The Rise of Australasia

As time entered October of 1919, the influenza, that had seemingly vanished, appeared to surge again.

However, compared to the high fatality rate of the second wave, this recent spread wasn’t as severe, with many people only suffering symptoms of severe common flu, which seldomly threatened their lives.

With Arthur’s command, Australasia’s departments swiftly responded, addressing this resurgence of the influenza virus.

Although data from Europe and America suggested that the fatality rate of the third wave of flu was low, the Australasian government was insistent on taking every caution and showing no negligence.

Nevertheless, the impact of the American pandemic on the economy and society was immense, as was its threat to public safety.

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Since early October when the third influenza wave started spreading across Europe and America, within several days, it resulted in frightening figures, with hundreds of thousands infected and thousands dead, prompting exclamations of a "wolf is coming" from European newspapers and media.

This pandemic had been officially characterized as the "American Pandemic". The last thing Americans wanted to see was the virus spreading further.

Aside from other things, merely bearing the name "American pandemic" was enough to cause fear among Americans.

Almost every media outlet around the world made continuous reports about the "American pandemic" and attempted to assign the blame for the devastation caused by the flu to America.

Even some trouble-making European media started making claims about American conspiracy theories for spreading the influenza again, causing Americans who were already reluctant to show off internationally, to withdrawn completely, afraid that the World Alliance would pass the blame onto them once again.

Unfortunately, this was not something that Americans could avoid simply by wanting to.

If the second wave was known for its high fatality rate, then the third wave was notorious for its high infectivity.

Areas that had not been hit during the second wave, such as some remote, secluded islands and areas with a smaller population, had all seen occurrences of the disease to varying degrees.

In developed regions, thanks to adequate medical facilities, the actual death rate hardly increased beyond 5%, and could even be lowered to about 2%.

However, for those underdeveloped regions such as some Pacific islands and Indigenous areas, they simply had to suffer the uncontrolled spread of the flu.

The Dutch East Indies was seriously affected again. Within half a month’s time, the number of infected individuals exceeded one million, and the death toll surpassed 200,000.

The once haughty Dutch people were now recoiling in their cities, not daring to step outside.

They were terrified of contracting the influenza that was spreading among the Indigenous peoples, prompting the Dutch East Indies government to issue stringent restrictions, prohibiting any Indigenous person from approaching the cities, and expelling all Indigenous citizens living in them.

Many Indigenous tribes suffered many cluster deaths, significantly reducing the Indigenous population in the Southeast Asian region.

The Indigenous population on the Sulawesi Island controlled by Australasia was also affected with the spread of the flu. To resolve this crisis, Arthur decided to expel a portion of the Indigenous population to the Dutch East Indies to prevent diseases like the plague, which might be caused by large Indigenous deaths.

These Indigenous people lacked the concept of cleanliness and sanitation. In the best scenarios, they would bury the dead where they fell. In worse cases, they would simply abandon the bodies, either waiting for forest animals to consume them, or for natural elements to decompose them.

About five million Indigenous peoples lived on Sulawesi Island, and over 1.5 million had been recruited by Australasia for labor.

Out of these, 800,000 worked in the mines as free labor.

The remaining 3.5 million were almost all listed for expulsion by Australasia.

However, with the development of the nation, the importance of Indigenous labor would diminish and be completely expelled eventually from the Australasian land.

But the expulsion process was slow, it was estimated that it would take over a decade, if not longer to completely remove these five million Indigenous peoples from the land.

The spread of influenza had naturally impacted the United States and the Philippines under its control.

In a short period, the flu had caused hundreds of thousands of infections in the Philippines, with crippling figures of thousands dead.

Regardless, for the Philippines, there was one positive aspect, which was the increasing hatred and dissatisfaction towards the United States among the Philippine people.

Who can be blamed for naming the pandemic as "American Influenza"? When the American Influenza led to such a massive casualty in the Philippines, who else could they blame if not America?

Despite stalling actions due to the impact of the flu, the recruiting efforts by the three large Philippine native forces did not stop. The discontent of the Philippine public towards America led to more people joining the resistance against America.

At the end of October 1919, the long-silent British finally decided to act.

The British proposed three suggestions at the latest meeting of the World Alliance, the first one being to reduce the reparations demanded from the Germans, just like before.

The second was to limit the scale of navies throughout the world in order to prevent an unnecessary naval arms race like before World War I.

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