Abstract
This paper studies the reconstitution of the International Geodetic and Geophysical Union after the First World War. Covering the period 1917–1922, it questions the historical signification of geodesy and its evolution from the local and particular point of view of the members of the Bureau des longitudes, the French “academy of astronomical sciences” which included, from its creation in 1795, prestigious mathematicians, Navy and Artillery officers, and distinguished precision instrument-makers. Taking as an archival sources the minutes of the Bureau des longitudes, and focusing on its small but very significant network of actors, my proposal is twofold: firstly, showing the strong involvement of its members into the administration of French sciences and technologies, and into the constitution of a renewed and selected post-war international geodetic community. Secondly, and more generally, relying on a specific and national context of actors and instruments, I want to encourage a more extensive and comprehensive study of post-war international geodesy.
This study was carried out with the support of the Agence National de Recherche project: «Le Bureau des longitudes (1795–1932) : de la Révolution française à la Troisième République» (https://histbdl.hypotheses.org/a-propos). The author thanks, in particular, Céline Fellag Ariouet and Robert Sitton for re-reading the English, and Colette Le Lay and Rossana Tazzioli for their helpful suggestions.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
- 3.
For an example of a contemporary Geodetic book, see: https://documentation.ensg.eu/index.php?lvl=notice_display&id=46342 consulted on December 2019. See also Duquenne (2002).
- 4.
Encyclopédie Larousse (Access: https://www.larousse.fr/encyclopedie/divers/g%C3%A9od%C3%A9sie/55101; consulted on December 2019).
- 5.
Deborah Warner has also studied the direct implication of geodesy and its GPS satellite navigation system in determining the trajectory of long-range missiles, to realize so-called military “surgical strikes”.
- 6.
- 7.
Rapport présenté à la Commission de l'Enseignement et des Beaux-Arts de la Chambre des députés par M. H. Andoyer, président du Bureau des longitudes", Annex to the Bureau des longitudes' minutes of September 22, 1920.
- 8.
From 1795 until 1932, the Bureau des longitudes held weekly meetings: these minutes constitute 22,000 manuscripts, including many unknown letters and technical or scientific reports realized by (or addressed to) their members. All the minutes of the Bureau des longitudes quoted are accessible on-line on the website “Les procès-verbaux du Bureau des longitudes (1795–1932). Un patrimoine numérisé” (http://bdl.ahpnumerique.fr/) under the tab “Corpus”.
- 9.
- 10.
The astronomer Hervé Faye and, later, the astronomer Antoine Yvon Villarceau, members of the Bureau des longitudes, individually played the part of an unofficial representative of France during the general conferences, keeping the Bureau informed of the progression of international geodesy. Refer to Schiavon (2014, p. 49).
- 11.
This administrative organization with a Permanent Commission and a General Conference would serve as a model for further scientific international institutions, such as the International Bureau of Weights and Measures. Refer to Fellag Ariouet and Davis (2018).
- 12.
- 13.
The Metre was defined as the length measurement equal to the tenth millionth part of the Earth’s meridian comprised between the North pole and the Equator. On this question, see Alder (2015).
- 14.
Note that the convention also established that “funds that are not spent in a given financial year may be used for expenses in following years.” Refer to «New international geodetic convention adopted at the Eleventh Conference in Berlin, October 1895», in Levallois (1980, pp. 259–261).
- 15.
During the first period 1862–1867 (Mitteleuropäische Gradmessung), two of them took place in Berlin. From 1867 until 1886 (Europäische Gradmessung), four of the six conferences were held in German states. They took place in: Dresden, Saxony (1874); Stuttgart, Württemberg (1877); Munich, Bavaria (1880) and Berlin, Prussia (1886). We can also count the conference in Vienna, Austria-Hungary (1871). See the whole list of general conferences in Ádám (2008).
- 16.
In the third period before the war, two general conferences were held in Paris (1889 and 1900). More details in Ádám (2008).
- 17.
- 18.
For a complete list of the geodetic works during the Helmert period, see the paper by Helmert “Rapport sur les travaux du Bureau central pendant les 50 premières années de l’Association géodésique internationale” in Bakhuyzen (1913, pp. 165–176).
- 19.
