Victoria's Cross (30 page)

[The] Victoria Cross has always had its sombre side, when paradoxically too much was demanded of its recipients, and then not enough attention paid to them . . . Of the 1,349 men who have won the VC to date, 19 committed suicide and at least as many more died in circumstances where it was charitable to return an open verdict.
⁴²

The professionals of Britain's armed forces are trained to be courageous, but to become a hero depends on public acclaim, and being a hero is a mixed blessing.

Michael De-la-Noy, in his book
The Honours System
, wrote that ‘Those who hold the Victoria Cross are a classless band of the elite, in whose dwindling presence other individuals, regardless of their general opinions on war or honours, do well to give way and keep their peace.' True enough. Less accurate is the statement that follows immediately after: ‘There is no conceivable way in which a Victoria Cross can be canvassed for, purchased or in any other way debased.' The VC has in the past often been canvassed for, and is at risk not of debasement but of decline through ossification. When the medal first appeared, the network of social ties that bound the monarchy and the armed forces was vigorous and unquestioned; those ties have decayed, as the monarchy has retrenched in power and diminished in esteem. Remarkably, however, the VC remains one of the few British institutions that is untarnished by accusations of corruption, scandal, political intrigue or manipulation. The fact that the VC is not necessarily or simply
awarded purely for a heroic deed, or that heroic military deeds that are deserving of a VC go unnoticed – that the history of the medal, right up to the present day, is peppered with anomalies, contradictions, prejudice and favouritism – is discomforting. But voicing doubts ought not to be taken as implying any denigration of past VC winners, who after all are usually passive actors in this interesting ritual, individuals plucked from obscurity, as the bar to be considered for a VC has risen, fallen and risen again. But a soldier who risked his life in the Crimea in 1855 is in no different position from one doing precisely the same thing in Afghanistan in 2010. Yet the fact that the VC has become more difficult to win is obviously partly related to the changing nature of combat. The kind of close encounters that once dominated a battlefield are today few and far between, so the opportunities to show the kind of courage that might merit a VC are rarer than previously. On the other hand, Lieutenant General Stannus wanted to do away altogether with honours for military services, as ‘the best officers in the Army do not value them, knowing, as they do, that they are not distributed with any regard to fairness'.
⁴³
He may have been correct, but his advice was impractical. Rather than dismantle a flawed system, it ought to be possible to remove the flaws. The expiring Cross could be revived by a fresh revision of the VC warrant – one that reiterated the necessity of outstandingly noble courage in military operations while eliminating the informal 90 per cent risk-of-death requirement; at the same time it could slim down the number of operational gallantry decorations, so reducing the chance of anomalies. For Victoria and Albert, the VC's diffident appearance was itself a defiance of the norm, and helped promote a bigger ostentatiousness; the VC's strength, its incalculable intangible value, is that – unlike other military decorations – it has very wide social recognition. At its simplest the VC was a useful recruitment device; at its most complex it represents an ethical response by an eternally grateful British society.
⁴⁴

The imminent withering of the Victoria Cross would be a national loss, which could be avoided if more VCs were to be distributed. Colonel H. Jones's VC was controversial because – for all the intense scrutiny behind closed doors – it was tainted with the suspicion of arbitrariness; similar (and different) controversy could be mitigated if the current quota system was dropped and, instead, the type of rationing system suggested by Prince Albert – which was included in the very first VC warrant and remained in the 1961 warrant – was reasserted.
⁴⁵
Had this elective peer system been invoked, Colonel Jones might still have been chosen by fellow officers; Abols may have been nominated by his comrades; and Illingsworth, Hamilton and many others may have been remembered rather more than they are.

