150: The Great War’s Aftermath: Coming Home, The Spanish Flu, & The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier
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near you. That's the letter K, the number 12.com/htds. K12.com/htds. It's a little past eight in the evening, May 25th, 1918. We're in Chicago, Illinois at the 21 story tall Blackstone Hotel where recently checked in William Howard Taft. He's just getting into the elevator to head up to his room.

The heavy set, handlebar mustache wearing former US president is in town for a conference and likely looking forward to some much needed rest. But as the doors close and William begins his ascent, elevator operator John Murray tells him something quite surprising. Theodore Roosevelt is also staying here today. In fact, he's in the dining room right now. And John adds, "I hear he's leaving right away."

Immediately, Will answers, "Then I'll ask you to take me back downstairs." What thoughts must be racing through Will Taft's mind as he descends? They were like brothers when Will served as then-President Theodore Roosevelt's Secretary of War. Things went sideways, though, when Will stepped into TR's shoes as the next president. They became full-fledged enemies running against each other for the presidency in 1912, quite literally splitting the Republican Party in two and giving the White House to current President Woodrow Wilson.

Will's seen Teddy twice since then. Once in 1915 and again in 1916. T.R. was cold both times. That said, T.R. responded favorably to Will's "Get well soon" telegram after surgery last year. Surgery needed to fix painful, fever-inducing abscesses still plaguing the Roughrider years after he nearly died exploring the Amazon basin. Since then, they've had a pleasant exchange discussing one of Teddy's speeches about the ongoing Great War.

But does that really mean Teddy is ready to be friends again? Well, time to find out. Stepping into the hotel's lively dining room filled with boisterous voices and clattering cutlery, Will casts his eyes about. And then he sees him. Seated by a window is the bespectacled, mustachioed, and these days rather heavy-set New Yorker, Will's fellow former U.S. president, his best friend turned worst foe, Colonel Theodore Roosevelt. Will calls out, "Theodore,

I am glad to see you. Surprise gives way to joy as TR looks up, sees Will, and flashes that trademark Cheshire grin of his. Rising, Teddy answers. Well, I am indeed delighted to see you. Won't you sit down? The room's countless conversations stop.

all present realize the significance of this moment. The privilege it is to witness these political titans shake hands, smile, and forgive. The room then spontaneously springs back to life, not with conversation, but a roar of cheers and applause as diners and hotel staff alike celebrate this historic healing. Will and Teddy take their seats and are soon engrossed in conversation.

We'll never know exactly what they're saying, but frankly, their faces tell us everything we need to know. It's the conversation old friends have after not talking for far too long. Nearly two months pass. Both men's lives continue. On July 16th, as Teddy dictates to his personal secretary, Josephine Stricker, the former president is passed a message that, though vague, tells him something has happened to one of his four boys, all of whom are fighting in the Great War.

A cable from American Expeditionary Force Commander General Black Jack Pershing soon follows. Yes, Teddy's youngest son, Quinton, who's a pilot in the U.S. Air Service, has gone missing in action somewhere near Chateau-Thierry, France. The rough-riding colonel and his wife, Edith, are devastated. Ever the patriot, TR soldiers on. He meets with his fellow Republicans, including William Howard Taft, regarding that fall's congressional elections. More time passes.

Teddy continues his work with the Republican Party, even looking at a 1920 run to return to the White House. But the wound in his heart caused by the loss of his baby boy fails to heal. Frankly, it seems that after a lifetime of fighting in the ring, of challenging himself in the rugged American West and various wildernesses around the globe, doing battle in the Spanish-American War, and combating corrupt corporations in the name of consumers and conservationism,

Even the big, stick-carrying bull Moose, who once delivered a speech right after taking a bullet to the chest, is slowing down. With a body that never fully recovered from his Amazon expedition, and a heart that always had problems but truly broke with the death of his son, the 60-year-old Colonel has reached that path which is too rough to ride. At 4:15 a.m., January 6th, 1919, Theodore Roosevelt passes in his sleep.

And I have to agree with Vice President Thomas Marshall. TR had to go this way. To quote the VP, death had to take him sleeping. For if Roosevelt had been awake, there would have been a fight. It's two in the afternoon on a cold January 8th, 1919. Per Teddy's wishes, his funeral service here at the Episcopal Church in Oyster Bay on New York's Long Island was Spartan. No singing, no pomp, and despite so many wishing to be here,

only 500 attendees. Now, six undertakers are struggling mightily to carry his coffin up a steep hill in Yonge Memorial Cemetery. That's right, one final charge up a hill to rest among the trees and nature. Yeah, everything about this is appropriate. A church bell rings.

It signals to heartbroken and at-home Edith that her beloved husband has reached his journey's end as friends and family at the cemetery look on, watching the undertakers lower the coffin. Off to the side, a bit by himself, stands William Howard Taft. Silently, hot tears stream down his rosy cheeks. He'll later tell his dearly departed friend's sister how important their reconciliation at the Blackstone Hotel last year is to him.

Had he died in a hostile state of mind toward me, I would have mourned the fact all my life. I loved him always and cherish his memory. Goodbye, dear Theodore. Rest well knowing that you exited the arena the right way, with your face marred by dust and sweat and blood. Knowing the triumph of achievement, and when you did stumble, it was while daring greatly. Go to Alice. Go to Quentin.

May your eternal rest be nothing but one endless, crowded hour. Welcome to History That Doesn't Suck. I'm your professor, Greg Jackson, and I'd like to tell you a story. After nearly two years of studying, writing, and podcasting about Theodore Roosevelt, honestly, I kind of feel like I just lost a friend. But...

