Exploring military flags and their significance across the globe

In this painting of the Battle of Grunwald we can see a standard displaying this element and it's amazing how over 600 years later the symbol still represents the military forces of Lithuania. Every country has their own flag, some even have two. It's how they identify each other in the world. Colors, patterns and symbols that we immediately associate with a specific country, although some don't really make it easy for us. Looking at Romania and Chad who should just figure it out. The origin of flags as a form of representing countries is diverse, but in many cases they come from the need to represent a specific ruler or a specific country's troops in battle. In the play, Henry VI, the character of Edward, Prince of Wales, has a line that states sound trumpets that our bloody colors wave and either victory or else a grave. The use of flags as field and signs apparently emerges in Asia, possibly in either China or India. In Achaemenid Persia, each army division had its own standard, and all officers had banners over their tents. In this ancient painting, we can see the Mughal army saluting the nine standards of the leader of the Timurid Empire. Some used other symbols to the same effect, not necessarily being a flag in the sense of it being a piece of fabric, for example, the Roman eagle standard or the dragon standard of the Sarmatians. So, this got me thinking. If a great deal of flags have their origin in battle standards, what do countries' military flags look like today? Most countries have their national flag, but also various others. The presidential standard, the flag of the king in cases of monarchies, the government flag, the sea flag, and many others whose purpose is to represent a specific institution inside the country. But not all of them still have specific and especially significantly different battle flags. So in this video, we're focusing on one of those, the military flags of some countries around the world. Some countries have flags for the three branches of the armed forces, the ground forces, the army, the naval forces, the navy, and the air force. I already did a video on naval flags once, so in this video, I'm going to simply focus on the ground forces, the army itself. Although sometimes there is common usage of the same flag by all three branches. Like I mentioned, not all countries have military flags, and even some who do have somewhat boring ones, just similar to the national one. Portugal's is just the national flag in a square shape with a symmetric background and some extra things around the sphere. France's seem to be the national flag itself, also in a different shape, and then adding some symbols in the center depending on which military figure it represents. Some seem to not even have specific army flags, like Spain for instance, just having emblems to represent it nowadays. Or Nordic countries which use a pennant version, differently shaped, but of their same national flags. But let's focus on the ones that do look interesting, starting with the ones on the thumbnail. Ukraine has a fantastic war flag. Not only does it look good because of the symbol and war combinations, but the color choice itself is remarkable. There are very few flags throughout the world that use the color purple or pink, and it's really original that they chose to do so. It depicts in the center the symbol and colors of the Ukrainian coat of arms. It is a representation of the sealed trident of Volodymyr the Great, Grand Prince of Kiev from 980 to 1015. In this ancient coin of the time, we can see the same trident present. It's fantastic how this symbol has lasted from so early on until today. At the time representing a national and military leader and today, still the country and its military. Next is Lithuania's. It almost looks like a Roman Empire standard due to the colors and the leaves forming a circle. In the center is the symbol of the Columns of Gediminas, one of the earliest symbols of Lithuania and its historical court of arms. They were used in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, initially as Duke Kestutij personal insignia since 1397, appearing on his seals and coins, and then as a state symbol of all of Lithuania at the time. In this painting of the Battle of Grunwald in 1410, down the center we can see a standard displaying this element, and it's amazing how over 600 years later, the symbol still represents the military forces of Lithuania. Estonia follows a similar idea, using the symbol of their coat of arms as the flag for their defense forces, again using a symbol that's been around for hundreds and hundreds of years. The three lions derived from the coat of arms of Danish King Voldemort II who had conquered northern Estonia in 1219. The lions then became a part of the seal of the city of Tallinn, the center of Danish government in Estonia. With Estonian independence, they remained as a symbol of their nation. The emblem that a military leader once used as he disembarked on those lands with his troops. And in this painting, we can see exactly that. Present on his shield and on banners carried by his soldiers. A fun fact is that the Danish flag itself actually also comes from these same Danish invasions of Estonia. Legend says it descended from the skies at the time. And then the Dutch military flag. As we go on looking at these, it becomes evident that in many cases, the military emblem is a representation of the nation's court of arms. Here, that is the case as well, of the golden lion on an orange field. The royal arms were adopted by the first king of the kingdom of the Netherlands, William I, using elements of his family's orange nassau, court of arms. The orange color itself is also connected to his family and Dutch culture throughout time. Right nearby, Belgium's ground forces flag is super cool, but to be totally honest with you, I have no idea what it means. I couldn't find any information. The crown must represent the Belgian monarchy and the colors are the Belgian national colors from their flag, but a sword and two arms are also present. I'm not sure if they represent anything else other than the general concept of ground forces. Albania also has a pretty cool military flag since 2010, contrasting with their national one, which is red and black, this one is green and gold, depicting two crossed rifles in the center. Hungary's is also cool, using the national colors with the coat of arms in the center and Bulgaria follows the same logic. Bangladesh is very interesting and simplistic looking, but I like it especially because it's different from the national flag. Also starting with a B, Brazil, a white field with the army's coat of arms, whose origin I sadly also could not find, but which looks very medieval. The army officially exists only since Brazil's independence in the 1800s, but the date on the flag points to a battle that took place at the time, when Brazilian