Content note: Repeats First World War atrocity stories, including invented ones, and their wording. This object is shown as it was published. Why
Many atrocity stories were circulated which were impossible to prove or disprove, but in the early months of the war the public was shocked by a horrible story of barbarous cruelty, of which a complete record can be given. It is a curious instance of the ingenuity of the deliberate individual liar.
A NURSE’S TRAGEDY.
Dumfries Girl the Victim of Shocking Barbarity.
News has reached Dumfries of the shocking death of a Dumfries young woman. Nurse Grace Hume, who went out to Belgium at the outbreak of war. Nurse Hume was engaged at the camp hospital at Vilvorde, and she was the victim of horrible cruelty at the hands of German soldiers. Her breasts were cut off and she died in great agony. Nurse Hume’s family received a note written shortly before she died. It was dated September 6th, and ran: “ Dear Kate, this is to say good-bye. Have not long to live. Hospital has been set on fire. Germans cruel. A man here had his head cut off. My right breast has been taken away. Give my love to- Good-bye. Grace.”
Nurse Hume’s left breast was cut away after she had written the note. She was a young woman of twenty-three and was formerly a nurse in Huddersfield Hospital.
Nurse MuUard, of Inverness, delivered the note personally to Nurse Hume’s sister at Dumfries. She was also at Vilvorde, and she states that Nurse Hume acted the part of a heroine. A German attacked a wounded soldier whom Nurse Hume was taking to hospital. The nurse took his gun and shot the German dead.
“ The Star” September i6, 1914.
Letter Delivered by Nurse Mullard to Miss Hume.
I have been asked by your sister, Nurse Grace Hume, to hand the enclosed letter to you. My name is Nurse Mullard, and I was with your sister when she died. Our camp hospital at Vilvorde was burned to the ground, and out of 1,517 men and 23 nurses, only 19 nurses were saved, but 149 men managed to get away. Grace requested me to tell you that her last thoughts were of-and you, and that you were not to worry over her, as she would be going to meet her Jack. These were her last words. She endured great agony in her last hours. One of the soldiers (our men) caught two German soldiers in the act of cutting off her left breast, her right one having been already cut off. They were killed instantly by our soldiers. Grace managed to scrawl the enclosed note before I found her, but we all say that your sister was a heroine. She was out on the fields looking for wounded soldiers, and on one occasion, when bringing in a wounded soldier, a German attacked her. She threw the soldier’s gun at him and shot him with her rifle. Of course, all nurses here are armed. 1 have just received word this moment to pack to Scotland. Will try and get this handed to you, as there is no post from here, and we are making the best of a broken-down wagon truck for a shelter. Will give you fuller details when I see you. We are all quite safe now, as there have been reinforcements.
A condensed account appeared in the Evening Standard with the note: “ This message has been submitted to the Press Bureau, which does not object to the publication and takes no responsibility for the correctness of the statement.”
A story which attracted particular attention both because of its peculiar atrocity and because of the circumstantial details which accompanied it, was told in several of the evening papers on Wednesday. It was first published, we believe, in the Dumfries Staruiard on Wednesday morning and related to an English nurse, who was said to have been killed by Germans in Belgium with the most revolting cruelty. This nurse came from Dumfries and, according to the Dumfries Standard, the story was told to the nurse’s sister in Dumfries by another nurse from Belgium, who also gave an account of it in a letter. Further, the Dumfries Standard published a facsimile of a letter said to have been written by the murdered nurse when dying to her sister in Dumfries. The story therefore appeared to be particularly well authenticated and, as we say, it was published by a number of London evening papers of repute, including the Pa// Mall and Westminster Gazette, the Globe, the Star, and the Evening Standard. But late on Wednesday night it was discovered to be entirely untrue, since the nurse in question was actually in Huddersfield and had never been to Belgium, though she volunteered for the front. The remaining fact is that her sister in Dumfries states, according to the Yorkshire Post, that she was visited by a “ Nurse Mullard,” professing to be a nurse from Belgium, who told her the story and gave her the letter from her sister in a handwriting that resembled her sister’s.
“ Times” Leader, September 18, 1914.
The Times goes on to call for an inquiry and to suggest that the story may have been invented by German agents in order to discredit all atrocity stories.
Kate Hume, seventeen, was charged at Dumfries yesterday, before Sheriff Subsdtute Primrose, with having uttered a forged letter purporting to have been written by her sister. Nurse Grace Hume, in Huddersfield. She declined to make any statement, on the advice of her agent, and was committed to prison to await trial.
“ The Times,” September 30, 1914.
The case came before the High Court at Dumfries, and it was proved that Kate Hume (the sister) had fabricated the whole story and forged both the letter from her sister and that from “ Nurse Mullard ” and had communicated them to the Press.
“ The Times,” December 29 and 50, 1914.
Falsehood in War-Time, Arthur Ponsonby. Published in the United Kingdom in 1928, more than 95 years ago, so in the public domain in the United States. Ponsonby died in 1946, so the text is also in the public domain in countries that count the author's life plus 70 years. Provenance and rights.