Among them, the Observatoire de Paris (preserving the mission of perfecting practical and observational astronomy) and the Académie des sciences.
- 20.
Bureau des longitudes' minutes, March 9, 1870.
- 21.
The following is a list of papers on the Geodetic Association published in the Annuaire pour l’an … publié par le Bureau des longitudes: Perrier (1876), Faye (1889), Mouchez (1890), Tisserand (1891, 1895), Bouquet de la Grye (1892, 1901, 1904, 1907), Bassot (1899), Poincaré (1901, 1911), Baillaud (1914) and Perrier (1926, 1928). The author thanks Colette Le Lay for transmitting this list.
- 22.
Decree of March 14, 1890 (Bureau des longitudes, 1919).
- 23.
Ferrié was a “corresponding member” of the Bureau des longitudes. On this status inside the Bureau, refer to Martina Schiavon, “Sur le statut de member correspondant du Bureau des longitudes”, published on the website “Les procès-verbaux du Bureau des longitudes (1795–1932), un patrimoine numérisé”.
- 24.
Hendrick became Director of the Leiden Observatory from 1872 until 1908. During this entire period, he was assisted by his brother Ernst Frederik (1848–1918), who held the position of first astronomer. Ernst succeeded Heidrick in 1908 as director of the observatory until his death in 1918, when direction was taken over by Willem de Sitter (Pietrow 2018). From 1882, Hendrick was the president of the Dutch Geodetic Committee, and he supervised the precision levelling, as well as triangulation of the Netherlands and tidal research on Dutch ports. From 1900, Hendrick was “secrétaire perpétuel” of the International Geodetic Association (Lunteren 2014).
- 25.
Letter quoted in Levallois (1980, p. 269).
- 26.
«Pendant cette période notre association serait à même de vivre des subsides des Etats neutres modestement il est vrai mais au moins elle vivrait!», quoted in the Bourgeois’ letter to the director of the Enseignement Supérieur (May 31, 1917, Archives Nationales F 17/17232).
- 27.
Ibid. Notice that the same letter was initially addressed to Romania, which answered affirmatively, but was then engaged, from summer 1916, into the war.
- 28.
A pupil of the Ecole Polytechnique, Bassot had a brilliant military career at the Service géographique de l’armée under the direction of General François Perrier, whom he succeeded in 1888. He received the Prize Lalande of the Académie des sciences for his measurements of the transit of Venus (December 6, 1882). He then completed the arc meridian measurement and worked on the triangulations of Algeria and Tunisia. As a colonel, he was elected to the Académie des sciences in 1893, and became a member of the Bureau des longitudes in 1897. He became Director of the Service géographique de l’armée in 1898 and was named president of the Société française de physique in 1899. He then left the army to become Director of the Observatoire de Bischoffsheim or Mont Gros in Nice (Perrier 1935, p. 28).
- 29.
In the Bureau des longitudes' minutes of August 2, 1916, the reception of the publication of the meetings of 1914 is reported.
Until the death of General Léon Bassot, in 1917, the Bureau was also informed, through Bakhuyzen, of other news, such as the death of the Vice-President of the International Geodetic Association, O. Backlund (Bureau des longitudes’ minutes, November 15, 1916).
- 30.
Lallemand was a mining engineer who joined the Bureau des longitudes in 1894, as a representative of the Service de nivellement (Level Service) of the Ministry of Travaux publics. He had a brilliant scientific career inside of the Bureau des longitudes, and was one of the deans of the International Geodetic Association, being a delegate-member for about thirty years.
- 31.
Bureau des longitudes’ minutes, June 6, 1917.
- 32.
Ibid.
- 33.
“My department did not make any communication to the Permanent Secretary of the International Geodetic Association, regarding the appointment of Mr. Emile Picard as representative of the French Government to the said association” (Annexed to the decree of June 11, 1917, AN F17/17232).
- 34.
After leaving the Ecole Polytechnique, Ferrié had a career as an officer engineer in telecommunications. Before the First World War, he completed, thanks to the Bureau des longitudes, the first wireless transmission over a long distance, starting from the Eiffel Tower. During the war, he directed the Transmission Service of the army, and in 1919, he proposed to the Bureau des longitudes an ambitious and expensive project to establish a worldwide wireless network (Schiavon and Rollet, 2020).
