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In its most popular usage, a flag is a piece of bunting, usually but not always, square or rectangular in shape, attached to a pole and used as a standard, ensign or signal for display or decoration, and to distinguish one company, party, or nationality from another. Formerly in Britain, a black flag was raised outside prisons to announce the execution of a prisoner. Traditionally in Britain, when in mourning flags are lowered to halfway down the pole and 'flown at half mast'.
In the army a flag is a banner by which one regiment is distinguished from another. Flags borne on the masts of vessels not only designate the country to which they belong, but also are made to denote the quality of the officer by whom a ship is commanded. Thus in the British navy an admiral's flag was displayed at the maintop-gallant-mast-head, a vice-admiral's at the foretop-gallant-mast-head, and a rear-admiral's at the mizzen-top-gallant-mast-head.
In the navy the supreme flag of Great Britain is the royal standard, which is only to be hoisted when the sovereign or one of the royal family is on board the vessel. All British ships of war in commission carry the white ensign, that is a white flag divided into four quarters by the red cross of St George and having the union flag (or union 'jack' as it is popularly called) in the upper corner next the staff.
British merchant ships are entitled to carry a red flag with the union in the corner. The union is the flag commonly used on shore as the national ensign. To lower or strike the flag is to pull it down, or take it in, out of respect or submission to superiors. To lower or strike the flag in an engagement is a sign of yielding. A sign of mourning is to hoist the flags at a half or two-thirds of the height of the masts, if on land at half the height of the staff. Besides the use of flags as distinguishing emblems, a very important use of them at sea, both by national and mercantile navies, is as signals according to an arranged code.
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The Red Cross is an international organisation established to secure neutral rights and protection for wounded soldiers irrespective of nationality, and for all places and persons devoted to their care. The organisation was formed at an international conference in Geneva in 1863 following public sympathy aroused during the Crimean War and the Austrian-Italian War and especially the Battle of Solferino in 1859. The original notion of such a body can be traced back to the Order of St Mary which was instituted at the siege of Acre in 1190.
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The Royal Red Cross is a decoration for lady nurses distinguished by their services to sick or wounded soldiers and sailors. It was instituted by Queen Victoria on April the 23rd 1883. The cross, of crimson enamel, gold-edged, is fastened to the left shoulder by a bow of dark blue, red-edged ribbon.
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In December 1914 the British Government appointed a committee to consider and advise on the evidence as to outrages alleged to have been committed by German troops during the European War. The committee collected evidence from Belgian refugees, wounded Belgian soldiers, and British officers and soldiers. The report issued in May 1915 (The Bryce Report) stated that there was conclusive evidence that in many parts of Belgium deliberate and systematically organised massacres of the civil population had occurred and that the rules and usages of war were frequently broken and the red cross and white flag were abused.
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Una is the heroine of the first book of Spenser's Faery Queene. She is the personification of truth, and having sought at the court of Gloriana (Queen Elizabeth I) a champion to slay the dragon which keeps her parents prisoner, secures the aid of the Red Cross Knights. They set forth together but get separated by the magic of Archimago, after which Una for a time is accompanied by a lion.
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Clara Barton was the founder of the American Red Cross. She was born in 1821 at Oxford, Massachusetts and died in 1912. Working at the US patent office, on the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861 she organised volunteers to help the sick and wounded on the battlefield and in hospitals. After the war President Lincoln commissioned her to locate and identify prisoners and the dead buried in unmarked graves. In 1869 she went to Europe and participated in relief efforts during the Franco-Prussian War and worked with the International Committee of the Red Cross. In 1882 the US ratified the Geneva Convention and appointed Clara Barton as president of the American Red Cross. She resigned from the Red Cross in 1904.
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 More information about Clara Barton
Sir Frederick Treves was an English surgeon. He was born in 1853 and died in 1923. He was one of the founders of the Red Cross society. He operated on Edward VII for appendicitis in 1902.
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Gustave Ador was a Swiss politician. He was born in 1845 at Geneva and died in 1928. He was for some time President of the International Committee of the Red Cross, resigning in 1917. In 1918 he was elected to the Federal Council, and in 1919 was elected President of the Swiss Confederation.
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Hugh Seymour Walpole was an English novelist. He was born in 1884 the son of the Bishop of Edinburgh and served with the Russian Red Cross in the Great War.
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The Holgar Neilsen method is a method of artificial respiration introduced during the late 1950s by the Danish Red Cross Society and similar in principle to the Silvester method except that the patient lies face downwards. Inspiration (chest expansion) is produced by lifting the arms upwards over the head, and expiration is produced by the operator compressing the chest with hands placed over the patient's scapulae.
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The Probert Encyclopaedia was designed, edited and programed by
Matt and Leela Probert
©1993 - 2009 The Probert Encyclopaedia
Southampton, United Kingdom
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