Not the full story. The habit of 'blowing a cloud' was picked up by English officers serving in the Peninsular War, from their Spanish counterparts. Cigars and cigarillos had been in use in Mexico since pre-Columbian times, as had primitive cigarettes.

When tobaco arrived in Spain from South America, it was either as cigars, cigarillos or papelate. The latter being wrapped in maize leaves or fine paper. When papelate arrived in France, they were called cigarettes.

The English had picked up pipe-smoking from Native Americans in the 16th Century, and later snuff from the French. At the time of the Napoleonic Wars, the working classes used pipes but the gentry took snuff. Peninsular War offficers brought cigar-smoking back with them and it rivalled snuff-taking among the gentry for some years. The Crimean war did spread cigarette-smoking among the working class, however.