A Brief History Of The Belgian Flag

Although not really, because that isn’t the actual order Belgians use today. So does this mean Belgian citizens have been unknowingly turning their flag the wrong way for 185 years in a row? Not exactly. As it turns out the lack of specificity in the description had some people assuming that the flag’s colors would be horizontal, like they were in the one used before and during the actual revolution: red on top, yellow in the middle and black at the bottom. The Constitution’s vagueness on the matter led to confusion running rampant with horizontal flags with red on top and ones with black on top, and a few vertical ones thrown in for safe measure.

This really became a problem when Belgian rebels started firing away at their own troops because they confused their country’s flag with the Dutch one, which has red on top, in the midst of all the canon smoke. The incidents prompted a swift decision on the flag’s features once and for all and the current reincarnation with a horizontal stripe of black attached to the stick was introduced. Article 193 was never amended however, making quirky Belgium the only country in the world that doesn’t literally follow the flag order its Constitution prescribes.