In 1899, the Journal des débats pointed out that the motor boats destined for the administrators of the Cayenne convict prison were "painted in horizon colour, to conceal them more easily".

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the Boer War attracted the attention of the general staffs of the great powers on the need to reform military clothing.

On 26 May 1914 the High Council of War voted for the adoption of a cloth called "tricolour" obtained by a mixing of blue, white and red wool fibres.

On 2 August 1914, the day of general mobilization, the Ministry of War adopted a unique blue cloth for the manufacture of sets of uniforms.

On the morning of 16 August 1914, the administrative director of drapery at Châteauroux, Roger de La Selle brought to Paris samples for the war ministry.

After the conflict, it symbolized the ex-military men and intransigent nationalism of the horizon blue Chamber composed, in 1919, of conservatives eager to "make Germany pay."

In the twenty-first century, the expression "horizon blue" is found, in fashion and literature, with its descriptive character, from before the Great War, to designate outfits of blue-grey cloth, or eye colour.