The year was 1918 and around the world, “Spanish Influenza” was killing people in the prime of their lives. It’s estimated that 1/5 of the world’s population was infected and it killed between 20 and 40 million people–more than World War I, which was at that point nearing an end.
On 3 March, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk took Russia (which was under Bolshevik rule) out of World War I. The treaty turned control of the Ukraine, Finland, the Baltic provinces, and Poland to the Central Powers–the German Empire, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and Turkey. Not only was this treaty devastating for Russia–which lost 300,000 square miles of territory, more than 50 million people, and vast amounts of natural resourcesâ€”but removing Russia from the fighting also allowed the Germans to reposition their troops on the Western Front fighting the Allied troops of France, Britain, Italy, and the United States.
After fierce fighting in battles at Aisne, Cantigny, Vimy Ridge, Marne, and Amiens, among others,Â on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day, of the eleventh month, the guns were silenced after the signing of an armistice in a railway car in the forest of Compiegne.Â
In Cincinnati, Ohio, and surrounding areas along the Ohio River, an ice gorge caused severe flooding as the river rose to sixty-one feet. The Lima Daily News (Lima, Ohio) of 1 February 1918Â reported that,
Never has a flood come to the sections accustomed to floods with such dramatic swiftness….Families that had no thought of disaster were homeless Friday….Every school in the flood zone is to be open tonight to receive the homeless.
The 3 February 1918 issueÂ of that same newspaper reported on the damage:
At Aurora, a railroad bridge, twisted from its foundation, is resting on the ice. It is a heavy bridge and yet it is held by the ice as if it were resting on a reinforced concrete foundation.
In the meantime the suffering of families driven from homes increases; coal yards are flooded; a few feet more of water would prevent shipment of coal into Cincinnati on the Chesapeake and Ohio railroad tracks; shipment of general freight is crippled and thus industry is menaced; interurbans [electric railways] are out of business; high water has shut down a number of factories and thousands of men are out of work….
Of 15 steamers in the Cincinnati harbor when the ice let go earlier in the week, eight have been sunk. The number of coal barges that have gone under runs into the hundreds.
Click here for a printer friendly version of this article.