In October alone 195,000 people died, making it the deadliest month in American history. The killer was none other than influenza. In stark contrast with most seasonal flu outbreaks, this one was more deadly to the young and healthy than to the elderly or sick. The pandemic lasted 15 months and worldwide 500 million people got sick and between 3-5 percent of the world’s population died.
In 1918 the flu was not a disease that was even reported, but in January 1918, a doctor in Haskell County, Kansas reported unusual flu activity to the Public Health Service. By March, it had spread to the nearby Army base at Fort Riley. On the morning of March 11, one soldier reported being sick and by lunch that day, more than 100 soldiers on the base had fallen ill. From Fort Riley, soldiers carried the disease to other military bases and, eventually, the battlefront in Europe.
Initially, this new influenza strain was rarely fatal and set off few alarms. Across the battlefields of Europe, it was referred to as the “three-day fever.” However, it continued to spread and by the summer it was all over the world. In Fiji fourteen percent of the population died in just 16 days.
Most seasonal flu viruses affect only to the upper respiratory tract, but this flu also affected the lower respiratory tract which made it both easily spread and potentially far more deadly as patients drowned in their own fluid.
By July the medical community, especially those along the war front, had decided the threat was over...but it wasn’t.
In September, a soldier at Camp Devens, Massachusetts was sent to the hospital and misdiagnosed with meningitis. The next day, more than a dozen more were sent to the hospital. At its worst point, 1,543 soldiers at Devens alone were diagnosed with the flu in a single day. From there it spread into cities such as Boston which was only 35 miles away.
A physician at Camp Devens’ hospital reported that mere hours after a patient’s admittance, they began to turn blue from a loss of oxygen and it was only a matter of a few hours until they died. The numbers were staggering. In a single day in Philadelphia, 759 people died from flu-related illnesses. Death spread so quickly that many were buried in mass graves.
During this wave symptoms were not typical. Many reported coughing up blood or bleeding from the ears, nose, and even eyes. Streets were deserted and cities looked like ghost towns.
Eventually, the spread slowed down and with it came a false sense of security. Mass celebrations following Armistice Day in November 1918, led to a third wave beginning in January 1919, which, while gruesome, was not quite so deadly as the second.
In an attempt at maintaining wartime morale, President Woodrow Wilson signed the Sedition Act in 1918. Under threat of 20 years’ imprisonment, the law made it illegal to "utter, print, write, or publish any disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language about the form of government of the United States."
Does the following sound familiar? Arthur Bullard, a former student of President Wilson’s wrote at the time, "Truth and falsehood are arbitrary terms...The force of an idea lies in its inspirational value...It matters very little whether it is true or false."
While Americans were dying by the thousands, public health officials continually lied about the scope and severity of what was going on and media, whether unknowingly or by deception, printed misinformation.
An October 15, 1918 headline in the Philadelphia Inquirer read "Scientific Nursing Halting Epidemic." At the same time, in that week alone, 4,597 people in Philadelphia died of flu-related illnesses. On September 20, the Arkansas Gazette wrote: "Spanish influenza is plain la grippe – same old fever and chills." The next month, Arkansas confirmed it had 1,800 cases and issued a statewide quarantine.
 |
| Pottsville PA October 15, 1918 |
In spite of the War and the flu, chess activity continued. Though many were small (e.g. Quad events) there were tournaments in Vienna, The Hague, London, Amsterdam, Arnhem, Moscow, Copenhagen, Berlin, Nijmegen, Scheveningen, Breslau, Rye Beach, Kaschau, Gothenburg, Chicago, New York and Budapest.
A major tournament was played in New York City in October in spite of the fact that it was the month the pandemic struck with full force. On October 4th, 999 new cases were reported during the previous 24 hours. And, by October 19th there were 4,875 new cases. The daily death count fluctuated between 400 to 500 from October 16th to the 26th.
It was so bad that on October 30th Mayor John Hylan dispatched 75 men to the Calvary Cemetery to help bury bodies that had overflowed the facility’s receiving vault.
The first line of defense was isolation of the ill. Those that got sick in private houses or apartments were supposed to voluntarily keep themselves in strict quarantine there. Those that got sick in boardinghouses or tenements would be moved to city hospitals and held under strict observation. At Bellevue Hospital patients were laid out on cots jammed together in every nook and cranny and children were packed three to a bed.
It’s amazing that none of the tournament’s participants got sick! It was originally planned as an 8-player double round robin tournament, Norman T. Whitaker began a game a day before Round 1, became ill and withdrew, leaving it as a 7-player tournament.
Capablanca wouldn’t become world champion until 1921, but he was so good that at St. Petersburg 1914, he was giving all the St. Petersburg masters time odds of 5–1 in speed games and winning. He was undefeated in this tournament and yielded only three draws, two to Kostic and one to Black.
Borislav Kostic lost a match against Capablanca 5-0 the next year. He was awarded the GM title in its inaugural list in 1950. Kostic was living in Indiana at the time of this tournament, presumably to avoid the war in Europe. He was undefeated in this tournament.
Marshall was the strongest US player and was very active in both domestic and international events, with inconsistent results. In this tournament he lost both of his games to Capa, had a draw and a loss to Kostic and a win and a loss against Chajes. It was in this tournament in the first round that Marshall sprung his prepared variation (the Marshall Gambit, or Marshall Counterattack) against Capablanca who found his way through the complications and won. In round two Marshall lost Chajes and was never able to overcome the bad 0-2 start.
 |
| Chajes vs Capablanca |
Janowski, a talented tactician, was relatively weak in endgame play, but he was one of the top 10 players in the world during the late 1890s and early 1900s. In round one Janowski lost to the eventual tailender, Morrison and this was the beginning of his lackluster result.
A strong local master, Roy T. Black finished third at New York 1911, winning a rare game against Capablanca.
John S. Morrison was Canadian champion for a number of years.
Final standings:
1) Capablanca 10.5
2) Kostic 9.0
3) Marshall 7.0
4) Chajes 6.0
5) Janowsky 4.0
6) Black 3.5
7) Morrison 2.0
In the following game Chajes plays the opening quite well in modern fashion, but then instead of going for Q-side counterplay, he opts for counterplay in the center. Normally that would be a good idea, but not here because in doing so he opened himself up to a swift central breakthrough by his opponent. The result was disaster.
No comments:
Post a Comment