The invisible victors of the Great War were too small to write history
In short: While we focus on the strategic maneuvers of generals, a silent enemy fought on every front. In the First World War, for the first time in major conflict, battlefield deaths actually surpassed those from disease. Yet, microorganisms exploited the war's conditions to claim their own devastating toll.
In his lecture for Gresham College, Professor Francis Cox explores a historical anomaly: the First World War was the first major conflict where combat-related fatalities exceeded those caused by infectious diseases. Despite this shift in mortality, microorganisms remained active combatants on every front, utilizing the specific conditions of the war and its aftermath to spread through populations. This lecture, part of the Mondays at One Spring Series, highlights how these pathogens thrived in the specific environments created by global mobilization.
The struggle was not merely between nations, but a war against microbes—including bacteria, viruses, fungi, protozoa, and helminth worms. While the term 'microbe' is often used loosely to include even viruses and parasitic worms, these agents differ from endogenous diseases like cancer because they must be contracted from another individual harboring the microorganism. These pathogens exploited the chaos of the era, leaving a legacy that is often overlooked in mainstream historical accounts. Humanity has a long, fraught relationship with these agents, with roughly 250 species of infectious microbes commonly identified as part of our shared biological burden.
The history of understanding such threats is vast, with human records of infectious disease spanning over 6,000 years. Our conceptualization of infection has transitioned through distinct eras: from ancient beliefs that disease was a divine punishment or the wrath of gods, to the later theory of 'miasmas'—the idea that noxious, foetid atmospheres or rotting materials caused illness. Today, we recognize the complex mechanisms by which these microscopic victors operate. This evolution of thought reflects a broader human effort to find logical explanations for illness, moving away from nebulous, spiritual origins toward more tangible, environmental causes.
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Sources
- Summary by Intellect · source: The First World War: Disease, The Only Victor - Professor Francis Cox
- Also: The First World War: Disease, The Only Victor
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