Weekly Flag Challenge: Discussion & Entries

Anything I design for this challenge feels slightly inadequate. lol

This is based on the OTL, but each member is represented by a star surrounding a fleur-de-lis, an emphasis to symbolize political unity.

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My entry for post-2015 Europe.

Symbolism is fairly obvious, except for the two double bars, which indicate the Arctic Circle and the Tropic of Cancer, the two major lines of latitude between which Europe lies.

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My entry for the the Challenge ending 9th February 2011

Challenge: Design a new flag for the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland incorporating the design of the post-1959 flag of Wales.

I found this challenge much more frustratimg than any of the others. My problem was I wanted to keep the Union Jack. I placed the Welsh dragon in the center with white outlines to match the colors of the Union Jack. I made the dragons eye the green of the Welsh flag just to incorporate more of that flag's personality.

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It's a tall order, because there's not much of a harmonious way to integrate the dragon into the crosses. My contribution is a more-or-less heraldic banner, one of the few types of flag that looks good when there are lots of bright contrasting colors. The Welsh flag is not properly speaking a coat of arms, but the dragon and the background are very heraldic-looking, so I think they fit the overall look of the other three sections. The sections are arranged to correspond to the UK's geography, another breach of heraldic custom, but since this is a modern flag I think it's forgivable.

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Flag for a pan-Arab state: The Socialist Union of Arab Republics

The Federation of Arab Republics turned out to be a very popular idea among its inhabitants, and attempts of Egypt to leave the Federation in 1977 due to disagreements about the exact terms of merger with Syria and Libya sparked massive popular uprisings and a military coup assisted by the two other member states of the Federation.

In 1979 formal merger of the constituent countries, including the very unstable and volatile Egypt, was achieved and the new capital was formally specified to be Alexandria, chosen due to its relative central location. In practice the government spent most of its time in Tripoli however, due to security concerns.

In 1981 the parliament elected Muammar al-Gaddafi of Libya as its president, and he subsequently started to abuse his new position. Protests and unrest broke out in Syria and especially Egypt as the former felt neglected as a part of the federation, and the latter was still in an unstable state of political uncertainty. Eventually a civil war errupted in 1984.

The cold war was still going on as this happened, and the Soviet Union, itself already in a precarious situation, decided to fund communist groups within the federation in an attempt to once and for all secure an ally in the Middle East. The USA objected, but as most of funding was covert not much could be pinned on the Soviets, and while it also helped fund forces friendlier to itself that came to an end as the Iran-Contra affair came to light in late 1985 and US involvement in the Middle East became questioned.

In 1986 Soviet-backed communist rebels succeeded in capturing Tripoli and capture Gadaffi, who was summarily brought to Alexandria (also in communist hands) and brought before a kangaroo court to stand trial for crimes against humanity and treason. He was executed next morning, and the communists experienced a surge in popular support.

Historians usually put the end of the civil war as May 4th 1987, when the Vanguard of Islam group, an Islamist organisation and the main opposition to the communists at the time, officially surrendered. Other groups remained and hostilities were reported as late at 1989, however.

The new communist regime brought about some changes to the country. In 1990 as the final fate of the Soviet Union became evident (its involvement in the Arab civil war catalysing its collapse) the communist regime changed the name of the country to The Socialist Union of Arab Republics.

During the 90s the SUAR expanded as North Yemen joined in 1990, and in 1992 so did the south, being united as the Republic of Yemen as a member state of the Union. The country achieved its final addition in 2003, as protests and popular uprising in Tunisia resulted in the union, initially with UN support but later against its will, occupying the country to keep the peace. Instead they never left, and Tunisia was formally admitted as a member state of the union after a puppet government set up by the SUAR formally asked for membership in early 2004.

At that point a new flag was designed for the country, replacing the dated former one (which was identical to OTL Syria's). The new flag was decided by committee and features the coat of arms of the union. It depicts the hawk of Qureish supporting a plain shield, two olive branches, and holding a scroll where the words "Union of Arab Republics" is written in Arabic. The gold star in the top left has five points to represent the current five member states of the SUAR (Syria, Egypt, Yemen, Libya and Tunisia).

