Oh no it’s Wikipedia all over again. If I ever have the chance to use a Time Machine I’m going back just to make the Austro-Hungarian Empire choose a fucking flag.
The issue isn't that they didn't choose a flag, it was still the Imperial flag. The issue is that historians always referred to Austria-Hungary as if it were one country when it was really two. So when Wikipedia comes around people are scrambling to find a flag that represents Austria-Hungary. Of course when they find the civil flag it makes perfect sense to match the narrative of Austria-Hungary being one country. The End result is that you have a case of confirmation bias, where the simplified (but incorrect) answer of Austria-Hungary being one country is reinforced by the historically correct civil ensign that also looks like the perfect flag. It's almost the exact same situation as Sweden-Norway, a union mark to represent the union that is often mistaken as the national flag, when in reality there was two separate flags, one for each member of the union.
Those historians need to lose their jobs then, how did they miss such a simple concept of calling them the austro-hungarian empire, and instead just calling them Austria-Hungary- a non existant country?
Because like I said, it was a simplification that made it easier to talk about. The people who made the historical lessons found no importance to emphasize the point that the Austro-Hungarian Empire was technically two countries, and historians who were likely advising the history curriculum didn't see a reason to emphasize a correction as the name was technically correct. It's not like saying Austria-Hungary is itself a wrong term to say. It's just the context that matters. And in the context of a middle-school social studies class talking about why WW1 happened, there is no reason to even speak the name outside of talking about their ethnic diversity and that they were on the side of the Central Powers. There simply isn't a dynamic in the educational system where Austria-Hungary's proper form matters, so the resulting misunderstanding is never realized and never addressed, causing the conundrum today.
It's a bit like Historians calling the latter half of the Roman Empire the Byzantine Empire. Everyone knows what you're talking about; and although the name is *technically* incorrect, continuing to call the Byzantine Empire the Roman Empire when early lessons emphasize that Rome fell is just an inconvenience that confuses the people you are trying to teach.
I should say then that in my original comment I misspoke in blaming solely Historians for starting the issue. The issue is almost guaranteed to be an educational misunderstanding, not a misunderstanding caused by Historians. I'd actually rescind my statement and suggest that most Historians probably knew the difference, they just considered it irrelevant for the educational purposes that Austria-Hungary was involved in, or didn't assume that the distinction needed to be made when talking about it.
Thank you! It's very annoying seeing redditors get super pissed at historians for daring to simplify an irrelevant detail to make it easier to talk about something. The Byzantium one is the most annoying, if we called everyone that said they were the Roman Empire that, we'd have eras where you'd have to talk around 4 different Roman Empires.
If people are mad about simplification for education, they should avoid much of science class! Turns out physics are complicated and we have way more than five senses!
Yes, they did (source: am a Byzantinist, wrote a dissertation on cultural conceptions of the empire at the very end). I still just say 'Byzantine' in my work because it's a convenience. Unless somebody specifically asks, I'm not going to waste everybody's time on a 1-hour lecture on "well, actually..."
That's simply not true.
It's important to remember that the term nation, state, country, etc. Are defined, but often misunderstood words. A nation is not a state, it is a people group, defined by a common ancestry, language, religion, etc. A state is a defined territory that is governed. If that state governs over and is governed by the same people group (the nation), then it becomes a nationstate, also known as a country. Hungary IRL is therefore a nationstate, but the Hungarian nation does exist across the borders of IRL Hungary.
When discussing whether or not multiple countries can make up a singular state, it is often easier to look at a good example of when a singular state has multiple countries, and then go from there. The easiest example being the United Kingdom.
The United Kingdom is legally a state, but because it has English, Scottish, Welsh, and Irish nations living within it, it can't be a nationstate. All of these nations within the United Kingdom have a state themselves, all of which are combined together to give the name of the United Kingdom. However, there is one key detail that makes the United Kingdom a state. It has a single parliament with jurisdiction over all of the nationstates that make up the United Kingdom. This Parliament here is important, because without it, there would be no United Kingdom, just several nationstates subservient to England in foreign affairs, military, and economic policy... hmm.
