It must be remembered that all this did not take place in the zone of actual warfare. A spy caught in the lines of armies is summarily dealt with of necessity. But Brussels was miles away from the scene of actual hostilities. Its civil courts were open and a civil administration ruled its affairs of such reputed beneficence and efficiency as to evoke the ungrudging admiration of a distinguished college professor who bears the honored name of George B. McClellan. There was therefore no possible excuse under international law for a court-martial, as this trial plainly was. In the American civil war a similar military commission once sought to hold a similar trial in Indianapolis over civilians accused of treason, but the United States Supreme Court, in the case of ex parte Milligan, sternly repudiated this form of military tyranny. In that case the Supreme Court said: "There are occasions when martial rule can be properly applied. If, in foreign invasion or civil war, _the courts are actually closed_, and it is impossible to administer criminal justice according to law, then, _on the theatre of active military operations, where war really prevails_, there is a necessity to furnish a substitute for the civil authority, thus overthrown, to preserve the safety of the army and society; * * * As necessity creates the rule, so it limits its duration; for, if this government is continued _after_ the courts are reinstated, it is a gross usurpation of power. Martial rule can never exist where the courts are open, and in the proper and unobstructed exercise of their jurisdiction. _It is also confined to the locality of actual war._" All civilized countries, including Germany, have always recognized a difference between high treason, punishable with death, and ordinary treason. The German Strafgesetzbuch thus distinguishes between high treason (hochverrat) and the lesser crime of landesverrat. High treason consists in murdering or attempting to murder a sovereign or Prince of Germany or an attempt by violence to overthrow the Imperial Government or any State thereof. This alone is punishable with death. While this distinction of the German Civil Code may have no application when military law is being enforced, yet it illustrates a distinction, which all humane nations have recognized, between the treason which seeks to overthrow a State by rebellion and lesser offenses against the authority of a State. Assuming that Miss Cavell's offense could be regarded in any sense as treasonable, it certainly constituted the lesser offense under the distinction above quoted. The fact is that Miss Cavell was tried, condemned, and executed for her sympathy with the cause of Belgium and her willingness to save her compatriots from suffering and death. Military necessity--ever the tyrant's plea--demanded a victim further to terrorize the subjugated people. They chose Miss Cavell.