Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1915-04-03
TOBACCO A FACTOR IN WAR
Wisdom of Supplying the Weed to
Soldiers in the Field.
REGARDED AS A NECESSITY
Modern Warriors Approve what the
BRcknumber Warriors Frowned
UpOn-BearIng on Battles
Won and Lost.


Is now so well esteemed by the military
authorities that today one sees the Brit
ish government doing what it had never
done before. supplying free tobacco to
the troops, and in France the factories
Of the Reggie working at full pressure so
that the French soldier shall not lack
smoking materials.
Only within comparatively recent times,
however. has this necessity been officially
recognized Wellington condemned the
practice OF smoking as being "a species
OF intoxicaton occasioned by the fumes
Of tobacco Perhaps his dislike arose
from an unpleasant experience OF his own
on the only occasion on which he at
tempted to smoke a pipe. The weed
proved no respector OF the iron duke,
and the man who ended Napoleons ca
reer had TO succumb to its disturbing
properties as any schoolboy. Even Ma
poleon himself, although a habitual snuff
taker, was defeated by a pipe of to-
bacco.
Official efforts to discourage the use OF
tobacco were completely negatived in the
Crimean war. The prvations suffered
then by the troops resulted in officers and
men taking to the panacea adopted by
their French and Turkish allies, and by
its aid their discomforts were so allevi-
ated that ever since the practice OF smok-
ing on active service, IL not actively en-
couraged, has been at any rate passively
countenanced Ivy those in command both
in the army and the navy.
In consequence tobacco has played
notable and beneficial part in the wars
OF the last century-in fact, from Water
loo to South Africa. Probably its sola-
icing and inspiring qualities were never so
strongly manifested as in the Franco
German war OF 1870. 1t might be said, in
deed, that the crushing defeat inflicted
on the French was due largely to the
soldiers lack of tobacco, added, as 1t was,
to the breakdown to the commissariat
whereas on the German side the authori-
ties did all they could to insure the
troops being plantifully supplied with the
weed. An association. headed by the en-
press rated tobacco subscriptions in
every town to enable the fighters OF the
fatherland to keep their pipes filled.
Sought by Soldiers.
What a friend in need sublime to-
bacco" proved to the fighters in the war
of 1870 was indicated by the correspondent
before Metz. In his accounts of the CAM
paign he said
"Jn every letter We read of the ex-
hausted soldiers prisoners and MANNED
victims of battle eagerly asking for the
soothing narcotic, begging for II some
times. finding it a solace under the hard
ships of weather, Of hunger, OF disease
finding it enables them to endure the
painful searches and amputations OF the
surgeons"
ha
company smoked his cigar while doctor
cut bullet out of his back. and again
how manned soldier lying upon the bat
tie field, with the dead and dying around
him and in bodily agony. asked but for
one reIef-a cigar. And thus 1t has been
in every war.
The manned and shattered on the field
of battle piteously cry for tobacco; the
poor wounded in the hospitals appeal not
for bandages or medicine but for tobacco;
the troops in the trenches undergo any
hardship If they have but the comfort Of
tobacco, and even in the midst of the con-
fIict, fighting their way through mass
of foes, the soldier pipe in his mouth,
calmly stands shoulder TO shoulder with
his comrades and bears the shock of bat
tie.
panacea to the victims of war 1t has
Nbeen a source OF courage and inspiration.
At Saarbrucken in 1870 the Brunswick
HIussers galloped, cigars in mouth, amid
a hail of bullets into a mass OF French
troops The Uhlans in their advance
movements invariably carried pipes in
their mouths. substantial. capacious pipes.
large enough to hold an ounce Of the
weed And whenever the conouering
troops entered a~surrendered city they at
once claimed not money nor food, but to-
/ hacco. The mayor of each town was di-
rected to find cigars for everybody before
anything else was done.
A bismarck Incident.
The German troops regarded but little
the scarcity of provisions. but tobacco
was indispensable to them. Even the
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