Aftermath and afterthoughts 2 - The Grim Reaper

In today’s world, with blanket media coverage and social networking, bad news travels faster than ever and it seems as if the dangers of our existence are constantly increasing. In fact, in terms of armed conflicts, the world is safer than ever before. Yuval Harari’s exceptional book Homo Deus provides plentiful figures in support of this – our challenges today are not, by and large, how mankind can survive wars. 

But 1918? How would social media have dealt with a year that, for global mortality was the worst in history. Not only was it the year of terminal carnage in WW1, but it brought the Spanish Flu pandemic. For the warring nations the numbers dying were no more than a ghastly postscript to the four years of death and suffering. For non-combatant nations the 1918 flu pandemic was the worst event in their history. High profile epidemics of recent years such as SARS, AIDS, Ebola, Bird Flu barely register on the scale of the Spanish Flu. Accurate figures are impossible, but broad figures record that half a billion people - 1 in 3 of the world’s population - suffered from the deadly new H1N1 strain of the flu virus. The 50-100 million deaths worldwide exceeded deaths in both world wars – (probably) combined. Only the Black Death could lay claim to comparable effects on a global (and numerically much smaller) population.

The only redeeming statistic was the brevity of the pandemic. The first cases were reported in early 1918, with the last in early 1920, and within that relatively short time the majority of the deaths occurred in the weeks between mid-September and mid-December 1918. By comparison the Black Death took four years to afflict all of Eurasia.

So how and why was the Spanish Flu so virulent?

Influenza and its periodic epidemics had been known about for centuries before the era of virology (1933 saw discovery of the influenza virus), and the 1918 version. When a disease, such as the flu or smallpox is present continuously in relatively small numbers in communities it is referred to as endemic. Occasional waves of high numbers that affect communities and populations are epidemics, and when an epidemic goes global it becomes a pandemic. In the case of influenza 'Flu', we now know that major epidemics occur when there is a significant mutational change in the virus. This is a process termed antigenic ‘shift’, as opposed to the more gradual antigenic ‘drift’ that happens year on year, enabling the population to develop resistance to its worst effects. With antigenic shift, the flu virus is able to sweep through the host defences, killing the most vulnerable victims, usually by pneumonia or just overwhelming sepsis. This, of course, is what happened in spades with the Spanish Flu.

It would be wrong to apportion any responsibility for the disaster to Spain. The mutant virus probably originated in the Far East, but is generally reckoned to have started its trail of destruction from military camps in the USA in 1917 (Kansas seemingly the main suspect), crossing the Atlantic in troop carrying ships, and landing in Europe at the French ports.

The ideal conditions for rapid spread of an epidemic existed across the theatres of war, particularly the Western Front. These included increased mobility of populations; densely packed communities of soldiers and refugees; people malnourished and physically and mentally weakened by four years of war. Medical services, already overwhelmed, had little with which they could treat people, and public health advice was virtually non-existent. In fact, press censorship tended to suppress information about the early phases of the epidemic and its effects on the suffering masses at the front. It was only when King Alfonso of neutral Spain became a prominent victim that newspaper reports created the soubriquet ‘Spanish Flu’.

Can we assess its impact on the outcome of the war? Probably marginal. There were two waves of the flu amongst the troops on the Western Front. The first wave in the summer months of 1918 was a milder version*. Men were ill for 7-10 days then generally ready to resume action. Mortality was low, but higher amongst the poorly nourished Germans. In military terms it was one more factor in the tipping of the balance against the Germans after the efforts of their final offensives. 

Behind the lines, and in the two months after the Armistice, the impact of the flu was much greater. As the disease spread around via the ports of the world the impact on civilian populations was enormous. Inevitably the weakest individuals (and populations, Germany, Austria-Hungary (RIP) and eastern Europe) were hardest hit, although paradoxically there was also a peak in those usually most resistant – young adults. The paradox was that their mode of death, a fulminating bloody pneumonia, was created by the toxins (cytokines storm) from the stronger immune defence they were able to put up.

