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Kingdom of Romania - Governmental Flags

Last modified: 2018-03-24 by rob raeside
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Government flags

These are flags of government ministers from the Kingdom of Romania (1921-1947) unless otherwise noted.

War minister:

[War minister] image by Željko Heimer, based on Flaggenbuch (1939)

The national tricolour in a square format with a white letter M in the middle of the blue stripe.  As explained previously, there are some minor differences between
this flag and the one used today, but they may be only due to different representations. There is no indication when this flag was adopted. According to FOTW the flag was used up to 1952 when a new flag was adopted for the function. However, do we have any confirmation that it was actually used after WWII at all? I presume that it might have been technically abolished only in 1948, but it might have been in disuse even longer.
Željko Heimer, 25 December 2002


Other Ministers:

[Other Ministers] image by Željko Heimer

The national tricolour in the square form. The flag was apparently abandoned after WWII, and was not readopted in the end of 20th century.
Željko Heimer, 25 December 2002


Navy Jack, 1921(?)

[Navy Jack, 1921] 1:1, image by Calvin Paige Herring

A yellow square flag with a red border and the coat of arms in the middle. According to the explanation for the war ensign, below, the maximum usage period might have been 1921-1948. We need more data to see what was used earlier, if anything.
Željko Heimer, 25 December 2002


Flag of a naval officer as the captain of a merchant ship:

[Flag of a naval officer as the captain of a merchant ship] image by Calvin Paige Herring

The national tricolour with the crown in the middle stripe. This flag is, I presume, equivalent to what we would call a reserve officer's ensign, though from the caption in Flaggenbuch (1939) it is not clear if the flag was indeed used by an officer not on duty. One should note that the crown used was not the national crown used to crown the shield of the arms (usually called, I think, the Iron Crown of Romania), but the conventional heraldic royal crown. (But then, neither the crowns with which are crowned heraldic beasts in the coat of arms are Iron Crowns.)
Željko Heimer, 25 December 2002

Romanian sources do not have information about Reserve Naval Officers working as Captains/Master Mariners on S.M.R. vessels having the right to hoist such a flag on board when they were on duty! Besides the Captains (Naval Reserve) the S.M.R vessels were
captained by civil Captains so I doubt very much that S.M.R. (a government company) would had made such a discrimination between
Captains!
Marinel Chiriac, 2 May 2015


River police:

[River police] 1:1, image by Željko Heimer

A blue square flag with a white letter P in the middle. As with most other flags shown in Flaggenbuch (1939) for Romania this was probably abandoned after WWII, and was not readopted in the 1990's. However, I would suspect that Romania uses since second half of the 20th century a white triangular pennant with a voided blue lozenge as a signal indicating river police on Danube as do other Danubian countries. I don't remember reading reports about it from Romania (nor Bulgaria) so confirmation should be interesting.
Željko Heimer, 25 December 2002


Postal service:

[Postal Service] ~4:5, image by Željko Heimer

Postal Flag of the “Serviciul Maritim Român” (S.M.R.) (Romanian Maritime Service). A white swallow-tailed flag with the national flag in a square canton defaced overall with the royal crown and hanging from the canton on blue strings a golden postal horn. This image was made using the crown from Calvin Paige Herring's flag of a Naval Officer as Captain of Merchant Ship.
Source: the German Flaggenbuch, redrawn following the depiction of the flag in the source.
Željko Heimer, 25 December 2002

S.M.R. paramount document, "Instructiuni asupra serviciului interior la bordul bastimentelor, Bucuresti, 1897 (free translation: Instructions with regard to the job fulfilling on board the ships Bucharest, 1897") describes the SMR postal flag as follows: "A white swallow-tailed flag with the national flag in a canton and a postal horn and a crown on white background."
Marinel Chiriac, 2 May 2015


Pilot:

[Pilot] 10:13, image by Željko Heimer

National flag with white border.
Flaggenbuch (1939) gives dimensions: height of the tricolour 6, width of each stripe 3, width of border 2. Of course, this yields an overall ratio of 10:13. I suspect that these dimensions, which are certainly the most straight forward have not changed since and that if later images (like the one in Album des Pavillons (1995) do not entirely match it they are only imprecise.
Željko Heimer, 25 December 2002