Kaiserschlacht
Kaiserschlacht. (Ir a Personas. Cosas. Cronología. Geografía. Fuentes.)
En el foro Axis History el usuario phylo_roadking opina que la gripe fue la causa de la crisis moral que obligó al armisticio, pero ninguno de los intervinientes entra en la cuestión:
Re: No Kaiserschlacht Postby phylo_roadking » 12 Aug 2008, 14:41
Stg, I'm not a WWI-head, but just recently I've been reading through material on the end of the war...
The Germans ARE going to take massive casualties...but not from military action, flu. Yes, it will afffect the other nations too - but years of the Allied blockade means that Germany just doesn't have the strength to withstand a major "plague" like that. As it was, it looks like casualty rates from the Flu were higher in the German Army than in the Allied armies in 1918 and 1919, and the Allies were in a much better state rear of the lines to deal with a major outbreak...thinking now of the huge hospital network built up by the French to deal with thousands of gas casualties during the war, that was used historically to nurse the victims of Influenza after the Armistice.
You can't underestimate the degree of the collapse in German morale that was due to near- if not real starvation in the trenches as the Blackade bit hard; even down to threadbare uniforms rotting at last to nothing; the effect of the cotton embargo on Germany for the production of uniforms, blankets etc for the Army as well as the civilian population is often ignored. Ditto on shoeleather as German beef and other meat production spiralled down due to the embargo on foreign livestock fodder and livestock imports.
The main reason for the large allie advances later that year were the loss of moral, the loss of the last remaining quality troops, and the overextended nature of their troops
Influenza in the threnches, the lack of food and clothing, the privation at home and in the trenches - all of it will destroy...DID destroy German morale and the will to fight just as much as battlefield casualties. Remember - it was LIVE German soldiers that were forming Soldiers' Soviets in late 1918, not the dead ones...
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