FLAG CHANGES SINCE 1914

Evening Star, Issue 18145, 8 December 1922, Page 8

FLAG CHANGES SINCE 1914

One result of the rights of small nations —an accompaniment of that universal peace following a war to end war! is the effect which that theory has upon pobtacaJ geography and rational flags. Since 1914 llacrs have undergone great changes, in many cases as a result of tho war, the nations or city States affected up to date numbering over a score. _ Although Esthonia, Finland, and other Baltic States might perhaps bo included in the term “Near East,” space will only allow reference here to Slates situated near the Mediterranean. Turkey has retained her old flag of red with the white star and decrescent moon, and Greece her striped flag of white and blue. Bulgaria still has her tricolor of horizontal white, green, and crimson, and lias adopted a Boyal Standard more nearly resembling her national flag in place of one which recalled the yellow, red, and black of Imperial Austria, and (be it whispered) of Republican Germany. Rumania retains her blue, yellow, and red 1 . _ Georgia’s Government flag is crimson. The upper quarter consists of a horizontal band of black over a similar band of wldte. To the crimson portion is added the figure of St. George to term the national flag. . Czecho-Slovakia has a flag divided horizontally—upper white, lower red, _ with a blue equilateral triangle cutting in from the “h^ist.” Austifa-Hungary formerly bad a combinde flag. The'half next the mast had I)he ancient horizontal red, white, red of | Austria with crowned shield in the centre, I and the outer half the red, white, green, and crowned shield of Hungary. Iho flags are now separate. That of Austria has lost its shield, and to that of Hungary two seraphs are added as “ supporters. ’ Russia has adopted the red flag. It bears (in Russian) the initials_ “Rsfsr.” Before Russia entered the Soviet period the mercantile flag was a tricolor of white, blue, and red. Serbia used this flag topsy-turvy, and Montenegro tho same with the addition of the letters “HI ” crowned. The new Serbia, or Jugo-Slavia, has a tricolor of horizontal blue, white, and red. , It had this peculiarity, however, during iits development: whereas modern flags are usually longer in the “ fly ” than in tho “hoist,” this flag was wider than its length, and thus resembled the medieval banners which are the ancestors of modern flags.