One of the best known quotes in the world(at least in the academic world, anyway) is “Those who cannot remember history are condemned to repeat it.” This from the philosopher George Santayana and his 1905 work, “The Life of Reason.” Others have said/written similar things, some better documented than others. In a 1948 speech to the House of Commons Winston Churchill said “Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it,” a remarkably similar sentiment.

After that is gets a bit less clear. Mark Twain said something similar(maybe), but in a different way. “History never repeats itself but it does often rhyme.” I like this one best, since clearly one specific event occurs only once and when two similar events are compared, say 25 years or more apart, there are obvious differences But the “rhymes” such as the roads to conflict re: WWI and WWII are often striking. Unfortunately no one seems to be able to verify Twain said or wrote this, but it’s a wise saying, wherever it comes from.

Edmund Burke is supposed to have said much the same thing, but there is debate as to just when and how he phrased it. As in the case with Mark Twain, is sounds like him but is difficult to verify.

Anyway, as you have likely guessed by now, I am planning to give you some examples of this–three relatively short and I hope informative instances in which recent history has at least rhymed. As I begin to write this on Jan 5, you may be experiencing one of them if you are following news on Radio, TV or the Net.

My first subject is the “Spanish Flu” which struck the world including the US in 1918 and recurred on and off for about a half a decade, though fading fairly rapidly by the end of 1921.

The name “Spanish” is a misnomer. The only reason it happened was that Spain was neutral in World War I and while the belligerent powers were blaming the enemy and/or lying about the situation, the Spanish media more or less told the truth and did it from the earlier days of the outbreak. The flu may have begun, in fact, in the US. It first appeared at a US Army camp in Kansas in March, 1918,and spread rapidly, striking over a thousand men and killing 46 of them in a month.

It did not play favorites hitting both urban and rural areas, though there is evidence that crowded places were hit worse. It is worth noting, I think, that while big cities had poor public health institutions by our standards, many rural areas had about none. There was a lot of confusion and there were many mistakes. There were also lies. And before long, thanks in part to troop movements, the flu was in Europe too. It would eventually work its way around the world. No one knows with any certainty how many people died as a result, The estimates are now that about 1/3 of the people in the world contracted the flu in some way and around 50 million deaths resulted, but it might have been more. It is common to repeat the assertion that more WWI US servicemen died of flu than of enemy action. About 21 million people(more civilians than military personnel)is the most recent estimate of deaths directly resulting from the war. So it is likely the flu killed far more people than the conflict.

In September, 1918 it spread from Boston to Philadelphia when 300 sailors, some of them already infected, arrived. The government’s action was to play down the threat to prevent panic(and, likely demands on themselves). They denied any serious danger to the public and, as casualties mounted claimed it was nothing but “old-fashioned influenza or grippe.” It was also predicted the illness would soon decrease.

American was drunk on “patriotic” fever now and thousands of Philadephians attended a rally. About a week and a half later over 1000 citizens of the city had died of the flu. Finally the state government acted and began closing many public places. But within a year more than 15,000 Philadelphia citizens had died as a result.

Some places reacted better than this, particularly after they saw what had happened in the east. but the broader pattern “was dismissal, dissemblance and outright deception.” Mayors and governors did not want to take on powerful and wealthy business interests, nearly all of which were opposed to close-downs.

The first wave of Spanish flu peaked and then dropped off in the spring-summer of 1918. But a second, more serious wave swept much of Europe in the late summer and early fall. This coincided with the climax of the war, though I have rarely run across more than a brief(paragraph or two)reference in books about the war. There was yet a 3rd wave in early 1919. It was milder than the second wave and largely spared Paris and the Peace Conference that eventually led to the Treaty of Versailles.

A brief survey of the internet on other countries involved in the war shows a depressing pattern. In nearly all combatant countries the news of the flu pandemic was at least played down if not totally suppressed. It was not mentioned in the House of Commons until October, 1918, the month before the war ended. It was also suppressed in the countries of the Central Powers(Germany, Austria, Turkey). The fact appears to be that no governments wanted to have to deal with this and that about all of them thought doing so would impede the war effort. In the Central Powers just about everything was collapsing anyway, but this seems to have made no difference. The Germans seem to have been particularly inclined to deny the flu, thought they were by no means alone. But they denied the influence of the flu on German troops in 1918 as the final Allied attacks began and the German world crumbled about them.

The flu did not go away entirely, however. It appeared from time to time for another 2 or 3 years and apparently has never entirely disappeared. One rarely hears of it now since so many people have had it that almost everyone is immune.

