Gabrielle Petit, commemorative postcard, c.1920 (litho)

Gabrielle Petit (1893-1916) Belgian Red Cross worker who spied for the British Intelligence service during World War I, collecting information about enemy troop movements, distributing the clandestine underground newspaper, 'La Libre Belgique' and assisting the underground mail service 'Mot du Soldat'; betrayed by a German who claimed to be Dutch, she was arrested in February, 1916, convicted of espionage and sentenced to death in March; executed by the German army in 1916 in Brussels, she became a Belgian national heroine after the end of the war when her story became known and is commemorated by statues in Brussels and Tournai; commemorative postcard;