We have to say goodbye to TR as we enter a world groping forward in the aftermath of the Great War. And I say groping quite intentionally, because even though we've finished World War I, today, as we enter the 1920s, we'll see a world still very much reeling from the war's aftermath. Starting in post-war Europe, we'll find our doughboys still over there after the 1918 armistice, where they're occupying Germany, fighting in Russia, and in some cases, convalescing.

I'll introduce you to some shell-shocked soldiers. We'll visit Paris in 1919 again, but not for the peace conference. This time, we'll attend the first Pan-African Congress. Returning to the States, we'll celebrate General Black Jack Pershing and his doughboys finally coming home. But we'll also find these soldiers struggling to adapt to civilian life in a nation where the not-so-Spanish Spanish flu is still carrying out its work of death. There's also worldwide unrest.

It's making US military leaders nervous. I'll summarize a lot of it, but we'll visit Egypt to bear witness as British Colonial Secretary Winston Churchill tries to bring peace to Britain's new mandates in the Middle East. And after all of that, we'll see closure to this awful war by closing this episode as we opened it with a funeral. We'll lay an unknown soldier to rest in Arlington National Cemetery.

Military occupation, more wars, more conferences attempting to build a better post-war world. Yes, the Great War and its horrors are still echoing. So let's get to these echoes by backing up the clock to follow the story of our still-deployed doughboys in late 1918 Europe. Rewind. November 11th, 1918. It's the day that the guns of the Great War fall silent.

We know this, of course, from episodes 146 through 48, just as we know that the war is not over. Not technically, at any rate. This is but an armistice-created ceasefire, awaiting a final peace to be worked out in Paris early next year. So, quiet as the battlefields of France might be, the now massive American Expeditionary Forces doughboys, pilots, hello girls, and more aren't heading home anytime soon.

On the contrary, this same November, our mustachioed AEF commander, General Black Jack Pershing, forms the American Third Army for service in Germany. Led by Major General Joseph Dickmann, it falls to the Third's 250,000 O-Boys to occupy important river crossings in Germany's Rhineland, ranging from the Moselle River to the bridgehead at Koblenz.

And to pull once more from past episodes, let's recall that the Americans are not occupying imperial German bridges, but German republic bridges. Yes, the empire is gone. And despite that revolutionary brush with communism, Germany's new republic is solidifying. In fact, on February 6th, 1919, German leaders begin the months-long process of sorting out a new constitution.

They meet in Weimar, Germany, and as such, this German Republic will come to be known as the Weimar Republic. Okay, so now that we're refreshed on and up to speed on post-Great War Germany, what's going on with our occupying doughboys? Well, despite being amongst former enemies, the men of the American Third Army find that the Germans are kind, quick to offer help or food. The Americans return that kindness.

It's a jarring contrast to the occupying French soldiers who, after four years of brutal war, are more inclined to punish Germans. Yet, even the goodwill between the Germans and doughboys doesn't lessen the latter's frustration at being stuck in Germany, putting in long, cold winter days training for battles that aren't likely to happen. The doughboys want to go home.

In sharp contrast to the spirit of the Franco-American fraternité that Colonel Charles E. Stanton so famously expressed in 1917 by proclaiming, Lafayette, we are here. Now, American troops sarcastically quip, Lafayette, we are still here. Blackjack responds by relaxing the training schedule and including more time for educational and recreational activities. Not all American soldiers are in France and Germany, though.

Some are fighting in Russia's ongoing civil war. Beginning in 1918, the US sent over 5,000 troops to join other Allied soldiers in a British-led effort to help the anti-communist White Army defeat the Bolshevik Red Army. Most of these Yanks, like Lieutenant Harry Meade, are Michiganders from the 339th. They've been selected because the army assumes their harsh winters at home have made them better suited to handle battle in sub-45 degree, ice-covered northern Russia.

Dubbed "polar bears," these men won't return to America's shores until April 1920. Still other doughboys are stuck in French hospitals, where some are suffering wounds that aren't visible to the eye. Doctors take note of these men, quote, "with staring eyes, violent tremors, a look of terror, and blue, cold extremities. Some were deaf and some were dumb. Others were blind or paralyzed." Close quote.

Early on, it's thought that exploding shells have concussed the soldiers. This leads to their condition being called shell shock. It's also referred to as war neurosis. Decades later, this form of mental anguish will acquire the name by which we know it in the 21st century: post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD. For most, war neurosis was the result of severe combat fatigue. Days or more of explosions, death, lack of food and sleep that took them to the breaking point.

It manifests differently in its various victims. Duncan Kemmerer recalls that, "Every time someone drops something on the floor, I would holler and either try to hide under the sheets or get under the bed." Thankfully for Duncan, he significantly improves after a few weeks in the hospital. Not all are so lucky. Doughboys fortunate enough not to suffer from shell shock have nothing but sympathy for their wounded brothers in arms. As Vernon Niptash writes in his diary,

They are caged in on all sides. At times they act perfectly sane, and then again, they're hog wild. During the war, Base Hospital 117 became the AEF's primary care facility for mental illnesses, though more had to be opened as the fighting continued. Led by Captain Sidney Schwab, the staff here used various methods to treat neuropsychiatric cases.

Primarily, they rely on Freudian psychoanalysis to find the root cause of the soldier's problem. But they also make sure the doughboys remember their doughboys. Military drills continue. They're put to work, be that carpentry, or crafts, or chores at the hospital farm. For most of the men, this proves successful. For others, however, it seems nothing can be done. But there's one woman who refuses to accept that. It's an unspecified afternoon in late 1918 or early 1919.