(This was not the first time in history such things had happened–check “bubonic plague denial” on the internet for information about how ancient and medieval rulers panicked and lied about this sort of thing too)

The covid virus and its parallels are so recent and well known as to be almost embarrassing to recount. The current covid has been know for more than 50 years and apparently at first simply caused the common cold. The recent outbreak with its world wide effects of screwing up nearly everything and affecting a Presidential election was not noticed by scientists until November, 2019. Within 2 months it would be spreading widely around the world.

We all know pretty much what happened. To take the US reaction as symbolic(thought noticeably worse and less truthful than most countries)the reaction was at first to question the facts, then deny their seriousness and to offer false hopes for a quick end to it . The President publicly said(on TV)that it would disappear with warm weather and be gone by late spring. It wasn’t. He also offered some bizarre ideas and some strange pieces of advice.

The weirdest of these was his April, 2020 suggestion that injecting bleach into oneself might be a good idea. Many of his scientific people were appalled and they managed to stop this idea from spreading before it went as far as it might have. Likely more dangerous overall, was his suggestion of the use of chloroquine. This at least was a real drug that people took for real issues. Though it has many uses, it is primarily known for being an anti-malaria medication. The scientific community largely agreed that there were a few unusual cases when chloroquine might be useful in fighting covid. But the FDA was careful to release a statement that people should not make this decision for themselves and it should be used only as directed by a physician.

And so it went. Reactions of countries and other political subdivisions around the world varied widely. But there was a large degree of false information generated and truth withheld. The problem is of course still part of our world today, slightly better than it was due to the various inoculations for it and the slow building up of a questionable but sometimes apparently real immunity. It will likely be around and still causing illness years from now, though we hope diminishing rapidly in its influence.

No satisfactory cure was ever found for the Spanish Flu. As previously mentioned, so many people have had it by now and passed down to subsequent generations their presumed immunity, that it is seldom heard of today. But it’s not gone. It’s still out there and so is the Bubonic Plague. The Plague, by the way, is a bacterial infection and therefore treatable with anti-biotics.

Case no 2–The split in the 1920’s Republican Party and the 1923 fight over who would get to be Speaker of the House. The comparison is to (you guessed it)Keven McCarthy’s twisted and manic road to his current position.

First of all let me recount some tiresome but necessary electoral history. I’ll be quick about it. For a long time, students have noted that earlier in our history, US Presidents were elected in November and took office the following March. While there were good reasons for this in 1789, those were mostly gone long before 1933 when the much overlooked and understudied 20th Amendment to the US Constitution was enacted. It moved the Inauguration to January and is widely known and regarded by most interested parties as a reasonable and necessary action.

What is not so widely known is that it also formalized and made a requirement that the new Congress elected in November would take office Jan 3. Previously, and for not very obvious reasons, this date had varied. This is too complicated to go into in detail here, but check it out on the internet if you have the patience. At late as 1922’s midterm elections the new members did not take the oath of office for about a year. So the drama took place in December, 1923.

It was anticipated that Frederick Gillette, a Boston Brahmin and long standing House Speaker would be elected. While they had lost seats in the midterms of 1922, the Republicans still held a House majority and this should have been routine. But the party had become very divided in recent years. Roughly speaking it consisted of two groups –the conservatives/traditionalists were the majority. But the progressive wing of the party, mostly from the midwest and led by “Fighting Bob” LaFollette of WI, was not without influence and often made a good impression on the public. Many of these progressives, who somewhat resembled the more liberal Democrats in their policies, challenged Speaker Gillette.

This turned into a real capital(or capitol)mess. They took 3 days and 9 ballots as the party tried to work out a conflict between its intended leader and his allies, and an influential different group which challenged him. Finally, after much discussing and bargaining and after one significant concession to the progressives on procedural matters in the House, enough of the progressive side voted “Present” on the 9th ballot and Gillette squeaked through. Since the number present and casting a vote for a person was now low enough that his new total of 215 was sufficient, he was re-elected–barely.

It is hardly necessary to repeat what you’ve seen on TV and internet fairly recently, but for the record–Rep Kevin McCarthy of California was the leader of the House Republicans and therefore should have been a shoo-in as Speaker–even with a small majority this should have been an easy one. But a small but persistent group of right-wingers, including, but by no means limited to the “Freedom Caucus,” stood in the way and that was enough that McCarthy failed on vote after vote. It took 4 days and 15 ballots, but he finally made it. A few members who had voted for other candidates switched to McCarthy after he made very substantial concessions to the right. Others simply voted “Present” and as in 1923 the number of votes needed dropped thanks to the “present and voting for a person” rule.

