 In the First World War , the French army formed a camouflage corps , led by Lucien @-@ Victor Guirand de Scévola , employing artists known as camoufleurs to create schemes such as tree observation posts and covers for guns . Other armies soon followed them . The term camouflage probably comes from camoufler , a Parisian slang term meaning to disguise , and may have been influenced by camouflet , a French term meaning smoke blown in someone 's face . The English zoologist John Graham Kerr , artist Solomon J. Solomon and the American artist Abbott Thayer led attempts to introduce scientific principles of countershading and disruptive patterning into military camouflage , with limited success . 
