First World War camo
The Camo Guide › First World War camo
1914 – 1918. The war that made camouflage a job: painters in uniform, fake trees, dazzle ships, painted helmets and the first printed patterns on aircraft. We’ve checked every entry, and the labels tell you how sure the sources are.
Before 1914
The science came first
A painter works out why animals are hard to see.
1896 – 1909Abbott Thayer and countershading
Single sourceAccording to Smithsonian Magazine, the painter Abbott Thayer published the principle of countershading in the journal The Auk in 1896, offered it to the US Navy in 1898, and set it out in the book Concealing-Coloration in the Animal Kingdom (1909), written with his son Gerald. Darker on top and lighter underneath cancels the shadow that makes a shape look solid.
Folklore: pink flamingos. According to Wikipedia, Thayer also claimed flamingos were pink to hide against sunrise and sunset. Theodore Roosevelt mocked him in 1911: “The raven’s coloration is of course concealing if it is put into a coal scuttle.” The countershading idea, though, was right.
Sources: Smithsonian Magazine, Wikipedia
1914 - 1915
Red trousers to camoufleurs
France starts the war in red and ends up inventing the camouflage unit.
1914France goes to war in red trousers
Official sourceThe Musée de l’Armée says the red dated from 1829 and was chosen to support French madder-dye growers. After 1871 the uniform had to be “celle de la revanche” (the uniform of revenge), and soldiers were expected to face the enemy “de face et non chercher à se dissimuler”: head-on, not trying to hide.
Horizon blue was voted in 1914 and was general by 1916.
Source: Musée de l’Armée
1914A Glasgow zoologist writes to Churchill
Wikipedia onlyAccording to Wikipedia, the zoologist John Graham Kerr proposed disruptive camouflage for ships to Winston Churchill in 1914, and later lost a legal fight over the credit.
Britannica confirms Kerr taught at the University of Glasgow from 1902 to 1935, first as Regius Professor of Natural History and then as Professor of Zoology. His papers in Glasgow include “Correspondence on war camouflage, 1914-1950”.
Sources: Wikipedia, Britannica, Archives Hub
12 February 1915The world’s first camouflage unit
Official sourceThe Musée de l’Armée says France formed the Section de Camouflage on 12 February 1915, the world’s first camouflage unit, led by the painter Lucien-Victor Guirand de Scévola. The armband pictured, held by the museum, carries the section’s chameleon badge.
French forces today also credit the painter Louis Guingot with a “tenue léopard” camouflage suit in this war, and say he studied his pet chameleon.
Sources: Musée de l’Armée, French Ministry of the Armed Forces, TerreMag
Early in the warPicasso and the Cubists
DisputedSeeing camouflaged cannon on the boulevard Raspail in Paris, Picasso is said to have told Gertrude Stein “C’est nous qui avons fait ça” (it is we that have created that), meaning the Cubists. Stein told the story in The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas (1933).
Disputed: according to a paper by Behrens, historians call it “typical hyperbole”, and the object was cannon, not a truck as some retellings say.
Source: Behrens
1916 - 1918
Trees, ships and helmets
Fake trees, painted ships, printed aircraft fabric and a new word in English.
March 1916Fake trees for spotters
DisputedBritain set up its Special Works Park at Wimereux in France, and its first fake observation tree went up in March 1916. Disputed: Cabinet Magazine gives two possible days, 11 or 22 March.
According to the Imperial War Museum and Wikipedia, spotters hid inside fake steel “trees”, and 7 million square yards of painted netting were in use by 1918.
Sources: Cabinet Magazine, Imperial War Museum
1916Franz Marc’s painted tarpaulins
Wikipedia onlyAccording to Wikipedia, the Expressionist painter Franz Marc painted nine gun covers in styles “from Manet to Kandinsky”, thinking the Kandinsky ones worked best against aircraft. He was killed at Verdun on 4 March 1916, before orders pulling him from the front arrived.
Source: Wikipedia
1916 or 1917Printed lozenge fabric for aircraft
DisputedGerman aircraft were covered in fabric printed with a lozenge pattern. The Australian War Memorial says it may be the first printed camouflage of any kind. Disputed: the date is given as 1916 or 1917.
