THE CZECHOSLOVAK FLAG
THE colors of the Czechoslovak flag are white and red, in two stripes, the white above the red. This, the historical flag of Bohemia, has been the flag of the Czech and Slovak revolutions against the Hapsburgs from the very beginning, and was used in the revolution of 1848 both by the Czechs and by the Slovaks. The Slovaks of Hungary have lately been using the so-called “Pan-Slavic” tricolor, which. however, is properly Russian. In the Manifesto of the Slovak Constituent Assembly (Liptovsky Sv. Mikulas May, May, 1848), the right to use the white and red as the national colors of Slovakia was made one of the chief demands.
The white-red flag is consecrated by its use in the Czechoslovak armies in the present revolution. Under this flag Czechs and Slovaks have shed their blood in France, Italy and Russia for the cause of the Allies and for their Independence. Hence the white-red flag is both the national and the battle flag of the Czechoslovaks.
FLAG OF THE CZECHOSLOVAK NATIONAL COUNCIL
The future Diet of the Czechoslovak State alone can adopt an official flag for the State. During this war the Czechoslovak National Council, the provisional government of the Czechoslovaks, has adopted as its official colors white and red in a blue field. In the center are the initials Č S, the insignia of the Czechoslovak armies in France and Italy. The blue field is taken from the color of the three mountains Tatra, Matra and Fatra on the Slovak coat of arms. Surmounting the staff of the flag are four interlaced rings, symbolic of the four component lands of the Czechoslovak State: Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia, Slovakia.
Czechoslovak National Council
WASHINGTON, D. C.
September, 1918