- 35.
Note that Bourgeois explained that a delegate was named by the President (Bourgeois to Coville, June 11, 1917, AN F17/17232).
- 36.
Ibid.
- 37.
«Il serait désirable que, au moins dans le domaine bien délimité de la géodésie, cet avis ait quelque chose d’officieux. Nous avons aussi à nous demander ce qu’il convient de faire à l’égard du Ministère des Affaires Etrangères dans des questions de ce genre. Nous n’avons pas de temps à perdre. Les Allemands travaillent activement par les neutres pour tenter de rattacher les fils et tendent leurs filets», Picard to Coville, July 17, 1917 (AN F17/17232). In mourning because of the war, Picard was one of the most virulent and patriotic members of the Bureau des longitudes. Refer to Rollet (2019).
- 38.
Bureau des longitudes' minutes, July 25, 1917.
- 39.
Ibid.
- 40.
Ibid.
«Happy solution» is underlined in the minutes of the Bureau des longitudes. See the Bureau des longitudes’ minutes, August 8, 1917.
- 41.
In a post-war paper dated 1922, van de Sande Bakhuyzen would explain again, and in greater detail, the situation: he reported about the preparations for a new convention, which had to replace the one that expired in 1916, adding that “General Bassot, partially through the Secretary, could also perform his administrative duties as chairman and, if necessary, could also take advice from Vice-Chairman Backlund in Russia”. He also reported that when Backlund passed away in 1916 (August 26), the board of the International Association lost hope, which had been largely based on him and his legitimate influence, that a new association could be reborn after the war. When, in 1915 and 1916, van de Sande Bakhuyzen and Gautier realized that the war would not end soon and that, even if that had been the case, the mentality of European nations would be such that a long time would pass before an International Conference would become possible again, they tried to bring together the neutral States. They also feared that if the Association were suddenly to stop, many of the interesting research projects that it had undertaken would cease to exist with it, and it would be difficult to follow up later and restore the damage caused by the discontinuity of ground observations (Bakhuyzen 1922).
- 42.
From 1919, Lecointe was present at many meetings of the Bureau des longitudes. He was also deeply involved in the foundation of the International Researches Council (see p. 174).
- 43.
Lucien was the younger brother of Raymond, President of the French Republic (from 1913 until 1920), and cousin of the mathematician Henri. Lucien was appointed as Director of Superior Teaching on July 14, 1914. On October 1, 1917, he succeeded Louis Liard as Vice-Rector of the Paris Academy (Condette 2006, p. 193). When he left the position of director of superior teaching, Poincaré was replaced by Alfred Coville.
- 44.
«A l’effet d’exposer à nos amis et alliés, avec plus de poids, les sentiments de la majorité – sinon de l’unanimité de la Commission – c’est-à-dire, en fait, l’opinion de la France quant à la conduite à tenir vis-à-vis de l’ancienne Association allemande, récemment reconstituée, avec une façade neutre, par la Suisse, la Hollande, l’Espagne et les Pays Scandinaves, et quant à l’opportunité de créer, entre alliées, une nouvelle Association, capable de faire contrepoids et même, plus tard, de se substituer à la première», Lallemand to Lucien Poincaré, September 12, 1917 (AN F 17/17232).
- 45.
The French Geodetic Commission of 1917 was composed of: Paul Appell, Benjamin Baillaud, Robert Bourgeois, Jules Carpentier (1851–1921), Charles Lallemand, Gabriel Lippmann, Emile Picard, and Marie-Joseph-Auguste Renaud, members of the Bureau des longitudes. With the exception of Renaud, they were also members of the Académie des sciences. Another member of the commission was Gustave Ferrié, who was then a correspondent of the Bureau des longitudes (he entered the Académie des sciences in 1922). Colonel A. Lallemand (chief of the Etat-major de la Place de Paris), the astronomer Henri-Isidore Renan (1845–1925), the physicist and professor at the Collège de France Marcel Brillouin (1854–1948) and Lieutenant Colonel Georges Perrier (chief of the 53th regiment of artillery, member of the Service géographique de l’armée) were not members of the Bureau des longitudes. Amongst them, Brillouin entered the Académie des sciences in 1921; Perrier was named a corresponding member of the Bureau des longitudes in 1922 and entered the Académie des sciences in 1926. As usual, three administrative men were added to the Commission: Alfred Coville, who was then the director of the Enseignement supérieur, the chief (de Bar) and an unknown second-in-command chief of the 3rd Board of the Direction de l’enseignement supérieur (Decree of September 18, 1917, AN F7/17232).
