Flag Friday: Royal Standard of Spain under the Hohenzollerns by Ramones1986

My birthday is on the same day as the start of the Franco-Prussian War. It is a historical coincidence that I always found fascinating, even if unimportant in the grand scheme of things. Nevertheless, its probably why I found this flag interesting:

This is the "Royal Standard of Spain under the Hohenzollerns" by Flag Friday alum, Ramones1986. Now for those who don't know, one of the causes of the Franco-Prussian War was Spain offering the Spanish Crown to Leopold, Prince of Hohenzollern. Although Leopold declined the offer in our timeline, it still caused tensions between France and Prussia to increase and eventually led to war being declared. Perhaps in hindsight, Leopold may have accepted the offer knowing that war was inevitable.

There isn't too many changes from the current Royal Standard of Spain, besides the coat of arms of the king in the center being changed to reflect the Hohenzollern colors. Simple changes really, but effective. Still one wonders what a Spain with direct ties to the ruling house of Germany would be like in this alternate timeline...

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Matt Mitrovich is the founder and editor of Alternate History Weekly Update, a blogger for Amazing Stories, a volunteer interviewer for SFFWorld and a Sidewise Awards for Alternate History judge. When not exploring alternate timelines he enjoys life with his beautiful wife Alana and prepares for the day when travel between parallel universes becomes a reality. You can follow him on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and YouTube. Learn how you can support his alternate history projects on Patreon.

Flag Friday: The Oklahoman Tricolor by Ramones1986

I've been thinking the other day of doing a Trope Talk on "Sequoyah", which is what I'm calling the scenarios involving a Native America-majority state located in our timeline's Oklahoma. That is probably why The Oklahoman Tricolor by Ramones1986 caught my eye:

The flag itself is just okay. Looking at it closely it seems that the red bar is slightly larger than the yellow or blue bars and I don't know if that is intentional. The shield is good and looks similar to what is currently on Oklahoma's flag, plus it was done by Marc Pasquin, who has been doing artwork for some of my recent videos like Plausibility Review: 11/22/63 by Stephen King (hey, there is another shout out to my YouTube channel). It more then makes up for the oddly positioned bars.

Still what I like about this image is the speculation it produces in my mind. To be fair the flag is for an Oklahoma, not a Sequoyah, but a part of me could see this flag being used for a Native American-majority state either in a world where America has balkanized or as a state in the Confederate States of America. Maybe I will talk more about this later.

Honorable mention this week goes out to the Flag of Atenist Egypt by Sam McDonald. You may also want to read more about New Zealand's vote to select a new flag.

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Matt Mitrovich is the founder and editor of Alternate History Weekly Update, a blogger on Amazing Stories and a Sidewise Awards for Alternate History judge. When not writing he works as an attorney, enjoys life with his beautiful wife Alana and prepares for the day when travel between parallel universes becomes a reality. You can follow him on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Learn how you can support his alternate history projects on Patreon.

Flag Friday: Protestant Albania by Ramones1986

This is a preview of what you could see if we reach my "Return of Flag Friday" milestone goal on Patreon. If you want to see more Flag Fridays in the future, please consider becoming one of my patrons. Now on to the alternate vexillology...

Two flags caught the attention of my followers last week and it was difficult to pick which one to write about. Both had scenarios attached to them, and you all know how much I enjoy a good story, but in the end I decided to go with the one that I thought just looked the "coolest". I am talking about Ramones1986's alternate flag of Albania:

This is from a short scenario Ramones1986 published on AlternateHistory.com where Albanians gain their independence early in 1878 thanks to an Alabamian cultural renaissance brought on in part by a new Albanian alphabet that used the Latin script and was spread by British bibles. This unexpectedly makes Protestantism attractive to Albanian nationalists, who see it as a way to separate themselves culturally from the Ottomans. After a successful independence movement, with British backing, its implied other parts of the Ottoman Empire adopt the Albanian method in seeking more autonomy.

I like this scenario for a couple of reasons. First, you don't see Albania as the focus a lot in alternate history (in fact, this is the first time I ever used the "Albania" tag for the blog, so I am as much guilty of omitting the country as everyone else) and I am glad Ramones1986 went outside the box with this one. Second, the idea of Protestantism spreading through the Balkans is a unique concept. In this timeline, Protestants are rare in that region and to see a timeline where they are more numerous or even in the majority has some untapped potential. As for the flag, I admit I am crazy about the color black on flags. It doesn't happen often and for some reason it always looks pleasing to my eye, so I really enjoyed the black cross on this flag of Protestant Albania. Additionally, the coat of arms in the center was well designed. All and all, this flag deserved to be featured on Flag Friday.

Honorable mention this week goes out Mac Gregor's flag of the African Republic of Angola. If you would like to submit a flag for the next Flag Friday, email me at ahwupdate at gmail dot com with your flag attached and a brief description of the scenario in the body of the email.

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Matt Mitrovich is the founder and editor of Alternate History Weekly Update, a blogger on Amazing Stories and a Sidewise Awards for Alternate History judge. When not writing he works as an attorney, enjoys life with his beautiful wife Alana and prepares for the day when travel between parallel universes becomes a reality. You can follow him on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Learn how you can support his alternate history projects on Patreon.