Millions of poignant individual cases occurred across Europe of soldiers, sailors and civilians who had survived through four years of war, only to die of flu in days, sometimes hours after its end. Men taken ill on the ferry home across the channel; men recovering in military hospitals taken as the flu swept through the area; families becoming victims just as their men arrived home. My own grandmother died of flu on Armistice day.

Japan - 30 million cases - 'only'
200,000 deaths

Finally, as if the Grim Reaper was temporarily sated, the deaths began to fall - at first slowly and then with increasing rapidity. It may have been better prevention and treatment strategies that contributed; it may be that the virus reverted rapidly to a milder strain. However the number of cases fell as rapidly as the numbers of deaths. Around the world the pandemic had petered out by the end of 1919. All continents except Antarctica had been decimated. Some islands escaped, and some nations suffered relatively mildly – in Japan the mortality rate was ten times lower than surrounding countries, but there were still over 200,000 deaths. Very few communities escaped the visitation. An overall fatality ratio of 10-20% means that up to 5% of the world’s population died, dwarfing the 1.1% figure for WW1 deaths.

And yet, from a European and North American the Spanish Flu epidemic will always be seen as that final cruel blow inflicted on a world that had already suffered enough. Such is the scarring legacy of the First World War. I have attempted to be there in spirit these past four years, but we are all lucky not to have been there.

Aftermath and afterthoughts 1 - The Great War?

To paraphrase Ricky Gervais - it wasn't a great war, it wasn't even ok. The First World War was a disaster for all nations concerned, in terms of people, militarily, economically and materially. That one side emerged as ‘victors’ and the other ‘vanquished’ cannot obscure the fact that all major combatant nations emerged from the war in a far worse state than they had entered it (with the possible exception of the USA). The short lived euphoria at the cessation of combat was followed by years of difficulty until an even more grotesque global conflict began in 1939 – fulfilling with uncanny accuracy Foch’s angry denouncement of the 1919 Versailles Peace Treaty: that it was not peace, but an armistice for 20 years.

The four years of the centenary has given us all opportunities to learn and reflect and perhaps modify our views. The war was a disaster for all concerned, but was it as avoidable, unnecessary and futile as the prevailing pre-centenary view held it to be?

The cliché is that WW2 was a ‘just’ war whereas, WW1 was unnecessary – the monarchs of Europe and the Ottomans sending their peoples to slaughter for preservation of their Empires.

It is entirely possible that different short term decisions during the July crisis of 1914 would have prevented the war – and without the first, would there have been a second twenty years later? Of course that is mere speculation, since both undoubtedly did occur, but it’s speculation that has been continuing for 100 years now.  Or would war have occurred at some point even if the 1914-1918 conflict had been avoided?

1 Was WW1 preventable?

In my unequivocal view, yes – perhaps (sic). There are short and longer term considerations. The war was unquestionably born out of the ambitions of imperialism resisting the forces of revolution and nationalism. The secular trends from the mid 19^th century onwards made it almost inevitable that the balance of power policies of the empires of Europe – Russia, France, Great Britain, Austria-Hungary and Germany – would tip over into conflict. The questions were - When? And to what extent?

Germany was striving to grow and extend influence. Her industrial economy and military development was outpacing all the other main players, especially France, and she was frustrated at her lack of overseas colonies compared to the rivals. Only in German East Africa did she have great natural resources to draw on. The other empires were seeking, even struggling, to retain what they had. Britain’s maintenance of sea power was the only way to keep hold of her global empire, hence the damaging arms race to maintain superiority in Dreadnoughts over Germany. Austria Hungary was dysfunctional and being weakened by nationalistic ambitions, particularly in the Balkans. Russia was at risk of revolution – the Duma (Russian parliament) was a concession made by the Tsar after the first serious revolt in 1905. The other participant, the Ottoman Empire, had been in trouble for more than 100 years, with powder kegs ready to explode in many areas from the Balkans to the Middle East. So if war had been averted in 1914 – as it had been in the Agadir crisis of 1911, or in the first Balkan War of 1912 – was it nevertheless inevitable within a few years?(1)