Like Gillette in 1923 McCarthy slipped through in 2023 by one vote. Which of them made more significant and self-limiting concessions will no doubt be debated, but it looks to me as if McCarthy made concessions he is likely to regret. His agreeing to a rule that any ONE member of the Republican caucus will be able to call for a vote to oust him from the Speaker’s chair looks like the worst. It may be interesting, but remember that Chinese curse about interesting times

Case no 3–The early WWII conflict between Germany and the UK and the Russian-Ukrainian conflict today.

It is no longer common knowledge how World War II began and proceeded from 1939-1941, its first two years, so I will start with a brief backgrounder. For details check Wikipedia or any good text book on Europe before and during the war.

During the 1930’s the dictators, Hitler and Mussolini, had made Germany and Italy feared by bullying and cajoling the West(mainly the UK and France)into allowing them to get away with aggression. At Munich in 1938 they managed to get concessions regarding Czechoslovakia in return for a pledge not to invade what would be left of that small, new nation after the Munich Pact went into effect. I think few were surprised 5 months later when Hitler moved in and took almost all that was left of the unhappy country.

Hitler invaded Poland in September, 1939, defying British and French demands that he leave it alone,. Their patience finally exhausted, the UK and France both declared war on Germany. The next few months were the “phony war” but it turned more real during Spring, 1940 when Hitler struck at Scandinavia, the Low Countries and France and by June had bagged all of his targets.

This left the UK and Winston Churchill the only real block to Hitler’s victory and in September of 1940 the Germans began more than a year of almost constant bombing that is usually known as “The Blitz.” Almost from the start the Germans realized this was going to be tougher than previous conquests as the RAF took a large toll on the Luftwaffe. The numbers of German planes destroyed was considerably higher than the British losses, so in that sense the UK had the upper hand. But then there was the numbers game. The Germans had a seemingly inexhaustible supply of planes and the number would eventually begin to tell. British factories worked frantically to turn out more planes and ships, for the German Navy was now aggressively pursuing both British shipping and their Navy. If the Brits lost in the air and at sea it would all be over.

For the most part the German bombing was directed at the factories that produced the war supplies, but there was some bombing of civilian areas also. The Germans changed strategies several times during the blitz, partly due to political quarrels, partly to heavier than expected losses, and, possibly, partly due to Hitler’s fury at direct bombing of German cities by the RAF. In addition, they sometimes were working with faulty intelligence. Although this is multifaceted and involves many issues, including poor intelligence for the Luftwaffe, Hitler’s personal feelings may have played some part. The changes tended to make the attacks on UK industry more scattered and less consistent, but the concentration on London’s East End and other mainly civilian districts., greatly increased the toll in lives, pain and frustration for the population.

There was some complaining in the largely poor East End that they were bearing the brunt of the bombing while the rich had safer, more sturdy homes elsewhere. The Royal Family, however, rose to the occasion by visiting the bombed areas and showing themselves to the people as leaders who were staying home and sharing the burden. Churchill also moved among the people and once promised the drop multiple bombs on Germany for every one they dropped on the UK.

The Blitz ended in the fall of 1940 after Germany and the USSR had gone to war but bombing went on sporadically throughout the war, and the fearsome V-1 and V-2 rockets made London a city fearing what might come from the skies again in 1944-’45. But the main blitz in the long run failed. The UK was still(perhaps barely)functioning when it ended and soon the US would be attacked at Pearl Harbor which changed the whole complexion of the war. After that the US would be at hand and the advantage, once strongly in Hitler’s favor would shift, though it took sometime to do so.

In late 2021 it became apparent that Russia was considering an out and out attack on its neighbor, Ukraine. They began troop movements which suggested this was imminent. They also made public claims that Ukraine was theirs, by right and by history, and that they would be justified in taking it back. Vladimir Putin was not looking to win by a surprise attack. He was closer to trying to win by intimidation, a sometime Hitler tactic that was not usually extremely successful.(I have heard that when Hitler tried this on neutral Switzerland, the response was something like, “Just try it and see what we’ll do,” and he didn’t. Switzerland maintained its neutrality.)

