War Medals and Their HistorySteward, William Augustus
History
War Medals and Their History
Steward, William Augustus
Great Britain. Army -- Medals, badges, decorations, etc.; Great Britain. Royal Navy -- Medals, badges, decorations, etc.
The column operating against the Anuak tribe under the command of El
Miralai Leveson Bey, D.S.O., between March 4th and April 12th, 1912,
both dates inclusive. The medal and bar in silver was awarded to
Government Civil employees, Sheikhs, and Armed Guides, although classed
as non-combatants; whilst the medal in bronze without bar was again
awarded to Civilian Syces of Officers, Civilian Servants of Officers,
and Transport Drivers.
=Sudan Medal, 1910.=--The medal, 1⅞ in. in diameter, bears on the
obverse the cypher of the Khedive Abbas Hilmi El Thani (Abbas II)
and the date Hegira 1328. On the reverse, modelled by Richard Garbe,
R.B.S., is a lion standing in the attitude of attention, with its
fore paws resting upon a small panel bearing the record SUDAN above
the exergue, in which is a Sudanese shield and spears. Forming the
background to the lion is the Nile within its banks, with the sun
rising and casting its rays over the sky and sparkling the water of the
river. The suspender is like that employed on the South African medal,
and the bars, ⅛ in. wide and riveted the same distance apart, are of
the same character. The photograph (facing page 204) illustrating the
medal does not properly depict the disposition of the bars, as they
are unfixed, the medal with loose bars having been kindly placed at
my disposal for the purpose of illustration herein by the Military
Secretary of the Egyptian Army. The ribbon of watered silk, 1¼ in.
wide, is black with a narrow edge of green and an under, outer edging
of red.
NAVAL WAR MEDALS
I have given military war medals preference over those awarded for
naval service, not because I do not recognise the first line of defence
as worthy of priority, for, as I have pointed out, the first medals of
which we have any record were probably given as mementoes of, or as
rewards for, the defeat of the Armada, but because the variety given
for land service is considerably greater, and, in many instances, as
a naval contingent also participated, it enabled me to deal with the
historical aspect out of hand, a necessity which the concise nature of
the book demands.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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