Sculpture of British nurse executed in 1915 unveiled in Brussels

A sculpture of a British nurse executed by German forces occupying Belgium 100 years ago during World War I, was unveiled Monday by Belgium’s Princess Astrid and Britain’s Princess Anne.

The stone bust of Edith Cavell stands in a park in the Brussels suburb of Uccle close to where she was executed by firing squad on 12 October 1915 in an incident that later inspired large numbers of British soldiers to join up.

To mark the event, Princess Anne, daughter of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II, laid a wreath at the site watched by a group of local students clutching Union Jack flags.

The royals later attended a ceremony in the Belgian Senate, where Cavell was tried and sentenced for having helped allied soldiers escape Belgium.

“It’s very moving to stand today exactly where Edith Cavell was sentenced to death. She deserves our admiration, our respect and our deepest gratitude,” Princess Astrid said.

When World War I broke out in August 1914, Cavell — who was born in 1865 in Swardeston in Norfolk, England — was running a nursing school in Brussels.

With her students, she cared for the wounded from both the allied and German armies. But she also worked within a Belgian resistance network to help hundreds of allied soldiers flee Belgium to the neutral Netherlands.

In the summer of 1915, the Germans smashed the network and arrested 65 of its members.

Cavell was sentenced to death for high treason on October 11, 1915 by a German court martial following a quick trial in the Belgian Senate building in Brussels.

She was shot at 2:00 am the next morning, along with another member of the network.

Just before her death, the nurse said: “I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone.”

After her execution, the German military chaplain said that “she died like a heroine.”

Her execution was reported on the front pages of allied newspapers. British government propaganda used the event to denounce German “barbarity” and encourage young people to join the cause.

After the war, her remains were brought back to England and buried in Norwich Cathedral in Norfolk. King George V presided over a ceremony in her honour at Westminister Abbey.

A century later, the clinic where she worked in Brussels bears her name and her memory is celebrated worldwide. Mount Edith Cavell in the Canadian Rockies is named after her.

Britain’s Royal Mint released a commemorative coin to honour Cavell on the centenary of her death, Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne said.