A beautiful 28-year-old dark-haired woman named Paula-Lynde Ayres is approaching what is likely Army Base Hospital number 117 in La Foche, France. A New York concert singer, Paula has been entertaining the troops with the YMCA since the summer of 1918 and is very popular with the Doughboys. But as she steps into the long, wooden-sided, French barracks-turned-US military hospital, she's not here to help wounded soldiers with robust minds pass idle time.

Valuable a service as that is. Today she has other ambitions. Hearing shouts coming from one of the closed off rooms, Paula does just as she has for the past few years. She readies herself to perform for suffering soldiers. But just as she's about to start, a man blocks the door and warns her. No need to go in there. The shell-shocked patients are in there. They are making so much noise that they probably wouldn't hear you. Paula's unfazed.

She pushes past the man, saying, "I should like to try anyhow." Stepping into the room, Paula pushes any nerves aside and begins to sing. She starts with a song these doughboys will know, a recent hit, "Just a Baby's Prayer at Twilight" for her daddy over there. The effect is almost immediate. As she sings the first verse, the men quiet down to listen. Seeing the effect she's having, Paula continues with another song and another.

She tries some ragtime and finds that it frightens some of the men, but no problem. The famed singer just pivots back to what works. She's happy to go back to slower pieces like "Little Gray Home in the West" or "Somewhere a Voice is Calling." By the time she's sung half a dozen songs, the men are singing along. For some, these are the first words out of their mouths in months. Afterward, the doctors plead with Paula to come back.

Yeah, no surprise. She's soon singing for these shell-shocked soldiers every day and traveling to other hospitals while still more performers are brought in as the lullaby cure spreads all across war-torn France. Before long, newspapers pick up on the story and all across the states, Paula becomes known as the girl who sang away shell-shock. But of course, you and I know that soothing and valuable as this treatment is, mental wounds cannot simply be sung away.

As these veterans of the Great War return home, many try to hide their pain from family and loved ones. We got a taste of that in episode 142 when we met the lost battalion's heroic commander, Charlie Whittlesey. That brave, kind New York lawyer turned officer saved so many lives but never stopped hearing the screams and moans of those he couldn't. Clearly never receiving the help he needed, he sadly silenced those screams the only way he knew how to in 1921, by ending his life. Yeah.

Invisible as these scars of war are, they don't simply disappear. In fact, a survey in 1927 shows that of veterans receiving hospital care, 46.7% are there for neuropsychiatric disabilities. Leaving these doughboys to convalesce, there's another American here in France amid the war's aftermath that we need to visit. He's in Paris and he's a professor.

No, I'm not talking about President Woodrow Wilson. He fits that bill. But I already told you the tale of Woodrow in the 1919 Paris Peace Conference in episode 147. I'm talking about Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois, who, working with the NAACP, numbers among the organizers of the Pan-African Congress.

Kaiser mustachioed and often bearded in one way or the other, and dapper as ever, Dr. Du Bois is, I'll remind you, the intellectual and fiery co-founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, or NAACP, whom we met in episode 101, and who later had quite the intellectual throwdown with Booker T. Washington over the best way forward for Black Americans in episode 120.

Well, knowing that Woodrow Wilson is heading to Paris for a peace conference, and further, that said peace conference is based on the professorial president's 14 points, one of which is self-determination for colonies, perhaps even colonies in the West Indies and Africa, Dr. Du Bois can't be anywhere but Paris. He tells his readers in the NAACP magazine, The Crisis, I went to Paris because today the destinies of mankind center there.

While this is the first Pan-African Congress, this is not the first Pan-African meeting of minds. Using this same term that communicates a concern for the welfare of African descending peoples around the globe, a Pan-African conference was held in London back in 1900. That was when Dr. Du Bois first declared that, "...the problem of the 20th century is the problem of the color line."

Like London's two decades past conference, this Congress in 1919 centers on the reunification of African communities, a fight for equal rights, power within colonial communities, and gradual self-government in and outside of Africa. More specifically, they're meeting in Paris so that they can easily send their resolutions to the Paris Peace Conference. But enough describing. Let's listen in for a moment as the first Pan-African Congress meets.

It's late in the afternoon, February 21st, 1919. We're in the conference room of Le Grand Hôtel, found on Boulevard des Capucines in Paris, France, for the third and final day of the Pan-African Congress. Presiding as president is the French parliamentary representative for French colonized Senegal, Blaise Dionne. Meanwhile, over at a long, green conference table sits the Congress's secretary, Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois.

He's writing notes as Madame Jules Siegfried, president of the French National Association for the Rights of Women, concludes her speech to the gathered 57 representatives. But now, as the Congress is just about over, President Blaise Dignes rises. He takes the floor to present their final resolutions. The Negroes of the world in Pan-African Congress assembled demand in the interests of justice and humanity

that immediate steps be taken to develop the 200 million of Negroes, that the allied and associated powers establish a code of laws for the international protection of the natives of Africa. Blaze continues on with their list. It includes a call for an end to the colonial exploitation of Africa's natural resources and worldwide slavery.

for the creation of public health care and education, for Africa to be ruled by consent of the Africans, and that all of this should be guaranteed and protected by the League of Nations. Agreeing with these resolutions and resolved to reconvene two years from now, the gathered delegates nod in approval. The gavel strikes, and with that, the first Pan-African Congress is concluded.

The Congress's resolutions make a splash in the worldwide press and find the ear of Woodrow Wilson's colleague at the Paris Peace Conference, Colonel Edward House. He, in turn, helps Dr. Du Bois to meet with other leaders. Even still, the ultimate consequences of this high-minded but toothless meeting are, to quote Dr. Du Bois's biographer, Dave Lewis, negligible.

