By: Caroline Longardner
It did help to hasten and end World War I. In the spring of 1918, as a result of the Russians withdrawing from the war, the German army began to mount a massive offensive on the Western front consisting of 1 million men, 37 infantry divisions, and 3,000 guns. In May, when the German army and its artillery were within striking distance of Paris, a German victory over the Allies seemed inevitable. However, in late June, when the German army began to suffer from an outbreak of influenza —2,000 men in each division were afflicted—the tide of the war began to turn. The strength of the German army withered because of sickness as well as deficiencies in supplies and food.
The Allied army, invigorated by the arrival of American soldiers, mounted a grand offensive that blocked the German advance and regained French ground. Because the pandemic killed more than twice the number who died on the battlefield of World War I, it probably hastened the armistice that ended the “Great War” in Europe. It also played a part in the rise of Adolf Hitler and sowed the seeds for World War II. During the Armistice negotiations, Woodrow Wilson, President of US was so ill and disoriented with the influenza (acquired during the outbreak in Paris) that he acceded to the formula proposed by the French President George Clemenceau: Germany would pay reparations and accept full responsibility for the war; there would be demilitarization of the Rhineland; the rich coal fields of the Saar would be mined by the French; Alsace and Lorraine (taken by Germany during the Franco-Prussian War) would be returned to the French; The German air force was eliminated, and its army would be limited to 100,000; Germany would be stripped of its colonies, which would be redistributed among the Allied powers. The harshness toward Germany in the peace treaty helped create the economic hardships, nationalistic reaction, and political chaos that fostered the rise of the Nazi party and ultimately would precipitate another World War.
WHERE DID THIS 1918 GLOBAL FLU VIRUS COME FROM? Epidemiological evidence suggests that the outbreak was due to a novel form of the influenza virus that arose among the 60,000 soldiers crowded in the army camps of Kansas. The barracks and tents were filled with men and lack of adequate heating and warm clothing, forcing the recruits to huddle together around small stoves. Under these conditions, they shared the breathable air and the virus that it carried. By mid-1918, infected soldiers were carrying the disease by rail to Army and Navy centers all over the United States and to the civilian population.
In Philadelphia there was no place to bury the bodies and coffins became scarce. Whole families became sick. Public gatherings were forbidden and gauze masks had to be worn as a public health measure. The law in San Francisco was that if a person did not wear a mask, that person would be fined or jailed. (DOES THIS SOUND FAMILIAR?)
As the US got into WWI, hundreds of thousands of US soldiers who disembarked in Brest, France carried the virus to Europe and the British Isles. Dock workers who refueled the ships contracted the infection and spread it to every ship. In a few short years the influenza had spread worldwide and death followed in its wake. It was thought that perhaps the H1N1 virus that led to the 1918 and to the 1920 pandemic had a very different kind of H, one more closely related to that of an avian virus, and for this there was little in the way of immune recognition.
The “Flu Shot” that we are encouraged to get each Fall is put together thru the analyzing of the influenza viruses in the past. The World Health Org. is constantly working on different vaccines that may be stronger and long lasting over the last ones. It is hopeful that a vaccine will be out soon for this COVID19 — Virus. The trick will be to require everyone to get it!.
Ref. – varied
