Implications of the Spanish Flu?

The epidemic of Spanish Flu seems unimaginable, such a huge disease during the modern era, yet it barely gets any coverage in history. Could it have led to any divergences? For example, what if it compelled the US to join the League of Nations in collaboration to prevent the spread of disease into its borders?
 
Please understand that the name Spanish Flu came about because there was not wartime censorship in Spain.

I've heard 50 million people died worldwide, and maybe considerably more, that this is a conservative figure.
 
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The 1918 flu pandemic had its first cases in the USA appearing in January 1918 and by March 1918 had reached Queens. Dunno how joining the League of Nations would help to stop something that was already spreading.
 
Please understand that the name Spanish Flu came about because there was not wartime censorship in Spain.

I've heard 50 million people died worldwide, and maybe considerably more, that this is a conservative figure.

lot more i think, there seems to be a habit to sometimes only count the dead that directly result from it, a same a amount of people died because of the resulting complication (pneumonia etc)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1918_flu_pandemic
 

RyanF

Banned
lot more i think, there seems to be a habit to sometimes only count the dead that directly result from it, a same a amount of people died because of the resulting complication (pneumonia etc)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1918_flu_pandemic

The thing that always struck me about the epidemic was the number of world leaders who contracted it but survived, for example David Lloyd George and Wilhelm II.

If any one of these figures died this would have a serious knock on effect to world history.
 
The thing that always struck me about the epidemic was the number of world leaders who contracted it but survived, for example David Lloyd George and Wilhelm II.

If any one of these figures died this would have a serious knock on effect to world history.

Woodrow Wilson, FD Roosevelt, Leo Szilard
 
The epidemic of Spanish Flu seems unimaginable, such a huge disease during the modern era, yet it barely gets any coverage in history. Could it have led to any divergences?


I think it is so rarely discussed in history because it is so large and diverse in its effects as to be incomprehensible. The ancient pandemics, save perhaps the Black Death, are similarly mostly ignored, so I don't think that is limited to only the Spanish Flu.

As to a possible divergence - in September 1918, Lloyd George contracted the Spanish Flu and was gravely ill for some days. If he had died, not only does his successor greatly influence the tragectory of Britain during the 20s, but removing Lloyd George likely leads to a British delegation more friendly to the French.

For some other famous people who could have died from the flu, here is a fun little list.

fasquardon
 

RyanF

Banned
I think it is so rarely discussed in history because it is so large and diverse in its effects as to be incomprehensible. The ancient pandemics, save perhaps the Black Death, are similarly mostly ignored, so I don't think that is limited to only the Spanish Flu.

As to a possible divergence - in September 1918, Lloyd George contracted the Spanish Flu and was gravely ill for some days. If he had died, not only does his successor greatly influence the tragectory of Britain during the 20s, but removing Lloyd George likely leads to a British delegation more friendly to the French.

For some other famous people who could have died from the flu, here is a fun little list.

fasquardon

Lloyd George's death could also lead to some measure of debate about who succeeds him as he was leading a coalition.

Will Asquith take back the Lloyd George Liberals or do they back Bonar Law as the continuation of the current government?
 
Was spanish flu consequence of the war?

No, not directly it wasn't. However, there is a hypothesis that it's particular virulence was a direct result of the war.

Military medical historian Carol Byerly argues in her 2005 book Fever of War: The Influenza Epidemic in the U.S. Army During World War I that the 1918 virus built up its virulence in the transport ships, trains, and trenches of the Great War. Millions of young men were forced together in close quarters where there was no escaping a sick comrade. Instead of battery cages of egg-laying chickens, battery units of infantry dug themselves into festering trenches. Instead of ammonia to irritate the respiratory tracts of chickens and predispose them to infection, residues of poison gases like chlorine saturated the Western Front. The unspeakable conditions, the theory goes, led to the perfect breeding ground for influenza superstrains: a population of “physically compromised” individuals under intense confinement undergoing mass troop movements, not unlike live animal transports. In both cases, fodder for slaughter. Boxcars were labeled “8 horses or 40 men.” Evolutionary biologist Paul Ewald agrees that the crowded, stressful, unhygienic WWI conditions could have favored the evolution of a “predator-like virus” that otherwise may have killed too quickly to spread with peak efficiency under normal conditions.
http://www.birdflubook.org/a.php?id=65

In a timeline without WW-I we would have epidemic spanish flu?
Doubtful, however, it's quite possible it wouldn't have been as big a killer.
 
