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"QUANTUM SHOT" #627
Link - article by Simon Rose

      We had such a great response to the
      first article
      about flags here on Dark Roasted Blend, that we thought we’d unearth a few
      more examples of fascinating banners from the distant and not so distant
      past. Here’s a look at some more flags of forgotten countries.

      Epic lands, empires, wars, revolutions - with flags to match them

      The flags of Napoleon and his nephew Napoleon III featured in our
      first article, but France went though a number of political changes in the nineteenth
      century. After Napoleon’s fall, the Bourbon’s returned to the throne,
      using this royal coat of arms, with the restoration period under Louis
      XVIII and Charles X lasting from 1814 until the monarchy was overthrown by
      the July Revolution in 1830.

      
      (image
        via)

      A cadet branch of their own family replaced the Bourbons as rulers of
      France. However, their successor, Louis Philippe, was himself overthrown
      in the revolution of 1848:

      
      (images
        via)

      France of course experienced further upheaval in World War Two, after
      defeat to Germany in 1940. This flag was the personal standard of Philippe
      Petain, chief of state of Vichy France, which remained unoccupied by the
      Germans until November 1942:

      
      (larger
        map
        and more info
        here)

      Also in World War Two, following the fall of Mussolini in 1943 and the
      subsequent defection of Italy from the Axis cause, Germany took control of
      northern and central Italy. The puppet state established by Mussolini on
      Lake Garda, halfway between Milan and Venice, was informally known as
      the Salo Republic, which came to an end in April 1945:

      
      (image
        via)

      In Asia during the same period, the Japanese puppet state of
      Manchukuo was located in Manchuria and parts of Inner Mongolia.
      Established in 1932, the government was headed by Puyi, the last emperor
      of China, until the end of the Manchukuo state following the defeat of
      Japan in 1945:

      
      (right: Puyi during his time as the Emperor of Manchukuo, image
        via)

      Propaganda posters showing harmony between the people of Japan, China, and
      the state of Manchukuo:

      
      (images
        via)

      Another result of World War Two was the division of Germany, and here’s
      the flag of the now defunct East Germany, or as it was formerly
      known, the German Democratic Republic, which lasted from 1949 to 1990:

      
      (right:
        Warsaw Pact
        poster "Together We Are Invincible!")

      Many sultans used different personal "avatars"...er, banners

      The Ottoman Empire, also known as the Turkish Empire, was founded
      in the early fourteenth century and came to an end after the First World
      War. At the height of its power in the sixteenth and seventeenth
      centuries, the empire controlled North Africa, Western Asia and most of
      South Eastern Europe. Various flags were used within the Empire throughout
      its existence and the sultans also used different personal banners. There
      was no national flag until 1844 and the design was very similar to the
      current flag of the Republic of Turkey, founded in 1923. However, here is
      a flag used by the Ottoman army for some three hundred years from the mid
      fifteenth century:

      
      (image
        via)

      Every sultan tended to have his own banner, but a coat of arms, similar to
      those prevalent in Europe, was created for Sultan Abdul Hamid II in 1882,
      although it was never an official coat of arms for the Empire itself:

      
      (image
        via)

      Greece was ruled by the Ottomans for centuries, until independence
      was secured in the 1820’s. However, during the Turkish period, the Greeks
      used a number of unofficial flags. This one was employed in certain parts
      of the empire from 1431 to 1619 by the spachides, a cavalry unit:

      
      (images via)

      After Otto, a prince of Bavaria in Germany, was made King of Greece in
      1832, the country used this flag for several decades:

      
      (image
        via)

      Forgotten British colonial variations

      
      (map of the British Empire, click to enlarge - via
        Norman B Leventhal Map Centre)

      There are lots of British colonial flags due to the extent and the life
      span of the Empire, but here are a few examples of forgotten flags, such
      as this one belonging to the British East India Company from 1707.
      Note the absence of the diagonal red cross of St. Patrick on the Union
      Jack, which was not added to the main British flag until after the Act of
      Union with Ireland in 1801:

      

      India was often described as the jewel in the Crown of the British
      Empire. Here’s the flag of the Governor General, with a separate image
      depicting the star pattern:

      
      (image
        via)

      Azad Hind was an Indian government in exile based in Singapore
      after 1943, which was heavily dependent on support from Imperial Japan.
      Its aim was to free India from British rule by allying itself with the
      Axis powers:

