khaki not the best colour for the European War

[Moonraker]

Among the mass of newspaper coverage of the centenary over the weekend, I noticed a comment that the British Army choose khaki as a colour for its uniforms because it blended in well with the South African terrain - and that it was not the best shade for the war in Europe.

Comments, please.

Moonraker

[roughdiamond]

That seems to be referring to the "Khaki drill" that was used more as a tropical uniform for Gallipoli, Mespot etc, it was lighter in weight and colour than the darker and heavier "Khaki serge" they used in Europe, although I'm not sure whether the Shorts that were used in Europe were "Drill" or "Serge"

Sam

[depaor01]

Not sure camouflage was a priority at the start. Weren't the French army wearing Napoleonic red and blue early on?

Dave

[centurion]

Khaki was being used as a generic and not very precise description of what was a wide range of colours from well before the South African War. It means dust in India where such uniforms were first adopted and various uniforms worn in various conflicts and theatres were very different from one another but all called Khaki