Dominic Sandbrook

Now, as this might suggest, we are very dependent for all this.

on incredibly treacly hagiographies that were written after her death so whether this really happened and whether she really said this you know listeners can draw their own conclusions anyway but why otherwise would she have gone back i i mean it i think it's plausible to me maybe she wants to set up another nursing journal in belgium might become the matron of a third hospital i don't know not with a tidal wave of gray prussian militarism descending on her

Right, a tidal wave of Teutonic militarism, exactly.

Anyway, by the 3rd of August, she's gone back to Brussels.

She sends the German nurses that she's got home.

She says, you can go home.

She says to the other nurses, your task is to care for any soldiers, regardless of their nationality.

Any wounded soldier must be treated, friend or foe.

Every man is a father, husband or son.

As nurses, you must take no part in the quarrel.

Our work is for humanity.

The profession of nursing, there is no frontier.

So 20th of August, she's been back for two weeks and Brussels falls.

And, you know, the German tidal wave tramps into the city.

And Edith writes in her journal, we were divided between pity for those poor fellows far from their country and their people.

So she's talking about the Germans there.

She's talking about the Germans suffering the weariness and fatigue of an arduous campaign.

This is my kind of talk.

And hate of a vindictive foe bringing ruin and desolation on hundreds of happy homes and to a prosperous and peaceful land.

Now, by this point, our training school and the sort of clinic have been converted into a Red Cross hospital and all English nurses have now been sent home.