BLACK DEATH

The first millennium a.d. over, the developed Europeanworld set off for pastures new and embarked on amassive new program of exploration and expansion. Explorerstraveled far beyond the previously observed boundariesof Eastern Europe, and discovered new Easterncivilizations that not only had money but, in addition, weremore than willing to trade. After several centuries, however,things started to turn sour and several of these Easternnations grew discontented as they felt that their Westerntrade partners were taking advantage of them.So the leaders of India took the initiative and set intomotion a plan intended to all but annihilate the Europeannations. This became the first known case of biologicalwarfare. Rats infected with a local plague were put on theships of the European traders. The rats would then dispersethrough the port cities of the Mediterranean and as the Europeanswould have no tolerance at all to the disease thiswould wreak complete havoc. Once this had happened, theIndians would march an army to Europe, knowing thatthe time required to march the distance would allow theplague to spread throughout Europe destroying huge numbers of the population. Once Europe was weakened bythe plague, they could easily dominate and add vast newterritories to their kingdom.This plan only worked on one level. The Black Death,as it came to be called, certainly devastated entire nationsas millions succumbed to the plague. But the Indians couldnot organize the army required to take Europe and thustheir empire never spread.