Awarded for valour

(Full disclosure: I am the author) Awarded for Valour is a history of the Victoria Cross and an analysis of the changes wrought in the concept of heroism as warfare evolved between the 1850s and the present. The book opens with an examinantion of the concept of heroism as it existed in the mid-Victorian mind, looking primarily at literary depictions of the hero in poem and prose. It then moves into the circumstances that created the Victoria Cross, which it attributes to a combination of popular sentiment (desiring a recognition of British heroes like their French allies in the Crimea), political need (Lords Palmerston and Panmure needed to mend fences with the Queen) and a touch of royal vanity. Having established the baseline of heroism and created the Cross, the book then examines how the concept of heroism changed as warfare evolved. First there were teething problems as the War Office defined the institutional concept of heroism in dealing with the first rush of VC recommendations from the Crimea and the Great Mutiny. Certain parameters were established, chief of which was that the VC was an award for the living, not a memorial for the dead. Until the turn of the 20th century, soldiers killed in performing an act of heroism could not be recommended for the VC. Further refinements were made in the small wars of the late Victorian period, certain "test cases" that established a new interpretation of the regulations or extended eligibility to a new service branch. It pauses before the First World War to create a statistical abstract of the VC for the 19th century. This statistical abstract was created by examining the citation of each VC winner and categorizing the nature of the deed that won the award: Aggressive (taking the hill, breaching the gate, combat engineering), Defensive (holding at all costs), Life-saving (rescuing the wounded), or Symbolic (saving the colours, recovering a dead officer). Certain demographics of the winners were also categorized. This revealed a series of patterns in the Victorian concept of heroism, which are discussed in detail. The Great War was a watershed for many things, and among these was the VC. The Cross underwent a tremendous transformation as the Victorian ideals of warfare floundered to their death in Flanders Fields. Four chapters detail the changing nature of the institutional recognition of heroism, culminating in a complete revision of the governing warrant of the award in the wake of the Great War. A final c

Year

2008

Language

English

Series

Studies in military and strategic history

Publisher

Palgrave Macmillan

Editions

3

ISBN

9780230547056

Data source: Wikidata