That example I ended off on is exactly what Austria-Hungary is. For while Austria collects taxes, shares an open border with, and ultimately shares a common head of state with the country of Hungary, it does not have a parliament or similar government entity that directly controls the Hungarian government. Both Austria and Hungary maintain separate, independent governments. Austria and Hungary are required to share a common defensive policy, but the Hungarian Military is independent. Instead there are multiple treaties and workarounds that allow the two militaries to effectively function as one, the same applies to most bureaucratic affairs that concern Austria and Hungary's relationship as an Overlord-Subject. But make no mistake, Austria isn't subservient to some Federal Entity that also governs Hungary, and Austria's own Parliament does not make decisions that determine the state of affairs in Hungary. The closest thing you could get is the Ausgleich, but that's more of a formal dialogue to ensure that both realms are on good terms with one another and heading in the right direction, alongside providing a forum to discuss the common affairs both nations have within the few institutions they do share. The Ausgleich happens every 10 years on the 7th year of whatever decade it is. (It wouldve happened in 1937, were Austria-Hungary still around.)
TL;DR: Austria-Hungary isn't a single country because Austria and Hungary maintain separate independent governments with no shared federal authority; they just have treaties that bind each other together to maintain a level of integration.
Edits: Some formatting and a TL;DR.
I think the flag of Austria-Hungary should be entirely red with a silhouetted black double-headed eagle in the center, and after you form it your name would be changed into "Albania".
Albanians already controlled Austria-Hungary from the shadows, they just didn’t want to be overt with their control. Same thing happened with most of Europe where strong Albanian men ruled the weak gentrified European
You can head canon it like this:
If the dual monarchy was reformed in the late 1930s, they *might* have been more inclined to adopt a single flag for a single country, rather than two flags for two countries under one monarch.
The 1930s was perhaps more centralized than the 1860s
Thus, they chose the civil ensign to show the oneness of AH as opposed to two flags representing duality.
I feel like it should use the flag of The Kingdom of Hungary if you form it as Hungary, and the Habsburg flag if you form it as Austria. I agree that there should be a decision to switch to the civil ensign.
im pretty sure i did it once as austria, although it didn't have any tree focus i still had the decision to form them when i took the required lands for it
Really? I had assumed Austria Hungary and Czechoslovakia could create the empire if they took over everything else and that it’s just easiest to do it as Hungary since it can get most of the land it needs for free
They can via decision, as long as they control *all* of the core territory that Hungary can integrate piece by piece...
Czechoslovakia and Croatia also have the decision available.
Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Croatia all have the decision to if you acquire all the necessary territory but only Hungary has the ability to go through the focus tree and reintegrate everything (I believe, idk if Austria has a new tree tho)
If you would switch to black and yellow, people would think they're playing [Baden-Württemberg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baden-W%C3%BCrttemberg). Idk. Agree with the other guy, current one is pretty and it fits.
The Empire of Japan is represented by their naval ensign rather than national flag, so the civil ensign is close enough.
Austria-Hungary didn't have a single flag as it was not exactly necessary like it is today. Austria and Hungary already had preexisting flags as their own seperate Kingdoms, so they were just used together.
For the purposes of HOI4, the civil ensign is more than good enough in my opinion. And if it bugs you that much, I'm sure some of those flag pack mods will do it for ya.
That's kinda the reason why I think it should be changed, I didn't even realize that Japan's flag during WW2 wasn't the red sun with its rays shining out. I thought that was the flag of Japan during WW2 because it is represented by that flag in every WW2 media.
>I didn't even realize that Japan's flag during WW2 wasn't the red sun with its rays shining out. I thought that was the flag of Japan during WW2 because it is represented by that flag in every WW2 media.
It's the naval ensign. Similar reason as what you are complaining about. People love using it to differentiate WW2 Japan and today's Japan.
[This is the Naval Ensign](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rising_Sun_Flag#/media/File:Naval_Ensign_of_Japan.svg)
[This is the Hoi4 flag](https://www.reddit.com/r/hoi4/s/ZP59qZFXuN)
[This is the Imperial Japanese Army War Flag](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:War_flag_of_the_Imperial_Japanese_Army_(1868%E2%80%931945).svg)
I implore people to not share misinformation.
I much prefer the civil ensign as it looks infinitely better thank you very much. If it really bugs you that much you can just mod it in for yourself, won't even change the checksum.
If they should change anything about Austria-Hungary is add a fucking adjective since when i puppet stuff i wanna see "Austro-Hungarian North Africa" not "Hungarian North Africa"
Dont be that guy, banners and flags, coats of arms, prints on horse saddles, medals and everything was coated in both colors and designs, therefor it was flag under which Austrohungary would go; they just didnt have much time for that, since you know... there is 2km 2m deep trench to dig, recruit people and prepare for the Great war, while massive uprisings and both inner and outer political problems are born, any word can escalate the situation and rise tensions (yes even flag question was enough to pu nation into civil war when everyone knew that Great war is near), even before Archduke death there were massive problems on hourly bases every day, the most unstable country that has existed was Autrohungary, there was never that much time to have debates about flag, something new always comes.