And yet, one immediate consequence of this Congress is that it draws the ire of the 31-year-old Jamaican immigrant to America and founder of the Universal Negro Improvement Association who wasn't invited to attend, Marcus Garvey. He's an ardent advocate of the nearly century-old Back to Africa movement as a way to end racial oppression, believing that the best hope for Black people the world over is to make a new home in Africa.

He also believes that many in the Congress failed to take the United States and Africa colonizing European powers to task. So, speaking before a multinational crowd of 3,000 at the Mother AME Zion Church in Harlem on March 25, 1919, the mustachioed and heavyset orator tells them,

Dr. Du Bois desires internationalization of Africa for the white man. Under the League of Nations, certain places will be oppressed by mandatories. France, Belgium, and Italy have already realized their positions in Africa. This government got Dr. Du Bois to go to France so that when he returns and everything is settled, they can say, "It is you who asked for these things."

Sounds like trouble is brewing.

In fact, to quote Dr. Du Bois' biographer, David Lewis, one more time, the coming contest between Marcus Garvey and Dr. Du Bois will make the feud between Dr. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington, quote, appear to have been a mild misunderstanding. This message is sponsored by Greenlight.

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Let's pause and take stock of the Great War aftermath we've absorbed thus far. Presently, in early 1919, we've met doughboys occupying Germany's Rhineland, others serving as polar bears in Russia, and still others are convalescing in France. Meanwhile, in Paris, President Woodrow Wilson is pushing his League of Nations at the Paris Peace Conference, and in February, Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois is at the first Pan-African Congress.

As for his boiling feud with Marcus Garvey, we'll get to that tale all in good time. That's for a future episode. We now come to the majority of the American Expeditionary Forces soldiers. They're still here in France just in case the Paris Peace Conference fails. And they're killing time.

As Corporal Elmer Sherwood, a Nebraskan in the 42nd Division's 150th Field Artillery tells us, "We have plenty to read. Band concerts are a regular event and movies are given in the big mess hall, so our time has passed fairly pleasantly." The Doughboys also take classes. With his background in education, General Black Jack Pershing directs the YMCA's Army Education Commission to assist in establishing schools for modern languages, American history, and civics.

Soon, soldiers are attending classes at an AEF university in Bonn, France, as well as in French and British schools. Courses include the trades, agriculture, journalism, law, music, you name it. And that's not all.

Recovering physically from a bullet to the knee and emotionally from the recent death of his father, a clean-shaven 31-year-old Colonel Theodore Roosevelt III, though often referred to as Junior, talks with a number of his fellow AEF soldiers and officers during these same early months of 1919 and decides that they need a veterans organization, just as Spanish American war vets have the Veterans of Foreign Wars or Union vets of the Civil War have the Grand Army of the Republic.

From these conversations, the American Legion is born. Officially established in Paris that March, the Legion will hold its first convention before the year is out. But even with opportunities for entertainment, education, and a new veterans organization, the main thing on every soldier's mind is just getting home. As one Yank puts it, "Give me a rowboat, one oar, and a sail, and I will get to the States all right."

The Navy is hard at work moving soldiers across the Atlantic. In June 1919, its fleet of 142 ships return an impressive 314,167 doughboys to the States. Nicely done, sailors. With the Treaty of Versailles signed on June 28, doughboys depart in droves that July as well. The last remaining AEF combat unit leaves France in September. Minus, of course, the 11,000 nephews Uncle Sam's leaving in Germany's Rhineland.

This force will be present until 1923, when future president Warren G. Harding calls them home. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. With Black Jack and pretty much the last of the Doughboys sailing from France to New York that September, surely this calls for celebration. New York City thinks so. It's time to welcome these boys home. It's just before 10 a.m., September 10th, 1919.

We're at the corner of 110th Street and Fifth Avenue in New York City, where Gotham's spectating residents are cheering and shouting as the Victory Parade gets started. This enormous parade of some 30,000 men and more than 5,000 horses, led by AEF Commander General Blackjack Pershing himself, will travel the five miles from Fifth Avenue to Washington Square over the next five hours.

Mounted on a Virginia Charger loaned to him by the American Legion and seated on a gold-plated saddle, Black Jack starts off at a trot at 9:59 a.m. He gives no orders, but as goes the mustachioed, days shy of 59 years general, so go his men. His staff and regimental escort of 3,600 are with him, followed by the more than 20,000 men of the 1st Division, aka the Big Red One.

The 1st Division was the first to arrive in France and the last to leave. These men fought their nation's first great war battle at Cantigny and its last in the Meuse-Argonne and so very many in between. Affectionately known as "Hershing's Pets," Black Jack loves the men of the Big Red One.

They marched with him on the fields of France, and he could not be more pleased to have them marching with him now, here through the streets of New York. People shout excitedly as Blackjack approaches, but their boisterous cries are almost drowned out by Pershing's band, a predecessor to the future U.S. Army band later to be known as Pershing's Own, as its musicians pour their souls into their brass instruments. Meanwhile, roses fly at the Big Red One from all directions,

Smiling from ear to ear, soldiers stop to pose for pictures, for a quick kiss, or better yet, for a hot, steaming, delicious Red Cross donut. It's just what a doughboy needs. At 59th Street, in front of St. Patrick's Cathedral, the procession stops for a breather. Standing in front of this magnificent Gothic revival work of white marble and stained glass, Blackjack salutes Cardinal Mercier and Archbishop Hayes. But these gents aren't the ones to catch the commander's attention.

