Awarded for Valour_ A History of the Victoria Cross and the Evolution of the British Concept of Heroism

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January 4, 2008 MAC/ARD Page-256 16:12 9780230_547056_14_not01
256 NOTES



  1. Burg and Purcell,Almanac of World War I, 169–70; de Groot,Douglas Haig, 313–6. Burg and
    Purcell place the end of Arras as the capture of Bullecourt, 17 May. De Groot includes
    the consolidation of the line until 23 May, and reports a total of 160,000 casualties.

  2. Register, 293.

  3. Ibid., 226.

  4. Guin,British Strategy and Politics, 230.

  5. Register, 229.

  6. Manning’s novel is based on his own Great War experiences. It has been called ‘the
    finest and noblest book of men in war’ (Ernest Hemingway) and ‘without doubt one of
    the greatest books about soldiers in the whole of western literature’ (Michael Howard),
    Wilson, Myriad Faces of War, 678–9.

  7. PRO file WO 32/4993. Original recommendation of Private F. W. Dobson, 28
    September 1914, plus chain of command endorsements, 28/29 September 1914.

  8. PRO file WO 32/4993. Letter from Douglas Haig, Headquarters, 1st Army Corps, to
    the Adjutant General [Lt. Gen. C. F. N. Macready], General Headquarters, 30 September
    1914.

  9. PRO file WO 32/4993. Minute Sheet signed by Major General Frederick Spencer Robb,
    n.d. The sentence ‘The Committee understand that the S. of S. is prepared to accept
    such recommendations’ was typed in the original and then struck through in pencil. A
    marginal note reads ‘S of S has given his intentions to refer this to C in C Sir J. French
    saying that he concurs with [illegible word] V.C.’

  10. PRO file Wo/32/4993. Letter from Field Marshal Sir John French to the Secretary, War
    Office, 25 November 1914.

  11. Haig,Private Papers, 79.

  12. Charles Edmonds,A Subaltern’s War(New York: Minton, Balch, 1930), 64–5.

  13. Wilson,Myriad Faces of War, 473. Major C. A. Bill, 15th Battalion, Royal Warwickshire
    Regiment, incident during the Third Battle of Ypres.

  14. This is not to be confused with Sir John French’s assessment that officers should not
    get the VC for rescuing the wounded. What we are dealing with here are enlisted men
    awarded for saving the life of an officer.

  15. For attitudes toward the High Command, see Wilfred R. Bion,The Long Weekend, 1897–
    1919: Part of a Life(Abingdon: Fleetwood Press, 1982), 131, 172–3; Brown,Book of the
    Western Front, 150–2; Graves,Farewell to All That, 110–11; Liddle,Soldier’s War, 97, 212–14;
    Morton,When Your Number’s Up, 113, 178; Harry Siepmann,Echo of the Guns: Recollections of
    an Artillery Officer(London: Robert Hale, 1987), 89–94;.

  16. Burg and Purcell,Almanac of World War I, 200–3; Niall Ferguson,The Pity of War(n.p.:
    Basic Books, 1999), 285; Anthony Farrar-Hockley, ‘Sir Hubert Gough and the German
    Breakthrough, 1918,’ in Brian Bond, ed.,Fallen Stars: Eleven Studies of Twentieth Century Military
    Disasters(London: Brassey’s UK, 1991), 78–83; John Terraine,To Win a War: 1918, The Year
    of Victory(Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1981), 43–9; Wilson,Myriad Faces of War, 564.

  17. Burg and Purcell,Almanac of World War I, 204.

  18. Wilson,Myriad Faces of War, 570.

  19. Terraine,Haig, 432–3.

  20. Aubrey Wade,The War of the Guns(London: Batsford, 1936), 57–8.

  21. Wilson,Myriad Faces of War, 552. Anonymous British Private, relating the events 21
    March 1918.

  22. H. M. Tomlinson,All Our Yesterdays(London: Heinemann, 1930), 481.

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