Edith Cavell was a British nurse and peace activist who lived in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. While working in Belgium, she became a pioneer of modern nursing and served as a matron for a nursing school in Brussels. During the First World War, she provided medical care to wounded soldiers from all sides and assisted approximately 200 Allied soldiers in escaping German-occupied territory. Her efforts to help these individuals led to her arrest and subsequent execution by a German firing squad in 1915.