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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
