Here you have three fresh additions to our range of Age of Sail naval flags, consisting from left to right of: the Dutch East India Company flags from 1630 to 1794 - showing a red upper stripe instead of orange as initially, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth war flags between 1568 and 1643 (when their fleet was destroyedin harbour by a Danish surprise attack, and never rebuit) and, last but not least, the Sultanate of Morocco war flags from 1666 until 1912 (when the French occupation put the Moroccan navy to an end).
Funnily enough, the white symbol centered in the Moroccan ensign was systematically misinterpreted by European travelers and port authorities, who always interpreted it to be... a taylor's pair of scissors! It wasn't until 1781 that a clever piedmontese official noted the flag represented two crossed white sabres on a red background. The man also failed to correctly identify it as the famous
Zulfiqar two-bladed sword of Ali, but he at least got closer!
Lluís Vilalta
minairons.euMinairons blog
