Old soldiers never die

It is hard to imagine a soldier who does not smoke. At first tobacco was smoked in pipes, then cigarettes and cigars became popular. The name of the alkaloid occurring in tobacco leaves was called nicotine after the surname of a French ambassador to Lisbon Jean Nicot. He was the first to grow tobacco in Portugal and introduce snuff tobacco to the French royal court. The pipe was a soldier’s indispensable companion. Younger soldiers used cheap clay pipes that broke easily; they could not afford more expensive porcelain pipes. Officers had personal, long-lived pipes made from noble wood, usually with metal fittings and caps. Smoking tobacco in the form of cigarettes became very popular in the 18th century, with the first cigarettes being hollowed out reed sticks stuffed with tobacco or pieces of tobacco leaves being wrapped up in corn scale or other vegetable wrapping. Cigarettes were made by hand. In 1880 Albert Bonsack invented the first cigarette rolling machine, which made cigarettes very common. The most popular if expensive cigarettes smoked by Austrian officers in WW I fronts and also in Lublin and Zamość region were “Dames” cigarettes, sold in typical tin boxes decorated with Egyptian motifs. Even now they can be found in attics of old farmer cottages. Russian soldiers had to do with shag tobacco – pieces of tobacco wrapped up in a piece of newspaper or a thin piece of paper.