- 46.
Appell, Baillaud, Brillouin, Carpentier, Ferrié, Ch. Lallemand, Lippmann, Picard, Renan and Renaud. Two administrative men were present: de Bar and Coville (Minutes of October 24, 1917, AN F/172323).
- 47.
The archives show that Lallemand lost two of his votes (the ones of General Bourgeois and Colonel A. Lallemand). Bourgeois, who could not be present for the meeting, gave a procuration to Colonel Lallemand, but his letter was lost. The second could not attend the meeting because of a new assignment: his convocation was sent to his previous address, even though he was now the president of the special Commission of the Congés de Convalescence pour le département de la Seine (A. Lallemand to Coville, October 27, 1917, F/172323). However, Bourgeois was named by the decree of November 27, 1917 (Decree of the ministry, AN F17/17232).
- 48.
«Il [Picard] déclare qu’il n’y a plus de neutres et émet une proposition très nette d’association réduite aux seuls alliés; cette association une fois constituée, en y admettrait, parmi les neutres qui le désireraient, ceux dont la France et ses amis seraient sûrs. […] La France, il faut bien le dire, est de tous les pays alliés celui qui a le plus souffert, elle s’est ainsi acquise le droit de parler haut et avec autorité; il faut qu’elle soit la première à donner un avis sur ce qui occupe la Commission. Quant aux Neutres, encore une fois, du jour où les Américains ont décidé de se dresser à nos côtés, il n’y en a plus eu», Minutes of October 24, 1917 (AN F/172323).
- 49.
The decree of August 31, 1890, established that the delegates of the international association where the representatives of the ministers of: Instruction Publique, Guerre, Marine, Travaux Publics and Affaires Etrangères. In the new national Committee, the ministers represented were the same: Appell, Baillaud, Lippmann, Brillouin and Picard (Instruction Publique). Renaud (Marine); Bourgeois and A. Lallemand (Guerre); Ch. Lallemand (Travaux Publics). De Bar was probably the representative of the Affaires étrangères, and the affiliation of Carpentier is not mentioned (AN F17/17232).
- 50.
Minutes of the French Geodetic Commission, November 16, 1917 (AN F17/17232).
- 51.
Considering the administration of the Railway Companies, Lallemand takes the example of the Board of the Western Railway Company, which continued to exist despite the company’s takeover (Ibid.). The younger brother of Charles Lallemand was Nicolas Arthur (1859–1946), the General Inspector of the commercial services of the Eastern Railway Company, and his brother-in-law Emile Ferry (1860–1943) was the administrator of the same company (Blaringhem 2019).
- 52.
Minutes of the French Geodetic Commission, November 16, 1917 (AN F17/17232).
- 53.
«En aucun cas d’ailleurs, un arrêté ne saurait abroger un décret. Enfin, la délégation, dont la mission essentielle est de représenter les intérêts français près de l’AGI, ne saurait se confondre avec la Nouvelle Commission qui, d’après les termes mêmes de l’arrêté constitutif, a pour objet de centraliser et d’examiner les questions d’ordre géodésique et qui, à ce point de vue, et sans qu’on en aperçoive d’ailleurs l’utilité, fait double emploi avec le Bureau des longitudes, investi de la même mission par une loi aujourd’hui plus que séculaire» (Ibid.).
- 54.
Ibid.
- 55.
Minutes of November 27, 1917 (AN F17/17232).
- 56.
The Commission had been created as part of the Section du Comité des Travaux historiques et scientifiques of the Ministry of Superior Teaching (Ibid.).
- 57.
«Il n’a même pas été jugé assez important pour mériter les honneurs de l’insertion au Journal Officiel» (Minutes of November 27, 1917 (AN F17/17232).
- 58.