He now recognizes a group of young women. Ah, yes! They're with the Knights of Columbus and rendered service to the Doughboys in France. Dressed in blue frocks and nurse headdresses, these Catholic women run up to the general with a bouquet of roses. One of them, Miss Kitty Dalton, plants a kiss on the supposedly bachelor general. Blackjack turns red. Both smile as the army commander is pushed back into the parade.

But as much attention as Blackjack is getting, the real stars of the show are the soldiers. At 23rd Street, a veritable ticker-tape snowstorm falls from the sky and people rush out to give the doughboys gifts of cigarettes, candy, oranges, anything to show their appreciation. To quote the New York Herald's take on this parade, "This was but a parade of exactly 1/65th of the American Expeditionary Force. These men were regulars.

They were not of New York itself, particularly. Their banners proclaimed that they come from every state and territory under the flag. Perhaps that is one reason why they are, admittedly, the finest soldiers in the world. So, our doughboys have come back, now that it's over over there. What now? First comes an official discharge.

Heading home, these veterans are allowed to keep their uniforms and other pieces of equipment, such as helmets and gas masks, and are given five cents per mile to cover a train ticket, plus $60, provided they have an honorable service record, of course. Once home, many veterans aren't sure of what to do, and they've changed. To quote a famous song of the period by Sam Lewis and Joe Young, how are you going to keep him down on the farm after they've seen Paris?

Not to ignore those from the big city, but America's returning farm boys have seen a big and different world. But beyond changing views and desires, veterans of all backgrounds find it hard to transition back to civilian life. Sure, the Department of the Interior offers homesteading opportunities, and some veterans return to old jobs or find new ones, perhaps even using that education they received in France. But many feel let down.

As veteran William Nemec puts it, "The government just kicked us out with no job in sight and no way to make a living." And yet, bitterness toward Uncle Sam aside, most men are proud of their service. The image of a bitter and cynical lost generation is largely the work of novels and movies. Maybe these veterans' struggle to express their wartime experiences contribute to that cynical take.

For instance, Earl Seton isn't even sure what to say when his aunt asks him to tell tales of the Great War to her guests. He'll later say of this experience, "You cannot tell people who have not been there how it was and I don't think I tried."

Walter Bettel describes this "pride and service mixed with the horror of war" more succinctly in a letter to his father, writing: "All together, Pa, this was some experience and I wouldn't take anything for it but damned if I want to do it over again." One unfortunately familiar aspect of life for returning doughboys is the still present and prevalent Spanish flu. By the way, despite being called the Spanish Flu or the Spanish Lady, this strain of influenza definitely did not come from Spain.

The sickness likely picks up this unfortunate name because, during the war, the neutral Spanish government didn't have to worry about censoring newspaper coverage of the illness to keep up the people's wartime morale. Thus, by May 1918, as everyone was reading about Spanish King Alfonso XIII and his 8 million sickly subjects, the world mistakenly blamed Spain. So where did this particularly nasty strain start?

Its origin is and likely will remain a mystery. But we have a few suspects. One is none other than the United States. A particularly deadly strain struck Haskell County, Kansas in January and February 1918 and had a devastating impact on the area's young adults. This flu epidemic subsided before March, but the outbreak was so severe that local doctor, Lori Miner, reported the outbreak to public health officials and published his findings.

That same March, soldiers at Camp Funston, or Fort Riley as it will later be known, started to fall ill by the thousands. Researchers will later point out that Camp Funston had people from all over the world passing through, and perhaps anyone from China, India, or Europe could have brought the disease to the base.

With troops from the US going home and abroad incubating the disease, this flu spread rapidly. In brief, we have no smoking gun or patient zero to tell us where exactly this "Spanish flu" comes from. Regardless of its origin, the United States initially treated it like any other disease. But as cases spiked between September and December 1918, bringing a full-on burial crisis with a shortage of gravediggers and coffins, the government stepped in.

This is still the case as our doughboys are returning in 1919. In some instances, public meetings and funerals are banned. Schools, theaters, and bars are closed. And yes, people wear masks. Some vets use their old gas masks. And sometimes, masking becomes a heated issue. Oakland Mayor John L. Davey is none too pleased when, on January 16, 1919, Sacramento police officers arrest him for violating the city's mask ordinance.

With the nation's public health service far too small to handle the growing pandemic, the responsibility largely falls on local chapters of the Red Cross and committees of safety and defense. Ultimately, this influenza pandemic will send an estimated 675,000 Americans to the grave, about six times the doughboy death count from the recent Great War. Globally, this flu strain's body count will be at least 21 million, with high-end estimates at 50 to even 100 million.

By the summer of 1919, the Spanish flu appears largely to have passed, though pneumonia, the most common nail in the coffin for flu victims, is still doing its deadly work. As a result, suffragist Dr. Anna Shaw and robber baron/industrial titan and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie go to their graves in July and August, respectively. But even as cases decline that September, Surgeon General Rupert Blue fears one final wave to come.

He warns that, quote, "Communities should make plans now for dealing with any recurrences," close quote. Sadly, as we enter the new year of 1920, some communities find the Surgeon General to be all too correct. It's a chilly Saturday, February 21st, 1920. Wow. As chilly as it gets out in the sagebrush, sand, and brown dirt of the desert near the California-Nevada border.

With the snow-capped White Mountains in the distance, 55-year-old Fred Fletcher is driving along a rough dirt road about 100 miles northwest of Death Valley in Fish Lake Valley, Nevada. And believe it or not, Fred is out on a mail route. He's delivering packages and letters in this rural stretch of desert, just like his old man used to, and as his brother Vic usually does. Fred has had a lot of jobs, but it seems that mail delivery just runs in the family.

