Winning a Cause: World War StoriesThompson, John G. (John Gilbert)
History
Winning a Cause: World War Stories
Thompson, John G. (John Gilbert)
Readers -- History; Readers -- World War, 1914-1918
In Norwich, England, stands a memorial which will forever be visited
and prized by travelers from every part of the world, and especially by
the people of England and of Belgium. It is the statue erected to
Edith Cavell, the British nurse who was wrongfully condemned to death
for helping innocent women and children to escape from the terrible
cruelties of the invading Huns. That her fine courage equals the
bravery of any soldier is indicated in the sculptor's work itself. It
represents a soldier of the Allies looking up toward her strong, kindly
face, raising in his right hand a laurel wreath to place at one side of
her, opposite the one already hung at the other.
The statue is a symbol of the glorious deeds and the beautiful spirit
of the women of France, England, and America, during the awful
conflict. It is difficult to realize the complete revolution which
took place in the lives of the women of the world when they awakened to
the need for their services in connection with the war.
In forsaken schoolhouses and barns, as well as in quickly erected
hospitals, near the firing lines, they moved quietly in and out among
the patients, administering needed medicines, bringing cheer and
comfort to the long line of wounded soldiers. At unexpected moments
the hospital was bombarded, making it necessary for them hurriedly to
transfer their patients to some other building. During a bombardment
of a large theater which had been turned into a hospital, several
patients were too ill to be moved. So some of the nurses, wearing
steel helmets, remained to care for these men while shells burst all
around them.
[Illustration: This memorial to the memory of Edith Cavell was unveiled
by Queen Alexandra in Norwich, England, at the opening of the Nurse
Cavell Memorial Home. The statue and the home for district nurses are
constant reminders of the nurse, a brave victim of Prussian despotism,
who lived a patriot and died a martyr.]
Certain dressing stations in which the nurses cared for the most
seriously wounded were so near the firing line that the men could be
carried to them. Summoned, perhaps by a Red Cross dog, a nurse at
times ventured out under the enemy's fire. In the fields or woods lay
a badly injured man who must have constant care until darkness would
permit bringing him in unseen by the enemy, for the Huns spared neither
the wounded nor the Red Cross workers.
In the operating rooms, in hospital kitchens, on hospital trains and
ships, the nurses gave no thought for their own safety but worked
untiringly to save the wounded.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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