Camouflage Artist | George W. Weisenburg

Papier mâché dead horse and wagon (c1918). Author's collection.

In an earlier post called Horse Carcass Camouflage, we published two WWI-era photographs, along with a written eyewitness account, of a sniper's observation post in the spurious form of a dead horse—it was actually made of papier mâché. Reproduced here is another image from the same period, showing what appears to be another horse carcass and a wagon, but again the carcass is papier mâché. This is one of a dozen or more news photographs that were apparently sent out by the US government to promote amusing stories about the cleverness of camoufleurs. There is no way to know for sure when and how these techniques originated, or to what extent a trick like this was actually used on the battlefield.

Related to this, we recently found a news article from 1919, which claims that a Chicago artist named George W. Weisenburg (1886-1962) made the first papier mâché horse carcass (we have our doubts). The article, titled "Oak Park Man Created Camouflage, and His Art Horse Causes Health Department Complaint," appeared in Oak Leaves (Oak Park IL), Saturday, July 29, 1919, p. 30. Here's part of the text—

 

One day last year at Camp Grant [Rockford IL] the health inspector of the camp was making his rounds when, lying out in a field, he espied what was apparently a dead horse. Into the office of the commander of the camp stormed the health inspector.

"Your men," said he, "allow dead horses to lie about the place. This is a high crime."

The commander of the camp merely smiled. "That's a camouflage horse," he explained patiently. "It is made of papier mâché and inside its stomach a man can lie concealed." The horse was an example of the work of Sergeant Weisenburg.

Which is merely by way of prelude to the statement that Sergeant George Weisenburg of 1024 Wenonah [Oak Park IL] returned home on Friday of last week after eleven months' service in France as a camouflage artist for the 311th Engineers. Sergeant Weisenburg went to Camp Grant with a trench mortar battery. A few months later he was transferred to the camouflage corps. He was a graduate of the Chicago Art Institute and his ability as an artist was soon discovered. He was given charge of a company of artists who designed screens to camouflage the approach of troops or ammunition transports. The idea of the camouflage horse was his own creation and attracted wide attention.

At the Art Guild in Rockford [IL] he was requested to exhibit a number of canvases that had been hung at the American Art Exhibit. He was promoted to first class sergeant.

After eleven months at Camp Grant he was attached to the 311th Engineers and went overseas with the outfit. After eight months of service in France he was allowed to take a three months' course at the art center at Bellevue, being listed as a special casual. The school was designed by the American Government for those members of the AEF wishing to avail themselves of an advanced course in art. Sergeant Weisenburg returned to America last week, receiving his discharge at Camp Mills [Long Island NY]. He is a son of Dr. and Mrs. Berthold Weisenburg of 1024 Wenonah Avenue [Oak Park].

Beyond that, there isn't much online about Weisenburg, although there is one mention of his having been an art teacher (in later life) at Marshall High School in Oak Park.

Horse Carcass Camouflage

Pictured above are US Government photographs showing the same subject from two camera angles. The top photo appears to be the carcass of a dead horse on a World War I battlefield, but the bottom photo shows that it is only a papier mâché simulation of a horse carcass, with a sniper hidden inside.  This kind of camouflage was described in a war memoir by an American soldier named Samuel Benney Benson titled Back From Hell (Chicago: A.C. McClurg, 1918)—

The system of camouflage which the French have worked out in this war [World War I], is something new also. The word has come to mean in America "dodging," "deception," "bunk," or anything that is not out in the open and above board; and that is just what camouflage means in the war in France. It is a method by which things are made to appear to be what they are not, for the purpose of fooling the enemy. It makes an artificial thing seem to be a natural thing so that it will not excite suspicion and draw his fire. When the French place a battery of guns which naturally they do not want put out of commission by the enemy's guns, they have the camouflage artist get busy with his paint and canvas and create a whole lot of little trees or bushes just like the ones which grow in the ground and then under cover of darkness when the enemy can't see them, or when his attention is distracted, they plant the trees, place the guns behind them, and they have a concealed battery.