As it is, a collective amnesia appears to have infected Britain's military, which has turned a blind eye to elected VCs. The ballot process was used again in the Second Anglo-Boer War; possibly by the army during the Gallipoli landings in April 1915, when six VCs were awarded, and one formerly gazetted DCM, which went to Sergeant John Grimshaw, was raised to a VC almost two years later;
⁴⁶
and on three occasions by the Royal Navy, twice in 1917 and once more – the final occasion to date – for a combined naval and marines assault on Zeebrugge on 22–23 April 1918, when casualties were exceptionally heavy (of 1,700 men involved at Zeebrugge, more than 300 were wounded and some 200 killed). The Royal Navy Zeebrugge balloted VCs illustrate how it was done, and could be done again. Captain Gordon Campbell of the HMS
Pargust
conducted a ballot following his ship's clash with a submarine on 7 June 1917. On 15 August 1918 the special committee formed to consider the revision of the VC warrant received a memo from Campbell, prefaced by the statement that ‘a representation was made to His Majesty The King that the gallantry of all officers and men was such that it was desirable an officer and man should be selected by ballot of the V.C., under Clause 13 of the statutes'. Campbell wrote:

I read out the reward to the officers and men and gave 24 hours' notice of the ballot. I got an officer from C. in C's Office (Plymouth) to superintend the ballot. Each officer wrote the name of an officer on a chit and each rating wrote the name of a rating on a chit – personally I took no part in the voting beyond writing down the name of an officer and man, which were only to be used in the event of an even draw (neither were necessary). The ballot officer only gave out the name of the selected ones, so that no one should know how near he might have been. Of course, as Captain of the ship I made it clear I was not to be included in the voting – the position would be impossible, and I did not consider it Their Lordships' intention.
⁴⁷

The eight VCs given for Zeebrugge followed two separate ballots, one for the sailors and the other for the marines. In August 1918 the inter-services committee established to draw up what became the 1920 VC warrant considered the balloting process. Frederick Ponsonby asked Admiral Everett, the Naval Secretary, to comment on the awarding of VCs by ballot. Everett may have had misogynist tendencies, but his instincts on the election system were sound. He was keen to ensure that the warrant should specify a secret ballot, as the men might feel duty-bound to vote for the senior officer: ‘In fact you know the blue jackets – and probably the Army are the same – will always say “We had better give it to the top bloke.” Therefore I think the ballot ought to be a secret ballot.' Colonel Graham, the army representative on the committee, added: ‘I think it all comes back to this that if people can see what is going on they can do their best to see that the best men are selected.' The ballot system remained in place. It would be a positive move if all VC recommendations could in future come from the officers and men – and women – themselves, put to the theatre or campaign GOC for approval, and then forwarded, with the GOC's endorsement, to the inter-services VC committee.

In his 2012 review of military medals,
⁴⁸
Sir John Holmes wrote:

[The] British system of awarding campaign medals over the last century or so has been characterised by a deliberately parsimonious approach: a British military campaign medal should be something which has been hard-earned, recognising service where life is at risk and conditions are tough . . . there is a degree of disdain among the military in this country for other countries which have gone down different routes and awarded medals less sparingly.

The military has long trod a finely balanced path between frugality and miserliness when it comes to the most prestigious military medal, the VC. In defending the first, it has occasionally lapsed into the second, as Rudyard Kipling, chief literary spokesman for the empire and defender of the fading myths of chivalry, identified:

Any rank of the English Army, Navy, Reserve or Volunteer forces, from a duke to a negro, can wear on his left breast the little ugly bronze Maltese cross with the crowned lion atop and the inscription ‘For Valour' below . . . every V.C. of the Great War I have spoken to has been rather careful to explain that he won his Cross because what he did happened to be done when and where some one could notice it. Thousands of men they said did just the same, but in places where there were no observers.
⁴⁹

By now it ought to be clear that there is no lasting or stable definition of ultimate military courage nor should we expect to be able to formulate one that will cover all circumstances. The belief that levels of courage can be finely segmented, and that closeted committees can allocate appropriate military decorations accordingly, is reminiscent of Jonathan Swift's fictional island of Laputa, in
Gulliver's Travels
, where society is preoccupied with abstruse calculations and ignores the fact that its houses are shoddily constructed. We should trust our soldiers,
sailors, airmen and women, and let them choose for themselves. Mistakes will be made – they always have been – but at least they will be mistakes for which the troops actually in combat, who face death with courage and distinction, will be responsible.

Current Military Decorations

(source: Ministry of Defence)

A summary of state awards available to the armed forces for gallantry and meritorious service:

Operational gallantry

Non-operational gallantry

Meritorious service awards

Select Bibliography

Much of the research derives from the National Archives, henceforth referred to in the notes as ‘NA', with the relevant file number following, e.g. NA WO 98/10.