And here is this vexicological nightmare:

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The Mahdiyah, more commonly known as the Mahdist State or Mahdist Arabia, was created in 1979 following the Islamist coup by Juhayman al-Otaibi, who overthrew the decaying Saudi dynasty during the annual Hadj and proclaimed an Islamist State proclaiming his brother-in-law Muhammad bin abd Allah al-Qahtani as the Mahdi, the Messiah awaited to redeem Islam. Mirroring the events in Iran, the Madhiyah put in place a highly repressive and reactionary regime founded on Sunni Islam, and obtained US support by supplying Iraq during the Iran-Iraq War, proclaimed as a "djihad" against the Shia heresy". Similar islamist uprisings occurred after 1986 in the other states of the Arabian Peninsula (United Arab Emirates, North Yemen, Oman, Bahrein, Qatar, etc.) after the Mahdiyah took over the communist and decaying South Yemen, with no retaliation from the Soviet Union nor Egypt. All Arabic Peninsula was united under the authority of al-Otaibi, who built up his state using incomes from oil, US support, and foreign investments.

Following the 1990-1991 Gulf War, the Mahdiyah took a firm anti-American stance, and provided weapons to islamist dissenters in Southern Iraq, eventually taking over the region in 1995 following Hussein Kamel al-Majid's coup. In the mean time, Afghanistan and Somalia claimed union with the Mahdiya and the country became recognized as a rogue state following the 1994 series of attacks throughout the Western World. The country was on the verge of war with the United States after the 2001 Islamist coup attempt in Jordan, which was reportedly backed by al-Otaibi. Troubled Jordan was eventually occupied by the Israeli Defence Forces and Iran became reintegrated into international community as an US ally against the Mahdiya.

As of 2011, after the aged al-Otaibi dismissed rumors for years that his brother-in-law had died of old age, demonstrations began to take place throughout the country. However, no information is able to filter through the country, known throughout the world as the "Arabian North Korea". The Mahdiyah is still financing islamist guerillas throughout the world, and has been denounced as an evil country by US President Sam Brownback, Iranian President Mir-Hossein Mossavi and Israeli Prime Minister Avigdor Lieberman.

Flag: Black and green are the traditional colours of Islam. The Shahada, the Islamic creed, can be read on the flag.

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The Mawtini flag, to most Western diplomats refered to as the Mesopotamian flag, is the flag of the Socialist Union of Mesopotamia (or in Arabic الاتحاد الاشتراكي للبلاد الرافدين), a Communist country encompassing Greater Syria and the Iraq, since 1941. After the events of the Great War and the following recession the Ottoman Empire [1] was in financial ruin even after crude oil was discovered in most of their predominantly Arabic-speaking holdings. During this time a more Islamic branch of Communism, differential from the almost Atheist Leninism/Trotskyism, became popular with the Arab elite in the Iraq and Syria, thus setting path to a grand revolution, causing the collapse of the Sublime State and the rise of various new states, such as SUM, in 1930. After an originally red flag with a green star in its upper left corner the current Minister of Foreign Affairs and later President, Salah al-Din al-Bitar [2], designed the Mawtini flag, named after the poem [3] of the same name (which also became the SUM national anthem in 1943) written by his dear friend, the Palestinian poet and political activist Ibrahim Touqan, who passed away because of gastric cancer in 1939. The SUM survived until 1952, after which it was dissolved by the victorious Allies after the Second Great War, in which the SUM fought alongside the Soviets against the Capitalist powers.

The symbolism for the flag is quite simple: the red background stands for Communism, the two blue bars at the bottom for the rivers of Euphrates and Tigris, the golden bar inbetween for the natural richness of the region and the writing in the upper left corner reads "mawtini" which means "my homeland" in Arabic, showing the bond between the people.

[1] That is to some extent the POD: The Ottomans stay out of WW1 but still collapse, albeit a lot later and under different conditions.
[2] Famous for founding the Arab Ba'th Party OTL
[3] A poem from OTL, which would be Palestine's national anthem and is the one for Iraq

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No real background behind this design, just an eagle coat of arms on a horizontal tri-colour background. The text on the coat of arms is the Shahada.
 
