The 1918 influenza pandemic on the western front: Disease in the Great War

Abstract

While the military battles of World War I struck fear into the hearts of millions, a dangerous enemy was silently killing thousands of soldiers. As Carol Byerly has written, a disease attacked Allied and German armies with “equal virulence, filling field hospitals and transport trains with weak, feverish men all along the Western Front.”1 This enemy, a deadly strain of the influenza virus, used the conditions of war to spread its tragic effects, claiming the lives of more soldiers than died on the battlefields of France.2 The disease spread in waves, mild at first in the Spring of 1918, and then, after it mutated to a deadly strain, resurging in the Fall of 1918. On the Western Front, an estimated 40% of soldiers suffered the effects of the influenza virus.3 Despite the devastating effects of the pandemic, however, government officials and military leaders argued that they could not stop the fighting “on account of Spanish or any other type of influenza.”4 Their denial only compounded the drastic effects of the disease in the military. American troop ships, carrying thousands of soldiers, continued to head to France. There the flu attacked at the height of the St. Mihiel and Meuse–Argonne offensives, wreaking havoc in the military camps and hospitals.5 Clearly, the fight against influenza paled in comparison to active warfare. The devastating effect of the pandemic was only realized after the conclusion of the war.