How will the covid-19 pandemic end? Will it change the world? Will some countries emerge stronger, while others appear weak due to their inability to handle the virus? Will the pandemic force long-term impacts on economies and cultures?
Wars carve our history. They lead to the downfall of some civilizations and the rise of others. Pandemics have also changed history, and pandemics and wars often occur simultaneously. Disease can weaken a strong civilization, allowing its lesser foe to prevail in battle. Also, many times over the millennia, marauding warriors have returned home from war bringing with them a terrible disease. Sometimes, an infectious disease gains a foothold during battle, and soldiers confined together in close quarters provide the perfect breeding ground for the virus to spread.
Around 430 B.C., Athens and Sparta went to war, and soon after, a strange disease developed in Athens. According to the Greek historian Thucydides, people in good health suddenly became ill with red and inflamed eyes and a bloody throat and tongue. Experts do not know what caused this epidemic, but they have suggested everything from typhoid fever to Ebola. As the deadly infection spread, the war raged. As many as 100,000 people died from the disease, and Athens finally surrendered to Sparta.
In A.D. 165-180, Roman soldiers returned from a campaign, carrying home a pandemic, known as the Antonine Plague. The disease, which might have been smallpox, killed over 5 million people. The epidemic caused instability and war throughout the Roman Empire, leading to the beginning of its downfall.
The Plague of Justinian from A.D. 541-542 was the bubonic plague, and it ravaged Constantinople before spreading to Europe, Asia, North Africa, and Arabia. This plague marked the beginning of the decline of the Byzantine Empire.
The Black Death from 1346-1353 was also caused by the bubonic plague. This devastating pandemic wiped out over half of Europe’s population, but it also changed the course of Europe’s history in a positive way. Large numbers of laborers died from the plague, and those who remained demanded higher wages. The surviving laborers had access to better food, and the loss of cheap labor led to technological innovation.
In the 16th century, European explores brought smallpox and other Eurasian diseases to the Americas, wiping out as many as 90% of the indigenous people in the Western Hemisphere and causing the collapse of the Inca and Aztec civilizations. After disease weakened the Incas and Aztecs, the Europeans easily conquered them.
While the previous examples stem from far back in our history, the 1918-1919 flu presents a more recent case. This pandemic began during WWI. Experts disagree about where the flu originated, but most agree the lethal virus spread quickly due to the cramped conditions of soldiers in barracks and the poor nutrition during the war. President Woodrow Wilson was so intent on boosting morale and keeping the country focused on patriotism and winning the war that he refused to talk about the deadly influenza virus spreading like wildfire among the troops. By the end of WWI, more soldiers died from the flu than on the battlefield. The 1918-1919 flu killed 675,000 Americans and between 50 and 100 million people worldwide.
In April 1919, just as the war ended, President Wilson caught the flu. When it was time to sign the peace treaty in Paris, an extremely ill and weakened Wilson caved to demands of the French for a punishing peace agreement with Germany. In return for conceding to the French on the tone and content of the treaty, the French agreed to Wilson’s wishes to form the League of Nations. Many historians believe the harsh treatment toward Germany at the end of WWI lead the country down the path to hyperinflation, chaos, nationalism, militarization, the rise of Adolf Hitler, and WWII.
A major world event such as a pandemic is bound to leave lasting impacts. We can already predict some changes in our lives. Online virtual meetings, education, and doctor’s visits have become more common and likely will remain so, even once the pandemic ends. Will a move away from working at the office toward working at home decentralize our cities? Will our hypervigilance over avoiding infection continue once we have a vaccine for covid-19, or will we again display indifference in the presence of pathogens? Will our economy recover, or will we suffer a damaging and possibly fatal blow from this virus? How will other countries fare?
Perhaps the final chapter on the covid-19 virus will not be written for decades when scholars can look back from a distance and see the effect the virus had on our lives, our cultures and our countries. Other pandemics have caused the fall of empires. Will this one cause great harm in the long run?
