Military Flags of the World 1618 - 1900

Купить бумажную книгу и читать

Military Flags of the World 1618 - 1900

By Terence Wise, Guido Rosignoli

Publisher: Blandford Press 1977 160 Pages

ISBN: 0713708247

PDF 19 MB

There are a number of excellent flag books currently available but they deal almost exclusively with national flags, while those specializing in military flags have mostly been out of print for many years, are difficult to obtain and are in the language of the country whose flags they describe. The aim of this book, therefore, is to partly bridge this sur­prising gap in the study of flags, beginning when the formation known as a regiment came into existence and terminating when military flags were no longer carried into battle as a general rule.

In a book this size, spanning a period of 300 years of history, there is room for only a brief excursion into the subject and for space reasons I have been forced to abandon any hope of listing the official regulations for the military flags of all countries, or even the major countries. I have instead made a selection of flags to be illustrated, the text providing as much information on these flags as space permits.

In my selection of the illustrations I have tried to strike a balance between the more popular flags of the famous regiments of the world and the large number of flags of lesser-known regiments which have either not been illustrated before or have not been available in our time to a wide public. In order to describe the maximum number of flags I have also illustrated as many basic patterns as possible, designs used by all the line cavalry or infantry of a country within a set period of time. This decision was really made for me, as such flags often remained in service for many years, until a new model was introduced - often by a new monarch, and because the colour variations within the basic pattern can be easily listed in a small space. Therefore, although 392 flags are illustrated in the colour plates, and a further fifteen by line drawings, in fact information on just over 900 flags is to be found in this book.