Elisabeth Jay focusses on the Crimea and asks how Christianity managed to re-embrace the soldier hero within an imaginary which, in the long years of European peace following 1815, had privileged martyrdom or domestic self-sacrifice as types of the heroic. The religious upheavals in the decades preceding 1850, leading to famous secessions from the established Church, simultaneously fostered a sense of persecution and a rancorously bellicose rhetoric. The Crimean War offered a new focus for an already widespread cultural debate about the nature of heroism, while the need to present the military life as compatible with a Christian calling afforded a fresh arena for the warring religious factions to argue their case. The religious dimension needs to be factored into the modern debate about masculinity and the forging pressures of war