I think it is so rarely discussed in history because it is so large and diverse in its effects as to be incomprehensible. The ancient pandemics, save perhaps the Black Death, are similarly mostly ignored, so I don't think that is limited to only the Spanish Flu.

As to a possible divergence - in September 1918, Lloyd George contracted the Spanish Flu and was gravely ill for some days. If he had died, not only does his successor greatly influence the tragectory of Britain during the 20s, but removing Lloyd George likely leads to a British delegation more friendly to the French.

For some other famous people who could have died from the flu, here is a fun little list.

fasquardon


There's also the flip side of the coin with WIs for those who didn't survive. What would South Africa look like today, had Louis Botha survived? How would things have gone in the Soviet Union had Yakov Sverdlov not died?

There are also non-politicians to consider. What if Gustav Klimt had survived and Edvard Munch or Georgia O'Keeffe had not? What would the world today be without Friedrich Hayek, Franz Kafka, or Walt Disney. What if Max Weber survived? What would happen to the automobile industry if the Dodge brothers survived?

And here's a more extensive list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_1918_flu_pandemic_cases

And, of course, there're always the ones not on the list of survivors/fatalities. Cough, cough, oops poor litle Austrian corporal. Cough, cough, there goes that Georgian in the Politburo. Cough, cough, awww, Li Dazhao new assistant is no longer around...

And then, there's also the indigenous populations who were far worse hit.
 
What about people who died from it surviving? From a cursory glance, I see Brazilian president Rodrigues Alves, South African Prime Minister Louis Botha, Ibn Saud's crown prince Turki bin Abdulaziz, Bolshevik leader Yakov Sverdlov, and that's just political figures of note.
 
According the WHO the Spanish flu was first pandemic of H1N1 influenza virus.
500 million people got sick, around 50-100 million died.

Despite first cases were described in Haskell County, Kansas, USA in January 1918.
allot of modern study claim that France was center of pandemic end 1917.

what outcome could have pandemic ?

In Game "Crimson Skies" the pandemic of 1918 return mutated in 1920s in USA
the United States has collapsed into independent nation-states.

Another POD is were US refuse to send Troops to France as pandemic brakes out.
while British and French forces are weaken by the Flu
The Germans manage to brake true the enemy lines at several sides.
while the French demand a truce.
 
A reverse idea would be if the Flue had decimated the German and allies worse than the Entente in 1917/1918.
 
I believe in the seriousness of pandemic flu like a lot of people believe in the seriousness of an asteroid/comet strike. It's a large number multiplied by a small number and should not be entirely dismissed.

What blew me away about H1N1 in 2009 was that it took five months to go from isolating the virus to actually having a vaccine available to give people. Yes, five months. And that was in theory if everything goes well. In practice, it may have been a little bit longer.
 
Lloyd George's death could also lead to some measure of debate about who succeeds him as he was leading a coalition.

Will Asquith take back the Lloyd George Liberals or do they back Bonar Law as the continuation of the current government?

I think Asquith will take back most of the Lloyd Georgist Liberals (huge change right there - the feud between those two was the most significant of the factors that destroyed the party). I suspect that Bonar Law would succeed Lloyd George as PM though (possibly even with Asquith's support, so as to give someone else the dirty job of ending the war as well as giving the government more continuity).

fasquardon
 

RyanF

Banned
I think Asquith will take back most of the Lloyd Georgist Liberals (huge change right there - the feud between those two was the most significant of the factors that destroyed the party). I suspect that Bonar Law would succeed Lloyd George as PM though (possibly even with Asquith's support, so as to give someone else the dirty job of ending the war as well as giving the government more continuity).

fasquardon

If Bonar Law sees the war through to whatever end with Asquith's support khaki election a few months after?

Would also be worthwhile considering how this would effect events in Ireland.
 
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