TOBACCO GOES TO WAR - WORLD WAR I

At the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, the guns fell silent across Europe. On this 103rd Anniversary of the World War I Armistice, we look at tobacco and that war.

During WWI, governments, civilians, and soldiers prized smoking for its morale-boosting qualities and its medicinal effect following combat. WWI changed both the economic and social standing of the cigarette.

WE WANT YOU… TO SMOKE!

Before America sent troops ‘Over There,’ tobacco funds and relief agencies sent tobacco to allied forces in the trenches, and as Americans entered the war, more tobacco followed the doughboys. When America joined the war, tobacco companies wrapped themselves in the flag and ensured that every soldier would have a ready supply of tobacco. 16 million cigarettes went overseas. America and her tobacco industry both became global powers.

The Bull Durham Smoking Tobacco slogan, “The Makin’s of a Nation,” did not exaggerate tobacco’s contribution to military morale. Bull Durham, branded as “The Smoke of the Red, White and Blue,” sold all its tobacco to the War Department to satisfy U.S. troops’ craving for tobacco ‘over there.’ General Pershing remarked that cigarettes were more important to our Soldiers than bullets!

In 1913, R. J. Reynolds created Camel. It was a blend of tobaccos with heavy additives to give the taste of expensive Turkish cigarettes. In two years, Camel became the top selling U. S. Cigarette, the first to sell in all 48 states. And a favorite of U.S. troops.

This ad featured a soldier from the famed 42nd Division, “The Rainbow Division.” 

American Tobacco’s Lucky Strike

The Ottoman Empire sided with the Axis powers against the Allies. But Turkish brands, like Liggett & Myers’ Fatima had ads with patriotic themes. Such Turkish brands would persist but would never regain market share against new U.S. rivals. Camel was the most notable.

TOBACCO IN THE TRENCHES

WWI changed European smoking culture: Pipes fell out of favor as cigarettes became more popular. At the war’s outbreak, pipes were the most common form of smoking in the European militaries.  The war ushered in a revolution in American and European tobacco cultures, along with modern cigarette advertising. Tobacco For the Soldiers.

Women began to work in factories for the war effort. This helped break down 19th century gender norms. Women engaged in ‘scandalous” behavior that included smoking. Before, smoking had been considered ‘unladylike.’ Although women had been steadily gaining rights in Europe and America before WWI, women entering the workforce and the destruction of large portions of the male populations in France, Britain, and Germany gave women more of a say in their personal lives. Tobacco companies began targeting advertising to women.

The Tsarist regime asked civilians to donate tobacco for the war effort. The Russian military issued packets of mahorka, a harsh, cheap tobacco. Soldiers smoked mahorka in pipes or in hand-rolled cigarettes. The low-quality of mahorka meant that in the post-Stalinist era, smoking it was a sign that one had spent time in the gulag, where it was the only tobacco available.

In the pre-war era, German soldiers often bought elaborate pipes, decorated with regimental insignia. The pipes are mostly seen in early-war photographs; they would be quite fragile in trench conditions. (Pipe from Karl Schaller of the 6th Field Artillery Regiment.)

This painting, ‘The Dispatch (The Captain’s Dugout,’ emphasizes pipe smoking with the officer class.

Gradually, cigarettes replaced pipe smoking. Cigarette advertising exploded, but more practical concerns likely led to the change. Packaged cigarettes were more convenient than a pipe. Muddy trench conditions in Flanders made it hard to keep loose tobacco dry.  Cigarette smoking also takes less time than a pipe, better when a soldier may have to move at short notice. Pipes also need to be constantly relit, inconvenient but also dangerous – match light would attract attention at night.

Cigarettes were a staple of army life. They were used as currency in the British army, with two cigarettes being the price of a haircut in the trenches. They were sent to the front in care packages and widely available at shops behind the lines. Soldiers flocked to cigarettes due to their convenience.

During WWI, dogs did unusual tasks. Some pulled machine gun carts. Others hauled supplies. Mutt, a French Bulldog belonging to the YMCA Cigarette Dog delivery service, was wounded twice while trying to improve the morale of soldiers in the 11th Engineers. (Mutt, The Cigarette-Delivering French Bulldog.)

Nearly all American Expeditionary Forces used tobacco, with cigarettes the favorite. “Tobacco may not be an ordinary necessary of life,” said the New York Times, “but it certainly lightens the inevitable hardships of war as nothing else can.” The risks of smoking looked minor indeed.

“As for the poor fellows lying mangled in shell holes or in field and evacuation hospitals, with life slowly ebbing away from a body soon to become dreamless dust—who would be heartless enough to ‘prohibit’ this last and only solace. “We might as well discuss the perils of gluttony in a famine as those of nicotine on a battlefield.” The Cigarette Century  Allan M. Brandt,

AFTERMATH

WWI would demonstrate a central aspect of cigarette smoking: it is a behavior that is powerfully reinforcing, both biologically and psychologically. Soldiers returned home devoted smokers. It would take nearly 20 years for doctors to notice the adverse health consequences of smoking, more than five decades for government health agencies to acknowledge the pandemic of smoking-related diseases, and nearly a century to tackle the problem head-on.