Snipers are also often hidden in this same kind of a manner. The camoufleur with his magic art of scenery makes a dead horse. He has his head stretched way out on the ground and his legs pointing up in the air, stiff and stark. A great hole or chunk has been torn out of his body, but as it happens, it is never right through the middle part of him because this would not leave protection for the sniper. The horse "conveniently" had the shell strike him on the side. He is placed wherever he will do the most good in the night time and Mr. Sharpshooter, with his noiseless rifle and plenty of ammunition and one day's food, crawls in behind him. There he stays till daybreak. Yes, and a long while after. He must stay there all day long until darkness again draws down a curtain of safety about him, for if he attempted to move out in daylight some sniper or machine-gun artist would instantly pick him off. If he lays low till dark he may fool them and get away all right.

But the camera sometimes discovers things which the human eye would not detect, and the camera is always busy. The air flier might soar above a spot in the enemy's lines and not notice anything wrong or see that there was any object in addition to what was there the day before, but when he snapped the shutter of his camera and the photograph was developed, by comparing it with yesterday's photograph of the same place, he might see that there was an extra horse's carcass lying there. Now he knows there was no cavalry charge through the night, and so he becomes suspicious. Consequently the horse is watched. Perhaps in time, some one sees the man's arm protruding a little, or perhaps a man is picked off without any apparent cause.

 Just for luck the enemy takes a shot at the old dead horse and suddenly a man rises and tries to run back. But he stumbles and falls. He is killed. Perhaps he has accounted for a half dozen Boches during the day and the Frenchman dies happy. That's what he's there for, to sacrifice his life for France in weakening Germany's cruel hold upon his country.

…Very often they camouflage roads with evergreen trees so as to hide the view of the motor lorries and camions which are so essential in taking supplies and ammunition up to the front. An old forlorn and battered gun may camouflage a fine new field piece, and sometimes a weatherbeaten, broken-down piece of farm machinery may be counterfeited in order to hide an observer, a listener, or a sniper. Such a man must be of a stout heart and not afraid to go over the Great Divide for it is full of hazard. If he is discovered it's all over for him.

More Horse Carcasses & Phony Observation Trees

Steel-Lined Dead Tree Observation Post

Above During the trench warfare of World War I, both sides of the conflict "test drove" the idea of clandestinely replacing familiar large dead tree trunks with steel-lined replicas of the same trees. Equipped inside with a ladder and a telephone, these were used as observation posts. Given the skill and effort required to construct one of these, not to mention the challenge of putting it in place (at night, in total darkness), there can only have been a few of these.

As noted in an earlier post, British painter Solomon J. Solomon (initially in charge of the Camouflage Section of the Royal Engineers) is thought to have been responsible for erecting the first British observation tree in March 1916, a task that he later depicted in a well-known painting.

In this wartime photograph, we see a British soldier apparently inspecting a faux tree made by German camoufleurs. There are a few eyewitness accounts of how these were constructed, and at least one British observation tree has survived and is in the collection of the Imperial War Museum in London.

•••

E. Alexander Powell, Italy at War and the Allies in the West. [The War on All Fronts series. Vol IV] New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1919.

At a certain very important point on the French front there long stood, in an exposed and commanding position, a large and solitary tree, or rather the trunk of a tree, for it had been shorn of its branches by shell fire. A landmark in that flat and devastated region, every detail of this gaunt sentinel had long since become familiar to the keen eyed observers in the German trenches, a few hundred yards away. Were a man to climb to its top—and live—he would be able to command a comprehensive view of the surrounding terrain. The German sharpshooters saw to it, however, that no one climbed it. But one day the resourceful French took the measurements of that tree and photographed it. These measurements and photographs were sent to Paris. A few weeks later there arrived at the French front by railway an imitation tree, made of steel, which was an exact duplicate in every respect, even to the splintered branches and the bark, of the original. Under cover of darkness the real tree was cut down and the fake tree erected in its place, so that, when daylight came, there was no change in the landscape to arouse the Germans' suspicions. The lone tree-trunk to which they had grown so accustomed still reared itself skyward. But the "tree" at which the Germans were now looking was of hollow steel, and concealed in its interior in a sort of conning tower, forty feet above the ground, a French observing officer, field glasses at his eyes and a telephone at his lips, was peering through a cleverly concealed peep-hole, spotting the bursts of the French shells and regulating the fire of the French batteries.

