ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the specific context of Charlotte Mary Yonge writings in the light of the debates in those years: a detailed examination of the build-up to war in the Crimea and its aftermath with the Volunteer movement of the later 1850s. British society had undergone seismic changes in the decades between the ending of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 and the outbreak of the Crimean War in 1854. The integration of Christianity into the Armed Services was a trend resisted initially by Wellington as incompatible with military life but it became a salient feature of nineteenth-century soldiering. A significant sequence of events was instrumental in forefronting military matters and improving the esteem with which the soldier was viewed. Capitalizing on the surge of enthusiasm for military heroes, Lord Hardinge as the new Commander-in-Chief decided to carry out the Prince's suggestion of 1847: an encampment of about seven thousand soldiers to rehearse battle-plans.
