Battle Honours of the British Army: From Tangier, 1662, to the Commencement of the Reign of King Edward VIINorman, Charles Boswell
History
Battle Honours of the British Army: From Tangier, 1662, to the Commencement of the Reign of King Edward VII
Norman, Charles Boswell
Great Britain -- History, Military; Great Britain. Army -- History
In writing of battle honours, I must not omit to mention that our
allies, the French, Turks, and Sardinians, bestowed a certain
number of decorations on our officers and men. The French
distributed crosses of the Legion of Honour, which were, as a rule,
given to officers. In some exceptional cases a cross was given to a
non-commissioned officer, and in some very few cases to privates.
The French war medal was bestowed on a certain number of men in
each battalion, and one was given to H.R.H. the Duke of Cambridge.
The Turks showered the Order of the Medjidieh with no niggardly
hand, and the Sardinians gave a few crosses of the Order of St.
Maurice and St. Lazarus to senior officers, and a few medals to
each regiment. The distribution of these foreign decorations gave
rise to considerable dissatisfaction. There were certain regiments
which had fought throughout the campaign; there were others which
had landed at the very close of the operations, and had not lost
a man in action. All shared equally, like the labourers in the
vineyard.
There were few officers on the Staff or in the Brigade of Guards
who did not receive four decorations for this campaign, and, in
truth, the Guards deserved all they received. They not only took
their fair share of trench duty, but at the Alma and at Inkerman
they suffered most severely. A party of Guardsmen who happened to
be on fatigue duty at Balaclava the morning of the battle were
collected by a young officer, and fell in on the left of the 93rd.
That young officer afterwards acted as Brigade-Major to the heroic
Nicholson at the Siege of Delhi, and as I write is, I believe, the
only living officer who saw Sevastopol and Delhi fall. I allude to
Lieutenant-General Sir Seymour Blane, who served as a subaltern
of the Scots Guards in the Crimea. Afterwards exchanging into the
52nd, he marched down with Nicholson to Delhi, and was by his side
when the hero of the siege was shot down inside the Cashmere Gate.
SEVASTOPOL.
This distinction was awarded to all regiments which landed in the
Crimea prior to September 8, 1855, the date of the last storming of
the Redan:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account