•••

Of course there were other kinds of battlefield observation posts as well, such as the supposed use of imitation horse carcasses as hiding places, as was featured earlier. My own suspicion is that few of these colorful camouflage ploys were actually used on the battlefield. But they proved immensely valuable as amusing illustrations for exaggerated news reports, which boosted recruiting and Liberty Loans. Below for example are photographs of the two sides of a roughed-out dead horse carcass trick, mocked-up in clay by camoufleurs at Camp Taylor KY (c1918).

Phony Horse Carcass Used as Observation Post

comical British camouflaged shooting jackets in 1894

suggested shooting jackets

Above This is a Victorian-era cartoon (most likely British), published in 1894, artist and source publication unknown. The heading on the original was Comic Pictures, with a subtitle of Some Suggestions for Shooting Jackets. It has no direct connection to the article that follows below in this blog.

•••

CAMOUFLAGE IS JUST GOOD OLD BLUFF APPLIED TO WAR TACTICS: The Greeks and Their Wooden Horse Originated It, the French Developed It and the Yanks Excel at it, in Salt Lake Herald-Republican-Telegram, April 28, 1918, p. 10—

Some folk will take you clear back to the wooden horse of Troy for the origin of camouflage, and still others insist that it was first used somewhere beyond that. Then there are those who contend that it was first used in this, the Great World War.

We do know of instances where camouflage was used in the fairly ancient history of our own country, as a country or colony, and we are fairly well up on the methods of utilizing it now that it has passed through its comic supplement stage and all the comic artists have had their go at it.

The country is taking it in its serious aspect and the war department is encouraging the best thought which can be concentrated on the subject.

It has been said by teachers of the art that camouflage, simmered down and stripped of its glamor, is nothing other than the good old peacetime game of bluff applied to war tactics. If it be that, then who shall excel the American at it?

CAMOUFLAGE FOR 'ALL
In the accompanying illustration are shown only a few of the many, many means of utilizing the art in land warfare. There are countless other tricks on land and more being used in sea fighting and air battles.

The camouflaged road Is the result of hanging boughs and brown cloth drapes over a road as flies hang over a stage. Troop movements may be made over such a road in comparative safety. The big French gun In Flanders pictured here is painted so as to harmonize with a wooded background. The oddly striped tree climber may hide without great risk of being seen by aviators of the enemy, in a tree top while he does sniping or observation work. The papier mache horse being used as an intelligence or listening station appears to the enemy as a horse carcass, not a sight to arrouse suspicion in No Man's Land.

Then there is the camouflage of so wrapping a man that he appears to be a tree stump.

ABSENCE COST LIVES
The olive drab and khaki uniforms worn by our fighting men today are the outgrowth of the costly absence of camouflage ln the past. The blue uniforms worn in the Civil War were so much in contrast with any surroundings the soldiers might lave that the boys of the South could find their marks readily. And the gray of the Southern troops was little better. Both were infinitely more serviceable, however, than the bright red uniforms worn in earlier wars by the British.

Braddock's famous defeat by the Indians may be traced to the shining targets offered by the scarlet uniforms of Braddock's men for the arrows of the Indians, while the slim, brown figures of the natives blended so harmoniously with the tree trunks, the ground and the underbrush that the Britons could scarcely see where they were.

In the East have sprung up, since the war sucked the United States into itself, numerous schools for camoufleurs with official and semi-official training forces. Artists are going into the work with enthusiasm.

JUNGLE ITS ORIGIN
The American Institute of New York is beginning next month a series of lectures to engineers and painters on "Camouflage as an Aid to Modern Warfare." Lieutenant H. Ledyard Towle of the Seventy-First NYG machine gun company, an expert camoufleur and an artist and painter of some note, is to deliver the Ieclures.

In a lecture recently before New York artists, Lieutenant Towle sald:

"The Lord knows more about camouflage than any of us amateurs. Consider the lion and his tawny mane. In repose he Is a tiny undulation on the sunburnt clap; the zebra, with his stripes, lost in the shadow of the tall grasses: the leopard, with his spots, crouched for a spring amid the sun flecked leaves of a tree, who would suspect his presence? Isn't it astonishing that with such examples of the value of protective colors that we have done so little to develop the idea? The chameleon gives us the art perfectly demonstrated."