Barbara Tuchman’s superb book, The Proud Tower, sets out the major social and political changes in the late 19^th and early 20^th century, and how they impacted on the major players of WW1. In Britain, although it had been relatively unaffected by the spirit of revolution that swept across Europe and the world in 1848, there was a significant shift in the Edwardian years from imperialism and patrician culture to reform, represented strongly by Asquith’s liberal reforming government. France was a divided and unhappy nation, suffering from the after effects of the loss of Alsace and Lorraine to Germany in 1870 and the divisive effects of the extraordinary Dreyfus affair. Germany’s rise and rise as a military power was fuelled by the intensive growth of her industrial base – greater than Britain, France and Italy combined at the outbreak of war. When the newly installed Kaiser Wilhelm decided to dispense with the services of Bismarck in 1890, the balance of power policy lost its most skilful and cunning proponent, and Germany’s foreign policy became more erratic and expansionist. For the USA, Tuchman describes the ‘end of a dream’ with the need to move from insulation from world politics (making a comeback today?) to addressing international issues including Spain, and control of the Panama Canal. Russia, with no middle class to explore the middle ground, teetered – more than any country - between the Tsar’s absolutism and revolution. Across the world movements of socialism, Marxism and anarchy were creating tremendous instability.

So, when the assassination of Franz Ferdinand provoked the July crisis of 1914, the risk of regional war was very high, and of a global conflict the risk was significant(2). Of the diplomatic, political and popular efforts to avoid (or provoke) war, several could have gone the other way. Austria was desperate to assert authority over the emerging greater Serbia. Did the Kaiser’s blank cheque message encourage them more than was necessary. Did the Kaiser stay out of touch for too long after writing his cheque? Did the French government play their hand with the Russians as wisely as they could? Was the misunderstanding of Prince Lichnowsky (German Ambassador) and his conciliatory offer to Sir Edward Grey (British Foreign Secretary) simply a result of new technology (a crackly phone line)? Of the forces working against war, perhaps the strongest across all countries was emerging socialism. When the leader of France’s socialists, Jean Jaures, was assassinated in a Paris restaurant on 28^th July, almost the last hope for peace went with him(3). He was perhaps the only man with the stature and charisma to unite the working classes in all countries in refusal to fight. If the socialist view had prevailed, maybe world revolution (certainly the strategy of the Bolsheviks) would have followed rather than world war. Would that have been any less miserable and damaging?

2. Why the years of attrition and unacceptable loss?

Right up until the declarations of war, there had been strong protests against war in Germany Britain and France, predominantly led by the socialists. However, after the event there was a rapid change to full commitment with all nations believing they had God on their side. True, the enthusiastic rush to volunteer in Britain was based on a false assumption that victory would be a formality – and over in 4 months rather than the 4+ years it took. France was galvanised by being invaded. In Germany the people were hoodwinked into believing theirs was a defensive war for the honour for the Fatherland, after Russian mobilisation. In Russia the ill informed people rallied to the call of the Tsar. So, once in, there was a conviction in the justice of their cause and determination to stick it out. Censorship and propaganda on all sides were able to conceal from the public for a long time the scale of casualties and the horrific costs of continuing.

To be fair to the much-maligned British Minister of War Lord Kitchener, he saw from the start that the war would be long and arduous(4). He saw Britain's small army dragged into a war in conditions not of her choosing, and that it would take three years to produce an army that could match the French and German counterparts. Like most military opinions he was of the view that the decisive theatre would be the Western Front, and once trench warfare had become established there would be little option but to stick it out to the end in attritional fashion. It was the politicians who were more likely to be supporters of alternative strategies such as Gallipoli, Mesopotamia and Palestine. Eventually everyone became sick of the war, but things had gone so far, extricating one’s country was difficult. Peace overtures were made from various sources – Germany, the Vatican, Woodrow Wilson – for nearly two years leading up to the Armistice.