      
      (right image: Azad Hind card, via
        Ann Mette Heindorff)

      Here are a couple of flags from colonial Hong Kong. The one on the
      left dates from 1871, the one shown on the right was used from 1959 until
      Hong Kong’s transfer back to China in 1997:

      

      Viceroyalties and Forgotten Federations

      On the opposite side of the world, the West Indies Federation was
      created from a number of British colonies in the Caribbean in 1958, but
      only lasted until 1962:

      

      Another short-lived federation existed in the same part of the word over a
      century earlier. The Federal Republic of Central America,
      originally known as known as the United Provinces of Central America, was
      created in 1823 from the former territory of the Captaincy General of
      Guatemala, an administrative division of the Spanish Empire covering much
      of the region. The republic included the modern countries of Guatemala, El
      Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, but the union dissolved in
      a civil war between 1838 and 1840:

      

      From 1535 to 1821, this was the flag of the
      Viceroyalty of New Spain, which governed California, the South West
      US, Mexico and much of Central America, plus the Spanish controlled
      Caribbean islands (see image below, top right). Further south, the
      Viceroyalty of New Granada came into being in 1717 in northern
      South America, ruling over modern day Colombia, Ecuador, Panama and
      Venezuela. The symbol (shown below on the left) was used on flags at some
      of the forts on the coast in the eighteenth century:

      

      Flags inside flags... inside flags...

      In Africa, this was the flag of South Africa from 1928 to 1994. The
      design is based on the Prince’s flag from the Netherlands, the banner of
      the Prince of Orange in the Dutch War of Independence (1568-1648), with
      the smaller flags of the Orange Free State and Transvaal, the former Boer
      republics, plus the British Union Jack, in the centre:

      
      (right image: South African art deco postcard 1928,
        via)

      Elsewhere in Africa, the colonial era left a lasting legacy, since almost
      the entire continent was once carved up by the European powers. This flag
      belongs to German East Africa, or Tanganyika, which is now known as
      Tanzania. Most other German colonial flags were similar, in red, black and
      white, with a central crest or shield:

      
      (right image: hospital in Dar-Es-Salaam,
        via)

      The huge country in central Africa now known as the Democratic Republic of
      the Congo was formerly called the Belgian Congo. Established as the
      Congo Free State in 1885, the entire vast territory was originally
      privately owned by the Belgian King Leopold II, until reports of major
      human rights abuses against the native population forced the king to hand
      the state over to Belgium in 1908. It became the Belgian Congo until the
      independence movement began in 1960:

      
      (images via)

      Great Expectations

      Finally, from down under, the Australian flag’s original design dates from
      1901, but the oldest known Australian flag appeared almost a century
      earlier. The Bowman Flag was created by John and Honor Bowman in 1806 and
      raised at their home in New South Wales NSW to commemorate Nelson’s
      victory at Trafalgar in October 1805. The flag features the English rose,
      Scottish thistle and Irish shamrock, along with Nelson’s famous motto from
      the battle ‘England expects that every man will do his duty’,
      flanked by the emu and kangaroo, symbols of Australia:

      
      (image
        via)

      READ THE FIRST PART! ->

      Simon Rose is the
        author of science fiction and fantasy novels for children, including
        The Alchemist's Portrait,
        The Sorcerer's Letterbox,
        The Clone Conspiracy,
        The Emerald Curse,
        The Heretic's Tomb
        and
        The Doomsday Mask.




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YOUR COMMENTS::

7 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

nice collection, but one mistake: the GDR lasted from 1949 to 1990

___  
Blogger The Vicar of VHS said...

The flag of Vichy France is totally badass. They should have kept it. :)

___  
Anonymous Seano said...

The GDR flag is my favourite of the former communist flags. I wonder what the present day replacement for a hammer and compass would be to represent blue and white collar workers.

___  
Blogger Robert said...

You know, Vichy France was not really free...

___  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Here is the flag of the Araucania and Patagonia Kingdom.
http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reino_de_la_Araucan%C3%ADa_y_la_Patagonia

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Blogger pandugar said...

I find it awersome ,and really useful.It´s part of the History of the World.Thankyou for all that work!

___  
Blogger pandugar said...

This comment has been removed by the author.

___  

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