On December 3

On this day in ...
... 1914 (95 years ago today) , during World War I, Belgians, who'd been occupied over the course of recent months by the forces of the German Kaiser Wilhelm II, were delivered this proclamation:

His Majesty, the Emperor and King, having deigned to appoint me Governor-General in Belgium, I have to-day assumed the direction of affairs.
BARON VON BISSING. Brussels, December 3, 1914.

The rule of Moritz Ferdinand Freiherr von Bissing (above right), a Prussian military general, would be marked by collective punishments (violative of the Article 50 of the Annex to the 1907 Hague Convention No. IV respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land) and other harsh measures. Bissing signed the death warrant of a British nurse working with the Red Cross in Brussels -- Edith Cavell (left), who'd organized an underground network through whch Allied soldiers escaped Belgium.

(Prior December 3 posts are here and here.)

On October 12, ...

... 1915, amid World War I, Edith Cavell was executed by a German firing squad at the National Rifle Range in Brussels. The killing of Cavell, right, a 50-year-old British nurse working in Belgium under the auspices of the Red Cross, followed her conviction for having harbored and aided the escape of Allied soldiers.
... 1999, The Chief of the Army, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, seized control of Pakistan in a bloodless coup that ousted Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. Eventually Musharraf was elected President, while Sharif and another former Prime Minister, Benazir Bhutto, went into exile. The country's been in turmoil this year, as we've posted. Last Saturday Musharraf won a new term in an election that The Economist condemns as "[u]nrepresentative, rigged and at gunpoint." And though Musharraf managed in September to rebuff Sharif's attempt to return from exile, his bids to fend off Bhutto's promise to come home Oct. 18 seem not to be nearly as successful.