Practice question · True or false
The influenza pandemic of 1918 to 1919 killed more people worldwide than the fighting of the First World War.
Hints
- Compare the orders of magnitude: war deaths in the millions against pandemic deaths estimated in the tens of millions.
- The pandemic spread along the same transport and troop movements that the war created.
Show the answer
True
Why
True. Estimates for the pandemic run into the tens of millions worldwide, well above the war’s military and civilian deaths combined. The two are connected, mass troop movements, crowded camps and censorship of health reporting all helped it spread, but the pandemic is a distinct catastrophe and is routinely left out of accounts of the period.
Practise The First World War and the Interwar Collapse
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