navy. The mercantile marine flag is precisely similar, but rectangular instead of being swallow-tailed. The Swedish flag is a yellow cross on a blue ground. When flown from a man-of-war it is forked as in the Danish, but the longer arm of the cross is not cut off but pointed, thus making it a three-pointed flag as illustrated. For the mercantile marine the flag is rectangular. When Norway separated from Denmark in 1814, the first flag was red with a white cross on it, and the arms of Norway in the upper corner of the hoist, but as this was found to resemble too closely the Danish flag, a blue cross with a white border was substituted for the white cross. This, it will be seen, is the Danish flag with a blue cross imposed upon the white one. For a man-of-war the flag is precisely similar to that of Sweden in shape; that is to say, converted from the rectangular into the three-pointed design. While Sweden and Norway remained united the flag of each remained distinct, but each bore in the top canton of the hoist a union device, being the combination of the Norwegian and Swedish national colours and crosses. In each of the three above nationalities the flag used for a royal standard is the man-of-war flag with the royal arms imposed on the centre of the cross.
The Belgian tricolour is vertical, the stripes being black next the hoist, yellow in the centre and red in the fly. That of the Netherlands is a horizontal tricolour, red above, white in the centre and blue below. In both countries the same flag is common to both navy and mercantile marine, but when the flag is used as a royal standard the royal arms are displayed in the central stripe. The black, yellow and red of the Belgian flag are the colours of the duchy of Brabant, and were adopted in 1831 when the monarchy was founded. The original Dutch colours adopted when Holland declared its independence were orange, white and blue, the colours of the house of Orange, and when and how the orange became red is not quite clear, though it was certainly prior to 1643.
The blue and white which form the colouring of the Greek flag shown in our illustration are the colours of the house of Bavaria, and were adopted in 1832, when Prince Otho of Bavaria was elected to the throne of Greece. The stripes are nine in number—five blue and four white—with, in the upper corner of the hoist, a canton bearing a white cross on a blue ground. The flag for the royal navy is similar to that flown by the mercantile marine, with the exception that it has the addition of a golden crown in the centre of the cross. The royal standard is a blue flag with a white cross, on the centre of which the royal arms are imposed. The cross is exactly similar to that in the Danish flag, that is to say, the arms of the cross are not of equal length, the shorter end being in the hoist of the flag.
The very simple flag of Switzerland is one of great antiquity, for it was the emblem of the nation as far back as 1339, and probably considerably earlier. In addition to the national flag of the Swiss confederation, each canton has its own cantonal colours. In each case the flag has its stripes disposed horizontally. Basel, for instance, is half black, half white; Berne, half black, half red; Glarus, red, black and white, &c., &c.
The Turkish crescent moon and star were the device adopted by Mahomet II. when he captured Constantinople in 1453. Originally they were the symbol of Diana, the patroness of Byzantium, and were adopted by the Ottomans as a triumph, for they had always been the special emblem of Constantinople, and even now in Moscow and elsewhere the crescent emblem and the cross may be seen combined in Russian churches, the crescent badge, of course, indicating the Byzantine origin of the Russian church. The symbol originated at the time of the siege of Constantinople by Philip the father of Alexander the Great, when a night attempt of the besiegers to undermine the walls was betrayed by the light of a crescent moon, and in acknowledgment of their escape the Byzantines raised a statue to Diana, and made her badge the symbol of the city. Both the man-of-war and mercantile marine flags are the same, but the imperial standard of the sultan is scarlet, and bears in its centre the device of the reigning sovereign. This device is known as the “Tughra,” and consists of the name of the sultan, the title of khan, and the epithet al-Muzaffar Daima, which means “the ever victorious.” The origin of the “Tughra” is that the sultan Murad I., who was not of scholarly parts, signed a treaty by wetting his open hand with ink, and pressing it on the paper, the first, second and third fingers making smears close together, the thumb and fourth finger leaving marks apart. Within the marks thus made the scribes wrote in the name of Murad, his title, and the epithet above quoted. The “Tughra” dates from the latter part of the 14th century. The smaller characters in the “Tughra” change, of course, on the accession of every fresh sovereign, but the leading form of the device always remains the same, namely, rounded lines to the left denoting the thumb, lines to the right denoting where the little finger made impression, and three upright lines indicating the other fingers.
