Historian says the medal is cast from cannons seized in an Anglo-French raid in 1860 on Taku forts, Tianjin
A historian has debunked the legend surrounding Britain's most distinguished war medal, saying the metal used to cast the Victoria Cross comes from two cannons captured in China, and not, as widely believed, from Russia.
John Glanfield, author of a recently published book that examines the origins of the Victoria Cross, says new evidence points to the cannons being captured by Anglo-French forces in a battle for the Taku forts near Tianjin in 1860, one of the last battles of the second opium war.
That contradicts the long-held belief that the cannons were captured in battle against the Russians at Sebastopol in 1855 during the Crimean war.
Glanfield has told Victoria Cross experts of his findings and they are 'absolutely amazed that at last we've been able to cast this light on a tremendously strong legend - that they came from Russia'.
He was somewhat surprised himself, because while he and a few other experts knew the cannons were actually Chinese, 'the presumption was that the Russians must have captured them in some earlier Sino-Russian war'.