Democratising Glory? The Victoria Cross Paintings of Louis Desanges

Abstract

The Victoria Cross Gallery was a series of fifty oil paintings executed by the British artist Louis Desanges between 1859 and 1862. Each of the paintings was based on an heroic action that had won the Victoria Cross. The Gallery was exhibited at the important metropolitan art centre, the Crystal Palace, throughout the 1860s and 1870s. Desanges' paintings must therefore have been the most familiar representations of contemporary war for many middle-class Londoners in the midVictorian period. The paintings also received a wider circulation in the form of photographs and as illustrations for a book by Samuel Beeton, Our Heroes of the Victoria Cross. Desanges' paintings will be discussed here in relation to the contemporary power struggle between the aristocracy and the increasingly selfconfident upper middle classes for control over the army. The emergent class, whose wealth was derived from commerce, asserted that the right to lead in Government, the Civil Service and the Forces should be won in open competition among gentlemen. In the Army, this class had only penetrated as far as the middle ranks of the officer corps, with the majority of the highest ranks still being occupied by men from the aristocracy. Desanges' paintings constructed memorable images of young officers from the upper middle class, and articulated the claim of that group to command the Army through their possession of the qualities of 'efficiency' and 'valour'. The Victoria Cross, a new award for military gallantry, was announced during the closing stages of the Crimean War, in January 1856. The terms of its creation stated that it was open to both services, and to junior officers and the ranks.' Existing awards for soldiers, such as the Order of the Bath, were traditionally given to high-ranking officers for long service or distinguished martial achievement.2 The Victoria Cross was designed to reward acts of individual courage performed in the presence of the enemy. Historians have constructed its institution as evidence of the increasing democratisation of the nation and the Army, since it recognised and rewarded the courage of the 'rank and file', whose contribution to the forces had been acknowledged during the Crimean War.3 'Cast in a thoroughly heroic mould, the British soldier had become the focal point of public attention.'4 It will be argued here that this heroicization of the ranks formed one of a series of strategies on the part of the upper middle classes to demonstrate the unfitness of the aristocracy to control the Army. In the 1850s, the Army, like the Civil Service and other public institutions was the target of 'reform' groups who pressured for the end of promotion by patronage.5 In 1840 there had been a parliamentary inquiry into the military system of promotion by 'purchase', under which officers' ranks were obtained by a combination of political influence and monetary transaction. Due to the powerful opposition of the Duke of Wellington and the Queen, the attack on this traditional preserve of the aristocracy was deflected.6 The Crimean War, with its economic and military losses, was used as 'proof' that high-ranking aristocratic officers such as Lord Raglan and Lord Cardigan were dangerously unfit to command. The attack was aimed both at their lack of administrative ability and their inability to lead on the field of battle. In May 1855, at a meeting of 'thirty-seven of the influential men of the City' it was asserted that 'the true remedy for the system of mal-administration, which has caused so lamentable a sacrifice of labour, money and human life, is to be sought in the introduction of enlarged experience and practical ability into the Service of the State.'7 Despite disclaiming any desire to 'exclude the aristocratic classes from participating in the Councils of State', the meeting proclaimed the necessity of administering the Government and the Army on 'business principles', by persons selected on the basis of 'free competition, throwing open all public situations to merit and not confining them to birth or property.'8 All the speakers at this meeting, claimed to be an all-party gathering, were Liberal Members of Parliament, or Liberal financiers and industrialists. Within the Army, aristocratic leaders were also attacked on the question of their 'efficiency'. The inadequate organisation of the commissariat and of the troops had caused huge loss of human and material resources. The new mythology of the heroic common soldier served to enhance the value of working-class lives as military assets, but should not be taken to imply any breaking down of class barriers or a democratisation of the Army. The officer-ranks relationship was modelled on that of master-servant, with renewed emphasis on the feudal responsibilities of the master in caring for his dependents. Junior officers in the Crimea were lavishly praised in the Press for their devotion to