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The Republic of Sinai

Also known as the Negev Confederation or the Wall of Peace, the Republic of Sinai, came about after the end of the Yom Kippur WAr, but it actually has roots further back in history. The Bedouin had always been a marginalized people in Egypt and a good part of the Arab world. They were still predominantly nomadic in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and with the rise of extreme Arabic nationalism were seen as outsiders. While many Bedouin were loyal to the nation they lived in, their family and clan loyalties came first. The fact that they felt they had more independence and rights, to a degree, when the British and French governed the Middle-East exacerbated the harsh feelings when the two European powers finally gave independence to the various Middle-Eastern nations. On June 28, 1953, the Egyptian Republic was declared, with Gamal Abdel Nasser as the first President of the Republic after General Naguid who would have been the first president took sick and died on June 28th. Nasser, while conjectured he was not actually racist, moved Egypt upon the path of Pan-Arabism with the consequential rise in anti-Bedouin, Christian, and Druze activities. With this the Bedouin, Druze, Coptic's, and many other non-Muslim or supposed non-Arab peoples were pushed to the sides or had their rights extremely curtailed.

During the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, the vast majority of the Bedouin in the Negev region fled to Egypt or Jordan. Of the approximately 65,000 that lived in the area before the war about 11,000 remained. Those who remained belonged to the Tiaha confederation. They were relocated by the Israeli government in the 1950s and 1960s to a restricted zone in the northeast corner of the Negev. In Egypt as purges, discrimination, and outright attacks started to rise in Egypt as the Pan-Arabic movement took hold, many Bedouin fled back to the Sinai region and Israel. So many had fled that many called the area the Land of Free Sinai. By the time of the Six Days War many local Bedouin had enlisted in the Israeli military (~7% of the IDF). Israel captured and kept the Sinai after the war, but did not outright annex the territory. Pressure from the US and Europe kept the settling of the area very light by Israel. In 1972 Egypt attacked Israel, along with Syria, in order to capture the Golan Heights and Sinai (see Yom Kippur War). The strong Bedouin presense and the Israeli army were able to push the Egyptians back across the canal by October 15th. By the 24th the Israeli Army and Bedouin militias* had captured Ismailia. The combined forces of the IDF and the Bedouin militias came within 15 miles of Cairo by wars end. This would effect the psyche of many arabs in the Middle-East a second defeat at the hands of the Israelis, along with the Bedouins, would eventually causes problems for the ruling powers in various countries.**

Two years after the war, and some agitation from the Bedouin population, Israel decided rather than annex the Siani they would set up the land as a state for the Bedouin and other peoples that had been living here since fleeing Egypt. The US and USSR*** recognized the new state within six months of its formation. Technically a vassal state to Israel, the Republic of Sinai has strong relations with the USA, the UK, Russia, Turkey, and Jordan. While they do not have their own military about 35% of the Coalition Defense Force (former IDF) is made up of Bedouin men and women.

Currently the president of the Republic is Reda Mansour, a Druze, who's family fled to Israel and then Sinai after the Syrian Atrocities**** in the Golan Heights during the Yom Kippur War.

* Militia was a term used after the war. These independent Bedouin fighters were never sanctioned by the Israeli government, but they were not discouraged either.
** See Dr Tamara Devilles book Arabs and the World.
*** Egypt had alienated the USSR in TTL more so than in OTL.
**** Many in the Syrian government professed no knowledge of the Atrocities taking place at the time, but KGB records that have been released after the dissolution of the USSR reveal otherwise.


The flag was used by the largest militia of independent fighters during the Yom Kippur war. Only possessing canvas to make a flag, it was painted gold with some paint that was found. Black paint was used to make the camels which originally had riders (warriors) upon them. The Dove was not added until 1983 when the Republic was nicknamed the Wall of Peace and the riders/fighters were removed. The ends of the Egyptian and Israeli flags represent the Republics place as a Wall between Egypt and Israel.

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League of Nations challenge

By the opening days of the Eastern War (also known as the Atomic War, the Great Patriotic War, the Nazi-Soviet War, or by some religious groups as the Awakening or the Rapture), the League of Nations was little more than a joke. It had failed to keep the peace, limit armaments, or broker several high profile international disputes. It was barely relevant before the conflict, and during was almost entirely forgotton.

As the war stretched from 1941 to 1944, the Nazis and Soviets dueled across Eastern Europe, with Germany's massive war machine facing the truly enormous armies of Russia. It seemed at the time that the Nazi state was beginning to wear the Soviets down, pushing further and further into Russia proper. Whether the USSR would have been crushed or whether Beck's armies would have faced the same fate as Napoleon's is a debate that shall never be resolved, a mental exercise reserved for Virtual History novels. This is because, on September 23rd, 1944, Germany detonated the world's first atomic weapon over a massed body of Russian forces.

