In this day and age, the origin of flags is a highly debatable matter even though flags were used as symbols thousands of years ago by ancient cultures. There is a section of people who believe that flags first originated in China, whereas there are others who say that Roman Empire’s “vexillum” was the first true flag.
Some people don’t accept “vexillum” as a first true flag because the original standards of Roman legions were not flags. They were symbols like eagle of Augustus Caesar’s Xth. A military unit from Scythia used a dragon as their symbol, but it had a flexible tail which swirled in the wind. Legions took no time in copying this idea and ended up having a flexible standard for themselves which is our modern-day-flag.
Flags were also used in the battle field. The primary purpose of the flag was identification of individual leaders. For example: The knights (in Europe), the Samurai (in Japan) and the Generals under the imperial army (in China).
Since the time of Christopher Columbus and onwards, it was made customary for ships to carry flags that stated their nationality. It has become a legal requirement now. These flags eventually evolved into the national flags and maritime flags of today. Since there was no means of communication between two ships in the ocean, flags became the preferred means of communications. This resulted in various forms of signals used in Navy today. For example: Alpha, Bravo and so on.
At the start of the 17th century, centralized armies completely replaced European knights. This was the time when flags not only became the means of identification of nationalities but also individual military units. The significance of flags was elaborated to new levels. However, these flags were too dangerous for those who carried them and by World War I they were withdrawn from the battlefields. Since then, flags have been used only at ceremonial occasions.