Books

‘A Soldier',
The Army, the Horse-Guards and the People
, part of the Knowsley Pamphlet Collection (University of Liverpool, 1860)

Bailey, Roderick,
Forgotten Voices of the Victoria Cross
(Ebury Press, 2010)

Beeton, S. O.,
Our Soldiers and the Victoria Cross
(Ward, Lock and Tyler, 1867)

Bennett, Daphne,
King Without a Crown
(Heinemann, 1977)

Bidwell, Shelford,
Modern Warfare
(Allen Lane, 1973)

Binney, Marcus,
The Women Who Lived For Danger
(Hodder & Stoughton, 2002)

Bishop, W. A.,
Winged Warfare
(Hodder & Stoughton, 1918)

Brooks, Stephen (ed.),
Montgomery and the Battle of Normandy
(Army Records Society, 2008)

Brownlow, Field Marshal Sir Charles H.,
Stray Notes on Military Training and Khaki Warfare
(Women's Printing Society, 1912)

Buzzell, Nora,
The Register of the Victoria Cross
(This England Books, 1981)

Callwell, Colonel Charles Edward,
Small Wars: Their Principles and Practice
(HMSO, 1906)

Crook, M. J.,
The Evolution of the Victoria Cross
(Midas Books, 1975)

Eyles-Thomas, Mark,
Sod That For a Game of Soldiers
(Kenton Publishing, 2007)

Fitz-Gibbon, Spencer,
Not Mentioned in Despatches: The History and Mythology of the Battle of Goose Green
(Lutterworth Press, 2001 reprint)

Foot, M. R. D, SOE
in France
(HMSO, 1966)

Geddes, John,
Spearhead Assault
(Century, 2007)

Gilbert, Martin,
Churchill: A Life
(William Heinemann, 1991)

Glanfield, John,
Bravest of the Brave: The Story of the Victoria Cross
(Sutton Publishing, 2005)

Gliddon, Gerald, VCs
of the Somme: A Biographical Portrait
(Gliddon Books, 1991)

Halliday, Hugh A.,
Valour Reconsidered
(Robin Brass Studio, Toronto, 2006)

Hamilton, General Sir Ian,
The Soul and Body of an Army
(Edward Arnold, 1921)

Helm, Sarah,
A Life in Secrets: The Story of Vera Atkins
(Abacus, 2010 reprint)

Illustrated Handbook of the Victoria Cross and George Cross
(Imperial War Museum, 1970)

Hyde, H. Montgomery and Falkiner Nuttall, G. R.,
Air Defence and the Civil Population
(Cresset Press, 1937)

Kavanagh, Thomas Henry,
How I Won the Victoria Cross
(Ward & Lock, 1860)

Laffin, John,
British
VCs
of World War 2
(Budding Books, 2000)

Mayo, John Horsley,
Medals and Decorations of the British Army and Navy
, vol. ii (Archibald Constable and Co., 1897)

McMoran, C. W. [Lord Moran],
The Anatomy of Courage
(Constable & Robinson, 2007 edition)

Miller, William Ian,
The Mystery of Courage
(Harvard University Press, 2000)

Noakes, Lucy,
Women in the British Army: War and the Gentle Sex, 1907–1948
(Routledge, 2006)

Percival, John,
For Valour
(Methuen, 1985)

Pollard, Captain A. O.,
Fire-Eater: The Memoirs of a V.C
. (reprinted by Naval & Military Press, 2005)

Ponsonby, Sir Frederick,
Recollections of Three Reigns
(Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1951)

Reid, Douglas Arthur,
Memories of the Crimean War
(St Catherine Press, 1911)

Rhodes James, Robert,
A Spirit Undaunted
(Little, Brown & Co., 1998)

Smith, Melvin Charles,
Awarded for Valour: A History of the Victoria Cross and the Evolution of British Heroism
(Palgrave Macmillan, 2008)

Smith-Dorrien, General H.,
Memories of Forty-Eight Years' Service
(Leonaur edn, 2009)

Smyth, Brigadier Sir John,
The Story of the Victoria Cross
(Frederick Muller, 1963)

