Trump says that World War I ended because soldiers got too sick to fight in 1917 pandemic

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

Donald Trump is no longer shuffling out to do the multiple-hour free association test that passed for a briefing on COVID-19. So he no longer has the cameras of every network focused on him as he explains how everything is “totally under control,” or how “it miraculously goes away,” or when he repeatedly insists that “this is just like flu.” We’re no longer getting a briefing on how good it would be to “clean out our insides” with an injection of bleach, and no longer being pushed to take a malaria drug without evidence of benefit. But just because the briefings have disappeared doesn’t mean that Donald Trump is sounding one bit more sensible.

In two new interviews—one with Sean Hannity, and another with the Wall Street Journal—Trump picks up the slack in distributing generic misinformation, absolute lies, and statements so irrational they’re actually painful. Did you know that World War I ended because the soldiers got too sick to fight? It’s true! Well, no. It’s not. But Trump did say it. Let’s get started ...

Trump’s phone interview with Hannity is, like all things Trump, shambling, rambling, and way too long. Fortunately, CNN has distilled the essence of the call into a series of statements that show just how other-side-of-looking-glass Trumpland really is.

-snip-

Trump then explains how the Spanish Flu happened in 1917 and how the flu "[p]robably ended World War I, because all the soldiers, they were—they were so sick." Which is a level of ignorance that would be staggering in a third grader. Trump missed the date, the order of events, and everything else about the last great pandemic. You might think that considering he’s now watched over the death of more Americans than the entire 1918-1919 flu season, he might be studying those events. You would be wrong.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/6/18/1954131/-Trump-says-that-World-War-I-ended-because-soldiers-got-too-sick-to-fight-in-1917-pandemic?detail=emaildkre

[greenjar_01]

1. Obama, and, to be fair, probably even Bush Jr. would have already read

most of the books on the 1918 pandemic over the last several months, if they hadn't read them before.

Trump spouts out nonsense that indicates he gravely misunderstood a 2 minute slideshow on it.

We're in the worst fucking timeline. He's an idiot. I mean jeez, you'd think his prime voting blocks - older military obsessed white dudes who buy all the military history books - would be embarrassed of this shit by now. They can recite from memory the order of battle for the First Day on the Somme while their Idiot Leader doesn't have the slightest clue what happened during WWI. Aren't they humiliated?

[LakeArenal]

2. I don't know how the WWII statements help him.

So, leaving them in trenches killed them.
That’s why we will jam folks into a stadium.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

5. Except that WWI (not II) was over in November of 1918,

the flu epidemic started in 1918, not 1917, and lasted into 1920.

[LakeArenal]

8. Obviously I'm not presidential material.

Oh, wait.......

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

9. But much more than some folks I can think of...

[LakeArenal]

10. Such a low bar.

[Tipperary]

11. You might have your wars mixed up.

WWII was many years later.

[LakeArenal]

12. Yes as I have been told already. Thanks.

[Thomas Hurt]

3. Dear Leader Pignuts gets his history from alt-right memes online.

[Wellstone ruled]

4. WTF!!

Boy needs a History lesson like 60 years ago. Forget it,he would have been so friggin stoned it would have just been a waste of time

[no_hypocrisy]

6. What ended World War I

In 1918, the infusion of American troops and resources into the western front finally tipped the scale in the Allies’ favor. Germany signed an armistice agreement with the Allies on November 11, 1918.

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/world-war-i-ends

Professor David Stevenson explains how the war came to an end, and why Germany accepted the harsh terms of the armistice.
To understand how and why the First World War terminated, we should remember why it failed to end sooner. In its middle years the conflict became a triple stalemate, at once military (neither side could achieve a breakthrough), diplomatic (the two sides’ objectives diverged too widely to allow peace through compromise), and domestic political (until the Bolshevik Revolution of November 1917, governments in all the Great Power belligerents remained committed to victory). In contrast, on the Eastern Front the crucial development, which enabled Soviet Russia’s withdrawal from the war (formalised by the signing of the Brest-Litovsk peace treaty of March 1918), was that a majority of the Bolshevik leaders was willing to concede all the Central Powers’ demands rather than risk being overthrown. In any case, much of the Russian army deserted after the Bolshevik takeover, rendering organised resistance impossible. Even so, the Brest-Litovsk treaty did not halt operations. In the summer of 1918, the Central Powers overran the Baltic coast, Ukraine and the Crimea, and sent troops to Finland and Georgia. Right up until November, hundreds of thousands of their forces stayed in the east.

-snip-

Lots of good information at this site: https://www.bl.uk/world-war-one/articles/how-the-first-world-war-ended

[HotTeaBag]

7. Actually, he's not entirely correct but he's not entirely incorrect.

The 'Spanish' flu did take a horrific toll on soldiers during the First World War.

More American soldiers died of it, and pneumonia than on the battlefields.

It's not however the reason the war ended.