Description

This Ottoman folio work features 66 resplendently-coloured full-page plates depicting the naval flags, jacks and standards of 50 nations as they appeared on the eve of World War I. It was published in Constantinople in 1913 by the Ottoman Navy Office. In addition to being affine decorative work, the book would have been of vital practical use to Turkish mariners during the upcoming global conflict, where it would have been critical to distinguish friend form foe at sea.

The work depicts the naval flags of the Ottoman Empire, Argentina, German Empire, United States of America, Austro-Hungarian Empire, Spain, Switzerland, Sweden, Ecuador, Great Britain, Uruguay, Italy, Persia, Brazil, Belgium, Bulgaria, Bolivia, Peru, Paraguay, Portugal, Tunis, Chinese Empire, Dominican Republic, Denmark, Russian Empire, Romania, Japan, Siam, Chile, Serbia, El Salvador, Morocco, Guatemala, France, Netherlands, Colombia, Costa Rica, Korea, Liberia, Cuba, Belgian Congo, Mexico, Monaco, Norway, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Honduras, Haiti, Greece and Montenegro. For the more important naval powers, numerous standards are list, along textual explanations.

Worldcat lists four institutional examples (University of Cambridge, Princeton University
Library, Deutsches Schiffahrtsmuseum – Bremerhaven, Library of Congress).

References: OCLC 835394978, 79565895, 41126647, 956435641.