It is September 24, 1918. A large crowd throngs the Angoulême station. Nobody wants to miss the spectacle, that of a gigantic train carrying more than 1000 American soldiers of the 1st corps of artillery. Flags are waved when these tall and handsome soldiers cross the city to join their cantonments located in the buildings of the 52nd artillery (the current 1st RIMA).
Slightly away from the convoy, an ambulance to which we pay no attention. Inside, US Corps Lt. David. He suffers from a serious respiratory infection that appeared on the boat during the crossing of the Atlantic. Ten days later, the local newspaper announced his death. He was 28 years old. Is this the zero patient at the origin of the Spanish flu epidemic in Charente?
To understand how we got there, let’s go back to the spring of 1918 … to the United States in one of the Kansas military camps.
The first wave, then the second…
Fort Kinsel. Thousands of soldiers train every day to go and fight in Europe. Suddenly a mysterious flu, not very deadly, but very contagious, appears. More than 1,000 soldiers are infected in a short time. Handed over, they pass through Boston then arrive in France via Brest, Nantes and La Rochelle. In their package, weapons, but also the H1N1 virus, in its most benign version, which immediately spreads in France, then in Europe. Because of the state of war, nobody talks about it. Spanish newspapers mention it. Not being subject to war censorship, they speak of an unprecedented epidemic. On June 1, 1918, 250,000 Madrid residents were affected, including King Alfonso XIII. Quickly, the association is made. For a large part of Europeans and the medical world it will be the “Spanish flu”…
This decreases in intensity in July 1918 and even seems to disappear. However, a second wave, much more virulent this one, spreads at the beginning of September. Everything seems to indicate that the virus mutated during the summer in France. However, it was precisely in mid-September that the flu was mentioned in local sources. Lieutenant David is therefore not the zero patient.
It is probably French soldiers, wounded and treated in the hospitals of the department who are mainly responsible for the spread of the disease. In fact, the arrival of the Americans is at most an aggravating factor in the spread of the disease.
And the sources are very clear on this subject, in particular the civil status, even if the latter must be used with extreme caution. According to this document, mortality indeed increases in a dizzying way. The impact, however, is uneven.
135% excess mortality in Chabanais
First of all, there is a very marked increase in mortality on major roads. That of Ruffec-Angoulême-Barbezieux is the most affected, followed closely by the Cognac-La Rochefoucauld-Chabanais curve. In this area, where trains and cars circulate and where most of the military hospitals are concentrated, the excess mortality exceeds 50%, the record being held by Chabanais with 135% more deaths. Elsewhere the flu seems less strong. It is even very low in the southern periphery of the department.
Is this a preserved area? It is very difficult to say this knowing that some people are hospitalized in emergency at the Barbezieux hospital, an establishment which indeed concentrates a large number of flu patients.
In any case, the peak was reached in the first half of October 1918. In December, it can be clearly stated that the epidemic was in its final stages. But before his complete disappearance, there were dramas in certain families, whereas, paradoxically, on November 11, we went out into the street to celebrate Victory and the end of mass death. The virus makes fun of the cease-fire. It takes in Charente at least 800 people (including 300 in Angoulême), perhaps 1,200. It must be recognized that the authorities have, during this period, failed several times. They are waiting in mid-October to close bars, restaurants, cinemas and some schools. At the same time, no instructions are sent to the few local doctors who were not mobilized.
Three-quarters of deceased Charentais are under 55
Remember that the department suffers from total medical desertification. More than 75% of the Charente doctors of 1914 are on the front. A boon for the virus which took advantage of this situation to prosper. Furthermore, no remedy is truly effective. We just say we need to rest and wait for the fever to drop. However, the witnesses were unanimous.
This flu is a filth. It first colors the skin with a mahogany red hue. If the face turns blue and then turns black, death is guaranteed.
The smell is reminiscent of wet straw. The patient is taken by terrible fits of cough. His lungs are so crowded that the patient dies of asphyxiation. The funeral directors must then break the rib cage to place the body in the coffin. A trauma for loved ones.
The other peculiarity of the disease is that it strikes adults and not the extreme ages of life. 75% of those who died in Charente are under 55 years of age. Disappeared as quickly as it appeared, the Spanish flu has left its mark. Little mentioned by artists (Munch thought he was ill), it is still present in family memories, even a hundred years after his disappearance.
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The author of this text
Stéphane Calvet is a historian. He was born in Angoulême in 1970.
After his schooling at the Saint-Paul school, he studied history at the University of Poitiers and then in Paris I. His work focused on the First Empire, in particular on conscription, the officers of the Grande Armée native of the Charente. Beneficiary of a scholarship allocated by The Napoleon Foundation which facilitates his access to sources, he supports at the University of Avignon, in 2009, his doctoral thesis which will be published: “Napoleon’s Charente officers, destines of brave “.
Professor of history and geography at the Guez-de-Balzac high school, he also teaches at the IEP and at the University of Poitiers, while continuing his work on the First Empire which favors the anonymous fighter rather than the Emperor or the staff of the Grand Army.
He published:
- in 2011, “The great criminal cases in Charente in the 19th century (1807–1915)”
- in 2012, “Little story: The department of Charente” (Geste Éditions),
- in 2013, on the occasion of the bicentenary of the battle of Leipzig, “The war of the peoples” (ed. Vendémiaire),
- in 2016, a biography of the legendary Cambronne (ed. Vendémiaire).
Biographical sheet borrowed from the Angoumois Academy, of which Stéphane Calvet has been a full member since 2013.
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