As he bumps and bounces across the sandy road, Fred soon sees the homes and shelters of his next stop, a Paiute village. Having lived near this desert his whole life, he likely knows many of these people by name. Perhaps he counts some as friends, which is why it's odd that he sees no one as he drives into the village. The mail carrier stops, gets out, and looks around. Surely someone wants their mail. Maybe a quick chat, perhaps a bite to eat if Fred's so lucky, but no.

This village is a ghost town. Where is everyone? Continuing his investigation, Fred soon finds out it's the flu. Everyone in this village of over 400 is sick and this cruel illness has already taken over 100 souls. Big Steve is dead and his wife Topsy is missing. Their 11-year-old son lies there alone, hacking, coughing, and sick. Jack and Jesse Lent are trying to save their one-year-old baby boy, Billy. Poor Daisy Newland.

She didn't make it past her sweet 16. With so many sick, the dead lie where they fall. Good God. Fred takes the news home. A local newspaper picks up the story, and from there, the news spreads as rapidly as influenza itself. The whole nation soon knows the horrors felt by this small Paiute village. Along with the efforts of the reservation's superintendent, this news coverage brings medical aid to the village. But for so many, it's far too late.

As this year's census numbers for Fish Lake Valley will show, the loss these families have experienced is inconsolable.

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As veterans try to adjust to civilian life and the Spanish flu spreads, the United States' top brass are facing their own post-war challenge as they wonder, how big should America's military be during peacetime? I detailed the U.S. military's pre-war size back in episode 133, but I'll briefly remind you that, before the war, it ranked 17th in the world, behind Serbia even, with just over 100,000 servings.

That 1917 number just more than doubles if we include the National Guard, and that's why building up the American Expeditionary Force to a few million was such a daunting task. One that the U.S. military doesn't want to face again, and according to Chief of Staff Peyton March, the War Department finds itself confronting a situation throughout the world of absolute unrest, unrest at home, and unrest abroad. As such, he recommends a peacetime army of no less than half a million.

What unrest is he talking about? We'll detail much of the unrest at home in future episodes, but suffice it to say that questions of race, labor, and a Red Scare are stirring up strong emotions from sea to shining sea. As for the unrest abroad, brace yourself, because there's a lot. Here's a quick global overview. Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia are all fighting for independence from Soviet Russia. The disillusion of the Ottoman Empire brings war to Greece and Turkey.

Italy is in the midst of a communist and anarchist-led social conflict called the Bienio Rosso, or Two Red Years. Though suppressed by the end of 1920, the reaction to it only swings the pendulum from the far left to the far right. Benito Mussolini, aka "Il Duce" and his black shirts make Italy the world's first fascist regime in 1922.

Adolf Hitler's Nazi party isn't as successful as "Il Duce" just yet, but Germans are becoming more interested in the Nazi Führer and his ultra-nationalist message as the Weimar Republic sees hyperinflation. Nations of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire are also filled with revolutions and wars between Hungary, Romania, and the Czechoslovakians.

In Ireland, the sparks and flames of revolution, suppressed several times across more than 700 years of English or British rule, now blazes the Irish War for Independence. In 1921, this war yields a partitioned Ireland. Northern Ireland remains a part of the United Kingdom while the majority of the Emerald Isle becomes the semi-autonomous Irish Free State. But all is not settled as civil war continues the next year.

Leaving Europe, China sees protest as university students gather in Beijing's Tiananmen Square on May 4th, 1919. They're angry that the Treaty of Versailles gives the Shandong Province in Northeast China to Japan. Ah, right, a result of US President Woodrow Wilson's compromise to get the Japanese to vote for his League of Nations.

These university students, joined by a 25-year-old quite fit but shabbily dressed university library employee named Mao Zedong, are part of the growing number of young people who support the new culture movement which rejects Confucianism while calling for modernization and more Western thinking. In India, the British regime perpetrates a massacre at Amritsar in 1919.

Hundreds of Indians die, as does their hope that their role fighting for the Union Jack against the Ottoman Turks during the Great War might lead to independence. An Indian man who's been in South Africa for years organizes a non-cooperation movement with his like-minded countrymen to obtain self-government in India. The movement will end in 1922, but this powerhouse of a leader, whom you may know as Mahatma Gandhi, is far from done with his fight to end British rule.

In the post-Ottoman Middle East, the League of Nations Mandate System, which was established by the Treaty of Versailles and sorted out at the 1920 San Remo Conference, has given France and Britain stewardship, shall we say, over the region's proto-nations and is not going well. We got a taste of this freshly packaged form of colonialism in episode 147, but now it's clear that the Syrians dislike France's quote-unquote help.

Smaller fracases and uprisings today will grow into the Great Syrian Revolt by 1925. Meanwhile, Britain's conflicting wartime promises for Palestine are also proving difficult to navigate, as evidenced by an anti-Zionist riot in Jerusalem in 1920. In Mesopotamia, or Iraq as it's now known, Sunnis and Shiites alike rise up against the British in the Iraqi Revolt of 1920.

The mandate-empowered British answer this bid for self-rule with bombs from airplanes. This works, but T.E. Lawrence, aka Lawrence of Arabia, is horrified. He reports that these raids have killed 10,000 and says that "Our government is worse than the old Turkish system. Britain must do better in the Middle East." With Lawrence serving as his special advisor, Britain's new Secretary of State for the Colonies seeks a solution at a gathering of the Empire's brightest minds.

It's 10:30 in the morning, Saturday, March 12th, 1921. We're in the British Protectorate of Egypt, where a rotund, jowled-faced, 46-year-old man, sporting a black suit and bow tie so smartly it distracts from his receding hairline, is seated at a long table in the stately ballroom of Cairo's most luxurious hotel. The six-story tall Semiaris Hotel. This is Winston Churchill.