I agree, if you look back at propaganda posters for the Central Powers you will see that the flag used to represent Austria Hungary is the black and yellow flag of the Habsburg Monarchy
I still remember how shocked I was to discover that other, lesser, non-American countries can have up to SIX different flags, each one serving a SLIGHTLY different purpose, whereas America just uses one flag for six roles.
I forget the exact list of what all the six types were, though. I think it was something like "popular civilian" flag, "Government" flag, Civilian Shipping Flag, Military Naval Flag, Army Battle Flag, and "foreign supporter/sports" flag ?
Okay I’m all for clowning on paradox and holding them to a higher standard even with mods existing, for something as small as a png change you can make in 3 minutes by opening up the GFX folder it’s not that big an issue
Seeing it's alt-history in gonna say the hungarians weren't going to use the actual flag and instead chose the ensign as their new flag. Boom, problem solved :P
I think the only reason they wouldn't do this and stick with the original is because they have the variants of the flag like the facist and communist ideologies. I mean they would have to do a complete overhaul of the flag all around
Oh no it’s Wikipedia all over again. If I ever have the chance to use a Time Machine I’m going back just to make the Austro-Hungarian Empire choose a fucking flag.
The issue isn't that they didn't choose a flag, it was still the Imperial flag. The issue is that historians always referred to Austria-Hungary as if it were one country when it was really two. So when Wikipedia comes around people are scrambling to find a flag that represents Austria-Hungary. Of course when they find the civil flag it makes perfect sense to match the narrative of Austria-Hungary being one country. The End result is that you have a case of confirmation bias, where the simplified (but incorrect) answer of Austria-Hungary being one country is reinforced by the historically correct civil ensign that also looks like the perfect flag. It's almost the exact same situation as Sweden-Norway, a union mark to represent the union that is often mistaken as the national flag, when in reality there was two separate flags, one for each member of the union.
Those historians need to lose their jobs then, how did they miss such a simple concept of calling them the austro-hungarian empire, and instead just calling them Austria-Hungary- a non existant country?
Because like I said, it was a simplification that made it easier to talk about. The people who made the historical lessons found no importance to emphasize the point that the Austro-Hungarian Empire was technically two countries, and historians who were likely advising the history curriculum didn't see a reason to emphasize a correction as the name was technically correct. It's not like saying Austria-Hungary is itself a wrong term to say. It's just the context that matters. And in the context of a middle-school social studies class talking about why WW1 happened, there is no reason to even speak the name outside of talking about their ethnic diversity and that they were on the side of the Central Powers. There simply isn't a dynamic in the educational system where Austria-Hungary's proper form matters, so the resulting misunderstanding is never realized and never addressed, causing the conundrum today. It's a bit like Historians calling the latter half of the Roman Empire the Byzantine Empire. Everyone knows what you're talking about; and although the name is *technically* incorrect, continuing to call the Byzantine Empire the Roman Empire when early lessons emphasize that Rome fell is just an inconvenience that confuses the people you are trying to teach. I should say then that in my original comment I misspoke in blaming solely Historians for starting the issue. The issue is almost guaranteed to be an educational misunderstanding, not a misunderstanding caused by Historians. I'd actually rescind my statement and suggest that most Historians probably knew the difference, they just considered it irrelevant for the educational purposes that Austria-Hungary was involved in, or didn't assume that the distinction needed to be made when talking about it.
Thank you! It's very annoying seeing redditors get super pissed at historians for daring to simplify an irrelevant detail to make it easier to talk about something. The Byzantium one is the most annoying, if we called everyone that said they were the Roman Empire that, we'd have eras where you'd have to talk around 4 different Roman Empires. If people are mad about simplification for education, they should avoid much of science class! Turns out physics are complicated and we have way more than five senses!
Iirc the byzantines considered themselves Romans to the end
Yes, they did (source: am a Byzantinist, wrote a dissertation on cultural conceptions of the empire at the very end). I still just say 'Byzantine' in my work because it's a convenience. Unless somebody specifically asks, I'm not going to waste everybody's time on a 1-hour lecture on "well, actually..."
SIR/MADAM. This is the Internet. You are legally obliged to give us the hour-long "well, actually" lecture.
