Somehow, despite reading at least two WWI history books ( https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3340995892 is one of them) during this pandemic that I somehow missed one important detail:

Woodrow Wilson got influenza *during* the peace negotiations at Versailles. An Ocean Apart ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Ocean_Apart ) mentions it in passing, as part of a broader context of the US losing control over the Versailles negotiation -- which was a complicated bit of political machinery with a lot of moving parts -- it wasn't just the US, France, UK but indeed there *was* a stateless (but soon to be not stateless) zionist jewish presence (this is attested in both the british accounts https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5425994130 and, if my memory serves me right (it's been awhile) german accounts https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29522049-mein-kempf ). The fact that Wilson got it is not surprising -- according to Basil Thomson (see previous links) somewhere in between the debauchery, basically everyone at Versailes came down with it.

But what is surprising, though obvious in retrospect, is that after Wilson got it his negotiating position basically fell apart, and he gave up, sick and defeated, and went home shortly afterwards (according to An Ocean Apart, part 1)

history.com pries a little further:

> The president was confined to his bed for five days battling a 103-degree fever and racking coughs while his doctor, Grayson, lied to the press that it was nothing more than a bad cold.
...
> Although instances of “the psychoses of influenza” had been reported by physicians as early as the Russian Flu outbreak of 1889, there was no treatment for the condition, which usually went away on its own. One hypothesis is that the neurological disorder experienced by Wilson and others was caused by brain swelling (encephalitis) associated with the flu.

This jives with An Ocean Apart's view: it sure sounded like the spanish flu broke WIlson, mentally and physically, and with him and his resistance, the strong voice for his 14 points was lost, and with them...the league of nations was the only point that even survived the negotiations. And even then - he was too weak, sick and defeated to lead the US into the new league of nations. And his political opponents took full advantage of this.

https://www.history.com/news/woodrow-wilson-1918-pandemic-world-war-i

imagine if Wilson had not gotten ill, and somehow managed to avoid infection, and defeat on these lines. A US-lead league of nations, germany forced to pay less or no reparations, germany forced to less or no land concessions in the rhine. More voice of germany at the bargaining table of europe, and not *quite* as much jewish, british and french exploitation of germany in the post-war era. Possible reconstruction of germany by the americans. This could have meant a relative lack of exploitable grievances for one particular austrian artist.

The whole of the history of the last 80 years would have been vastly different, and that's just *one* man who got the flu. Imagine the history being made right now.