Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 133, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 June 1915 — SOME GOOD IN VIVID COLOR [ARTICLE]

SOME GOOD IN VIVID COLOR

Frenchmen Found Their Red Caps Useful In Signaling to Their Alert Comrades. The French have, with the oncoming of winter, put into use the recently adopted great coat for infantry. It is not, as heretofore, a dark blue, but a blue-gray. The French have left to their British allies the khaki color, and they could not adopt the graygreen hue which had already been chosen by the Germans. So they accepted a blue, which is neutral and from a distance scarcely visible. It blends with the fog of the morning and the smoke of battle.

As for red, it is now definitely proscribed. The vermilion military cap is covered with blue. So the foot soldiers hereafter clothed in shaded foggy wear will attract less attention from the enemy. “But,” says Le Crie de Paris, “if red offers in time of war greater danger to the wearer, it may on occasion present some advantages. The other day a wounded soldier recounted how he and several of his comrades wandered into a position in advance of the French lines. As they were taken for Germans every time one stuck his nose above the trench they drew the fire of our soldiers. All at once an idea came to them. They put on the ends of their bayonets their red caps from which they had removed the cover. The firing ceased and they were enabled to return to their countrymen. This time it was the red that saved them.”