When details began to emerge, much of the world was shocked at the horror and power of a single weapon. The Soviets, however, were not. Having been fed a constant stream of information from Communist and Anti-Nazi spies within the German nuclear program, their own program was nearing completion. They also knew that the Germans had not yet produced a second bomb, despite their threats. Three months later, the Soviets detonated their own weapon over a German naval force.

The war had entered its final and most deadly stage. Neither the Nazis nor the Soviets could mass produce bombs, leading to a situation where each side developed one weapon every few months, then quickly used it against the other side. Bombs were dropped from planes, shot in rockets, smuggled in boats, and in one case brought over the German border in a specially constructed vehicle disguised as a horsecart. The battles of the Russian and German armies became a sideshow even to those that fought them, with each man wondering if his struggles would be for nothing, if a plane might appear and destroy them all in an instant.

By Spring of 1945, both Beck and Stalin were dead. Germany, the Soviet Union, and eastern Europe were an irradiated shambles. And Spring itself was merely a word on the calendar - the Long Winter stretched on and on. Entire units of German and Russian troops had been stranded, without orders, without any way to know if there was a home to return to. Marauding bands of soldiers further worsened the situation.

The other nations of the world were horrified. Desperate for a way to intervene, they turned to the moribund framework of the League of Nations. At first using the organization as little more than an ad hoc excuse to justify their actions, the nations found Germans and Russians willing to at least say they were in charge, and who gave permission for "League" aid workers to enter their countries. Troops poured in, gradually taking control of the wreckage of the former states. When it was suggested that soldiers operating under the Union Jack or Tricolor might send the wrong message to the surviving Germans, Russian expatriate and painter Nicholas Roerich submitted the design that was ultimately chosen as the flag of the League. The symbol was alternately suggested to represent art, science, and literature, peace, friendship, and knowledge, the past, present, and future, the trinity, and several other things. The great appeal, however, was that it didn't actually represent anything, or appear national at all.

Today, the League of Nations is a much more powerful and prominent organization than it ever was before the War. Growing beyond a mere tool for the occupying aid forces, today the League controls trillions of dollars in funding, an independent multinational armed force, several League Mandates (including East Prussia), and the world's only officially known stockpile of nuclear weapons.



BELOW: The modern flag of the League of Nations. The colors are associated with peace in multiple cultures. The white background is also distinct even from a great distance, and at worst resembles the flag of peaceful surrender and negotiation. The symbol's current supposed meaning, according to the League of Nations website, is "peace, freedom, and understanding, surrounded by the world that is home to us all." The flag is colloquially known - both lovingly and derisively - as "the egg". This has lead to LoN peace-keepers (who bear the seal on their white helmets) acquiring the nickname "eggheads".

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At the close of the Great War, the world was in shambles. Europe was all but destroyed, Africans had died in colonial bids, and the Chinese Civil War was flaring up again thanks to Japanese overtures. With things looking bleak, mass pro-peace sentiments were settling in. With America's president, Woodrow Wilson, at the helm, the major world powers convened and established the League of Nations (though America would not join until after the World War).

The League worked well for a short time, but was quickly proving to simply be another battlefield for nations to toss insults and ridicule at each other. After Japan began a mass invasion of China in 1937, it was obvious the League was effectively defunct.

In Italy, Spain, Poland and Hungary, Fascist parties rose to prominence. In Russia, the revolution had established the Soviet Union. In Germany, the Kaiserists came to power, and the Revanchist Party took hold in France. Mass rearmament began, and Europe was poised for war once more.

On 12 March, 1938, Kaiser Wilhelm III took the throne, and the very next day, German forces poured over the border into Austria. On 16 March, Otto I was crown Archduke of Austria, and formally placed the realm under Germany.

With feelings soaring high, Kaiser Wilhelm III ordered troops into the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia. France, with the Revanchist attitudes in place, declared war on Germany for the "unlawful invasion of a peaceful nation in direct violation of the Versailles Treaty." The World War had began.

Seeking to end the war quickly, the Germans buffered their western flank and formed an alliance with Hungary, in which Slovakia would be given to Hungary if it assisted in cracking down on the Czechs. The Hungarians quickly agreed, and invaded on 2 April.

