The Case of Edith Cavell by James Beck

The Case of Edith Cavell by James Beck

Author:James Beck
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: history, world, war, ww1, wwi, true story, political, politics, prisoner, pow
ISBN: 9781781664803
Publisher: Andrews UK Limited 2012
Published: 2012-06-13T00:00:00+00:00


From this meagre information we can only infer that Miss Cavell did admit that she had sheltered some soldiers and recruits who were in peril, and while this undoubtedly constituted a grave infraction of military law, yet it does not present in a locality far removed from the actual war zone a case either of espionage or high treason, and is of that class of offenses which have always been punished on the highest considerations of humanity and chivalry and with great moderation.

The difficulty is that the world is not yet fully informed what defense, if any, Miss Cavell made, or whether an adequate opportunity was given her to make any. The whole proceeding savours of the darkness of the mediaeval Inquisition.

We have already seen that even if Miss Cavell's counsel, M. Kirschen, endeavored in good faith to make an adequate defense in her behalf, it was impossible for him to see her in advance of the trial, and M. Kirschen admitted this when he explained to the legal counsel of the American Embassy that

"lawyers defending prisoners before a German Military Court were not allowed to see their clients before trial and were not permitted to see any document of the prosecution."

It is true that M. Kirschen so far defends the trial accorded to Miss Cavell as to say

"that the hearing of the trial of such cases is carried out very carefully and that in his opinion, although it was not possible to see the client before the trial, in fact the trial itself developed itself so carefully and so slowly that it was generally possible to have a fair knowledge of all the facts and to present a good defense for the prisoner. This would especially be the case of Miss Cavell, because the trial would be rather long, as she was prosecuted with 34 other prisoners."

This explanation of M. Kirschen is amazing to any lawyer who is familiar with the defense of men who are charged with a crime. Here was a case of life and death and the counsel for the defense intimates that he can adequately defend the prisoner at the bar without being previously advised as to the nature of the charges or obtaining an opportunity to confer with his client before the testimony begins.

Still more remarkable is his explanation that as his client was to be tried with 34 others, the opportunity for a defense would be especially ample. As the writer had the honor for some years to be a prosecuting attorney for the United States Government and therefore has some familiarity with the trial of criminal causes, his opinion may possibly have some value in suggesting that the complexity of different issues when tried together, and the difficulty of distinguishing between various testimony, naturally increases with the simultaneous trial of a large number of defendants. Where each defendant is tried separately, the full force of the testimony for or against him can be weighed to some advantage, but where such evidence is



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