Naval History Forums

Talking of plagues there was of course the ''Spanish Flu'' pandemic of 1918/19 which I believe originated in Africa.

RF wrote:Talking of plagues there was of course the ''Spanish Flu'' pandemic of 1918/19 which I believe originated in Africa.

It may have been several "flus" at least one has been traced to a US farm boy which spread to US troops head overseas.

Interesting that it starts on a farm. Would the development of the virus have anything to do with the use of chemical fertilisers, combined with the handling of animal faeces?

RF wrote:Interesting that it starts on a farm. Would the development of the virus have anything to do with the use of chemical fertilisers, combined with the handling of animal faeces?

More to do with contact between humans and birds. Most flu's are virus that infect birds that then jump to humans. Especially at that time I doubt much in the way of chemical fertilsers were used.

RF wrote:Talking of plagues there was of course the ''Spanish Flu'' pandemic of 1918/19 which I believe originated in Africa.

The name ''Spanish Flu'' brings us back to military history. Spain was neutral in 1918 when the flu was causing devastation in the trenches. The censors prevented any report of this, so the newspapers could only report the epidemic in Spain!

The flu pandemic itself didn't seem to affect the battlefields that much, compared to the deaths caused not just from military action but from all the battlefield afflictions such as drowning, trench foot and all the other infections caused by the conditions both sides were fighting in. The flu affected the civil population far more, particulary in North America, Africa and Asia. It may be that Spain was a conduit in the transmission of the virus from Africa to Europe and then America.

As to Spain and military victories, I think it might be fair at this juncture to note that Spain keeping out of WW1 was a victory for Spain itself. Compared to Portugal, which went to war and got nothing at all out of it, at the cost of thousands of casualties on the western front, particulary in the German offensives of 1918.

I wish that people who know nothing but dime novel descriptions of the Sioux, Cheyenne, Apache, Commanche, Blackfoot, Crow or Pawnee would keep their opinions to themselves. Anyone who thinks the Mohicans (early Christian indians) had anything to do with Canada thinks James Fenmore Cooper was an historian. To this day we in North America are still struggling for some solution to the injustice of conquest. And we can do without the ignorant, bigoted opinions of suburban English clerks who never even saw an Indian.

How does the last post above relate to Spanish naval victories? Or indeed to any of the posts prior to it?