Source: Australian War Memorial
1917The word “camouflage” arrives
Single sourceAccording to Etymonline, the word “camouflage” entered English in 1917, from the Parisian slang camoufler.
Source: Etymonline
May 1917Dazzle ships
ConfirmedHMS Industry became the first dazzle-painted ship, under Norman Wilkinson (IWM, Smithsonian). Dazzle doesn’t hide a ship; it hides its speed and heading.
According to Smithsonian, about 2,300 British ships were dazzled by June 1918 and over 4,000 by the end of the war, painted from studios in the basement of the Royal Academy.
Disputed: whether it worked at sea. In a 2011 study, high-contrast zigzags cut perceived speed by about 7%.
Sources: Imperial War Museum, Smithsonian, PLOS ONE 2011
1 April 1918Women’s Reserve Camouflage Corps
Single sourceAccording to Atlas Obscura, the Women’s Reserve Camouflage Corps was formed in New York on 1 April 1918.
Source: Atlas Obscura
7 July 1918Painted German helmets
Official sourceThe Musée de la Grande Guerre says Ludendorff ordered German helmets painted in angular patches split by black lines.
Source: Musée de la Grande Guerre
By 1918Painted sniper robes
Wikipedia onlyAccording to the Imperial War Museum and Wikipedia, there was no printed camouflage uniform in this war, but the Royal Engineers made nearly 5,000 painted sniper robes. The pictures here are American examples from 1918.
Source: Imperial War Museum
Dazzle gallery
More dazzle from 1917 and 1918, with the archives’ own captions.
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Every era in date order, plus the country index and the FAQ. Back to the Camo Guide.
Image credits
Plate XII from ‘Concealing-Coloration in the Animal Kingdom’ (1909): luna caterpillar upright and inverted, showing countershading: Abbott Handerson Thayer, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Profile photo portrait of Abbott Thayer, c.1890: Unidentified photographer, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
French camoufleurs at work altering the landscape (US Signal Corps photo 111-SC-1218): Unknown author, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Photo portrait of Sir John Graham Kerr (Wellcome V0026637): Photo: T. & R. Annan & Sons Ltd / Wellcome Collection, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons Modified (cropped and colour-graded) by Fat Buddha Store.
Officer’s armband of the Section Camouflage (chameleon badge), Musée de l’Armée: Photo: G.Garitan, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons Modified (cropped and colour-graded) by Fat Buddha Store.
Dummy railway station built by the section de camouflage, 1917: Photo: Opérateur Z / Médiathèque de l’architecture et du patrimoine, Licence Ouverte, via Wikimedia Commons Modified (cropped and colour-graded) by Fat Buddha Store.
André Mare’s cubist sketch of a camouflaged 280mm gun, c.1917: André Mare, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Back of a canvas and steel tree observation post, Souchez, 15 May 1918 (IWM Q 10308): David McLellan, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Canvas and steel observation-post tree near Souchez, 15 May 1918 (IWM Q 10310): David McLellan, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Dummy tree observation post on Hill 63, Battle of Messines, 1917 (AWM): Photographer not identified. Australian military., public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Fokker D.VII with lozenge-printed wings (Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum): Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
Four-colour lozenge camouflage swatch: Photo: Binksternet, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons Modified (cropped and colour-graded) by Fat Buddha Store.
US destroyer O’Brien in dazzle paint escorting a convoy, 1918: U.S. Navy, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Postcard of troopship RMS Olympic in dazzle paint: G.A. Pratt, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
M1916 Stahlhelm with camouflage paint and M1918 gas mask, Danish War Museum: Photo: Wolfmann, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons Modified (cropped and colour-graded) by Fat Buddha Store.
Artillery soldiers in painted robes to look like stumps from the air, Popular Science Sept 1918: Unknown author, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
US camouflage training: man in a tree-bark camouflage suit against a tree trunk, 1918: Unknown author, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Dazzle-painted freighter in port, 1918: Unknown author, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Artist painting a model ship with a dazzle pattern for testing: Unknown author, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
British warship in early disruptive ‘war paint’ at the Dardanelles, from Collier’s 1917: Unknown author, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Portrait of Norman Wilkinson from the Illustrated London News, 25 Dec 1909: ILN commission, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Last checked September 2026. Found a mistake or know something we don’t? Tell us in the shop at 81 Queen Street, Glasgow.
