Camouflage tree

English speakers also called camouflage trees "fake trees", "observation trees,"[1] and "false trees".[2]

Germans called them Baumbeobachter (English: tree observer).[1]

During World War I, both sides on the Western Front were engaged in trench warfare, making observations of enemy forces' activity difficult.[3]

French painter Lucien-Victor Guirand de Scevola, instructed by General de Castelnau, invented the camouflage tree, which was first used in May 1915 during the Second Battle of Artois.[4]

The French Army subsequently shared the design with the British Army, who assigned Solomon Joseph Solomon to lead a program to make a British camouflage tree.[1] Solomon Joseph Solomon directed artist and sculptor Leon Underwood of the Royal Engineers Camouflage Section to build the tree.[5] Underwood selected a dead willow tree in no man's land between allied and axis forces, and sketched it.[3] His sketches were used to build a replica that incorporated a steel-armored observation tower and a periscope to protect the user.[3][6] One night in March 1916, the original tree was cut down and replaced with the camouflaged tree.[3]

Photo of a camouflage tree

Germany used a camouflage tree in 1917 in Oosttaverne (or Oostaverne) Wood near near Messines, Belgium during the Battle of Messines.[7] The German design covered the viewing hole with wire mesh.[7]

A British camouflage tree remains in the permanent collection of the Imperial War Museum's First World War Galleries.[3]

The Australian War Memorial displayed a German camouflage tree during the centenary of World War I.[1][8]

• Technology during World War I
• Military camouflage