(I can't believe this hasn't been done. Dozens of threads on worse versions and a couple with slightly reduced epidemics, but not one where the world was actually spared. I leave the psychological implications of that to others)
The Spanish flu killed as many or more people as all the guns and gas of WW1. And it did it in a fraction of the time. Unlike nearly all such epidemics before or since, the influenza of 1917 seemed to prey especially on the young and healthy - those same people driving the engines of war.
What would have happened without the epidemic?
Would the World War drag on a few months more? With more poor, young, and angry people, perhaps more of Europe turns to revolution or fascism.
So what do you think?
The Spanish flu killed as many or more people as all the guns and gas of WW1. And it did it in a fraction of the time. Unlike nearly all such epidemics before or since, the influenza of 1917 seemed to prey especially on the young and healthy - those same people driving the engines of war.
What would have happened without the epidemic?
Would the World War drag on a few months more? With more poor, young, and angry people, perhaps more of Europe turns to revolution or fascism.
So what do you think?