I’ll give a little background so it’s clear what we’re talking about and then a quick rundown on the process for awarding military medals, particularly the VC. And just a note on terminology, you don’t “win” a gallantry medal, although this is often the language used, you are awarded one. The implication being that one set out to “win” a contest or a prize, and that this was not the correct spirit in which gallantry awards represented. So the Victoria Cross was created during the Crimean War in 1856 by, you guessed it, Queen Victoria. It was a gallantry medal, open to soldiers of any rank and service, meaning army and navy, who had performed some conspicuously brave act. The original Warrant stated:

“It is ordained that the Cross shall only be awarded to those officers and men who have served Us in the presence of the enemy, and shall have then performed some signal act of valour or devotion to their country.

Before the VC there had been no standardised system for awarding honours and “the granting of Medals, both in Our Navy and Army, is only awarded for long service or meritorious conduct, rather than for bravery in action or distinction before an enemy." A new honour would serve as a powerful symbol of valour for soldiers and civilians alike. There were a number of changes to the wording of the VC Warrant that determined exactly how a VC was to be awarded between 1856 and 1911 which opened the VC up to soldiers of the British Indian Army and allowed the VC to be awarded posthumously. The Warrant received a final change in 1920 after the First World War to fully standardise the practices around awarding the VC. You can view transcripts of the Warrants here.

So we can assume that these rules of 1920 were, more or less, those applied during the FWW. The wording stated (I’ve trimmed some of the more legal language to make for easier readability):

• “It is ordained that the Cross shall only be awarded for most conspicuous bravery or some daring or pre-eminent act of valour or self-sacrifice or extreme devotion to duty in the presence of the enemy.

• ”It is ordained that every recommendation for the Award of the decoration of the Cross shall be made and reported through the usual channel to the Senior Naval, Military or Air Force Officer Commanding the Force, who shall call for such description, conclusive proof as far as the circumstances of the case will allow, and attestation of the act as he may think requisite, and if he approve he shall recommend the grant of the decoration to Our Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, Our Secretary of State for War and the Royal Air Force as the case may be, who shall submit to Us the names of everyone so recommended whom they shall consider worthy”

• ”It is ordained that in the event of any unit of our… Forces… having distinguished ,itself collectively by the performance of an act of heroic gallantry or daring in the presence of the enemy in such a way that the… Officer in Command of the Force to which such an unit belongs is unable to single out any individual as specially pre-eminent in gallantry or daring, then one or more of the officers, warrant officers, petty officers, non-commissioned officers, seamen, marines, private soldiers or airmen in the ranks comprising the unit shall be selected to be recommended to Us for the award of the Victoria Cross”

• ”It is ordained that every recipient of the Cross, not being nor ranking as a Commissioned Office… shall from the date of the act by which the decoration has been gained, be entitled to a special pension of Ten Pounds a year”

• ”In order to make such additional provision as shall effectually maintain under the most honourable distinction, it is ordained that if any person on whom such distinction shall be conferred be convicted of treason, cowardice, felony, or of any infamous crime, or if he or she be accused of any such offence and doth not after a reasonable time surrender himself or herself to be tried for the same, his or her name shall by an especial Warrant… be erased from the registry of individuals upon whom the said decoration shall have been conferred… It is hereby further declared that we, shall be the sole judges of the circumstance demanding such expulsion; moreover, We shall at all times have power to restore such persons as may at any time have been expelled, both to the enjoyment of the decoration and pension…”

So that’s the rules. Awarded by the monarch for conspicuous acts of bravery, daring, valour or self-sacrifice in the presence of the enemy, open to all individuals of any ranks or even as the representative of a unit, comes with a £10 pension but also the expectation of good conduct thereafter. Seems simple enough.

The difficulty in awarding the VC comes with this part; “every recommendation for the Award of the decoration of the Cross shall be made and reported through the usual channel to the Officer Commanding the Force, who shall call for such description, conclusive proof as far as the circumstances of the case will allow, and attestation of the act as he may think requisite, and if he approve he shall recommend the grant of the decoration to Our Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, Our Secretary of State for War and the Royal Air Force as the case may be, who shall submit to Us the names”. (Emphasis mine)

The recommendation for a VC required quite a bit of paperwork for the officers involved in the process, and there was a lot of leeway for commanding officers to help or hinder that process. Commanding officers from the battalion level upwards would send out requests after operations, or make note of information given to them during ops, for soldiers eligible for awards, from the minor ‘Mentioned in Despatches’ up to the VC. Junior and field officers would be responsible for offering up names to CO’s and writing the preliminary reports detailing the particular event which was being submitted. The “description, conclusive proof and attestation” varied between units and formations depending on the desires of brigade, divisional, corps and army systems. Although staff work and administration was standardised in theory, a force of 60 divisions was going to have many different standards and expectations when it came to paperwork.

Beyond the merely practical problems of acquiring witnesses and constructing narratives and reports, relationship, rivalries and personal character presented another layer of complexity. Officers did compete with each other and rivalries between units in a brigade or division were common. The relationship a commanding officer had with his superior could often mean the difference between a VC and a Distinguished Service Order or Military Cross. Disputes often arose after awards were gazetted and correspondence from the time is quite candid with complaints of favouritism towards one unit or another. Situations like that are hard to clear up with any certainty, as it was up to the discretion of CO’s which submissions they put forward.

So let’s look at an example where this structure is put into practice. Let’s look at Australian soldier Joseph Maxwell in October 1918. Lieutenant Maxwell was part of Australia’s 18th Battalion which took part in the Battle of St. Quentin Canal. During the fighting on 3 October Maxwell’s company lost all of its officers except himself. He took control of the company and attacked, single handedly knocking out two machine gun posts and killing or capturing 13 men. After attempting to capture a large group of German soldiers he was instead taken prisoner, but managed to escape during the confusion of an artillery barrage, shooting several more German soldiers. He then rounded up a party of men and attacked, capturing his ex-captors. Recommendations for awards were published eleven days later on 14 October by the 2nd Australian Division headquarters with Maxwell’s brigadier general, E.F Martin signing off on the submission. Nothing was heard on the matter for the next two and a half months as it went up through the recommendation process. Finally on 23 December 1918, 5th Brigade received a telegram announcing Maxwell’s VC. The London Gazette published an announcement of the award alongside the citation three weeks later on 6 January. Two months later on 9 March 1919, at Buckingham Palace, Lieutenant Maxwell was presented with his Victoria Cross by King George V. The presentation itself was a very formal occasion, several hours long with full pomp and ceremony, where 400 awards were presented, from knighthoods to MC’s. Awards weren’t always presented by the monarch but the VC, being the highest military honour, usually was.

So, from the event to the medal on his chest was a period of five months in the case of Maxwell. This sort of time lag was not uncommon, but there were other cases where the lag was shorter or longer.

Edit - Formatting