The French made the first effective use of camouflage in this war. They were the first to see that its results warranted specialization in it. After the Germans were turned back at the Marne and the lines of opposing trenches stretched themselves from the sea to the Swiss border, the fight in the west theatre resolved itself into a standoff as far as actual fighting was concerned, and the battle became one of wits. Fool the other fellow and victory was yours.

FRENCH WERE FIRST
The French withdrew from the fighting ranks artists, painters, metal workers, photographers, architects and engineers. A special corps of camoufleurs was formed. Their work has been marvelous.

The camoufleur's art has reached its apex in No Man's Land. The toe of a dead soldier's boot may house tho eye of a periscope and from the boot to a trench may run the tunnel through which the observer communicates. An old post, left standing after the wire entanglement it supported has been shot away, may have a periscope eye and a tunnel. A limp form in the uniform of a soldier enmeshed in the wire may lure comrades out to bring It in. And when they touch it they may set off a bomb which ends their quest—and their days.

The first company of American camoufleurs is encamped just outside Washington and volunteers and drafted men aro being sent there weekly from all parts of the country.

To use the words of Lieutenant Towle again:

"If the wit and technical cleverness of a few men can be the large factor in saving a regiment, then the time and trouble taken in the process of training for camouflage will have been well spent." 

RELATED LINKS    

Dazzle Camouflage: What is it and how did it work? /  Nature, Art, and Camouflage / Art, Women's Rights, and Camouflage /  Embedded Figures, Art, and Camouflage / Art, Gestalt, and Camouflage /  Optical science meets visual art /  Disruption versus dazzle / Chicanery and conspicuousness /  Under the big top at Sims' circus

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Papier Mâché Used in Wartime Camouflage

H.L. Messmore with battlefield dummy (1918)

Above Above is a colorized version of a 1918 photograph of H.L. Messmore, a prominent supplier of components for amusement parks, carnivals and expositions. For example, he contributed to the Panama Exposition in San Francisco, the Chicago World’s Fair, the Golden Gate Exposition and the New York World’s Fair. He was a partner in Messmore and Damon, which his brother George established in 1914. It was H.L. who built the Electric Park in Detroit in 1907, and also served as manager of Luna Park at Coney Island.

During World War I, H.L. Messmore appears to have shared with the army his expertise in making papier mâché and plaster figures. In this photograph, he is inspecting an unpainted dummy of a soldier, to which he is about to add sculpted binoculars. The caption on the black and white photograph (which is available online at the National Archives and Records Administration website) states that “after use in this country in the Liberty Loan Campaign, [it] will be placed in a trench in France as a dummy target.”

In earlier posts, we’ve talked about such uses of plaster and papier mâche dummies during WWI. Since horse carcasses were a common feature at the front, hollowed-out dummy horses might be used as observation posts. An instructional example (in this case, it appears to be a clay model) is shown below, both front and back, including the rough-hewn shape of a soldier inside.

Spurious Horse Carcass (c1918)

When I was an art student in the 1960s, I thought papier mâché was a non-durable technique used only by hobbyists and amateurs. But I learned from one of my painting teachers that it was highly durable and had been used very seriously in building all sorts of astonishing things. In particular, he showed me a functional lute that he had made using papier mâché. I was amazed, since it looked and felt identical to a lute made out of wood. He also built highly detailed, elaborate marionettes from the same materials.

Arthur B. Jensen's book (1919)

During WWI, one of the people who made an effort to extend the use of papier mâché for military purposes was a man named Arthur B. Jensen (1899-1987), who was Danish-born (apparently) and lived in the vicinity of Rockford IL. While serving in the US Army Reserves, he was the senior instructor in the Camouflage Department of the Blackhawk Division, which was initially stationed at Camp Grant IL, near Rockford. At the end of the war, he published a book on the use of plaster and papier mâché for modeling, titled Jensen System of Modeling: Employing the Superskill Modeling Device (1919). As he explains and illustrates, while stationed at Camp Grant, he and other soldiers made a 25-foot high statue of Blackhawk (the Native American leader), constructed of waterproofed plaster and papier mâché. Reproduced below is the title spread of Jensen’s book, and a photograph of the statue he made.