Britain, meanwhile, was attempting to broker peace, calling for a general meeting of the League of Nations to try and soothe things out. France and Germany refused. And so, Britain began to conscript in the event that war struck her as well.

The first Spring of the war was relatively quiet. Neither side wanted to commit troops to the slaughter that would be the Maginot Line. However, the Kaiser looked back to history and decided that another go with the Schlieffen Plan was worth a go. With no major Eastern Front, a large assault on France could go well for Germany. On 3 May, German troops crossed the border into Belgium and Luxembourg, and swerved South on 5 May. However, They ran into French forces outside the town of Philippeville. The French had been eying German forces for weeks, and with the invasion just started, Charles de Gaulle order a counter invasion.

Britain was horrified. Both powers had just invaded small neutral nations, the very same nations that had drawn Britain into the Great War. With the League convened in Geneva, Britain sent their ambassador a note.

On 11 May, Italy, Poland, Portugal, the Netherlands, Greece and Great Britain declared war on France and Germany for "violating the neutrality of nations, for bringing war once more upon the general populace of the world, and for inciting incidents of hatred and death upon their fellow man. These League Nations hereby declare war upon both parties who are aggressors against all of Humanity."

Both Germany and France were horrified. Neither could best the British at sea, and this war would open up numerous fronts to fight. However, neither party wanted to end their "just war upon their enemy". On 16 May, Germany struck North into the Netherlands, Denmark, and Norway, and used their now silent forces in Prussia to lash out on the Polish. France, meanwhile, invaded mainland Italy, and began a mass building program on their Southern coasts. In a secret alliance, Spain agreed to assist the French, and invaded Portugal on 22 May, and Portuguese colonies on 23 May.

The war took another strange twist on 15 June, when a Russia joined the war on the French side. It quickly invaded Poland's East and the Baltic states, using them as a springboard for the invasion of East Prussia.

Japan would also join the war that year, on Germany's side so as to invade Russia's far east for resources. This would actually end the Chinese civil war, as both the Communists and the Republicans ended their dispute to ally with the British against the Japanese and French.

The war would stalemate for the rest of the year, with all sides loosing forces left and right (save the British for the most part, who used their navy mostly to assist their allies).German and Russian forces clashed in Poland (having been effectively divided in two by the forces). Chinese, Dutch and British forces were invading French Indochina, and Portuguese, Italian, British and Greek Forces were attacking the French and Spanish in Africa. Throughout the war, Gibraltar and Malta were fortified used as launch points for invasion in the Mediterranean.

The Americans later joined the war on the side of British after Japanese forces invaded the Philippines after numerous successes in China and Russia.

On 18 August, 1943, France and Spain officially surrendered to the League, turning their forces over the British and Italians for the war on Germany. Germany succumbed to the League on 20 November after League bombers assaulted German towns for nearly 3 weeks, leaving the nation in ruin.

Chinese, American, British, Dutch, and Portuguese forces invaded mainland Japan on February 1, 1944 after joint naval operations had pushed the Japanese out of most of their Pacific holdings. However, Japanese determination stalled League and Allied forces for a year, forcing them to stay on Kyushu and Shikoku. Chinese, British and American forces liberated Korea on 27 June, and Manchuria on the 29 June.

With Russia as the last major combatant, and having most of Eastern Europe as a buffer, the League and allies simply took over the role of the Japanese in the East, though British, Dutch and Italian forces invaded the Crimea on 9 July. Iran joined 11 July, opening up Central Asia to the British.

On 3 August, 1944, British, Italian and new French forces routed a Russian army outside of Kharkiv, Ukraine, revealing that the Russian forces were spread extremely thin. A quick march west liberated Kiev on 17 August. Russian forces began defecting or fleeing League and Allied forces on all fronts. On 31 October, Stalin shot himself in Moscow, just before British forces began assaulting the city. On 1 November, Russia formally sued for peace.

This finally ended the war in Europe, and allowed the League and Allies to focus on Japan. However, America requested that no action be taken yet except to continue wearing down Japanese forces. On 31 December, over the skies of Kyoto, a lone bomber was spotted by Japanese officials. They noted it, but ordered no attack on it, having little to no ammunition to attack with. Then, a soldier spotted in dropping one bomb. A flash.

On 3 January, 1945, Japanese awoke to a radio broadcast from their Emperor, declaring the war over, and Japan defeated.

