Fulton County tribune. (Wauseon, Ohio) 1883-1925, 1918-01-25

Ol
modern warfare lie in wait for
an opportunity to spring out upon the
enemy, belching forth a breath far
more terrible and deadly than that of
the fabled 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 cOncealing the true
being of deadly weapons.
"Camouaage," as though we had dis
covered a 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-
ton of man. Indestructible moving gar
risons, which house a 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 indistinguishable from the ter
rain.
Again the landscape artist employs
his talents in No Mans Land, placing
n thicket over french, or concealing
q howitzer behind a new-formed knoll
of green turf
Long, gray files of armed men wave
on wave, sweeping toward low hill
and a thicket-suddenly the hill
changes into a bristling fertilization,
mounted guns and howitzers belching
death to thousands, and the thicket be-
| comes a Urge, armored tank, inde-
structible, moving down ranks of men
| like swatIies of hay. A massive bowl
der turns out to be q gigantic machine
which cEushes over all obstacles. En-
trenchNents, painted and covered to
sinSlste the surrounding topography,
lErc 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 contests ever waged
We have found new sways to fight
camouflage-and the art is developed
day by day. What animal craft could
be more subtle, more deceiving than
this?
But is camouflage a product of the
mind of human? Have we truly dis
covered a 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 continual strug
gle between the different forms ant
classes. Large and strong forms pre-!
upon the lesser. Camoufiage, or de
ception, adaptive coloring, and shape
are the weapons scattered to ever,
class of life, plant and animal. Sucl
gifts are lavished upon dumb life b,
nature with three different objects il
view protection, attraction, and de
struction. Innumerable examples O
each class might be listed, but only
few are necessary to bring to atten
ton the more or less obvious fact tha
our "camOuflage" is sheer imitation
of this proclivity of nature.
! We have succeeded in penetratin
the depths of the sea and the expanse
Of the air, in our contention for gai
; and progress, but these accomplish
, ments are but of recent perfection
: For thousands of years, for million:
the seas have been inhabited by finn