In the Big Read currently up on the insidethegames site, Philip Barker details with customary thoroughness the Olympians who fell in the course of the First World War, the start of which has been commemorated this week, a century on from Great Britain's fateful declaration against Germany.

It is an immense, painful list. And it comes as little surprise to see how many of those who had excelled at sport also managed to excel at war, displaying outstanding valour. Notable among these valorous combatants were the Chavasse brothers, Christopher and Noel, both of whom had competed in the 400 metres at the 1908 London Games. Christopher earned the Military Cross, Noel the Victoria Cross - Britain's highest award for gallantry - for which he was posthumously awarded a bar, thus becoming the only man to earn this award twice during the War.

Chavasse was first awarded the VC for his actions on August 9 1916 at Guillemont in France. Here is the citation:

"Captain Noel Godfrey Chavasse, M.C., M.B., Royal Army Medical Corps.

"For most conspicuous bravery and devotion to duty.

"During an attack he tended the wounded in the open all day, under heavy fire, frequently in view of the enemy. During the ensuing night he searched for wounded on the ground in front of the enemy's lines for four hours.

Noel Chavasse, the only man to be awarded the Victoria Cross twice in the First World War - the second time posthumously - competed at the 1908 London Olympics over 400m ©Hulton Archive/Getty Images

"Next day he took one stretcher-bearer to the advanced trenches, and under heavy shell fire carried an urgent case for 500 yards into safety, being wounded in the side by a shell splinter during the journey. The same night he took up a party of 20 volunteers, rescued three wounded men from a shell hole 25 yards from the enemy's trench, buried the bodies of two Officers, and collected many identity discs, although fired on by bombs and machine guns.

"Altogether he saved the lives of some twenty badly wounded men, besides the ordinary cases which passed through his hands. His courage and self-sacrifice, were beyond praise."

Chavasse's second award was made during the period July 31 to August 2 1917, at Wieltje in Belgium; the full citation was published on 14 September 1917:

"War Office, September, 1917.

"His Majesty the KING has been graciously pleased to approve of the award of a Bar to the Victoria Cross to Capt. Noel Godfrey Chavasse, V.C., M.C., late K.A.M.C., attd. L'pool R.

"For most conspicuous bravery and devotion to duty when in action.

"Though severely wounded early in the action whilst carrying a wounded soldier to the Dressing Station, Capt. Chavasse refused to leave his post, and for two days not only continued to perform his duties, but in addition went out repeatedly under heavy fire to search for and attend to the wounded who were lying out.

"During these searches, although practically without food during this period, worn with fatigue and faint with his wound, he assisted to carry in a number of badly wounded men, over heavy and difficult ground.

"By his extraordinary energy and inspiring example, he was instrumental in rescuing many wounded who would have otherwise undoubtedly succumbed under the bad weather conditions.

"This devoted and gallant officer subsequently died of his wounds."

Both the Chavasse brothers had failed to progress from their heats in the London 400m. The eventual winner - albeit running on his own after an international incident which caused his US opposition to boycott the final - was Wyndham Halswelle, who, as a Captain serving at the Battle of Neuve Chapelle in France, was killed by a sniper on March 31 1915 while attempting to rescue a fellow officer.

Earlier in the same battle he had been hit by shrapnel while leading his men across an area known as Layes Brook, but despite his wounds he refused to be evacuated and continued at the front, although heavily bandaged.

Wyndham Halswelle wins the 1908 Olympic 400m title in the re-run final which his US opponents boycotted after one of their number, John Carpenter, had been disqualified for obstruction. Captain Halswelle was killed by a sniper in 1915 as he attempted to rescue a fellow officer from no-man's-land during the Battle of Neuve Chapelle in France
©Hulton Archive/Getty Images

This "War To End All Wars" scarred a generation - prematurely ending countless lives, including those of Olympians past, and also leaving its deep mark on those young men and women for whom the Olympics lay in the future.

Steve Redgrave was the first British rower to win five Olympic golds, but he wasn't the first to collect five Olympic medals - that distinction fell to Jack Beresford, who collected a total of three golds and two silvers in a career spanning the Games from 1920 to 1936.

Steve Redgrave celebrates winning his fifth Olympic rowing gold at the 2000 Sydney Games. But he was not the first British rower to win five Olympic medals... ©AFP/Getty Images

On the eve of the London 2012 Games I spoke to Beresford's son, John, who recalled vividly how, as a teenager, he would accompany his father around the lanes near their home at Shiplake, in Oxfordshire.

Beresford senior - then well into his fifties - would reminisce. His rowing career had been stellar. At the 1920 Olympics in Antwerp, aged 21, he had had to settle for silver in the single sculls after a monumental struggle with Jack Kelly of the United States - father of film star Grace Kelly - who overhauled him in the final few hundred metres to win by a second.

Four years later, having won the Diamond Sculls at Henley for a second time, Beresford succeeded Kelly as Olympic single sculls champion at the Paris Games, and four years later he took silver in the British eight at the Amsterdam Games.

At the 1932 Los Angeles Games, he added another gold as a member of the coxless four crew. But the best came last in his Olympic progress as, at the 1936 Berlin Games, he took part in what he described as "the sweetest race I ever rowed".

Beresford and his partner in the double sculls, Dick Southwood, ruined Adolf Hitler's day as they confounded the watching Fuhrer and the home favourites Willie Kaidel and Joachim Pirsch to take gold.

Jack Beresford (left) and Dick Southwood, garlanded after winning the double sculls for Britain at the 1936 Berlin Games, bringing Beresford's Olympic total to three golds and two silvers ©AFP/Getty Images

And yet his preferred topic of conversation, as he strolled with his son, was not sport, but war.

"I used to walk a lot with him," John Beresford recalled. "The thing he most often wanted to talk about was his time in the trenches during the First World War. I guess it was his way of coping with what he had been through."

Having been born on New Year's Day 1899, Beresford was just about old enough to serve in the First World War. He tried to enlist at the age of 17, only to be sent back home when his father Julius - a silver medallist in the coxed fours at the 1912 Stockholm Olympics - heard about it.

But the following year, 1918, Beresford succeeded in joining the Liverpool Scottish Regiment and went out to France in April. He was on the Somme until October, when he was shot through his leg and had to come home.

As his son remarked, that wound - among other things - altered the course of Olympic history, as at that time Beresford was inclining towards rugby rather than rowing. "He wanted to play rugby - that was his passion," John Beresford explained. "He'd been captain of Bedford School first XV but the injury put an end to that."

But the great rower's reminiscences were on the subject of others, rather than himself.

"Of his original company, by the end, he told me there were only about three officers and 14 men still alive," his son recalled. "He was lucky."

Mike Rowbottom, one of Britain's most talented sportswriters, covered the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics as chief feature writer for insidethegames, having covered the previous five summer Games, and four winter Games, for The Independent. He has worked for the Daily Mail, The Times, The Observer, The Sunday Correspondent and The Guardian. His latest book Foul Play – the Dark Arts of Cheating in Sport (Bloomsbury £8.99) is available at the insidethegames.biz shop. To follow him on Twitter click here.