The Lion's Pride Lion's Pride Volume 12 (Spring 2019) | Page 36

stated, “The sight of this magnificent youth from across the sea…had an
immense effect…[as if] a magical transfusion of blood was taking
place” (Grotelueschen, p. 18).
The biggest decimator of human life in the Great War was not from
artillery or bullets. It was the Spanish flu, which, as it originated in
Haskell County, Kansas, is a somewhat misleading name (Peck, 2018).
This influenza virus was unusual in that it was more devastating to
young adults rather than the very young and very old. Germany and
Austria-Hungary, starving and desperate, were ravaged by the virus.
Despite the devastation on both army and civilian lives, I haven’t found
evidence which concludes that the influenza virus was a turning point
for the German defeat. According to Peck (2018), the flu claimed some
twenty-one million people worldwide (p. 176).
Another counter argument presented is that foreign (American)
lending in the war was insignificant to the war effort. However,
according to Mosier (2001), the numbers maintain that France, given her
1914 national budget was only about $1 billion, was especially
dependent on American loans during the war; without them, she would
be sunk, and Britain would be sunk without France (p. 324).
Mosier also presents much of the first-hand accounts from the BEF,
which is frequently cited by other historians, as hopelessly self-serving
and obfuscating. American inexperience and the rapidity in which the
“doughboys” were forced to train for the trenches is frequently pointed