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Denmark Army flags

Military Colours
Danish army company marker flag (1864 war)
Infirmary Flag

Military Colours

by Joe McMillan

Danish infantry units carry a regimentsfane or bataljonsfane. According to old files at the US Army Institute of Heraldry, this flag measures 105 x 140 cm, but pictures on the web and a news photograph I clipped from the Washington Post several years ago indicate a proportion of roughly 3:4 is actually in use. The flag is a variation of the Dannebrog, with a curvilinear white Dannebrog cross, set with its center about 1/2 the width of the hoist from the hoist edge. The royal cypher is embroidered in gold over the center of the cross, the unit badge in gold in the upper hoist, and the unit number and/or name in gold in the lower hoist. Some regiments have additional marks in the upper and lower fly. The Prince's Life Regiment, for instance, as Prince Henrik's cipher in the upper fly and the Queen Mother's in the lower, as it was formerly her "life regiment." The finial is an ornate gold openwork spearhead with the royal cypher in the center. Attached below the spearhead are one or more fanebander, lengths of red silk with gold fringe at each end, knotted around the pike, with the regiment's battle honors (name of battle and year) inscribed in gold. The color is decorated with a gold cord with two tassels and bordered with a thin strip of gold cord. The sleeve holding the color to the pike is attached with ornamental nails, the first three of which represent the sovereign, the Fatherland, and the Union. The color of the Den Kongelige Livgarde (Royal Life Guard) regiment is shown.

Cavalry (armor) units carry an estandart, of similar design to the infantry fane, but smaller and square, with the cross centered on the field. The royal cypher is in the upper hoist and the initials of the regiment in the lower hoist.

Principal source: Danish Battalion "Fane med Faneband".

Joe McMillan, 21 February 2002

Danish army company marker flag (1864 war)

by Edward Mooney, Jr.

This image was located at a site from the Deutsches Historisches Museum in Berlin describing an exhibition on "Wahlverwandtschaft" or "Elective Affinity" between Germans and Scandinavians. From the page titled "War," describing the conflicts between Germans (or Prussians and Austrians) and Danes over Schleswig and Holstein, the dual duchies that were German in heritage but ruled by the Danish royal house. This image is named by the site "5danekl2.jpg" and appears to me to be some sort of Danish regimental flag. Can anyone confirm this?
Roger Moyer, 24 October 2000

Sort of. Yes, I think I saw similar flags at the museum at the "Danish wall", the dike build across the passable tracts of southern Jutland in the first millennium to protect it against invaders from the south, which was wa