On the night of April 3, 1919, President Woodrow Wilson began to suffer from a violent cough. His condition quickly worsened to the point that his personal physician, Cary Grayson, thought the President might have been poisoned. Grayson later described the long night at Wilson’s bedside as “one of the worst I’ve ever been through.” I was able to control the cough spasms, but her condition seemed very serious.
The culprit was not a poison, but the same potent strain of flu dubbed the “Spanish flu” that would end up killing an estimated 20 million people worldwide, including over 600,000 in the United States. Wilson’s illness was made even worse by his timing – the president was bedridden amid the most important negotiations of his life, the Paris Peace Conference to end World War I.
Before the flu, a dead end
Wilson came to the Paris negotiations armed with his visionary “14 point” strategy to achieve world peace. It included calls for open and transparent peace treaties, for freedom and self-determination for all European nations, for disarmament and above all for the creation of a “general association of nations” – later called the League of Nations. Nations – to actively prevent all future wars.
But parts of Wilson’s post-war plan were staunchly opposed by the other great powers at the Paris Peace Conference, namely France and Britain. French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau openly opposed Wilson over the level of economic punishment to be inflicted on the Germans. Clemenceau demanded billions of dollars in reparations for the monumental loss of French life and property at German hands, but Wilson wanted to spare Germany such humiliation and instead focus on building the League of Nations.
In April, the Paris negotiations were deadlocked, and that was precisely when Wilson fell ill. The President was confined to his bed for five days, battling a 103-degree fever and heartbreaking coughs, while his doctor, Grayson, lied to the press saying it was nothing more than a bad cold.
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Post-influenza neurological disorders
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The “Spanish” flu of 1918 was known for its aggressive attacks on the respiratory system. The infection was worse in young and previously healthy people, whose immune systems could overreact to the virus and drown their lungs with fluid, killing patients within days. But for those who survived the initial assault, some experienced neurological symptoms as well.
Even after their scorching fevers subsided, flu victims described “post-flu symptoms”, psychotic delusions and visions resulting from damage to the nervous system, says John Barry, author of The big flu: the story of the deadliest pandemic in history.
“The most comprehensive study of the 1918 pandemic noted how common neurological disorders were,” Barry says. “They came right behind the lung. This included psychosis, which was usually temporary.
From many sources, it appears Wilson suffered similar effects during his battle with the flu at the Paris Peace Conference.
“He got paranoid,” Barry says. “Wilson thought the French had spies all around him. He was strangely obsessed with his furniture and automobiles, and almost everyone around him noticed.
Wilson’s chief bailiff, a man named Irwin Hoover, later wrote that “something strange was going on [the president’s] mind “and that”[o]nothing is certain: he was never the same again after this little illness.
British Prime Minister Lloyd George came to visit Wilson during his convalescence at the Prince Murat Hotel and called Wilson’s condition a “nervous and spiritual breakdown” amidst the heated negotiations in Paris.
Although cases of “flu psychosis” were reported by doctors as early as the Russian flu epidemic of 1889, there was no cure for the illness, which usually went away on its own. One hypothesis is that the neurological disorder experienced by Wilson and others was caused by swelling of the brain (encephalitis) associated with the flu.
Wilson capitulates in Paris
Georges Clemenceau, President Woodrow Wilson and British Prime Minister David Lloyd George at the Paris Peace Conference on June 28, 1919.
Mansell / The LIFE Photo Collection / Getty Images
When Wilson was finally well enough to join the Conference, he was hardly like the man who had fought so stubbornly for his principles. The flu had weakened her body and mind, and Wilson just didn’t have the strength or the will to hold on.
“The impact has been pretty dramatic in my opinion,” says Barry. “Wilson was adamant, insisting on ’14 points’, self-determination and ‘peace without victory’. Clemenceau had even accused him of being “pro-German”. Suddenly Wilson gave in on 14 points except the League of Nations, and only because Clemenceau threw him a bone.
For Wilson’s negotiating team in Paris and his supporters at home, the Treaty of Versailles signed in June 1919 was a betrayal of all that Wilson had stood for and set the stage for more conflict and death on the ground. European.
William Bullitt, State Department assistant and Wilson’s loyal attaché to the Paris negotiations, immediately tendered his resignation.
“I was one of the millions of people who confidently and implicitly trusted your leadership and believed that you would take nothing less than ‘permanent peace’ based on ‘selfless and impartial justice,'” Bullitt wrote. “But our government has now agreed to deliver the suffering peoples of the world to new oppressions, subjections, dismemberments – a new century of war.
READ MORE: Germany’s debt in WWI was so overwhelming it took 92 years to pay off
Most of Wilson’s ’14 points’ dropped
The young aide’s assessment was tragically premonitory. Historians agree that one of the main causes of the rise of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Party was the humiliation and economic desperation inflicted on the German people by the Treaty of Versailles. Instead of protecting the world from future wars, the Treaty of Versailles helped pave the way for World War II.
Did Wilson’s disease play an important and disruptive role in the Paris peace negotiations? Barry said it certainly had an impact.
“You can’t absolutely prove that he wouldn’t have given in on everything anyway, but if you know anything about Wilson, there’s nothing in his demeanor that suggests he was compromising on issues. like this one, ”Barry says. “Quite the contrary. He insisted it was “his way or the highway” on just about everything. “
Back in the United States, things only got worse for Wilson. First, Congress rejected American participation in the League of Nations, the last vestige of the “14 points,” then Wilson suffered a debilitating stroke from which he never fully recovered.
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