NINE

The Hero Comes Home from the War: The

Institutionalization of Modern Heroism

T

he Great War was a watershed for society, politics, and the military,
and in many ways set the pattern for the rest of the twentieth century.
And the modern concept of heroism in its institutional form was
created during the war. As the final battles played out, the powers-that-were
recognized the need to bring the official parameters of ultimate heroism in
line with the new reality of industrial-scale warfare. Accordingly, a panel
was convened to examine the existing Victoria Cross warrants in the fall
of 1918. From that commission came the new paradigm embodied in the
current VC warrant. Haig’s vision of the aggressive hero, forged on the
Somme, tempered at Arras, and burnished during the 1918 campaigns,
became the new standard of British heroism and has carried on through the
Second World War and to the far islands of the South Atlantic.
The first official consideration of the need to reexamine the existing
regulations came in the summer of 1918 when Naval Secretary Sir Oswyn
Murray contacted the War Office concerning the Elective and Provisional
Clauses of the VC Warrant. The Navy dealt with a situation similar to that of
the Lancashire Fusiliers at Gallipoli in the form of recommendations gener-
ated by the raid on Zeebrugge 22/23 April 1918. In the process of sorting
through and resolving the group recommendations, the Navy noted ambigu-
ities of Clause VII (Provisional Bestowal) and Clause XIII (Elected Selection)
and inquired if the Army had any thoughts on the subject or archived
documents that might shed light on the origins and intent of the clauses.^1
At the War Office Sir Reginald Brade passed the request on to Deputy
Military Secretary Colonel Malcolm David Graham. Graham burrowed into
the files and produced a brief that noted three possibilities of the intentions
of the original framers of the warrant as to the conditions under which
a commander could recommend an individual for a Cross or confer it
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