CAMOUFLAG.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLII, Issue 10108, 16 October 1917, Page 8

CAMOUFLAG.

THE REAL “ART” OF WAR. FA RIO \U)ADS AND TOWNSHIPS. OPEAT WORK OF FRENCH. Camouflage.—Humbugging disguise.; its main principle is the destruction <)1 jutline by paint or other artiiicc. See Famouile; Cumoulleur. Sucli is the madc-to-ovdcr definition if one of the newest words in our language, put then? by the- necessities of ,var. It will not bo found in any dienonary as yet. hut it will soon be in its iroper place, precise and up-to-ciato. vrilcs Reginald 1,-. Foster in the ,Vo rid. The adaptive and imaginative, Frenchman coined it; the Britishers ,vere slower to take up this new art of oueealing themselves and their equipnont from the common enemy. In fact, io much so that their chief protagonist, M. C<. Wells, the novelist, goes alter his :ompatriots in this fashion. “Tiro principle of breaking the outline •foes not seem to be fully grasped upon he British front. Much of the paining of guns and tents that one sees is v feeble and. useless dabbing or stripng; some of the tents 1 saw. were done n concentric bands of radiating stripes hat would on the whole increase their visibility from above. In one place t saw a- hangar painted a good greyjroen, but surrounded and outlined by white tents. . . . Vly impression—

and it may be quite an unjust one—was that some of our British colonels misunderstand and dislikecamouflage." lie that asi it may. America, is for this now highly developed trick of war, brush, lube, palette and all. Two hunIred of the foremost artists of New 'fork and. other cities have, already responded to the call, and when our canuou roll out toward the front they will ook from above, like the grassy ground, and our hangars and our camps and anr depots for munitions and .supplies, will be peaceful bits of moadowlaml or forest, as viewed from the German aeros circling the blue; a tarpaulin covering a pile of big shells lying in a. roadway will have the dust oi theyoad and the green of its edges reproduced upon it. Our army is for the camouflage first, last, and all the time! Sherry E. Fry and Barry Faulkner, two New York artists, who were recipients of the American prise to Home, \dere the prime movers in the American camouflage. They enlisted the aid oi Walter Hale, Edwin Blashfield. .1. Alden Weir, and other men of similar distinction. The American Academy of Design went in, and the Architectural League, followed by the Society of Illustrators and the Society of Scene Faintors. i\l r Hlashlield was made chairman and Mr Fry secretary. Then Washington was notified, and an appreciative letter came from the office of the Chief of Staff.

A battalion of four companies of the camouflage is tentatively proposed lor each tickl army of from four to six divisions. Each company will consist of a captain of cam out! am*, with three or four lieutenants, eight or ten sergeants, fifteen to twenty corporals, and the remainder privates. Its members will be put on a strict military basis as to pay and allowances. A committee ol the War College Division is now studying camouflage with a view to making definite recommendations to the Secretary of War. In the meantime the New York volunteer artists have been asked to submit technical details as to material and functions.

Abbott if. Thayer, the well-known Academician, was the first individual ever to take up the art of concealment, when ho began the study of the protective colouring of animals twenty-five years ago. lie noted that such beasts as the zebra and the okapi were merged in the landscape at a. few yards distance; and ho evolved the principle that the breaking of outline was the destruction of visibility. Little was thought of camouflage at the onset of the present _ big conflict. There were the officers’ white kid gloves —fatal targets for German snipers—

mid waving pi inn vs; the burnished cuirass. and the pennoned lance*. Then tiie two contending lines dug themselves in and locked horns. Concealment became all important—concealment from the aero with the eagle, eye; from the artillery observation station, binocular-eyed; from the practiced glance of the sharpshooter and the keen vision of the patrols. Artists in the ranks busied themselves; a new branch of the art military was born —camouflage!. To-dav it is highly developed. There

are two branches, invisibility and imitation. A supply train may look like a row of cottages; that is imitation. A screen tops a great pun so that the. green of the screen blends with the grass of the meadow; that is invisibility. And there is a third oll'shoot— the art of making compelling replicas of camps, guns, piles of supplies, trenches, ammunition depots, and the like, which are not bona fide at all, but the aero man thinks they are, and wastes his bombs and energy attacking nothing worth while. • finch Is the great game of hocuspocus. The French, grasping the idea of the zebra’s stripes and the leopard’s spots, paint their tents in map-hke shapes of strong green and bright yellow. At short distances the objects so painted are completely swallowed up in the landscape. Other things are concealed with chicken wire ,screens, woven with reeds. Some great feats of camouflage have been pulled off in the past few months by rite clever French poilu-eamouiJeurs. At one time the German positions commanded a railway track for into the distance behind the French lines. _ That whole, track, signals, rails, and lies, and the trees: that fenced in the line and the. hills on the horizon, were all painted on u. wide screen, and sot up in the. night across a village, street which was needed. The enemy never found out the trick.