Part 1 (1/2)

Flags.

by Andrew Macgeorge.

PREFATORY NOTE.

In a nation like ours, with a dominion so extended, and with communication by sea and land with all parts of the world, the flags under which s.h.i.+ps sail and armies and navies fight, cannot be without interest. Yet there are few subjects in regard to which the means of information are less accessible. The object of the present volume is to give, in a popular form, some account of our own flags, and of those of other nations, ancient and modern, with some notices regarding the use of flags, in naval warfare and otherwise.

I have taken occasion to point out certain heraldic inaccuracies in the construction of our national flag, and also in the design on our bronze coinage. I shall be glad if what I have written be the means, by directing public attention to the subject, of effecting the correction of these errors.

A. M.

_Glenarn, December, 1880._

FLAGS.

On that morning when the news arrived from South Africa of the disaster at Isandlana, there was general mourning for the loss of so many brave men; but there was mourning also of a different kind,--with some perhaps even deeper--for the loss of the colours of the 24th Regiment. And yet, after all, it was only a bit of silk which had been lost, having on it certain devices and inscriptions--a thing of no intrinsic value, and which could be replaced at a cost merely nominal. But it possessed extrinsic qualities which could be measured by no money value, and every one felt that the loss was one to redeem which, or rather to redeem what that loss represented, demanded, if necessary, the putting forth of the strength of a great nation. And so, when it was found that the colours never had been really lost--that they had been saved by brave men who had laid down their lives in defending them--there was throughout the nation a feeling of intense relief that national honour had been saved; a feeling of rejoicing far beyond what was evoked by the news of the capture of the Zulu king and the termination of the war. So at sea. In our great wars in which the navy of Great Britain played so prominent a part, we became so accustomed to see the flag of the enemy bent on under our own ensign, that if an exceptional case occurred where the position of the two flags was reversed, it went home to the heart of every loyal subject with a pang which the loss of many s.h.i.+ps by storm and tempest would not have produced.

Yet how few of us know what the national colours are, what the Union is, what the Royal Standard is. Not to speak of civilians, are there many officers, in either the army or the navy, who, without a copy before them, could accurately construct or describe the flag of the nation under which they fight, or tell what its component parts represent? I doubt it. And, after all, they would not be so much without excuse, for even at the Horse Guards and the Admiralty, there is some confusion of ideas on the subject. I have before me ”The Queen's Regulations and Orders for the Army,” issued by the Commander-in-chief, in which flags which can be flown only on sh.o.r.e are confounded with flags which can be flown nowhere but on board s.h.i.+p. Yet the subject is really an interesting one, and, connected as it is with national history, it is deserving of a little study.

Flags are of many kinds, and they are put to many uses. They are the representatives of nations; they distinguish armies and fleets, and to insult a flag is to insult the nation whose ensign it is. We see in flags, says Carlyle, ”the divine idea of duty, of heroic daring--in some instances of freedom and right.” There are national flags, flags of departments, and personal flags; and as signals they are of the greatest value as a means of communication at sea.

ANCIENT STANDARDS.

It is chiefly of our own flags that I intend to speak, but it may be interesting to say something of those which were in use among the peoples of ancient history.

From the earliest times of which we have authentic records, standards or banners were borne by nations, and carried in battle. It was so in Old Testament times, as we know from the mention of banners as early as the time of Moses. They are repeatedly referred to by David and Solomon. The lifting up of ensigns is frequently mentioned in the Psalms and by the Prophets, while the expression, ”Terrible as an army with banners,”

shows the importance and the awe with which they were regarded.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 1.--Egyptian Standards.]

We find representations of standards on the oldest bas-reliefs of Egypt.

Indeed, the invention of standards is, by ancient writers, attributed to the Egyptians. According to Diodorus, the Egyptian standards consisted generally of the figures of their sacred animals borne on the end of a staff or spear, and in the paintings at Thebes we find on them such objects as a king's name and a sacred boat. One prominent and much used form was a figure resembling an expanded semicircular fan, and another example shows this form reversed and surmounted by the head of the G.o.ddess Athor, crowned with her symbolic disk and cow's horns. Another figure also used as a standard resembles a round-headed table-knife.

Examples of these, and of the sacred ibis and dog, are shown in Fig.

1.[1] But on the Egyptian standards--those which were no doubt used in Pharaoh's army--there were various other figures, including reptiles such as lizards and beetles, with birds crowned with the fan-like ornament already referred to. A group of these is given in Fig. 2; but they had many other forms. Those represented in Fig. 3, and which show some curious symbolic forms, are taken from the works of Champollion, Wilkinson, and Rosellini.

[1] For this, and figures 6, 14, and 15, I am indebted to the courtesy of Messrs. A. and C. Black. They appear in the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_, vol. ix. p. 276.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 2.--Egyptian Standards.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 3.--Egyptian Standards.]

That the Hebrews carried standards after the exodus is, as I have already said, certain, and the probability is that they derived the practice from the Egyptian nation, from whose bondage they had just escaped, for they bore as devices figures of birds and animals, and also human figures, just as the Egyptians did. One of the earliest of the divine commands given to Moses was that ”every man of the children of Israel shall pitch by his own standard with the ensign of their father's house.”[2] The _ensign_ probably meant the particular device borne upon the standard by each tribe; and tradition has a.s.signed as these the symbolic cherubim seen in the visions of Ezekiel and John--Judah bearing a lion, Reuben a man, Ephraim an ox, and Dan an eagle. This is the opinion of the later Jews. The Targumists believe that, besides these representations, the banners were distinguished by particular colours--the colour for each tribe being a.n.a.logous to that of the precious stone in the breastplate of the high-priest. They consider also that each standard bore the name of the tribe with a particular sentence from the Law. The modern opinion, however, is that the Hebrew standards were distinguished only by their colours, and by the name of the tribe to which each belonged.

[2] Numbers ii. 2.