Stannus, Lieutenant General H. J.,
Curiosities of the Victoria Cross
(William Ridgway, 1881)

Stannus, Lieutenant General H. J.,
My Reasons for Leaving the British Army
(William Ridgway, 1881)

Strachan, Hew,
The Politics of the British Army
(Oxford University Press, 1997)

Toomey, T. E.,
Victoria Cross and How Won, 1854–1889
(Alfred Boot and Son, 1889)

Turner, E. S.,
Dear Old Blighty
(Michael Joseph, 1980)

Walton, Douglas N.,
Courage: A Philosophical Investigation
(University of California Press, 1986)

Ward, Irene,
F.A.N.Y. Invicta
(Hutchinson, 1955)

Watson, Janet S. K.,
Fighting Different Wars
(Cambridge University Press, 2004)

Wessels, André (ed.),
Lord Roberts and the War in South Africa, 1899–1902
(Army Records Society, 2000)

Articles

[no author], ‘Precedency of His Royal Highness Prince Albert, King-Consort, de jure, of Great Britain and Ireland' (John Mortimer, 1840)

‘Old Soldier', ‘The War Medal: An Address to the British Nation' (London, 1849)

Arnstein, Walter L., ‘The Warrior Queen: Reflections on Victoria and Her World',
Albion: A Quarterly Journal Concerned with British Studies
, vol. 30, no. 1 (spring 1998), pp. 1–28

Bashow, Lieutenant Colonel David, ‘The Incomparable Billy Bishop: The Man and the Myths',
Canadian Military Journal
, autumn 2002, pp. 55–60

Cannon, John, ‘The Survival of the British Monarchy', Prothero Lecture,
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society
, 5th series, vol. 36 (1986), pp. 143–64

Clarke, Major R., ‘Medals, Decorations and Anomalies',
British Army Review
, August 1969

Gooch, Brison D., ‘Recent Literature on Queen Victoria's Little Wars',
Victorian Studies
, vol. 17, no. 2 (December 1973), pp. 217–24

Greenhous, Brereton, ‘Billy Bishop: Brave Flyer, Bold Liar',
Canadian Military Journal
, autumn 2002, pp. 61–4

Hamilton, C. I., ‘Naval Hagiography and the Victorian Hero',
Historical Journal
, vol. 23, no. 2 (June 1980), pp. 381–98

Hichberger, Joany, ‘Democratising Glory? The Victoria Cross Paintings of Louis Desanges',
Oxford Art Journal
, vol. 7, no. 2 (1984), pp. 42–51

Jackson, Michael W., ‘Justice and Heroism',
Polity
, vol. 16, no. 2 (winter 1983), pp. 201–13

Jones, Edgar, ‘The Psychology of Killing: The Combat Experiences of British Soldiers during the First World War',
Journal of Contemporary History
, vol. 41, no. 2 (April 2006), pp. 229–46

King, Anthony, ‘Women in Combat',
R
US
I Journal
, vol. 158, no. 1 (February/March 2013), pp. 4–11

Lalumia, Matthew, ‘Realism and Anti-Aristocratic Sentiment in Victorian Depictions of the Crimean War',
Victorian Studies
, vol. 27, no. 1 (autumn 1983), pp. 25–51

Lieven, Michael, ‘Heroism, Heroics and the Making of Heroes: The Anglo-Zulu War of 1879',
Albion: A Quarterly Journal Concerned with British Studies
, vol. 30, no. 3 (autumn 1998), pp. 419–38

Markesinis, B. S., ‘The Royal Prerogative Re-Visited',
Cambridge Law Journal
, vol. 32, no. 2 (November 1973), pp. 287–309

Markovits, Stefanie, ‘Rushing into Print: “Participatory Journalism” during the Crimean War',
Victorian Studies
, vol. 50, no. 4 (summer 2008), pp. 559–86

Rachman, Stanley J., ‘Fear and Courage: A Psychological Perspective',
Social Research
, vol. 71, no. 1 (spring 2004), pp. 149–76

Sweetman, John, ‘“Ad Hoc” Support Services during the Crimean War, 1854–6: Temporary, Ill-Planned and Largely Unsuccessful',
Military Affairs
, vol. 52, no. 3 (June 1988), pp. 135–40