Submitted by AutoModerator t3_10zn2xl in history
hop0316 t1_j8402m4 wrote
I was always told my Great-Uncle died during the Great War. When I looked him up on the Commonwealth war graves site his death occurred on 30/11/18 after the end of the war. He is buried in what is now Pakistan near the border with Afghanistan. Were the British Army fighting in that region in this period?
I know we did a year or two later. He served in the 1st Armoured Brigade of the Machine Gun Corp of that helps.
quantdave t1_j84h02l wrote
There was a brief Anglo-Afghan conflict in 1919 and the frontier districts were long considered only partly pacified, but a more likely culprit in late 1918 may well have been the influenza pandemic whose second wave killed millions in India in the last four months of the year: troopships docking at Karachi are thought to have been one of its principal routes into the country, so those posted to the frontier may have been significantly affected (the CWGC's criteria for commemoration rightly include those falling to "disease contracted or commencing while on active service" alongside combat-related deaths. Frustratingly the MoD too seems not to give cause of death, so I'm not sure how to find that without a copy of the death certificate.
hop0316 t1_j84nfga wrote
Hi thanks I managed to find a death certificate and it’s hard to read but it is listed as something like Inflammation of the Lung so i think it was likely an illness of some sort rather than combat.
quantdave t1_j84p4sl wrote
That's the pandemic, then: November 1918 was one of the deadliest months internationally (October in the US, but later for most). It hadn't occurred to me that it had reached so far into inner Asia, but troop movements in the war's last year were the biggest source of global spread (and of transmission from the US to Europe in the spring as the US army built up its numbers in France), so here we see the virus's long and lethal reach.
hop0316 t1_j84pk2b wrote
Yeah it’s pretty sobering, dying that way after making it through the war seems especially cruel as well.
quantdave t1_j84qz2d wrote
Indeed, that made it all the more traumatic for those who'd made it through, and I think it's part of the reason it later faded from collective memory in the west (in India it's very much remembered): it was just too much for people to cope with.
gayforager t1_j85xwb6 wrote
I laid flowers on the grave of a soldier by me who died 'of disease' on 12/11/18. Always think his is the saddest commonwealth war grave of all those in the cemetery
Helmut1642 t1_j85ztxh wrote
It could be a after effect of a being gassed some time in the past.
quantdave t1_j887ldg wrote
That's indeed a possibility I hadn't allowed for: the date and place make me think influenza, but a prior gas encounter could be the cause. It could even be both, with the flu rendering an older condition fatal.
jrhooo t1_j861ywk wrote
> so those posted to the frontier may have been significantly affected (the CWGC's criteria for commemoration rightly include those falling to "disease contracted or commencing while on active service" alongside combat-related deaths.
Also on this point, worth remembering that throughout history, disease has caused more war time casualties than combat all the way up to at least WWI, possibly WWII?
A big development to change that (besides the mere luck of avoiding major world pandemics I suppose) was modern medicine recognizing the impact of disease and taking a deliberate approach to controlling it.
Even down to a very simple example: when you see recruits in military boot camp, they get hygiene inspections nightly, they get in trouble (at very least yelled at, maybe worse) for things like touching/picking at their face. (You so much as rub your eyes and a DI sees it, you were getting aggressively corrected.)
Only later did I realize, oh. duh.
They are breaking you of disease spreading habits (don't touch your face), and also conditioning you to disease preventative habits (change your socks/clothes, wash up at night. You wouldn't think washing and changing clothes should have to be reinforced, but its not the doing it, that they're conditioning. Its the never not do it no matter how tired you are. 19 hour day and you just hiked 20 miles, all you want to do is climb in the bag and sleep? Heck no nasty, you still clean your weapon and take care of your personal hygiene first.)
invisiblewriter2007 t1_j86nr93 wrote
>change your socks/clothes
I have never served but my grandpa was in the army from 1944-1946 and I still don’t wear socks to bed because of how often I heard about trench foot from him and the training of changing socks. For years. Because I lived with him. So even when my feet are freezing I won’t wear socks to bed. So that conditioning can even extend to family members.
shantipole t1_j88xuar wrote
One other thing to remember is that the Armistice (with Germany) was November 11, 1918, but the various treaties didn't get signed until mid-1919. There was sporadic fighting but more importantly, the soldiers are still deployed, still training, standing guard, etc. Your great uncle probably did die from influenza, but it might have been a training accident or pneumonia or something else caused by still being deployed.
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