Oberstleutnant Jakob Schochen of Royal Bavarian Army [as of G-Day, or German Victory Day; May 26, 1921], interview with Generaloberst Schochen (of European Uniom Armed Forces - Land - Bavaria) recorded on 05 October 1969.
"You can not imagine the superflu and its devastation in late 1918/early 1919. While the Allies approached our lines and the Americans were pushing in the Ardennes our boys began dropping like flies. Then the Allies pushed in an invasion that November only to succumb to the same fate. More Frenchmen died of flu in four months than the entire Western Front in four years, their army was literally paralyzed while the British pulled out and the American 'invasion' of 1919 achieved little but poisoning of postwar relations. Luxembourg and the Netherlands were so devastated you need only read the text of their requests for aid from the Central *or* Allied powers.
Only by the grace of the Almighty did Germany have the manpower to function, even then we did not go on an offensive like the one that eventually reached Paris until early 1921. An armistice might have sufficed had they not invaded Germany beyond the Rhineland but the British bombing of that Frankfurt and Koln by 'Uber-bombers' from European airbases and the planting of French and British flags in the western Rhine demanded retaliation. Such acts united Germany in ways previously unforeseen, permitting the Resurgence but ultimately allowing an honorable though largely Pyrrhic peace two years later. Yes, we began uniting Europe culturally and won much territory as either annexed German land or puppet nations, but with over 1/4 of the prewar population dead worldwide...
Our unit was part of that "great Counter-Offensive of 1919" but in reality we were at barely 1/3 strength and only jusy able to move. So many of the surviving troops literally just returned home that government armed polive could not and would not enforce much beyond local law. One in six people in prewar Europe died of that flu strain and another tenth of war-related causes, including starvation, between late 1918 and early 1920. Such was the scale of death that after the Peace of Paris it would be the Russians who would force the HBC (Hitler-Blum-Churchill) pact to work together in a series of politicial maneuvers that would look like a Brandenberg or Hollywood picture if not actually a documentary. Forty-two years of unadulterated peace...but at what price...