Bureau des longitudes’ minutes, July 4, 1917. Without any doubts, the geographical institute in question is the Parisian one, which is part of the Sorbonne: Lallemand was referring to the work completed by the Commission de géographie du Service géographique de l’armée, created by General Bourgeois during the war, which integrated many well-known geographers, such as Paul Vidal de la Blache– Schiavon (2014, chapter 8). However, Lallemand added that this was not enough, because the creation would be “too exclusively military”: a new creation could thus be made under an accord established among the Bureau des longitudes and the University.
- 59.
Bureau des longitudes' minutes, July 9, 1919
- 60.
Bureau des longitudes’ minutes, July 4, 1917.
- 61.
Ibid. (mine underline).
- 62.
On the wireless international network, refer to (Schiavon and Rollet 2020).
- 63.
This paper summarizes some ideas explained by Picard during the first meeting of October of the French Geodetic Commission: the fact that neutral powers play the role of “honest brokers, striving to restore life to international groups that have been dead for three years”. Picard also gives arguments with a geodetic subject: “variations of latitudes are momentarily interrupted, but these are very small things in front of the general interests” and concludes that new future associations would have to omit Germany (Picard 1917).
- 64.
On May 23, 1917, Arthur Robert Hinks (1873–1945), the secretary of the Royal Geographical Society, wrote to Lallemand to ask him “if you could send me, when it suits you, all the documents relating to the establishment of the Bureau des longitudes. At the same time, Hinks published an interesting paper in the Geographical Journal in which he claimed the necessity to re-constitute the British Board of Longitude as: “There is now in this country ] no such institutions as the French Bureau des Longitudes in which representatives of the War Office and Admiralty, the Ordnance Survey, the Greenwich Observatory, the Nautical Almanac, the National physical laboratory, and some of the scientific societies might co-operate for the improvement of those States services in which all are interested but no one primarily responsible…accurate time service throughout the British Empire, official handbook of technical data and statistics for which one searches so long and so often in vain – magnetic declination, value of gravity, tidal constant, initial latitudes and longitudes of the surveys, figure of the Earth on which they are computed, state of the surveys, projections used in the maps, chief climatological data, weights and measures….”.
- 65.
On July 4, 1917, Lallemand received a letter from Colonel Sidney Gerald Burrard (1860–1943), a British army officer who served as surveyor general for India and played a major role in the Great Trigonometrical Survey’s work in the Himalayas. Colonel Burrard “insists on the necessity of not being dependent on Prussia. He suggests the formation of an international association. He indicates that England must take a special initiative by creating a geodesic institute in England, a creation which, according to him, is of greater importance than the international institute. We can then bring about an agreement between the institutes of the various nations by excluding Prussia” (Bureau des longitudes’ minutes, July 4, 1917). Another example is reported on July 11, 1917, when Hinks wrote to Lallemand about: “a complete evolution [that] has taken place in the minds of English scholars [barred: against German scholars], and it is now desired to eliminate the Germans <scientists> from [future] international scientific associations. The declaration of war of the United States, and the new mentality of the American scientists which is the consequence, make it possible to agree among allies to constitute henceforth centers of association placed exclusively in the countries which took part in the fight against the central powers. We would be happy in England to contact some of the leading French scientists to discuss this issue and to take care of the organization of these groups” (Bureau des longitudes’ minutes, July 11, 1917).
- 66.
«Nous ferons seulement observer discrètement que l’exclusion prévue des Empires centraux est en contradiction avec les déclarations officielles récentes de plusieurs grands hommes d’état, en particulier avec les idées généreuses sur la constitution d’une Société des Nations énoncées dans ses derniers «Messages» par le Président de la grande République des Etats-Unis d’Amérique», Gautier and van de Sande Bakhuyzen (without addressee), February 18, 1918 (AN F17/17232). Notice that the quoted letter signed by Gautier and van de Sande Bakhuyzen is a translation of the original English document, which is missing in this archive.
The League of Nations (Société des Nations), created in 1919, was the first worldwide intergovernmental organization whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. The ideal was a world governed by law, a goal was championed by the largest groups in the United States and France who were in favour of international organizations, along the like-minded counterparts in Britain. See Wertheim (2012).
- 67.