Papier mache statue of Blackhawk (c1918)

The following is an excerpt from Jensen’s book (pp. 3-4)—

Plaste papier modeling has a glorious past. The US Army used this method in the World War for making dummies to attract enemy fire and so learn their location, and in many other ways. In several instances, a dead horse lying on No-Man's Land near the enemy trench was replaced by a good duplicate made in plaste papier, and the observer would crawl into the paper horse before dawn each day and observe the enemy's action all day at close range. Great guns were imitated in this material and placed in the vicinity of real guns that were carefully concealed through camouflage. The Boche [German] observers sent out to discover the location of the real batteries that were doing the havoc to the enemy would discover the paper guns only, and so the enemy artillery would train their fire on the dummy batteries and allow the real guns to continue their fire without being molested. The real guns were concealed by having their outlines painted out by means of broken forms of various colors painted all over the guns, and also covering the guns with foliage. A great statue of Blackhawk, 25 feet high,was modeled in this material and waterproofed, just before the Blackhawk Division left Camp Grant IL, for France in July 1918. This work was done by the Blackhawk Division's Camouflage Department, of which the writer was a member. It still stands, after these many months, defying the elements; the winds and rains and snows could not destroy it; and it still looks as permanent as though carved out of solid rock.

[Added March 22, 2017] Since our original post of this page, we've discovered a related article in the March 1920 issue of Boy's Life magazine, titled "The Use of Plaste Papier in the War" (p. 55), including the following excerpt—

Plaste papier is really nothing more than wrapping paper dipped in plaste, which makes it plastic and pliable while the artist is modeling with it, and very hard and rigid after it dries.  It was very light, being modeled as a hollow shell, and so could be carried about near the fornt line trenches easily.

To make this substance even more easily handled, Lieutenant A[rthur] B. Jensen has invented a superskill modeling device, which consists of aluminum strips which describe the important lines of the head, neck and shoulders of a man and woman. This device enables anyone to secure the correct lines and proportions of the head, without interfering in the slightest with the modeler's originality. On the same frame one can model the head of President Wilson, a portrait of himself, the bust of Venus de Milo, or any other subject.

Mirrored Camouflage Listening Posts in WWI

An apparent problem during World War I was that of trying to conceal an eavesdropper within listening distance of the enemy's position. As we've shown in earlier posts, this was sometimes accomplished by constructing (probably using papier mâché) the convincing likeness of a rotting horse carcass. Hollowed out and equipped with peepholes, it was of sufficient size that a soldier could secretly listen during the day, then return to his unit in darkness.

It is impossible to know how often (if at all) "ye olde dead horse deception" was actually used on the battlefield. The only photographs we've seen were made as demonstrations at camouflage training camps, and distributed to various American news services, for amusing wartime anecdotes. If the method were actually used on the battlefield, it would not be wise to reveal it to the public.

Other devices were also employed, or at least they were tested at camouflage training camps. Reproduced above, for example, is a US Army photograph of three soldiers who were testing a curious listening device that consists of a mirrored sheet mounted on a wooden frame (tilted forward slightly). The irregularly-shaped leafy edge is an attempt to make it fit in better within a natural setting. Because the panel front is mirrored, a distant observer would see a reflected image of the terrain, but not the soldier behind it. It may seem like a brilliant idea, but it can't have been very effective. In this photograph, the three soldiers are positioned so closely together that their own bodies would be partly visible in the mirror of the person behind them.

The National Archives and Records Administration online documentation of this (NARA 55162019 and 55162023) includes an additional photograph (as in before-and-after views). In that image (shown below), we see the enemy's point of view (more or less) and—voila!—there is not a trace of the hidden listeners (well, almost).

This idea was not unprecedented at the time of WWI, and it has since resurfaced frequently, probably independently of its older wartime function. As one of many examples, reproduced below is a patent drawing for a "Reflective Hunting Blind," invented c2008 by Kevin Pottmeyer and Chester Burdette and registered as US Patent 8579007 B2. It is currently available as the GhostBlind Waterfowl Blind.

It consists of four hinged panels, irregularly shaped along the top edge, with peepholes through which a hunter can look. The inner surface is covered with a disruptive camouflage pattern, while the side that faces out (as shown here) is a reflective mirror surface (tilted forward slightly). As a result, the inventors explain—

A game animal looking into the front of the blind from a distance therefore sees only a reflection of the terrain surrounding the blind, thereby making the blind substantially indiscernible from the surrounding terrain and effectively obscuring a hunter…