crescent and the cross may be seen combined on the churches, the object being to indicate the Byzantine origin of the Russian Church.
The crescent may be seen on the coins and medals of Augustus, Trajan, and other Emperors. The origin of the symbol was as follows: Philip, the father of Alexander the Great, meeting with many unforeseen difficulties in carrying on the siege of the city, set the soldiers to work one dark night to undermine the walls, but the crescent moon appearing the design was discovered and the scheme miscarried; and in acknowledgment the Byzantines erected a statue to Diana, and made the crescent moon—the attribute of the Goddess—the symbol of their city.
The War Flag of Turkey is the crescent and star on the scarlet field, as shown in Fig. [239]. The flag of the Merchant Service seems less definitely fixed. In the Official Flag Book[[79]] of the English Admiralty, Fig. [239] is given as both the man-of-war flag and the merchant flag for Turkey, Egypt, and Tripoli, while in an excellent book on the subject, published at Vienna in 1883, Fig. [235] is given as the flag of the commercial marine; and we have also seen a plain red flag with a star in the upper corner of the hoist, and another divided into three horizontal bands, the upper and lower being red, and the central one green.
The Military and Naval Service of Tunis has the flag represented in Fig. [240], while the Tunisian commercial flag is simply red, without device of any kind.
In a map bearing the date 1502 the Turkish Dominions are marked by a scarlet flag having three points and bearing three black crescents, while in a sheet of flags with the comparatively modern date of 1735, "Turk" is represented by a blue flag with three crescents in white upon it.
The personal flag of the Sultan, corresponding to our Royal Standard, is scarlet, and bears in its centre the device of the reigning sovereign: hence it undergoes a change at each accession to the throne. This device, known as the Tughra, is placed on the coinage, postal stamps, etc., as well as on the Royal Flag, and consists of the name of the Sultan, the title Khan, and the epithet El muzaffar daima, signifying the ever-victorious. The history of the Tughra is curious: When Sultan Murad I. entered into a treaty of peace with the Ragusans, he was not sufficiently scholarly to be able to affix
his signature to the document, so he wetted his open hand with ink and pressed it on the paper, the first, second, and third fingers making smears in fairly close proximity, while the thumb and fourth finger were apart on either side. Within the mark thus made, the Ottoman Scribes wrote the name of Murad, his title, and the epithet that bore testimony to his ever-victorious career. The Tughra remains the symbol of this, the three upright forms being the three fingers of Murad, the rounded line to the left the thumb, and the line to the right the little finger; these leading forms do not vary, but the smaller characters change with the change of sovereign. This Murad, sometimes called Amurath, ascended the throne in the year 1362.[[80]]
The personal flag of the Khedive of Egypt is green, and has in its centre the crescent and three white stars.
By the Treaty of Berlin, July 1878, the provinces of Moldavia and Wallachia, formerly a portion of the Turkish Empire, and the territory of the Dobrudscha, were recognised as an independent State, and were formed into the kingdom of Roumania somewhat later, the sovereign who had previously held the rank of prince being crowned king in March, 1881. The flag of Roumania is the brilliant blue, yellow and red tricolor shown in Fig. [242].
The flag of Servia, another small kingdom of Eastern Europe, is shown in Fig. [243]; the royal standard is similar, except that the arms are placed in the centre of the blue stripe. It will be seen that the flag of Servia is that of Russia, Fig. [218], reversed. By the Berlin Treaty of 1878, Servia received a large increase of territory, and was created an independent State, its princely ruler being crowned king in March, 1882.