0.2 Identifying the flags of the souvenir of egypt  (Page 3/7)

We check the appendix for our plate number (listed atop the images), 21

"The crescent moon and star... were adopted by the Turks as their device on the capture of Constantinople by Mahomet II, in 1453. They were originally the symbol of Diana, the Patronessof Byzantium, and were adopted by the Ottomans as a badge of triumph. Prior to that event, the crescent was a very common charge in the armorial bearings of English Knights, but it fellinto considerable disuse when it became the special device of the Mohamedans, though even so late as the year 1464 we find Rene, Duke of Anjou, founding an Order of Knighthoodhaving as its badge the crescent moon, encircled by a motto signifying 'praise by increasing.'

"flags of the world, past and present : their story and associations" written by william john gordon in 1926

Gordon writes: "The crescent is more a symbol of Constantinople than of the Turks, and it dates from the days of Philip of Macedon, the father of Alexander the Great. When, so thelegend runs, that enterprising monarch besieged Byzantium in 339 B.C he met with repulse after repulse and tried as a last resource to undermine the walls, but the crescent moon shone out sogloriously that the attempt was discovered and the city saved. And thereupon the Byzantines adopted the crescent as their badge, and Diana, whose emblem it was, as their patronness.When the Roman emperors came, the crescent was not displaced, and it continued to be the city badge under the Christian emperors. In 1453, when Mohammed the Second took Constantinople, itwas still to the fore, and being in want of something to vary the monotony of the plain red flag under which he had led his men to victory, he, with great discrimination, availedhimself of the old Byzantine badge, explaining that it meant Constantinople on a field of blood..."