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During World War I, the French Army used hollowed-out trees as observation posts, and the British and Germans also used dead trees to secretly station soldiers. Replica trees were made with reinforced steel and covered in iron bark, allowing soldiers to climb up and observe through mesh-covered viewing holes.
The French Army was the first to incorporate trees into its arsenals, using hollowed-out logs as observation posts or turrets as early as 1915. The British and Germans also “recycled” trees during World War I to secretly station soldiers in strategic positions along the front lines. These “Observation Post” (OP) trees – or Baumbeobachter, as the Germans called them – took a long time to make. The ideal tree was dead, often the victim of bombing. After finding the right specimen, a replica would be built and reinforced inside with steel. At night, the original tree was taken down to its roots and replaced with the OP tree.
I think I’ll never see/A poem as beautiful as a tree:
The replica trees had the same dead and broken limbs, with expertly crafted “bark” in wrinkled and painted iron.
To make the bark look more real, artists often covered the tree with a rough mixture made of materials such as pulverized seashells.
Soldiers would climb a narrow rope ladder through the center of the tree and sit near the top. Sections of the outer bark were cut away and replaced with mesh to mask the viewing holes.