people were mobilized in battle for the first time. In addition, the Marine Infantry flag is kind of bad, especially when it has such a cool looking shield on the top left. I took the liberty of attempting to redesign it and I think this would be a much cooler option. The Colombian army's flag is similar to Brazil, depicting a coat of arms and being very different than their national flag. I think this is for me what defines the flags as being better looking. They're not just a slightly different reproduction of the current national one, but a completely different standard. Sometimes going back in history and collecting other symbols and colors, which makes sense. If the need to represent troops in battle is at the origin of flags, they should go back to the symbols of those times to use in their flags now, when that makes sense of course. Another example back in Europe is Moldova. Their armed forces flag is honestly even better looking than their actual national one. Oddly looking like the flag of the Åland Islands, except with a centered cross instead of a Nordic one. It uses the Moldovan colors and then presenting its coat of arms in large size in the center, except instead of holding a branch and a scepter as the eagle does in the National Court of Arms, here it is holding a sword and a mace, representative of its military component. China's military flag is super simplistic, similar to the national one. The layout of it has a golden star on the top left corner and two Chinese characters to the right of the star, placed on a red field. The characters literally mean 8 and 1 and they are a reference to the events of August 1st, 1927, the 8th month, first day, when the People's Liberation Army was created at the start of the rebellion against the Kuomintang government. Iraq's flag is okay, but it does follow a trend that I personally dislike of representing the territory's outline on the flag. I feel like that defeats the purpose of creating a flag which transmits the location's identity in itself. The Irish Defense Forces have one of the best looking flags ever for this purpose. The background field is black with a tricolored stripe of the Irish flag colors. In center is the badge of the Irish Defence Forces, originally designed in 1913 for the Irish Volunteers, which I think were a group who fought for Irish independence. The two letters, the double F, mean Fianna Fáil. The word Fianna is the name of an ancient military organization from around the 3rd century AD, which then formed what corresponded to the standing army of the country. And the word Fáil means destiny, apparently. In this case, the symbol is new, but the meaning of it, representing the name of that ancient army, represents the country's history as well. The military flags of the Republic of Korea are also pretty cool, gathering in them elements of all armed forces. They have specific flags for the ground forces and one for the naval infantry as well. Mongolia's army flag has a bunch of writing on it, which I find unnecessary and it ruins the effect of the rest. I feel like the heirs of one of history's most feared military forces deserve a better flag to represent them. I did this alternate version also without the text just to see what it could look like. Pakistan's army has a cool flag because it uses two swords in a very simplistic manner using some elements from the national flag. The Philippines ground forces standard is also okay but their armed forces one is even better combining the colors and symbols of the army, navy and air force into one flag to represent them all. Poland has a really cool red pennant with their white crowned eagle. Russia has a great flag for the armed forces, but also a great one for the army itself. The armed forces one seems to reference some type of Soviet style. Maybe I'm totally wrong here, but the red and the yellow plus the stars give off that idea. And then also using the imperial double-headed eagle in the center, present since the times of the Russian empire. In the shield, Saint George slays a dragon. The reverse side of this flag also contains two pieces of text written in old-style Slavic typeface. The top side of the banner contains the inscription Fatherland and on the bottom, the inscription reads Depth of Honor. Serbia's flag is also interesting, the Serbian double-headed eagle crowned with its shield in the center. It's weird how in military flags, a lot of times, monarchy elements are still present, even when the countries are now republics. Below are two crossed swords and two fleur-de-lis. There's also some text in the bottom, but I couldn't find the meaning of it, and I couldn't write it down to translate it, so if you know, please leave a comment telling me. I'm also not sure why they use fleur-de-lis. Thailand used to be Siam, and their old flag was super interesting, the elephant one, then changing it to a more westernized one, if you will, which looks a lot more basic. But the military standards kept the cultural elements that make them so interesting. The UK has a very basic navy and air force flags, but the land forces have an amazing one, a red field and in gold two crossed swords and the british lion and a crown it's kind of weird that a crown is present and then the lion itself is again crowned but still the naval infantry has a cool one too as do the royal engineers the naval infantry one is amazing depicting a world map and the words by sea by land and above the word gibraltar refers to the capture of gibraltar by a force of anglo-dutch marines in 1704 and the subsequent defense of the fortress throughout a nine-month siege against a much larger Franco-Spanish force. The United States one is okay, kind of underwhelming to be honest and at the same time way too detailed to be impactful. 1775 was the year the Continental Army was formed. The armor symbolizes strength and defense, the musket, mortar and cannon represent the different divisions within the US Army at the time, the cap on the sword represents the cap of liberty, the symbol of revolution and the snake is said to symbolize the readiness of the U.S. Army, although the Marine Infantry Flag is much better looking. So, that was a general overview of some of the Army slash Armed Forces slash War Flags that exist throughout the world. It's interesting how some countries feel the need to have them, others don't, how some are truly original while others simple adaptations of the National Flag. The practice of representing a nation in battle is precisely what started implementing the usage of flags and perhaps without it we wouldn't have them today. So it's interesting to see how these military forces at the origin of the concept of flags represent themselves today. Thanks so much for watching this video. Subscribe if you want and leave a comment below sharing your favorite military flag or letting me know if I missed a particularly interesting one. I will see you next time for more general knowledge.