- Interviewed on Fox News Sunday evening, Donald Trump said that the Spanish flu "killed between 50 and 100 million people" and "probably ended the First World War because the soldiers fell ill".
- The estimate of the number of victims provided by the American president is correct, but the epidemic is not at the origin of the end of the conflict.
A new outing for the President. Interviewed for more than an hour on Fox News on Sunday, Donald Trump returned to the Spanish flu epidemic, which he wrongly located in 1917. "The Spanish flu killed between 50 and 100 million people, launched the American president. It probably ended the First World War because the soldiers fell ill. The president's statement, which has gone viral, can be seen here from the 34th minute:
The president had already mentioned the deadly epidemic last week. On April 28, he explained that the episode had been "bad, but not quite the equivalent of what we are going through right now."
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The Trump Organization estimates the number of victims is correct, however, it is not fair to say that the Spanish flu has probably ended the Great War, told 20 Minutes Nicolas Beaupré, historian, specialist First World War and lecturer at Clermont-Auvergne University.
The epidemic experienced three waves, recalls the historian, between the spring of 1918 and the winter of 1919. "For a long time, it was thought that the Spanish flu caused 15 to 20 million deaths worldwide. In the 1980s and 1990s, there were new studies on the Spanish flu, estimates were raised. The one that circulates the most is 50 million, but estimates calculate more deaths. A 2002 study gives this estimate of 50 to 100 million deaths.
Mortality from this disease was quite different from that from Covid-19. The Spanish flu has affected people in the prime of their lives: "More than half of the dead are people under the age of forty", underlines Nicolas Beaupré.
The United States has deplored 650,000 to 850,000 deaths from the epidemic. France, 200 to 250,000. Some countries were hit the hardest: "It is believed that there were the most deaths in the colonies, in Asia, in the British East Indies", specifies the historian. Some Pacific islands have also been devastated by the virus.
It is "absurd to say that the epidemic precipitated the end of the conflict"
Even if soldiers from all camps are affected, it is "absurd to say that the epidemic has precipitated the end of the conflict, underlines Nicolas Beaupré. We cannot say that the war ended completely in 1918. It ended on the western front. All historians today insist that the war continues, especially in Eastern Europe or the Middle East. "And to add:" Defeat is above all a military defeat. "
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