The Celina Democrat. (Celina, O. [Ohio]) 1895-1921, 1918-01-25


modern warfare lie in wait for
an opportunity to spring out upon the
enemy, belching forth breath far
more terrible and deadly than that of
the tabled dragons. The incautious
prey, seeing nothing dangerous, ap-
proaches too near and Is lost.
"Camouflage" is the military term
given this art OF mechanical deception,
and host of new offices are drafted
into the business of waging war. The
landscape artist and the scene painter
now employ their several abilities in
rendering death-dealing devices,
trenches and vantage points secure
from hostile observation. The concen-
trated ingenuity of man is daily emu
lating nature in conceallng the true
being of deadly weapons.
"Camouhage," as though we had dis
covered q new method of warfare, and
had thus again proven the superiority
of man. Mammoth steel monsters,
sheathed in impregnable hides of steel,
rush the foe over seemingly impossible
barriers. These are the tanks which
man has invented for the extermina-
tiOn of man. Indestructible moving gar
risons, which house score of armed
men, passing over hills, bitches and
wire-entangling barricades.
That the enemy may not observe
the approach of this deadly machine,
scaled with plates of heavy steel, the
artist has been urged into the service
to conceal the glistening sides of the
tank
A pot of paint renders this ally al
most invisible, as though we had found
the invisible cap or coat of myths. The
tanks are painted broken gray and
white, and from a hundred yards or
so are indistingushable from the ter
rain.
Again the landscape artist employs
his talents in No Mans Land, placing
a thicket over a trench, or concealing
a howitzer behind a new-fOrmed knoll
Of green turf.
Long, gray files of armed men wave
on wave, sweeping toward a low hill
and a thicket-suddenly the hill
changes into a bristling fortificatlon,
mounted guns and howitzers belching
death to thousands, and the thicket be-
comes a large, armOred tank, inde-
structible, moving down ranks of men
like swathes of hay. A massive bowl
der turns out to be a gigantic machine
L, ~, oil phcfonlnC En-
trenchments, painted and covered to
simulate the surrounding topography,
lure the prey into an unrelenting trap.
Thus war has become a great strug-
gle of concealment and deception Day
after day the strife goes on, man pit
ting his ingenuity against man, in the
most barbarOuS contest ever Waged.
We have found new ways to fight
camoufage-and the art is developed
day by day. What animal craft could
be more subtle, more deceiving than
this?
But is camoufage a product Of the
mind Of human? Have we truly dis
covered new method of waging war
fare and preying upon our foes?
Existence from time immemorial has
been a constant process Of preying, the
stronger and more clever surviving
the weak. All life is a continual strug-
gle between the different forms and
classes. Large and strong forms prey
upon the lesser CamOutlage, or de-
ception, adaptive cOlOring and shape,
are the weapons scattered to every
class of life, plant and animal Such
riffs are lavished upon dumb life by
nature with three different objects in
view: protection, attraction, and de-
struction. Innumerable examples OF
each class might be listed, but only a
few are necessary to bring to atten-
ton the more or less obvious fact that
our "camoufage" is sheer imitation
of this proclivity of nature.
We have succeeded in penetrating
the depths of the sea and the expanses
of the air, in our contention for gain
and progress, but these accomplish
ments are but of recent perfection
For thousands of years, for millions
the seas have been inhabited by nnnS