Camouflage is a pattern of paradox. Camouflage's history encompasses both hiding but also being seen: confusing the eye, subverting reality and signalling both individuality and group affinities…Any history of camouflage must properly start with 'mother nature'. From wood ants to pufferfish and octopi to birds, a wide array of animals conceal themselves – sometimes amazingly.
Prior to the invention of the modern rifle in the mid-1800s (the earliest rifles were in use during the 15th century), militaries the world over clad their soldiers in bright shades of colour – consider, for example, British troops in their iconic madder red uniforms (red coats).But marksmen began wearing more inconspicuous garb to conceal themselves while picking off targets. Austrian Jägers (meaning 'hunters') wore light grey, while the British 95th Rifle Regiment wore dun green.Military khaki (the term derives from the Urdu and Persian words for 'dust') arose in the mid-19th century, as soldiers in the British Indian Army began dyeing their white uniforms with tea and curry. Not only did khaki end the hopeless struggle to keep one's uniform spanking white, it also reduced soldiers' visibility from a distance.
Despite this, brighter military garb tended to dominate until the early 20th century. Why were militaries so reluctant to adopt darker uniforms? The answer lay in the evolving nature of warfare: in addition to practical considerations like durability and visibility, uniforms performed a psychological function of making soldiers feel battle-ready. Orderly lines of brightly clad soldiers marching in formation – a key feature of musket-driven warfare – gave way to guerrilla warfare. To fight and win in this new era, stealth was a core advantage.
The First World War
A new threat darkened the horizon in the run-up to the First World War: enemy aerial reconnaissance. (Aerial attack became possible somewhat later.) As such, militaries first used camouflage patterning and tactics to hide, not people, but locations and equipment.
The French organised the first units of camoufleurs – specialists in camouflage – in around 1914. Initial tactics were confined to painting vehicles and weaponry in disruptive patterns to blend into the surrounding landscape. Camoufleurs were both practitioners and teachers of their peculiar art. They taught other military units how to disguise their equipment with paint, to toss netting interwoven with fake leaves over a shed stocked with materiél (military equipment) and to erase any telltale truck tracks and cannon blast marks.
The Second World War
Eidence that camouflage actually worked was patchy. However, as the world marched towards the Second World War, the fresh threat of aerial attack prompted militaries on both sides to use camouflage more widely. With the exception of dazzle, all First World War-era camouflage tactics were revived and expanded. Military literature of the period is awash with camouflage training manuals aimed at every soldier, from callow privates to top brass.Two Allied wins during the Second World War owed their success largely to camouflage: El Alamein in 1942, and D-Day in 1944. During the second battle of El Alamein, the Allies blocked the Germans from seizing the Suez Canal with a mind-bogglingly detailed camouflage-plan involving inflatable tanks, fake artillery blasts and – extraordinarily – hiding the entire Suez Canal from aerial view. This was the masterwork of British camoufleur and stage magician Jasper Maskelyne.
Post-Second World War
The Second World War saw the rise of mechanical printed patterns onto fabric, bringing the distinctive variations of pattern into sharper focus. Each nation had not one, but several unique camouflage patterns, with different versions matched to the battle landscape (snow, desert, jungle, forest). Who wore which camouflage pattern revealed colonial relationships, shifting alliances and other practical considerations (like how disastrously similar your army's camouflage was to your latest enemy's).
Camouflage today permeates civilian culture: it features in designs for women's clothing from the likes of Jean Paul Gaultier, Prabal Gurung and Patrik Ervell (among many others), and musicians wearing camouflage can signal their commitment to some form of political activism – from black power (Public Enemy) to African rights (U2).Visual artists have taken to camouflage with zeal, too. Andy Warhol's Camouflage Self-Portrait (1986) hit the art scene at the height of the Cold War, a time of near-constant warfare that, confusingly, rarely officially declared itself as such.
Like all technology, camouflage evolves. High-tech camouflage can now conceal body heat from enemy sensors or harness fibre-optics to match a fabric dynamically to its surroundings. Technologists are progressing towards a camouflage that bends light waves to render objects – or even people – invisible, just like Harry Potter's invisibility cloak.