All around him are some 40 mostly British experts on the Middle East. Knowing Winston, I imagine he chuckles as he reflects on the newspapers, flexing a little literary knowledge by calling this a gathering of his, that is, Winston's, quote-unquote, 40 thieves. This meeting hopes to solve several issues facing Mesopotamia, otherwise known as the British Mandate for Iraq, and other Middle Eastern issues, all without breaking the bank.

But before this session starts, let me introduce you to two of Winston's "thieves". Seated next to Winston is T.E. Lawrence, or again, Lawrence of Arabia, as newspapers and films have dubbed the handsome, square-jawed British officer and diplomat who played such a pivotal role, as we know from episode 147, in the Great War's Arab Revolt. He's dressed not in a suit or officer's uniform, but the full white flowing robes often worn by Middle Eastern men, as is his preference.

It might seem like he's the kind of guy who studies in Scotland for a semester and comes back with an accent and a kilt, but Winston knows that this 30-something celebrity intellectual has the cultural and linguistic knowledge to back up the image. Likewise impressive is the only woman in the room, the famous writer, archaeologist, and political officer, the queen of the desert, Gertrude Bell.

Being an avid supporter of the locals here and their ability to govern themselves, the slender, blue-eyed, brown-haired Middle East expert arrived in Cairo with a bad impression of Winston, though her frenemy, Lawrence, insists that the old boy isn't so bad. She'll decide for herself as this conference plays out. Winston rises to begin the conference. The first consideration is the reduction of British military commitments in Mesopotamia.

Whatever may be the political status of the country under the mandate, it is out of the question that forces should be supported by the British taxpayer. Sir Percy Cox, the High Commissioner of Iraq, says that the Council of State, which is currently running things, has to be replaced with a new authority. Gertrude answers with a few options. There's a Sunni leader, Saeed Abdul Rahman, but he's too old and will definitely refuse the job.

Alternatively, they could look to the Sheikh of Muhammara. Gertrude also mentions a Turkish prince that comes to mind. But then we come to the two strongest candidates: Sayyid Talib, who brings his government experience from the former Ottoman Empire, and finally, Lawrence's friend and leader of the Arab Revolt, Prince Faisal. Ah yes, the British Allied war hero with a powerful family whom the French just kicked off the throne in their mandate for Syria.

and frankly, a man to whom Britain still owes favors. It's pretty obvious who Gertrude favors here, but Lawrence backs her up. In the end, Winston comes to the conclusion that the Sharif's son, Faisal, offers hope of the best and cheapest solution. The Cairo Conference of 1921 will hold 40 to 50 sessions as it meets through the remainder of March. By its end, Gertrude has decided Lawrence was right. Winston isn't so bad after all.

She writes, "We covered more work in a fortnight than had ever before been got through in a year. Mr. Churchill was admirable, most ready to meet everyone halfway and masterly alike in guiding a big political meeting and in conducting small political committees into which we broke up." As for the results, they did decide to put Faisal on the throne of Iraq. In fact, they're going to get his brother, Abdullah, off the warpath by making him a king too.

They're breaking off the eastern half of the Mandate for Palestine, creating the Emirate of Transjordan and handing that to Abdullah. In fact, so much map-changing power is wielded here, an apocryphal tale will later circulate that an odd curve in the border between Transjordan and Saudi Arabia is because Winston Churchill either sneezed or hiccuped while drawing it.

As for the two Hashemite brothers turned kings, Britain will, of course, need to make the people of both Iraq and Transjordan feel like they chose them, but that's no problem. Both are sufficiently popular. That can and will be arranged. Britain will save pounds and pence in Iraq by reducing garrisons to rely on the Royal Air Force. It will also save money by keeping the mandate's Kurdish regions in the northwest as a part of Iraq, as opposed to making it an independent state.

The Cairo Conference is but one meaningful taste of the many impactful decisions Britain and France alike are making about the post-Great War Middle East under this League of Nations mandate system. Yes, there are many earnest and great minds doing their best, but the best interests of both imperial powers are driving many decisions. And the consequences of those decisions will cast long shadows. But of course, what lies in those shadows are stories for a much later day.

From Finland to the Middle East and everywhere else I've mentioned. That is what U.S. Army Chief of Staff Peyton March is talking about when he says there's unrest in the world. But Congress isn't with him. Most lawmakers want the Great War to fade to memory and aren't interested in maintaining a large army, no matter what's going on beyond those shining seas. Thus, Congress limits America's peacetime army to 18,000 officers and 280,000 men.

This august body effectively limits it all the more, though, through limited funding. In upcoming years, the U.S. Army won't exceed 140,000 officers and men combined. Frankly, Congress isn't the only one that wants to see the war to end all wars fade to memory. The American people do, too.

But sometimes you have to face the past before that can happen. And so, the idea is brought up to Peyton March that the US should honor its war dead as Britain and France have with a tomb for an unknown soldier. Peyton initially resists. He still hopes to identify all of the American dead.

But as letters of support pour in, as newspapers call for memorial in Arlington National Cemetery, as General Blackjack Pershing declares his support right along with former Harlem Rattler officer turned Congressman Hamilton Fish III, Peyton finally comes around. As funds are appropriated for the monument and ceremony, the next question is which anonymous fallen soldier will receive the honor and burden of symbolizing his fellow unidentified and dead brothers in arms?