Putin had began, several years earlier, with trying to increase Russia’s influence and the geographical area it controlled in Eastern Europe. Most obviously, it had re-taken Crimea which had been ruled by many countries over the centuries and for years was part of the USSR. After the collapse of the Soviet Union Crimea was considered by practically everyone part of the ancient but newly independent state of Ukraine. This remained the case until 2014 when a severe internal crisis in Ukrainian politics seriously divided and weakened the nation and its leadership. Putin took advantage of this to send Russian forces into Crimea which he quickly declared to be now part of the Russian Federation.

There also developed about the same time a serious division in Ukraine between the largely Russian-speaking extreme Eastern part, which favored joining Russia, and the rest of the country, largely Ukrainian speaking, which did not. For several years there was what amounted to a sort of underground, largely unmentioned civil war between these two parts of Ukraine with Russian forces unofficially and without wearing clearly Russian uniforms or markings, helping the pro-Russian side. This was the background to what happened in 2021 and 2022.

Putin clearly had expected a quick victory. He found a unified and militarily powerful country. Discounting Russia, which is largely Asiatic in land, though European dominated, culturally and politically, Ukraine is the largest nation in Europe, geographically speaking(Turkey is more than 90% Asiatic, so I do not consider it a European country). At nearly 290,000 in number, the Ukrainian armed forces put up a stiff resistance, and soon the Russians were fought to a standstill. Later some of the Russian Army retreated, a process they are now trying to reverse with apparently mixed results.

But what was clear was that the Russians, having failed to conquer the Ukrainians on the ground would try to do so by going through the air. But unlike the Luftwaffe which went after Churchill’s Britain, the Russians would mainly used non-manned instruments, drones and missiles. They also would use them against non-military targets in many instances, using them as weapons of terror but not weapons which consistently did severe military damage. They destroyed homes, killed people of all ages, and made many others homeless.. They also inspired a hatred of Russian armed forces by most Ukrainians, which if Russian ever did win the war, would almost certainly make the place ungovernable.

As usual, my conclusions are tentative and could turn out to be wrong, but here they are. It is about a tie between issues no 1 and no 2 for which show the most parallels, but I think it’s no 1. The reaction of so many governments around 1918 and again more than a century later are so similar as to be impossible to ignore. Again, I agree that it’s not a real repeat but a “rhyme,” but the rhyme is loud and clear.

No 2 is pretty close too. There are a few differences. In 1923 the putative Speaker-elect already had long experience at the job. He was, apparently respected by most GOP House members, a situation which may not exist today. And the split, as might be anticipated in a basically conservative party, was between the mainstream Republicans and their left-leaning, progressive colleagues. In 2023 it was between more or less regular Republicans and a right-wing fringe group, some of them clearly holding borderline-psychotic ideas and/or telling the biggest lies in the history of the House. In 1923 things seem to have quieted down after the Speaker election was settled. One hears little about intra-party GOP conflict over the next 2 years. It is impossible to predict what will happen now, but in today’s House, it appears the Speaker may be in for a rough ride.

No 3 has some startling parallels, particularly in international relations But, on the whole, I think while a case can be made for it, it’s not as good a one as for the others. Regarding the international situation, there were at least 5 leading heads of state or government involved. In the Russian-Ukrainian situation there are 3. Putin is a reasonable facsimile of Hitler–Zelenskyy. with his feisty leadership of a beleaguered nation is obviously Winston Chruchill all over again–Biden, the US President who observes and encourages is clearly FDR. But there are no real equivalents to Stalin and Mussolini. The comparison also breaks down a bit when it comes to the military action. The Blitz did incredible damage and caused immense pain and loss to the people. But there seem to have been arguments over it back home almost from the start. There were several things involved in this such as intelligence services product, political quarrels, egos and Hitler’s fury at British bombing of Germany. In Ukraine Putin has gone from old fashioned infantry invasion to missiles to drones. Many of his attacks seem totally motivated by trying to terrorize rather than to achieve military goals. He apparently has some weapons which are just fired toward Ukraine in the hopes they will accomplish something. This is not exactly a parallel.

Another difference, is that while the Russian approach has been largely unsuccessful so far from a military point of view, he has 2 advantages Hitler did not. He is not fighting anyone other than than Ukraine(directly on the battlefield)and, pursuant to that he does not have the possibility of being attacked from the rear. How this will turn out, of course, is impossible to predict and gives us another difficulty in trying to determine the extent of the parallels. We lack hindsight regarding this, a situation which may well last for some time.

So I guess my conclusion that there are indeed rhymes in history sometimes rather strong ones. But there are also differences and with regard to situation no 3 it will take some time for all these to be noticeable or indeed, possibly, for all of them to occur. I’ll stick with no 1 as the loudest rhyme.