Iron Cross Flag Views
P. Rault (Les drapeaux bretons de 1188 1agrave; nos jours [rau98]) reports two Breton flags of dubious origin. The only source for these flags is a paper published by Raffig Toulou in the Breton review Skoed (#8, 1986-1987), entitled Ancient and modern Breton flags, heraldic blasons of Brittany . The first flag is horizontally divided white-black with a black iron cross in canton. The second flag is white with a black decentered cross and a black iron cross fimbriated in white and black in canton. Toulou describes these flags as follows:
Though iron cross may be generally understood, I believe that formy cross (or, more heraldically, cross formy or cross pattueacute;e ) would be more appropriate. Strictly speaking, the Iron Cross is only a Prussian, later German, decoration for valour, which became more generally used as a symbol of the German armed forces. Thus its association with a different country's flags may be confusing. Also, the (German) iron cross is almost always depicted as a very specific kind of cross formy, with curved arms (unlike those on these dubious Breton flags) and with a white-black fimbriation. However, it appears that Toulou himself uses iron cross in his descriptions.
Iron Cross Flag Images
