two intelligence officers working for Mansfield Cumming, head of the British Secret Service. Within a matter of weeks one of her couriers had undertaken a secret mission to the Admiralty in London.Drawing on recently declassified information, Helen Fry reveals the full extent of Edith Cavell’s espionage work for the first time. By the end of 1914, Cavell had created a permanent clandestine organisation for the escape of British and French soldiers from German-occupied Belgium and for the collection of military information. Messages were sewn into the lining of soldiers’ clothing or hidden in the soles of their shoes and taken to England.This is a gripping study of Cavell’s operations—actions for which she paid with her own life when, on 12 October 1915, she faced a German firing squad at dawn.