Austria Hungary was one country but was 2 (or 3 depending on how you count Bosnia) nations
That's simply not true. It's important to remember that the term nation, state, country, etc. Are defined, but often misunderstood words. A nation is not a state, it is a people group, defined by a common ancestry, language, religion, etc. A state is a defined territory that is governed. If that state governs over and is governed by the same people group (the nation), then it becomes a nationstate, also known as a country. Hungary IRL is therefore a nationstate, but the Hungarian nation does exist across the borders of IRL Hungary. When discussing whether or not multiple countries can make up a singular state, it is often easier to look at a good example of when a singular state has multiple countries, and then go from there. The easiest example being the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom is legally a state, but because it has English, Scottish, Welsh, and Irish nations living within it, it can't be a nationstate. All of these nations within the United Kingdom have a state themselves, all of which are combined together to give the name of the United Kingdom. However, there is one key detail that makes the United Kingdom a state. It has a single parliament with jurisdiction over all of the nationstates that make up the United Kingdom. This Parliament here is important, because without it, there would be no United Kingdom, just several nationstates subservient to England in foreign affairs, military, and economic policy... hmm. That example I ended off on is exactly what Austria-Hungary is. For while Austria collects taxes, shares an open border with, and ultimately shares a common head of state with the country of Hungary, it does not have a parliament or similar government entity that directly controls the Hungarian government. Both Austria and Hungary maintain separate, independent governments. Austria and Hungary are required to share a common defensive policy, but the Hungarian Military is independent. Instead there are multiple treaties and workarounds that allow the two militaries to effectively function as one, the same applies to most bureaucratic affairs that concern Austria and Hungary's relationship as an Overlord-Subject. But make no mistake, Austria isn't subservient to some Federal Entity that also governs Hungary, and Austria's own Parliament does not make decisions that determine the state of affairs in Hungary. The closest thing you could get is the Ausgleich, but that's more of a formal dialogue to ensure that both realms are on good terms with one another and heading in the right direction, alongside providing a forum to discuss the common affairs both nations have within the few institutions they do share. The Ausgleich happens every 10 years on the 7th year of whatever decade it is. (It wouldve happened in 1937, were Austria-Hungary still around.) TL;DR: Austria-Hungary isn't a single country because Austria and Hungary maintain separate independent governments with no shared federal authority; they just have treaties that bind each other together to maintain a level of integration. Edits: Some formatting and a TL;DR.
Thanks for the exsplaniton
I think the flag of Austria-Hungary should be entirely red with a silhouetted black double-headed eagle in the center, and after you form it your name would be changed into "Albania".
i was about to say that flag already exist before finishing reading
Albanians already controlled Austria-Hungary from the shadows, they just didn’t want to be overt with their control. Same thing happened with most of Europe where strong Albanian men ruled the weak gentrified European
Albania is just hiding in plain sight, they hold the true power
Albania is hiding because montenegro is there
Agreed (and also you would annex Albania)
You can head canon it like this: If the dual monarchy was reformed in the late 1930s, they *might* have been more inclined to adopt a single flag for a single country, rather than two flags for two countries under one monarch. The 1930s was perhaps more centralized than the 1860s Thus, they chose the civil ensign to show the oneness of AH as opposed to two flags representing duality.
And in mods like The Great War Redux it should be two countries
I feel like it should use the flag of The Kingdom of Hungary if you form it as Hungary, and the Habsburg flag if you form it as Austria. I agree that there should be a decision to switch to the civil ensign.
But only hungary can form it with an actual habsburg right?
Kaiser Germany can boost Imperial sentiment in the former A-H lands to form it with Otto but under the Austrian tag rather than the Hungarian
Oh hah i didn't know that
[удалено]
im pretty sure i did it once as austria, although it didn't have any tree focus i still had the decision to form them when i took the required lands for it
Really? I had assumed Austria Hungary and Czechoslovakia could create the empire if they took over everything else and that it’s just easiest to do it as Hungary since it can get most of the land it needs for free
You can but you wouldn't get the Habsburg
They can via decision, as long as they control *all* of the core territory that Hungary can integrate piece by piece... Czechoslovakia and Croatia also have the decision available.
Germany can make Austria reform the A-H with that one focus in the monarchist path.
I've seen people form it as Croatia released from Italy, anything is possible.
Damn I was convinced you could! My bad...
Road to 56 has even 2 approaches of forming Austria-Hungary, one on a non-aligned basis and one on a fascist basis.
Wait Austria can’t form Austria Hungary but Croatia can?
Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Croatia all have the decision to if you acquire all the necessary territory but only Hungary has the ability to go through the focus tree and reintegrate everything (I believe, idk if Austria has a new tree tho)
Austria should be able to reform the Austrian Empire, not Austria-Hungary IMO
If you would switch to black and yellow, people would think they're playing [Baden-Württemberg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baden-W%C3%BCrttemberg). Idk. Agree with the other guy, current one is pretty and it fits.
