The war-ensign of the monarchy in represented in Fig. 213; it is composed of three equal horizontal bands of red, white, red, and bears in its centre beneath the Imperial crown a shield similarly divided. This flag originated in 1786, when the Emperor Joseph II. decreed its introduction. This shield was the heraldic device of the ancient Dukes of Austria, and is known to have been in existence in the year 1191, as Duke Leopold Heldenthum bore these arms at that date during the Crusades. The "Oesterreich-Ungarische Monarchie," to give it its official title, is under the command of one Sovereign, who is both Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary, but each of these great States has its own Parliament, Ministry, and Administration. Austria had long held the Hungarians in most unwilling subjection, and the disastrous outcome for Austria of the war with Prussia made it absolutely essential to make peace with Hungary, the Magyars seeing in the humiliation of Austria the opportunity that they had long been awaiting of becoming once again an independent State. A compromise was effected in February, 1867, by which the Hungarians were willing to remain under the rule of the Emperor of Austria, but only on condition that he submitted to be crowned King of Hungary, and that in the dual monarchy thus {102} created they should have absolutely the same rights and freedom as the Austrians. The Austrian flag, as we have seen, is red-white-red, while the Hungarian is red-white-green, and a commission being appointed to consider how these two flags could be blended into one, introduced on March 6th, 1869, as the result of its deliberations, the Austro-Hungarian national flag that we have represented in Fig. 214. The Austrian provinces have chiefly bi- or tri-color flags, the stripes being arranged horizontally. Thus Bohemia is red-white; Tyrol is white-red; Dalmatia is blue-yellow; Galicia is blue-red; Croatia is red-white-blue; Istria yellow-red-blue. We are so used in England to the idea that cheering is a spontaneous product that it seems strange to find that the official welcome by the Austrian fleet to their Emperor is a salute of twenty-one guns, followed by fifteen hurrahs. Each rank has its special limit of honour; thus a minister of State or field-marshal is saluted by nineteen guns and eleven hurrahs; a general by thirteen and seven, while a commodore drops to eleven and three; ambassadors, archbishops, consuls, all have their definite share of gunpowder and such specified amount of shouting as is held to be befitting to their position.