Mostly, nations concluded they had stronger reasons to stay in the war than pull out. Bulgaria, Rumania and Italy had been the most opportunist entrants, and were perhaps the flakiest in their resolve to stay in.  Turkey had thrown her lot in with Germany early on, and was staying in with increasing reluctance. When Russia eventually pulled out the result was a punitive peace treaty followed rapidly by revolution, anarchy and civil war(5). Hard to say which was worse.

3. What about the peace?

Cessation of hostilities was achieved (at least on the Western Front) by the Armistice of 11^th November 1918. This was a military document requiring withdrawals and handing over of weapons in order to ensure Germany would be unable to resume hostilities any time soon(6). It was severe, particularly in its continuation of the naval blockade (condemning the German people to continuing famine), but one look at the Brest-Litovsk treaty showed people what would have been applied by Germany if the boot were on the other foot.

The Armistice with Germany was a clear victory for the Allies - it was effectively unconditional surrender. But armistice victory was a very different matter to winning the peace. Interestingly, the USA did not become formally a member of the Allied Powers but an ally in the conflict. The distinction may be small, but the Agenda for the Versailles Peace Conference was for Wilson more about his fourteen points, and for the Allied Powers it was more about restitution and reparations. Germany had tried to seek an Armistice based on Wilson’s Fourteen Points, and the Allied Powers had insisted on the Military solution described.

The upshot was that no-one won the peace. Hitler was able to use the grievances contained within the Versailles Treaty to stoke the fires of national socialism. Successively, he overturned the German grievances over demilitarised Rhineland; union with Austria; Czech Sudetenland, and finally Poland to provoke the horrors of 1939-45.

4. Conclusions

No matter how hard we try, we cannot avoid looking at the outcomes of WW1 with 100 years hindsight. What seems incomprehensible to us now, must have felt necessary and unavoidable then.

Wilson 14 points were not aimed at the dismemberment of Germany, but at a safer, fairer, democratic world. Even knowing what happened, they still look decent and reasonable proposals. Most of them were implemented by the Versailles Treaty:

·       Adequate guarantees for the reduction of national armaments

·       An absolutely impartial adjustment of colonial claims, the interests of those peoples concerned having equal weight

·       All Russian territory to be evacuated, and Russia given full opportunity for self-development, the Powers aiding

·       Complete restoration of Belgium, in full and free sovereignty

·       All French territory freed and the wrong done by Prussian in 1871 in the matter of Alsace Lorraine righted

·       Re-adjustment of Italian frontiers on lines of nationality

·       Peoples of Austria-Hungary accorded an opportunity of autonomous development

·       Rumania, Serbia and Montenegro evacuated, Serbia being given access to the sea, and relations of Balkan states settled on lines of allegiance and nationality

·       Non-Turkish nationalities in the Ottoman empire assured of autonomous development, and the Dardanelles to be permanently free to all ships

·       An independent Polish state

·       A general association of nations must be formed under specific covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike.

All of these happened, the only exceptions being:

·        Removal as far as possible of all economic barriers

.      Open covenants of peace and no secret diplomacy in future

·       Absolute freedom of navigation in peace and war outside territorial waters

In the light of these, there is an argument that WW1 was not entirely a waste of effort. The price paid was far too high, but the end of four imperial hegemonies and the liberation of nations to enable Yugoslavia; Czechoslovakia; Poland, Finland and the Baltic states to emerge were world changing. Undoubted wrongs, such as Belgium and the rape of NE France were put right. The League of Nations was a flawed organisation but surely benefited the planning of the next version, the UN.

In those senses it was a Great War, but what a pity that it happened.

(1) See post 31/10/2014

(2) Post 6/11/2014

(3) Post 9/11/2014

(4) Post 12/6/2016

(5) Post 22/1/2018

(6) Post 11/11/2018