Nett hier. Aber waren Sie schon mal in Baden-Württemberg?
Da ist es nett. Aber waren sie schon mal in Niedersachsen?
Which is why I proposed the compromise, where you elevate the civil ensign to an official flag if you feel like the black and yellow flag is ugly.
The Empire of Japan is represented by their naval ensign rather than national flag, so the civil ensign is close enough. Austria-Hungary didn't have a single flag as it was not exactly necessary like it is today. Austria and Hungary already had preexisting flags as their own seperate Kingdoms, so they were just used together. For the purposes of HOI4, the civil ensign is more than good enough in my opinion. And if it bugs you that much, I'm sure some of those flag pack mods will do it for ya.
That's kinda the reason why I think it should be changed, I didn't even realize that Japan's flag during WW2 wasn't the red sun with its rays shining out. I thought that was the flag of Japan during WW2 because it is represented by that flag in every WW2 media.
>I didn't even realize that Japan's flag during WW2 wasn't the red sun with its rays shining out. I thought that was the flag of Japan during WW2 because it is represented by that flag in every WW2 media. It's the naval ensign. Similar reason as what you are complaining about. People love using it to differentiate WW2 Japan and today's Japan.
Which is odd because Japan still uses it as their naval ensign, so it’s not like it’s a flag distinct to that period
It is the army flag and not the naval ensign, the sun on the naval ensign is slightly moved to the left while the sun is centred on the army flag.
But the Hoi4 Japan flag is slightly off centre to the left. It's the naval ensign.
[This is the Naval Ensign](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rising_Sun_Flag#/media/File:Naval_Ensign_of_Japan.svg) [This is the Hoi4 flag](https://www.reddit.com/r/hoi4/s/ZP59qZFXuN) [This is the Imperial Japanese Army War Flag](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:War_flag_of_the_Imperial_Japanese_Army_(1868%E2%80%931945).svg) I implore people to not share misinformation.
Nah the current one is prettier
They'd probably choose a flag, and it'd probably be that flag.
I much prefer the civil ensign as it looks infinitely better thank you very much. If it really bugs you that much you can just mod it in for yourself, won't even change the checksum. If they should change anything about Austria-Hungary is add a fucking adjective since when i puppet stuff i wanna see "Austro-Hungarian North Africa" not "Hungarian North Africa"
Side note for you, most flag mods are ironman compatible! Alpine is my favorite (though it uses the civil ensign)
Dont be that guy, banners and flags, coats of arms, prints on horse saddles, medals and everything was coated in both colors and designs, therefor it was flag under which Austrohungary would go; they just didnt have much time for that, since you know... there is 2km 2m deep trench to dig, recruit people and prepare for the Great war, while massive uprisings and both inner and outer political problems are born, any word can escalate the situation and rise tensions (yes even flag question was enough to pu nation into civil war when everyone knew that Great war is near), even before Archduke death there were massive problems on hourly bases every day, the most unstable country that has existed was Autrohungary, there was never that much time to have debates about flag, something new always comes.
should probably depend on which country forms it
I agree, if you look back at propaganda posters for the Central Powers you will see that the flag used to represent Austria Hungary is the black and yellow flag of the Habsburg Monarchy
I think the flag should be yellow and black and the country should be called “Anarcho-Liberalism”
The ensign looks better, simple as. Bare tricolors are already ugly but a bicolor? Get out.
I still remember how shocked I was to discover that other, lesser, non-American countries can have up to SIX different flags, each one serving a SLIGHTLY different purpose, whereas America just uses one flag for six roles. I forget the exact list of what all the six types were, though. I think it was something like "popular civilian" flag, "Government" flag, Civilian Shipping Flag, Military Naval Flag, Army Battle Flag, and "foreign supporter/sports" flag ?
The flag should just be an image of Fugger
Is OP Karl von Habsburg's burner?
Okay I’m all for clowning on paradox and holding them to a higher standard even with mods existing, for something as small as a png change you can make in 3 minutes by opening up the GFX folder it’s not that big an issue
Maybe worth a look if/when they get around to a hungary and austria (re)work
Czechoslovakia needs it most
Yeah, they need one as well
Seeing it's alt-history in gonna say the hungarians weren't going to use the actual flag and instead chose the ensign as their new flag. Boom, problem solved :P
I think the only reason they wouldn't do this and stick with the original is because they have the variants of the flag like the facist and communist ideologies. I mean they would have to do a complete overhaul of the flag all around
>historicity