Editing Camouflage (section)

==== First World War ====

{{further|list of camoufleurs}}

[[File:Andre Mare Camouflaged Iron Observation Tree (The Elm at Vermezeele) 1916.jpg|thumb|upright|Iron observation post camouflaged as a tree by [[Cubism|Cubist]] painter [[André Mare]], 1916]]

In the [[First World War]], the French army formed a camouflage corps, led by [[Lucien-Victor Guirand de Scévola]],<ref name=LRB>{{cite journal |url=http://www.lrb.co.uk/v27/n12/patrick-wright/cubist-slugs |title=Cubist Slugs |last=Wright |first=Patrick |journal=[[London Review of Books]] |date=23 June 2005 |volume=27 |issue=12 |pages=16–20}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last=Guirand de Scévola |first=Lucien-Victor |title=Souvenir de Camouflage (1914–1918) |journal=Revue des Deux Mondes |date=December 1949 |language=fr |author-link=Lucien-Victor Guirand de Scévola}}</ref> employing artists known as ''[[List of camoufleurs|camoufleurs]]'' to create schemes such as tree observation posts and covers for guns. Other armies soon followed them.{{sfn|Forbes|2009|pages=104–105}}<ref>{{cite web |title=Art of the First World War: André Mare and Leon Underwood |work=The Elm at Vermezeele |publisher=Memorial-Caen |year=1998 |url=http://www.memorial-caen.fr/10EVENT/EXPO1418/gb/texte/027text.html |access-date=8 February 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130529001851/http://www.memorial-caen.fr/10EVENT/EXPO1418/gb/texte/027text.html |archive-date=29 May 2013 |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Art of the First World War: André Mare |publisher=Memorial-Caen |year=1998 |url=http://www.memorial-caen.fr/10EVENT/EXPO1418/gb/texte/008text.html |access-date=8 February 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130528220115/http://www.memorial-caen.fr/10EVENT/EXPO1418/gb/texte/008text.html |archive-date=28 May 2013 |url-status=dead }}</ref> The term ''[[wikt:camouflage|camouflage]]'' probably comes from ''camoufler'', a [[Paris]]ian slang term meaning ''to disguise'', and may have been influenced by ''camouflet'', a [[French language|French]] term meaning ''smoke blown in someone's face''.<ref name=camouflet>{{cite web |title=Camouflage |work=Online Etymology Dictionary |year=2012 |url=http://etymonline.com/index.php?term=camouflage&allowed_in_frame=0 |access-date=8 February 2013}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Camouflage, n |work=Oxford English Dictionary |publisher=Oxford University Press |url=http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/26737?isAdvanced=false&result=1&rskey=2NawDO&|access-date=8 February 2013}}</ref> The English zoologist [[John Graham Kerr]], artist Solomon J. Solomon and the American artist Abbott Thayer led attempts to introduce scientific principles of countershading and disruptive patterning into military camouflage, with limited success.{{sfn|Forbes|2009|pages=85–89}}<ref>For Solomon, see BBC Radio 4 programme "Warpaint: the story of camouflage" by Patrick Wright, August 2002 (repeated Radio 4 Extra, 17 June 2014).</ref> In early 1916 the [[Royal Naval Air Service]] began to create dummy air fields to draw the attention of enemy planes to empty land. They created decoy homes and lined fake runways with flares, which were meant to help protect real towns from night raids. This strategy was not common practice and did not succeed at first, but in 1918 it caught the Germans off guard multiple times.<ref>{{cite book |title=Camouflage and Art Design for Deception in World War 2 |last=Goodden |first=Henrietta |publisher=Unicorn Press |year=2007 |isbn=978-0-906290-87-3 |location=London, England |pages=12–13}}</ref>

[[Ship camouflage]] was introduced in the early 20th century as the range of naval guns increased, with ships painted grey all over.<ref name=Sumrall/><ref>{{cite web |last=Prinzeugen |title=Schnellboot: An Illustrated Technical History |work=Prinz Eugen |url=http://www.prinzeugen.com/colors.htm |access-date=5 March 2012 |archive-date=19 September 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160919134326/http://www.prinzeugen.com/colors.htm |url-status=dead }}</ref> In April 1917, when German [[U-boats]] were sinking many British ships with torpedoes, the marine artist [[Norman Wilkinson (artist)|Norman Wilkinson]] devised [[dazzle camouflage]], which paradoxically made ships more visible but harder to target.<ref>{{cite news |work=The Times |title=Obituary: Mr Norman Wilkinson, Inventor of 'dazzle' painting |date=1 June 1971 |page=12}}</ref> In Wilkinson's own words, dazzle was designed "not for low visibility, but in such a way as to break up her form and thus confuse a submarine officer as to the course on which she was heading".<ref>{{cite book |last=Wilkinson |first=Norman |author-link=Norman Wilkinson (artist) |title=A Brush with Life |publisher=Seeley Service |year=1969 |page=79}}</ref>

<gallery class="center" mode="nolines" heights="150px" widths="150px">
File:USS West Mahomet (ID-3681) cropped.jpg|USS ''West Mahomet'' in dazzle camouflage
File:CamouflagedAustralian9.2inchHowitzerYpres1917.jpeg|[[BL 9.2-inch howitzer|Siege howitzer]] camouflaged against observation from the air, 1917
File:Austro-Hungarian ski patrol on Italian front in snow camouflage 1915-1918.jpg|Austro-Hungarian ski patrol in two-part snow uniforms with improvised head camouflage on Italian front, 1915–1918
</gallery>