The Cross of Valour (, Aristeion Andreias, lit. "Gallantry/Bravery Award") is the second highest (and until 1974 the highest) military decoration of the Greek state, awarded for acts of bravery or distinguished leadership on the field of battle. It has been instituted three times, first on 13 May 1913 during the Balkan Wars but not issued until 1921 during the Greco-Turkish War of 1919–1922, then on 11 November 1940 shortly after the outbreak of the Greco-Italian War and finally in 1974. History The award was established through Law ΓΡΣΗ/30-4-1913, as an order rather than a simple medal, but was not formally issued until the Royal Decree of 21 March 1921 (ΦΕΚ 47Α’/23-3-1921). The only exceptions to this were King Constantine I, who as head of the Order wore the Commander's Cross, and Vice Admiral Pavlos Kountouriotis, who received the Commander's Cross from the king on 15 October 1914. As the Cross of Valour was practically defunct, for the operations in World War I, the Greek participation in the Allied Intervention in the Russian Civil War and the early stages of the Asia Minor Campaign, the 1917 War Cross (originally instituted by the Government of National Defence during the National Schism) was awarded as the senior award for gallantry and distinguished leadership. For this purpose, when the Cross of Valour was re-instituted in 1921, the Royal Decree allowed the awardees of the War Cross – which was tainted in the eyes of the royalist government by its Venizelist associations – to petition for its replacement with the new Cross of Valour, but in the event, very few chose to do so. The award was liberally distributed during the campaigns of 1921–1922: from the first awards in July 1921 to the end of the war in August 1922, 40 Commander's Crosses (39 to regimental flags, of which six as repeat awards, and one to Lt General Anastasios Papoulas, commander-in-chief of the Army of Asia Minor), 4,528 Gold Crosses and 47,772 Silver Crosses were awarded. In some cases, after critical battles, the entire personnel of some units was decorated with the Cross of Valour. Awards continued to be made for feats performed during the Asia Minor Campaign even after its end, in 1923 and 1924, with 509 Gold Crosses (230 as repeat awards) and 3 Silver Crosses accounted for. Given the great scarcity of actual medals, however, as well as the political upheavals