Flags in WW I

[Philippe]

I've been looking at the North African and Middle Eastern flags in the two WW I games and a few of them could benefit from some TLC.

Morocco:

Morocco was a protectorate and should fly its own flag rather than the flag of metropolitan France. There's a perfectly nice version of the Moroccan flag already included in the flag sprites, so it's probably just a question of fiddling with the code so that the engine points to the Moroccan rather than the French flag. This cannot be modded.

Algeria:

The portion of Algeria that appears on the game map was, in this period, part of Metropolitan France and not a protectorate. Consequently Algeria should fly the French tricolor and not the flag of post-WW II independence. This can be modded.

Tunisia:

Tunisia was a French protectorate (like Morocco), but without quite as much independent national identity. Nevertheless they should be flying their own flag (red and somewhat Ottoman-looking) rather than the flag of Metropolitan France. This can be modded.

Egypt:

The Egyptian flag used in the game is correct for the WW II period. During WW I the flag was red, and looked fairly similar to the Ottoman Empire's. This can be modded.

Palestine:

Not sure what to do about this one. The flag that should be flying over Palestine is the flag of the Ottoman Empire, not the flag of the Arab Revolt from a few years later. Don't know what the modding status of this one is, and am not sure what would happen if the Revolt flag were to be replaced with the Ottoman flag in 1914 (I'm concerned about what the flag will be after Allenby and Lawrence liberate the region at the end of the war).

Syria:

Same issue as Palestine.

This can't really be addressed properly in a mod, so I hope it can get fixed in a subsequent patch.

If anyone cares to discuss this further, my e-mail address hasn't changed and I can still be contacted at padivine at juno dot com.

[Bill101]

Thanks for this Philippe, I've made a note of it all for future use.

Just a quick explanation on two of them, as Syria's and Palestine's flags will change to the Ottoman when the Ottoman Empire enters the war.

It would be a bit tricky to change that as otherwise when liberated they would retain the Ottoman flag, which I think would feel worse.

Bill

[Philippe]

Thanks for addressing the Syria/Palestine flag question. I'm putting together a flag mod for WW I and it was one of the more troublesome questions.

In the mod I'm currently thinking of using French flags for all of French North Africa, though I may break down and make a Tunisian flag. I hope when you update the game you'll arrange to have the Moroccan flag on display (and the Algerian flag will, of course, remain French).

If you've seen the Libyan thread you'll realize that that flag is a problem as well, although easier to solve. Does the Libyan flag currently turn Italian when Italy enters the war (in which case I would suggest that you might consider using the Senussi flag as the pre-war flag)? If the flag doesn't go through any declaration of war changes, it should be Italian from the get-go (rather than Turkish).

I hope that in future versions of the game you figure out a way to have Syria and Palestine fly the Ottoman flag in August 1914. Giving them revolt flags makes them look like they were in revolt at the start of the war, and they weren't. For my mod I had pretty much decided that I should leave them alone, if only because changing them would have eliminated the Revolt in the Desert flag from the game.

I'm currently grappling with what to do about the Austrian flag, the Russian flag, and the Persian flag. I may have found the solution by looking at a collection of WW I propaganda posters, which gives some surprising answers to what flags people thought their opponents were using, and to what the flags were that their opponents were actually using. I'd like to put some images of these posters on this website, but I need to find a new visually acceptable image hosting site because last time I tried to use Image Shack it didn't seem to be free anymore).

[Bill101]

Hi Philippe

Yes, Libya's flag will also turn Italian when they enter the war.

I found it interesting in your thread on propaganda posters that the Austrian flag features prominently in some, while the Hungarian flag was notable by its absence.

I remember when we were designing the game that we wanted to use a flag that would best represent both parts of Austria-Hungary, without having to represent them as separate countries.

[Philippe]

I'm not even close to being an authority on this, but I think you have to think about Austro-Hungarian flags in their terms rather than ours.

The first thing you have to wrap your mind around is that they didn't really have a concept of a national flag in our sense. The other thing to keep in mind, especially if you're a vexillologicaly impoverished American with only one national flag, is that most countries have several national flags, with different flags for different functions.

I was rather surprised when I started looking at period images at how often the Yellow-Black flag was used. Part of the problem is that the double-flag naval ensign is Austria-Hungary's flag more by wargamers' urban legend than anything else. I'm not sure that you would really see it anywhere but on the mainmast of a warship (apart from on the occasional foreign propaganda poster). What was used from time to time was a similar combination flag without the coats of arms, a double tricolor as it were. I've seen a few simple red-white-red Austrian flags from foreign sources, probably the result of ship ensigns from foreign visits. But given how nationalistic the Hungarians were supposed to be, it's odd that there aren't more green-white-and-red tricolors around, with or without St. Stephen's crown.

So why didn't the Yellow-Black flag cause the Hungarians problems? I suspect that the reason may have had something to do with the fact that the Yellow-Black flag is a dynastic flag rather than a national flag. You can be loyal to your feudal sovereign in a dual monarchy without being subservient to the other country. The Yellow-Black flag is a way of saying we're all loyal to the Hapsburg dynasty, regardless of nationality. And in the Hapsburg Empire there were a lot more than just two nationalities, even though it was a dual monarchy.

[Philippe]

Another question about Libya.

I understand that when Libya enters the war the Libyan flag will change to the Italian flag, in the same way that Palestine, Syria, and Arabia become Ottoman after the Turks enter the war.

Is there a pair of activation icons exclusively assacotiated with Libya? I'm guessing that one pair of the two red Ottoman pairs is meant to be Turkish, and one Libyan. If that is the case, I'll need to turn one dark grey and black to represent the Sanussi.

Or am I over-interpreting this?

[i've essentially completed two different versions of the Call to Arms mod, with everything covered that I can think of, except for this last point].

[Bill101]

Hi Philippe

The Senussi are effectively Libyan partisans, so they will use the activation symbols associated with Libya. In which case you may wish to change them to the Senussi colours.

Effectively what happens in the game engine to Libya, Palestine, Syria and Arabia when the Italians and Ottomans respectively enter the war, is that these countries are surrendering. This allows the deployment of Partisan forces during the game, such as the Senussi and Arab Revolt.

Bill

[Philippe]

I really wish there were a way to set up revolt flags for these countries without having to display them before they enter the war. I like having Arab Revolt flags, but I don't want to see them before the revolts are successful.

I'm afraid I was under-caffeinated when I wrote that last post. The activation icons seem to follow the same order as the countries: the majors, followed by everybody else in alphabetical order. So you would expect to see an Ottoman Turkish icon standing in for Libya just before Mexico and Morocco. What you see instead of one pair of Turkish icons is two pairs of Turkish icons.

Is there a reason for there being two icons? I'm tempted to just change both of them into black Senussi icons, but was worried that I might be tampering with a game function. If I only change one, do I change the one on the right or the one on the left (I've changed the one on the right for now but don't know if it was right because I haven't got that far in my test game).

[Bill101]

Hi Philippe

Each vertical row of icons relates to one country, so you just need to amend those in one vertical row.

Of the two you're looking at, the one on the left is Libya and the one on the right is Mesopotamia.

Bill