The Admiral's flag in the Imperial German Navy is square, and consists of the black cross on a white ground—the cross, as in the standard, extending to the edges of the flag. The Vice-Admiral's flag is similar, but has in the upper staff-space a black ball in addition, while the Rear-Admiral has the same flag again, but with the addition of a black ball in each of the quarters nearest the mast. The Chief of the Admiralty has a white flag again with the cross in the centre, but in this case there is a considerable margin of white all round, and four red anchors are placed so that they extend in a sloping direction from the corners of the flag towards the inner angles of the cross. We get the characteristic black and white again in the burgee of the Imperial Yacht Club, which is thus quartered, an upright line meeting a horizontal one in the centre of the burgee, and thus giving a first and fourth black quarter and a second and third white one. The signal for a pilot again is a white flag with a broad border of black; if our readers will take a mourning envelope with a good deep margin of black to it, they will see the effect exactly.
German vessels engaged in trade on the East African coast fly the black, white, red, but in the centre of the white stripe is a blue anchor placed erect, while the Imperial Governor in East Africa substitutes for the anchor the black eagle. The German East Africa Company's flag is white cut into quarters by a narrow and parallel-edged cross and a red canton with five white stars on it in the quarter nearest the masthead.
While we find amongst the minor States of Germany Oldenburg, Fig. [204], with a cross-bearing flag, the greater number are made up of stripes disposed horizontally, and either two or three in number. Thus Fig. [199] is the white-green of Saxony, Fig. [200]
the black-red-yellow of Waldeck, Fig. [202] the blue-white of Pomerania, Fig. [203] the black-red of Wurtemburg, Fig. [205] the red-yellow-blue of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Fig. [206] the blue-yellow of Brunswick, Fig. [209] the green-white of Saxe-Coburg Gotha, Fig. [210] the blue-red-white of Schomberg Lippe, Fig. [212] the red-white of Hesse. Others that we have not figured are the red-yellow of Baden, the white-blue of Bavaria, the yellow-white of Hanover, the yellow-red of Elsass, the red-yellow of Lothringen.[[64]] To these, others might be added: Sleswig-Holstein, Brandenburg, Posen, Silesia, etc., all agreeing in the same general character.
The Imperial Standard of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy is yellow, and has in its centre the black double-headed eagle and a bordering all round composed of equal-sided triangles turning alternately their apices inwards and outwards; the first of these are alternately yellow and white, the second alternately scarlet and black. On the displayed wings of the eagle are the arms of the eleven provinces of the empire.
The war-ensign of the monarchy in represented in Fig. [213]; it is composed of three equal horizontal bands of red, white, red, and bears in its centre beneath the Imperial crown a shield similarly divided. This flag originated in 1786, when the Emperor Joseph II. decreed its introduction. This shield was the heraldic device of the ancient Dukes of Austria, and is known to have been in existence in the year 1191, as Duke Leopold Heldenthum bore these arms at that date during the Crusades.
The "Oesterreich-Ungarische Monarchie," to give it its official title, is under the command of one Sovereign, who is both Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary, but each of these great States has its own Parliament, Ministry, and Administration. Austria had long held the Hungarians in most unwilling subjection, and the disastrous outcome for Austria of the war with Prussia made it absolutely essential to make peace with Hungary, the Magyars seeing in the humiliation of Austria the opportunity that they had long been awaiting of becoming once again an independent State. A compromise was effected in February, 1867, by which the Hungarians were willing to remain under the rule of the Emperor of Austria, but only on condition that he submitted to be crowned King of Hungary, and that in the dual monarchy thus
created they should have absolutely the same rights and freedom as the Austrians. The Austrian flag, as we have seen, is red-white-red, while the Hungarian is red-white-green, and a commission being appointed to consider how these two flags could be blended into one, introduced on March 6th, 1869, as the result of its deliberations, the Austro-Hungarian national flag that we have represented in Fig. [214].
The Austrian provinces have chiefly bi- or tri-color flags, the stripes being arranged horizontally. Thus Bohemia is red-white; Tyrol is white-red; Dalmatia is blue-yellow; Galicia is blue-red; Croatia is red-white-blue; Istria yellow-red-blue.
We are so used in England to the idea that cheering is a spontaneous product that it seems strange to find that the official welcome by the Austrian fleet to their Emperor is a salute of twenty-one guns, followed by fifteen hurrahs. Each rank has its special limit of honour; thus a minister of State or field-marshal is saluted by nineteen guns and eleven hurrahs; a general by thirteen and seven, while a commodore drops to eleven and three; ambassadors, archbishops, consuls, all have their definite share of gunpowder and such specified amount of shouting as is held to be befitting to their position.