Early End to WW1: Reduced Spanish Flu?

cpip

Gone Fishin'
If World War One ended earlier -- probably in 1917, perhaps without American entrance -- would the "Spanish" influenza epidemic have been nearly as severe, particularly in Europe, without the breeding grounds of the trenches and the spreading of the travelling soldiers?

The second wave of the flu, starting in August, is suggested to be linked to the conditions of the war: if the soldiers had already been retiring from their trenches and returning home, would it have managed the second mutation and would the death toll have been as high was it was?
 
Okay, since this is just a month old and no other people have commented it seems fair to add a little speculation, partly for help in case I ever start one TL I'm thinking of with a POD of Taft on the Supreme Court in '06. (Well, that's the main one, the POD is actually a little earlier to keep him from going to the War Dept. and hence Cuba) It will mean a WW I that starts and ends a few years earlier.

While U.S. troops going over to Europe are said to have begun it, since the first go-around began in Kansas early in 1918, there is also the idea that part began in livestock and there were a lot of animals going over to Europe for foodstuffs.

Given the first, I am thinking that it need not have been soldiers carrying it over. A number of Americans going anywhere could have started it. While there wouldn't be a major war, and perhaps not even an army base at this point, it would begin. Quite possibly Americans delivering foodstuffs to Mexico as they recover from their war might cause it to really get going, then whomever Mexico trades with might get it. Mexican Flu, perhaps?

In the second one, world trade was pretty big, just like today. While people didn't travel as much as now, of course, partly because transportation wasn't as fast, world trade would have been even larger with an early end to WWI as it was OTL. Indeed, one could srgue that U.S. merchants selling food to various places could pass it on just as rapidly as soldiers did OTL. Even a few years later some areas will still be recovering some and will need more imports, after all.

SO, I think it's more that it goes through different vectors rather than it being less severe. And, that the map of where and how it spread would still cover the clobe, it might just go in different routes.
 
Guys

I have seen it suggested, I think it was a BBC documentary a couple of years back, that the disease might have started on the western front. Argued that since there were large numbers of men and also a range of food animals kept in close proximity in unhygienic conditions this would have been a prefect vector for the flu variant to develop. It could have started as early as 1917 I think it was, simply being missed because so many men were sick from the conditions. Possibly the 1st cases were reported in the US simply because it became visible there.

It seemed a reasonable argument and I think what we understand about how such variants develop suggests that the western front was a more likely location for it to develop.

Steve
 
Top