Spanish Flu: A familiar story
In March 1918 a cook named Albert Gitchell reported to the infirmary at Fort Riley in Kansas. He had a sore throat, a fever and a headache. Within four hours over one hundred men had arrived with the same symptoms. Within weeks it was on the Western Front. His infection could have been called the Kansas swine flu or the Kansas Corona but is known to the world now as the Spanish Flu. It killed millions globally in three waves. It ravaged cities and soldiers. It singled out young adults, particularly men. Even those in the womb were not spared as they grew up smaller than their peers. This pandemic was the last pandemic before this pandemic. And it was brutal.
Officials inspect street cleaners during the Spanish influenza in Chicago in 1918 SOURCE: Bettmann / Bettmann Archive
The world in 1918 was torn by total war. Indeed, most counties had strict censorship so the Spanish were the first to report this awful virus. Hence the unfortunate name. Troop ships criss-crossed the Atlantic and people were moving in great numbers around the globe. Germany had been subjected to a naval blockade for years by this stage and their population was on the brink of starvation. The flu struck Germans considerably worse than their European neighbours. Yet it was possibly their military who bore the biggest brunt. Their spring offensive in 1918 smashed through the Allied trenches. Waves of German soldiers stormed forward, pushing their foes back. Their casualty numbers dwarfed that of the Somme. German newspapers heralded that victory was just around the corner. But as summer arrived the offensive slowed down, ground to a halt and the Allied counter-offensive won the war within months. Stretched supply lines and a lack of soldiers is the accepted wisdom for the German attack failing. Yet, as one historian noted, ‘even the most diehard stormtroopers could not fight with a temperature of 40 degrees’. The troops called the flu, ‘Blitzkatarrh’ and it put 900,000 men out of action in 1918. Was it a decisive factor is determining the outcome of the war? Of course, the British and French soldiers were affected in terrible numbers too with respectively half and three quarters of soldiers being infected. One British soldier wrote ‘We were lying in the open air with just a ground sheet and a high fever’. Perhaps each side were affected proportionally equally? Yet the Germans did not have a fresh supply of Americans arriving to bolster their military. It is a debate above the intellect and pay-grade of this historian!
Patients with the flu first experienced breathing difficulties as the virus spread similarly to how covid does. Their cheeks would harden and turn a mahogany colour. As the lungs filled with fluid their chests would rise and rise. Grim stories of coffins not being able to shut were all too familiar across the world. Reminiscent of previous plague, the extremities would even turn black and blue as dehydration set in.
A makeshift Spanish Flu ward, similar to the ‘Nightingale Hospitals set up in the Uk in 2020: SOURCE: GETTY IMAGES
The phrase ‘social distancing’ began to enter the language as preventative measures similar to today were introduced in cities across the world. Schools, theatres, pubs and restaurants were closed. And, of course, masks were encouraged to be worn. Yet in societies which had not fully accepted germ theory and even vaccinations, people did not religiously follow the social norms. The idea that this flu was a punishment from god was commonplace, especially given what had happened since the summer of 1914.
The war ended in November and the flu seemed to have petered out by the end of the year. Yet, as we are all aware, the second wave of a virus can be so much worse than the first. By the dawn of 1919 only St Helena, (Where Napoleon died under British lock and key in 1821. Andrew Roberts account of his last years is fascinating!)Marajó at the mouth of the Amazon River and Australia were free of infection. But the Australian government lifted their quarantine too early and the flu swept through their cities and mining communities.
The Spanish flu pandemic of 1918 is believed to have infected about a third of the world's population SOURCE: BETTMANN/GETTY IMAGES
Oddly enough studies of the Spanish Flu have not been particularly popular. One broad European history written in the 1930s doesn’t even mention it! ‘Pale Rider’ by Laura Spinney was the basis of a lot of research for this article and well worth a read. Given our current situation one would imagine there will be an influx of research with books to follow. A virus which killed more people than World War One is certainly not going to fade from our collective memory anytime soon.
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