The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1914-12-24
Flags OF Warning Nations.

Hardly had man emerged 1rom
state of barbarism than he felt 1t
necessary to adopt some distinguish
ing sign or badge to indicate his par
ticular tribe or nation; and this very
naturally took the form Of flags and
banners, says Hereward Darlington,
in the Buffalo Express. From the
very earliest times we find traces of
these standards which were guarded
with the utmost veneration and
usually kept in the temples, save in
time of war. From this we have
the tradition, now 1ngrained in us,
that the flag of a country is thing
to die for, to preserve; that is al
most sacred, and the fight for the
standard" has been the subject OF
many wonderful painting. 1t will
be of interest briefly to indicate the
history and meaning of the flags OF
the various warning nations.
Take, first, the flag Of Germany,
1t must be remembered that prior
to the Franco-Prussian war of 1870,
the German Empire was little more
than a group of scattered States.
When they combined into single
empire, however, it is only natural
that we should look for traces of all
their flags in the resultant standerd.
And we find such traces.
To be sure, the colors of Prussia
black and white-and the Prusslan
Eagle, enter very largely into it. but
it must be remembered that this
country became at that time the head
and ruler of all the others. 1t was
by far the largest country, both in
area and population. 1t naturally,
therefore, became predominant. Be
sides the smaller, States, there were
also the flags of the East and West
Prussia to be included. That of West
Prussia was black, white, black, three
stripes of equal diameter, running
the length of the flags; that of East
Prussia consisted of two such stripes,
the upper black and the lower white.
The Jack of the imperial navy con-
sists of three horizontal stripes, the
upper blaek, the middle white and
the lower red. The much-prized
iron cross Cdating back to the end
of the 18th century, is in the cen
tire. This stripe appears in the final
war ensign of the Empire in which
the tri-color (black, white, red,)
appears in the upper quarter with
the iron cross upon it, while the re-
naming three-quarters are white
with the royal arms in the centre.
A black cross divides the whole nag
into quarters.
The flag of Austria is a very COM
plex affair. To begin with, the va
rious Austrian provinces have their
own flags; Bohemia is red-Whlte;
Tyrol is white-red: Dalmatia is blue
yellow; Galicia is blue-red; Croatia
is red-white-blue; Istria is yellow
white-blue. Them again, AUSTRIA
Hungary, being dual monarchy,
both Austria and Hungary must be
separately represented-and fully
on the flag. Fortunately, this combl-
nation was rendered more easy to
the fact that portions of the flags OF
both countries were already the
same. Thus, the Austrian flag was
red-white-red. The Hungarian was
white-green. Compromise was
affected by dividing the lowest hori-
zontal stripe in two, and leaving half
red, while the remainder was green.
The arms of both countries also ap-
pear on the flag. This was decided
on March s. 1869.
The imperial standard of the Tsar
of all the Russians is Of brilliant
yellow, in the centre of which is
large double-headed black edge. This
flag dates from the year 1472, when