Captain Darling's Medals
Guess who has fallen back into her Blackadder fandom and spent way too much time researching the characters medals
A bunch of WW1 nerds have already done deep dives on Blackadder, Melchett and Flashhart but not much on Captain Darling or Lieutenant George (Baldrick doesn't seem to have any medals, sorry Baldrick)
Darling's medals aren't that easy to see, because stills from episodes are very grainy but here are his full medals from Captain Cook:
I then went and found some HD production stills from alamy and found a far sharper version of the 'bars' on his usual uniform:
In order his medals are:
The Military Cross (white with a purple central stripe) - Awarded for acts of valour in WW1
The Queens Service Award (Orange middle stripe with smaller blue and red striped either side) - Awarded for serving in the Boer War
The 1914 Star (the french flag colours) - Awarded for serving in WW1 from 1914 onwards
The Croix de Guerre (thin green and orange stripes) - Awarded by the French army (to french and allied soldiers) for acts of 'gallantry or courage' from 1914 onwards
The Military Cross was established in 1914 and awarded to officers who had demonstrated exceptional valour and 'gallantry during active operations against the enemy'. It's also the one medal that Darling has that Blackadder doesn't. (George also has one, but idk if that is because of what happens in General Hospital or something else)
So canonically according to these medals, Darling HAD to have seen active duty in 1914 and performed particular acts of bravery and valour in order to qualify for both the Military Cross and the Croix de Guerre.
So Melchett really did take a man who had already been taken out of active front line service (perhaps to recuperate from whatever trauma that had caused) and sent him back to the trenches to die. Kevin Darling deserved better (despite still being a bit of a bureaucratic bastard)