The Mahommedan states tributary to Turkey also display the crescent and star. Morocco, Muscat and other Arab states where they use an ensign display a red flag, that of the Zanzibar protectorate having the British union in the centre of the red field.
The Persian flag is white with a border, green on the upper edge of the flag and in the fly, and red in the hoist and on the lower edge. On the white ground are the lion and sun.
The flag of Siam is a white elephant on a red ground. That of Korea, a white flag with, in the centre, a ball, half red, half blue, the colours being curiously intermixed, the whole being precisely as if two large commas of equal size, one red and the other blue, were united to form a complete circle.
The Chinese flag is a yellow one, bearing on it the emblem of the dragon devouring the sun. As at present used, it is a square flag, but an earlier version was a triangular right-angled flag, hoisted with the right-angle in the base of the hoist. The merchant flag is red with a yellow ball in the centre.
Among the South American republics the Brazilian flag is peculiar inasmuch as it is the only national flag which carries a motto.
Mexico flies precisely the same tricolour as Italy, but plain in the case of the merchant ensign, and charged on the central stripe with the Mexican arms (as illustrated) when flown as a man-of-war ensign.
The Argentine flag is as illustrated flown by the navy, but, when used by the mercantile marine, the sun emblazoned on the central white stripe is omitted, the flag otherwise being precisely the same.
The Venezuelan flag shown is also that of the navy. The flag of the mercantile marine is the same, but the shield bearing the arms of the state is not introduced into the yellow top stripe in the corner near the hoist, as in the naval flag.
The Chilean ensign illustrated is used alike by men-of-war and vessels in the mercantile marine, but, when flown as the standard of the president, the Chilean arms and supporters are placed in the centre of the flag.
The plain red, white, red in vertical stripes, is the flag of the mercantile marine of Peru, and becomes the naval ensign when charged on the central stripe with the Peruvian arms as shown in our illustration. In fact, in nearly every case with the South American republics, the ordinary mercantile marine flag becomes that of the war navy by the addition of the national arms, and in some cases is used in the same way as a presidential flag.
In nearly every case the flags of the lesser American republics are tricolours, and in a very great many of them the flags are by no means such combinations as would meet with the approval of European heralds. All flag devising should be in accordance with heraldic laws, and one of the most important of these is that colour should not be placed on colour, nor metal on metal, yellow in blazonry being the equivalent of gold and white of silver. Hence, properly devised tricolours are such as, for example, those of France, where the red and blue are divided by white, or Belgium, where the black and red are divided by yellow. On the other hand, the yellow, blue, red of Venezuela is heraldically an abomination.
Manufacture and Miscellaneous Uses.—Flags, the manufacture,
of which is quite a large industry, are almost invariably made
from bunting, a very light, tough and durable woollen material.
The regulation bunting as used in the navy is made in 9 in.
widths, and the flag classes in size according to the number of
breadths of bunting of which it is composed. The great centre
of the manufacture of flags, as far as the royal navy is concerned,
is the dockyard at Chatham. Ensigns and Jacks are made in
different sizes; the largest ensign made is 33 ft. long by 16½ ft.
in width; the largest Jack issued is 24 ft. long and 12 ft. wide.
The dimensions of a flag according to heraldry should be either square or in the proportion of two to one, and it is this latter dimension that is used in the navy and generally.
Signalling flags are dealt with elsewhere (see Signal), and here it will only be necessary to make brief allusion to some international customs with regard to the use of flags to indicate certain purposes. For long a blood-red flag has always been used as a symbol of mutiny or of revolution. The black flag was in days gone by the symbol of the pirate; to-day, in the only case in which it survives, it is flown after an execution to indicate that the requirements of the law have been duly carried out. All over the world a yellow flag is the signal of infectious illness. A ship hoists it to denote that there are some on board suffering from yellow fever, cholera or some such infectious malady, and it remains hoisted until she has received quarantine. This flag is also hoisted on quarantine stations. The white flag is universally used as a flag of truce.
At the sea striking of the flag denotes surrender. When the flag of one country is placed over that of another the victory of the former is denoted, hence in time of peace it would be an insult to hoist the flag of one friendly nation above that of another. If such were done by mistake, say in “dressing ship” for instance, an apology would have to be made. This custom of hoisting the flag of the vanquished beneath that of the victor is of comparatively modern date, as up to about a century ago the sign of victory was to trail the enemy’s flag over the taffrail in the water.
