Some thoughts about the Austro-Hungarian flag

[Philippe]

Here is the contents of my Central Powers poster collection. The thing to keep in mind when looking at these pictures is that these are the flags of the Central Powers as depicted by the Central Powers.

[Philippe]

The game seems to have what looks a like a full set of black and yellow Austrian flags (though in an unfortunate shade of yellow). Do these flags currently serve any game function ? I'm tempted to start switching to the yellow and black flag, but don't want to interfere with a game function.

And is there any way to get the double flag to only appear on naval units ?

[Palpat]

Austria-Hungary did not have a national flag per se, but it seems that the dual one was used as a civilian flag.

Album of Standards, Flags and Streamers of the Russian Empire and Foreign Governments" 1890 edition with later corrections [available for download] indicates at the table VIII number 4 that the "Dual flag" is teh "National civil flag" and "Commercial ensign".

I guess your postcards are german or austrian, hence their insistance on the Cisleithanian flag.

Entente's propaganda tends to use on its own document the dual flag.

[Philippe]

Austria-Hungary couldn't really have a national flag because it was two different countries. The Hungarian flag occasionally shows up on its own in local sources, and you can catch a glimpse of it in the first postcard image.

Entente propaganda is generally a very bad source for this kind of thing, so I would tend to discount it (and that's why I haven't included any Entente propaganda).

I'm pretty sure you wouldn't see a civil flag hanging in front of an embassy. What you'd see is a state flag to mark sovereign control, and that's what the flags in the game mark.

The dual flag with crowns is certainly more attractive, but the problem is that it is a naval ensign. I haven't seen any reliable evidence outside of Entente propaganda that it was the schmatta hanging in front of an Austro-Hungarian embassy.

The reason they liked the black and yellow flag so much is that those were the armorial colors of the Hapsburg dynasty which ruled both countries. It gave everyone a symbol of allegiance that they could relate to without stepping on anyone's (Magyar nationalist) toes. Those are the predominant colors of the old 18th century double-eagle standard which gets used in one of the postcards.

[Philippe]

But just so the question that I'm asking doesn't get lost in the shuffle, do the duplicate Austrian flags have an in-game function, or are they just artefacts of development?