Michael Fiore directs the UW’s Center for Tobacco Research and Intervention, which is working to stamp out smoking in Wisconsin and elsewhere. But ninety years ago, the UW was more interested in spreading the use of tobacco than in halting it.

During World War I, an outfit called the Over-Seas Club created a Belgian Soldiers’ Tobacco Fund that sought aid from students to supply the fighting men of that North Atlantic state with all the smokables they might need as they battled the Germans. The war was then running against Belgium, and so its king issued this urgent appeal: “There are nearly 200,000 Belgian soldiers defending the last few miles of their country. They want tobacco, and they want it badly. Unprovided for by their Government and unable to receive tobacco from family and friends, these heroes (always great smokers) have asked repeatedly and appealingly for ‘smokes.’”

Students were encouraged to donate a dollar, which would provide for four parcels, each with fifty cigarettes and a pouch of loose tobacco that had been specially blended for the Belgian taste.

Under their cloud of carcinogenic fury, the scrappy Belgians (with some aid from America, Britain, and France) defeated Germany and won back their freedom.

If you’d like to see King Albert’s desperate call for ashtray aid, it’s available online.