'Entente Cordiale' ('Cordial Understanding') cigarette cards, 1915 (colour litho)

The supply of cigarettes and tobacco to troops during World War I was considered an essential morale booster and General Pershing stated that a cigarette played a role as important as ammunition by helping soldiers to endure the tedium of war, steady nerves and calm the wounded. These unusually vivacious cards would have provided additional cheer. English and French girls dancing together, symbolic of the 'Entente Cordiale', a term first used in 1844 to denote recognition of common interests between the United Kingdom and France and formalised in 1904 by a series of agreements of mutual support signed by the French Republic and Great Britain; term now generally used to refer to friendship and a recognition of peaceful co-existence between the two countries after centuries of war between the two countries; from a series of 'Dancing Girls' of the World, produced as cigarette cards by W.D. & H.O. Wills 'Scissors' cigarettes;