Dipping my toes into World War I & the Spanish Flu

[bunnyboo]

I’ve been reading about World War I recently, mostly in context of how it affected and was affected by the “Spanish” Influenza epidemic. It’s fascinating stuff. I just finished reading The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History by John M. Barry. I’d highly recommend it! It’s a great account of the science, politics, and military maneuvering behind the rise and fall of the “Spanish flu” (which likely started in the United States—Spain was just the first to report on it because of the media censorship surrounding World War I). It’s a lengthy read but I was absolutely hooked.

Anyways, what I know about World War I can be summed up in a ten-point list:

 

1.       It happened in the 1910s.

2.       It was between “us” and Germany. (I learned from The Great Influenza that President Wilson was actually very reluctant to enter the war!)

3.       A lot of people died, so many that the global population was irrevocably changed.

4.       Most of the combatants died from disease. (Actually, this was only sort of true. According to The Great Influenza, actual combat just barely won if you discount certain factors.)

5.       It was pointless, cruel, and bloody.

6.       C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien both fought in the war, which may have had some influence on their later works.

7.       The surrender conditions the Allies imposed on Germany encouraged the rise of nationalism and eventually the Third Reich.

8.       Poison gas. Lots of poison gas.

9.       It was the last major war to have people fight on horseback.

10.   It had something to do with the assassination of Archbishop duke (!) Ferdinand.

 

I’d say that this is pretty much layman’s knowledge, considering that most American history classes tend to focus on the two “big” wars sandwiching this period—the Civil War and World War II. I’m coming at this sort of blind, and I’m eager to learn more. I’ve started Eleventh Month, Eleventh Day, Eleventh Hour by Joseph P. Persico. It specifically focuses on Armistice Day and the futility of men dying in combat when the end of the war had already been agreed upon. There’s a quote I’d like to share that will color my perception going forward—“All the scholars on Earth cannot explain the war much better, as it dragged on, than the British Tommies’ ditty ‘We’re here because we’re here because we’re here because we’re here.’” 

Comments

[selenak]

Re: 10 - the connection between the death of Archduke - not Archbishop, no clergy involved - Ferdinand and the start of WWI is explained in a simplified yet roughly accurate and definitely entertaining manner here.

As for the late US entry into the war, the tv series about David Llyod George (among other things, British PM during the later part of the war) in cynical but not inaccurate 70s tv fashion summoned it up thusly, and I'm only partly paraphrasing, in a scene between DLG and his two main secretaries, one of whom (female) he had a long term love affair with:

Frances: Bad news. Revolution in Russia, they got rid of the Czar and dropped out of the war.
Male secretary: Argh, how to tell the boss? He's going to lose it!
DLG (overheard): Not at all. Look at the bright side.
Frances & male secretary: There is one?
DLG: Sure. Now the Russians aren't our allies anymore, I can sell this to the Americans as being about OMG FREEDOM. So far, Wilson has argued it's just a bunch of old corrupt European dynasties duking it out.

All of the above, btw, completely leaves out the Ottoman Empire; Turkey was allied to Germany and the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, which is why the Arab Rebellion against the Ottomans suddenly became of interest to the Brits. (See also: Lawrence of Arabia.)

I'm being flippant here, but actually in many ways WWI was athe Urcatastrophe of the Twentieth century.

[bunnyboo]

Thank you for the correction! It makes a lot more sense that an Archduke and his wife were murdered rather than an Archbishop and his wife. ;)

That's a pretty good summary of America's entry into the war! What I've read so far only briefly touches on Lawrence of Arabia (and the fighting outside of Europe).

[duskpeterson]

Lots of terrific war poetry, some of it by gay men. That's what else I know.

World War I was my grandparents' war (one of my grand-uncles was a soldier in the war), so I grew up thinking of WWI as much closer than it is now. I didn't learn much about it in school, but quite a few of the mid-twentieth-century memoirs that I read as a teen had WWI in the background. For me, that period was when "history" started to fade into "contemporary."

[bunnyboo]

Oh, could you recommend any poets? I'm interested in exploring the poetry and literature springing out of the war, especially by queer or POC creators.

My great-grandfather's older brother was in WWI but my great-grandfather was too young to enlist.

[duskpeterson]

It's been quite a few years since I read WWI poetry, but here's a handy list of some of the best-known poets:

https://www.gaystarnews.com/article/all-the-greatest-first-world-war-poets-were-queer-and-its-time-to-remember-them/

Though I should add that history writers are all too ready to lump romantic friendship and gay love together. Which annoys me, I say as a person who lives with a platonic companion; I feel as though *my* people's history is being subsumed. But I think it's fair to say that both types of relationships are queer by present-day standards, so enjoy!

[bunnyboo]

Thank you so much for the link! War, having been historically the domain of men, has a lot of homoeroticism under the surface; the same can be said for women who were manning the homefront! I'll do some more research on this.

[earthspirits]

There were many famous writers who were in the so-called "War to end all Wars" - their post-war writing was certainly affected by their experiences in the trenches. And sadly, many died in the war, including poet Rupert Brooke and one of my favorite fantasy / horror writers, William Hope Hodgson.

I've read that after the war, there was actually a shortage of young men in Britain and Europe because of the high death toll of the war. All heart-breaking and quite horrifying.

My grandmother had a friend who was a WWI veteran. He had a wooden leg, as he had lost one in the war.

[bunnyboo]

Rupert Brooke was actually in Eleventh Month! He's an interesting contrast with the more fatalistic poets of the war. I've added Hodgson's The House on the Borderland to my to-read list!

Yes, it's estimated that there were roughly fifty-five women to forty-five men in the UK after World War I (so about 1.2 women to 1 man), which is a massive population imbalance. Comparing that to China's sex ratio today, still recovering after the end of the One Child policy (approx. 114 male to 100 female, so 1.14 men to 1 woman), it's really stunning. China's sex ratio has been unbalanced after decades of gender selection, but World War I depopulated the male population of Europe so immensely in just four years. Scary.

[anirrationalseason]

I don't know much about WWI either, other than (some of) those ten bullets. I look forward to seeing what you discover!

[bunnyboo]

Thanks! It's a really interesting time period.