The World War ended with an estimated 20 million dead, 15 million displaced, and near complete destruction of the world's economy and most of Europe's infrastructure. The League, however, was stronger than ever. With the British at the helm, and with new American backing, the League restructured itself into a formidable body, a international parliament as one person noted. Though ensuring the right of all nations to their own path, the League effectively began reordering the world. New nations were founded, mostly from the defeated German, French and Russian lands and colonies. An international agreement o use the British Pound and American Dollar as reserve currency came about, and giving the League the right to limit member nation's militaries, by force if need be, was introduced.

In honor of the change, a new League flag was ordered. Using the old League emblem on a white flag was passed, but worries that it would look too much like flags of truce saw two red stripes, representing the bloodshed that lead to the League's restructuring, were added.

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League of Nations

Following the conflict we now know as the Great War, the Great Powers saw the necessity of ensuring that such terrible bloodshed and destruction never be allowed to afflict mankind again. Therefore the League of Nations was born on the ashes of man's greatest, and most terrible, folly.



The primary signatories were, of course:
  • The Republic of France
  • Imperial Great Britain
  • Kingdom of Italy
  • Imperial Japan
  • Imperial Russia
  • United States of America
Established by the Treaty of Verdun in 1920, there were initially 43 sitgnatories in all. Over the succeeding decades new members were added until the LoN covered 81% of countries and 93% of the world population by 1955.

The LoN flag was adopted at the second biennial executive congress in Marseilles of 1922. Nicknamed the 'butterfly flag' after the use of Bernard Cahill's Butterfly projection of the world atlas (1909). The six stars were unofficially adopted for the six primary signatories; however the official explanation was that they represented the six continents of man. The purple field was chosen as being representative of no one national flag, though indicative of many (ie. mixing red, white, and blue). The white box represents the inclusiveness of the League, where all people are welcome as long as they have peace in their hearts.

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On July 8, 1919, Woodrow Wilson returned to the United States and embarked on a nation-wide campaign to secure the support of the American people for their country’s entry into the League. On July 10, Wilson addressed the Senate declaring that “a new role and a new responsibility have come to this great nation that we honor and which we would all wish to lift to yet higher levels of service and achievement.” Positive reception, particularly from Republicans, was scarce at best.

The Paris Peace Conference, convened to build a lasting peace after World War I, approved the proposal to create the League of Nations on 25 January 1919. The Covenant of the League of Nations was drafted by a special commission, and the League was established by Part I of the Treaty of Versailles. On 28 June 1919, 45 states signed the Covenant, including 32 states which had taken part in the war on the side of the Triple Entente or joined it during the conflict. Wilson's efforts to establish and promote the League won him the Nobel Peace Prize in October 1919. Wilson stood firm on his position for entry. It would not be until the scandalous suicide of Alice Roosevelt Longworth, William E Borah;s mistress, that the political wall the Republicans had placed to block the US's entry started to crumble. Further embarassing personal scandals cuased Henry Cabot Lodge and the other Republicans eventually to lose the moral fight. Even though they didn’t want to have the US as members of the League, there was no way for them to fight this battle anymore.

The League held its first council meeting in Paris on 16 January 1920, six days after the Versailles Treaty came into force In November, the headquarters of the League moved to Geneva, where the first General Assembly was held on 15 November 1920 with representatives from 42 nations in attendance.

In 1925 a contest was held world wide for the design of a flag for the League. The eventual winner was a ten year old boy from England by the name of Gerard Herbert Holtom, who would go onto to greater fame after designing the Peace Arch in Moscow following the Second Russian Civil War.

Flag: The flag itself is a field of white representing peace. The central symbol is a soft shade of blue and represents optimism. The symbol itself is made up of the positions for the letters L, O, and N when using Semaphore Flags. There are five lines making up the symbol each representing the continents (six lines if you split the L line into two separate parts representing Europe and Asia individually). The symbol takes the shape of mountains which symbolizes overcoming obstacles or making progress in world peace.

One of the fears of the member states from the beginning was that the power of the supranational organization might supersede their own if a flag was designed and used. After the contest was finished and the flag chosen, it was decided that each member nation would fly the League flag with that nation’s own flag as the canton. This symbolized the place of each individual nation as a sovereign state rather than just a part of empirical super-state. Examples in another post.

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