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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsTrump says that World War I ended because soldiers got too sick to fight in 1917 pandemic
Donald Trump is no longer shuffling out to do the multiple-hour free association test that passed for a briefing on COVID-19. So he no longer has the cameras of every network focused on him as he explains how everything is totally under control, or how it miraculously goes away, or when he repeatedly insists that this is just like flu. Were no longer getting a briefing on how good it would be to clean out our insides with an injection of bleach, and no longer being pushed to take a malaria drug without evidence of benefit. But just because the briefings have disappeared doesnt mean that Donald Trump is sounding one bit more sensible.
In two new interviewsone with Sean Hannity, and another with the Wall Street JournalTrump picks up the slack in distributing generic misinformation, absolute lies, and statements so irrational theyre actually painful. Did you know that World War I ended because the soldiers got too sick to fight? Its true! Well, no. Its not. But Trump did say it. Lets get started ...
Trumps phone interview with Hannity is, like all things Trump, shambling, rambling, and way too long. Fortunately, CNN has distilled the essence of the call into a series of statements that show just how other-side-of-looking-glass Trumpland really is.
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Trump then explains how the Spanish Flu happened in 1917 and how the flu "[p]robably ended World War I, because all the soldiers, they werethey were so sick." Which is a level of ignorance that would be staggering in a third grader. Trump missed the date, the order of events, and everything else about the last great pandemic. You might think that considering hes now watched over the death of more Americans than the entire 1918-1919 flu season, he might be studying those events. You would be wrong.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/6/18/1954131/-Trump-says-that-World-War-I-ended-because-soldiers-got-too-sick-to-fight-in-1917-pandemic?detail=emaildkre
greenjar_01
(6,477 posts)most of the books on the 1918 pandemic over the last several months, if they hadn't read them before.
Trump spouts out nonsense that indicates he gravely misunderstood a 2 minute slideshow on it.
We're in the worst fucking timeline. He's an idiot. I mean jeez, you'd think his prime voting blocks - older military obsessed white dudes who buy all the military history books - would be embarrassed of this shit by now. They can recite from memory the order of battle for the First Day on the Somme while their Idiot Leader doesn't have the slightest clue what happened during WWI. Aren't they humiliated?
LakeArenal
(28,817 posts)So, leaving them in trenches killed them.
Thats why we will jam folks into a stadium.
The Velveteen Ocelot
(115,702 posts)the flu epidemic started in 1918, not 1917, and lasted into 1920.
LakeArenal
(28,817 posts)Oh, wait.......
The Velveteen Ocelot
(115,702 posts)LakeArenal
(28,817 posts)Tipperary
(6,930 posts)WWII was many years later.
LakeArenal
(28,817 posts)Thomas Hurt
(13,903 posts)Wellstone ruled
(34,661 posts)Boy needs a History lesson like 60 years ago. Forget it,he would have been so friggin stoned it would have just been a waste of time
no_hypocrisy
(46,114 posts)In 1918, the infusion of American troops and resources into the western front finally tipped the scale in the Allies favor. Germany signed an armistice agreement with the Allies on November 11, 1918.
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/world-war-i-ends
Professor David Stevenson explains how the war came to an end, and why Germany accepted the harsh terms of the armistice.
To understand how and why the First World War terminated, we should remember why it failed to end sooner. In its middle years the conflict became a triple stalemate, at once military (neither side could achieve a breakthrough), diplomatic (the two sides objectives diverged too widely to allow peace through compromise), and domestic political (until the Bolshevik Revolution of November 1917, governments in all the Great Power belligerents remained committed to victory). In contrast, on the Eastern Front the crucial development, which enabled Soviet Russias withdrawal from the war (formalised by the signing of the Brest-Litovsk peace treaty of March 1918), was that a majority of the Bolshevik leaders was willing to concede all the Central Powers demands rather than risk being overthrown. In any case, much of the Russian army deserted after the Bolshevik takeover, rendering organised resistance impossible. Even so, the Brest-Litovsk treaty did not halt operations. In the summer of 1918, the Central Powers overran the Baltic coast, Ukraine and the Crimea, and sent troops to Finland and Georgia. Right up until November, hundreds of thousands of their forces stayed in the east.
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Lots of good information at this site: https://www.bl.uk/world-war-one/articles/how-the-first-world-war-ended
HotTeaBag
(1,206 posts)The 'Spanish' flu did take a horrific toll on soldiers during the First World War.
More American soldiers died of it, and pneumonia than on the battlefields.
It's not however the reason the war ended.