That is, which one of them will be the unknown soldier. The responsibility of choosing falls to 23-year-old Chicagoan, Sergeant Edward Younger. On the morning of October 24th, 1921, the young sergeant arrives at the Hôtel de Ville in Chalons-sur-Marne, France, and there enters a dimly lit room containing four caskets. Each is draped with the stars and stripes. Each holds the remains of a fallen American serviceman.

Edward circles the room and each casket several times. As he'll later recall, "I was numb. I couldn't choose. Then, something drew me to the coffin, second to my right on entering. It seemed as if God raised my hand and guided me as I placed the roses on that casket." The remains of this nameless, deceased doughboy are then placed in an ebony and silver casket.

Every respect and honor is given as the deceased makes the transatlantic journey aboard the USS Olympia to Washington, D.C. And now that he's arrived, let the services begin. It's 8 a.m., Friday, November 11th, 1921. Two years to the day since the Great War's fighting came to an end. We're in the U.S. Capitol's dome-topped and muraled rotunda, where many of the nation's greatest servants have, upon death, lain in state. One such American is lying in state right now.

a nameless fallen doughboy. Eight NCOs representing all military branches lift the casket. These body bearers solemnly carry their unidentified brother out of the Capitol building and down its marble stairs. As they do, an army band plays, rifles present, and sabers flash. The body bearers place the flower-adorned and star-spangled casket on a black-draped gun carriage. Pulled by six horses, it departs for Arlington National Cemetery.

The procession travels west along Pennsylvania Avenue. President Warren G. Harding walks beside AEF Commander Black Jack Pershing. Offered the honor of being the Grand Marshal, Black Jack rejected it, preferring to walk here with his unnamed doughboy. Governors, congressmen, former president-turned-Chief Justice William Howard Taft, and former President Woodrow Wilson follow. Though Woodrow is in a horse-drawn carriage, he can't walk great distances since that stroke.

The procession includes a phalanx of Medal of Honor recipients, like our old friends, Sergeant Alvin York and Lost Battalion Commander, Lieutenant Colonel Charlie Whittlesey. Soldiers, sailors, and Marines, Red Cross nurses, grieving, sunless, gold star mothers, and so many others. Tens of thousands lining the streets, waving small flags and wiping away tears. I wonder how many parents, widows, and children here look at the casket and ask themselves, "Is that my boy?"

my sweetheart, my daddy, to all of them, I'd say, yes, it is him. Because symbolically, this innominate soldier is the entire nation's lost father, deceased husband, and never returning son. Having traveled a five mile route, the procession reaches Arlington National Cemetery, the nation's Valhalla, to quote the Washington Post.

The body bearers take our anonymous warrior into the cemetery's recently built white-hued and marble Memorial Amphitheater and place it on a flower-packed platform. Now, it's time for the funeral. Approaching 12 noon, the Marine Corps' famous band, The President's Own, performs "My Country 'Tis of Thee" for the packed amphitheater. Senior Chaplain of the AEF, Episcopal Bishop Charles H. Brent offers a prayer. Two minutes of national silence follow.

President Harding speaks. It's the first speech ever transmitted electronically to the entire nation. The president then awards this fallen doughboy the nation's highest honors. Several foreign dignitaries, including Ferdinand Foch, likewise decorate the slain soldier. That's right, Black Jack's French frenemy, the Allied Supreme Commander, personally came for this. Lafayette would be proud. Lieutenant Colonel Charles Whittlesey stands attentively.

But at one point, he leans toward his friend from that godforsaken pocket in France's Argonne forest, Captain George McMurtry, and whispers, "I keep wondering if the unknown soldier is one of my men." Charlie pauses, then adds, "I should not have come here." "Oh Charlie, what deep demons is this service unleashing in your mind?" The heroic New Yorker will take his life before this month ends. But now, it's time for the soldier to go to his final rest.

The president's own plays our honored dead as the body bears carry the anonymous dead to his sarcophagus, which has a bed made of dirt from France. Yes, this doughboy will sleep eternally in his home nation, but he'll also do so on the very land he died to liberate. Final honors come now, which includes Crow nation chief Plenty Coos presenting a feathered war bonnet and a coup stick to the deceased. After all, what if this man was indigenous?

And even if he wasn't, that doesn't matter. This soldier represents all the Doughboy dead. And that includes Native Americans. Two artillery cannons fire. A bugler sounds taps and the ceremony ends with a 21-gun salute. Rest well, unknown Doughboy. Somewhere, your family loves and misses you. And here, you'll help countless mourning Americans find some degree of closure for years to come. Yeah, closure.

The United States and the whole world wants to heal and move on from this unprecedentedly destructive war, one intertwined with one of the worst pandemics in human history. But the wounds are still so tender. Far beyond America's shores, recently established nations and League of Nations mandates are fragile. Their successes or failures remain unknown.

Meanwhile, here in the States, the Russian Revolution's success is fueling America's first red scare. Soaring racial tensions are giving new life to a resurgent Ku Klux Klan, and American workers are hitting their breaking point. Some are even taking up arms. And as all of this happens, man, you can't even get a drink. Well, not legally, that is. So step into this speakeasy with me, pull up a chair, and get comfortable.

Because the tales we'll hear of 1920s America in upcoming episodes? Why, they're the bee's knees, baby. History That Doesn't Suck is created and hosted by me, Greg Jackson. Episode researched and written by Greg Jackson and Will King.

Les Dienes, and Marcus Garvey, read by special guest Ray Christensen from the podcast What's Ray Saying? Paula Lind Ayers, read and voiced by Kelsey Dines. Production by Airship. Sound design by Molly Bach. Theme music composed by Greg Jackson. Arrangement and additional composition by Lindsay Graham of Airship. For a bibliography of all primary and secondary sources consulted in writing this episode, visit htbspodcast.com.