In 1913, Committee members also included: Gaston Darboux, Sir David Gill, Samuel W. Stratton, René Benoît. It was presided by Wilhelm Foerster and Blaserna was appointed secretary. In the renewed composition in 1919, are listed as members: Paul Appell and Vito Volterra. Refer to Comité international des poids et mesures. Procès-verbaux des séances, 2e série, tome VII (session of 1913) and tome VIII (session of 1920), Paris, Gauthier-Villars. The author thanks Céline Fellag Ariouet for this information.
- 68.
‘‘Elle [cette coopérative d’Etats] transformerait davantage l’Association géodésique en une fédération, une confédération scientifique, où chacun garderait son autonomie sur son propre territoire, mais où tous travailleraient à l’œuvre commune. On obvierait ainsi à la critique faite parfois à l’ancienne convention géodésique que les différents services nationaux étaient trop soumis à celui qui servait de Bureau central”, Gautier and van de Sande Bakhuyzen (without addressee), February 18, 1918 (AN F17/17232).
- 69.
See, on this question, the number 75 of Acta Historica Leopoldina, “Akademien im Kriege. Académies en Guerre. Academies in War”, 2019. See also Schroeder-Gudehus (2014).
- 70.
On the history of the International Astronomical Union, refer to Blaauw (1994).
- 71.
The addition of the word «geodesy» was proposed by the Italian mathematician Vito Volterra, at the meeting in Paris of the International Council of Researches of May 15–17, 1919 (Reinbothe 2010). A trace of this proposal is also contained in a letter from Volterra to Picard read at the meeting of the Bureau des longitudes on May 7, 1919: “Mr Volterra restates that the Italian Geodesic Association does not agree with the authors of the proposal of the International Associations on the title to be given to the future grouping” (Bureau des Longitudes’ minutes, May 7, 1919).
- 72.
Bureau des Longitudes’ minutes, May 21, 1919.
- 73.
It was not until 1935 that the German scientific academies entered the International Academic Union, and Germany did not become a member of the International Researches Council until 1952.
- 74.
Schuster’s name is quoted only five times in the minutes of the Bureau des longitudes. He was not proposed for a place as a “correspondent member”, even if, for his scientific works and position (among his functions, he was the secretary of the Royal Society from 1912 to 1919), he could have been, as the other members of the Executive Committee, a good candidate. Probably, as we read in his biography, “he was stressed by the unreasonable prejudice against his German origin” (“Obituary Notices: Fellows, Schuster, Sir Arthur”, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, February 1935, Vol. 95, p. 326).
- 75.
Hale was named as a corresponding member of the Bureau des longitudes in 1919. He had entered the Académie des sciences in 1908.
- 76.
Volterra entered the Académie des sciences in 1904 and was named as a corresponding member of the Bureau des longitudes in 1923.
- 77.
Most likely, the geographical service in question was the Royal Danish Geographical Service. For an overview of geography in Denmark, see Sofus (2004).
- 78.
Bureau des longitudes’ minutes, February 4, 1920.
- 79.
Bureau des longitudes minutes, April 7, 1920.Lecointe also refers to astronomy. In the minutes of April 7, 1920, he wrote about his correspondence with a British astronomer (the name is missing) who wished to establish a direct relationship with German scientists. However, Baillaud intervenes to explain that the British astronomer had only written that “one may think that Germans wish to establish these relations” (Ibid.). During the Congress of Rome, the question of the exclusion of Germany would have more of an impact during the sessions on geodesy than during those on astronomy (in spite of the prevision by Lecointe). On this question, see the minutes of the Bureau des longitudes of May, 31, 1922, when Baillaud, referring to the astronomy assembly, says: “the difficulties feared by Mr Lecointe, in particular, those concerning the Germans, did not show up”.
- 80.
Bureau des longitudes’ minutes, December 7, 1921.
- 81.
Professor of geodesy in the University of Padua from 1909, Solèr dealt with theoretical and experimental work on geodesy; he was responsible for the introduction in Italy of the Eötvös gravimetric balance, with which he carried out numerous and vast gravimetric campaigns. He was Senator of the kingdom and became national member of the Lincei in 1935 (Cantile 2018). At the congress in Rome, he was also named as an International speaker on gravity measurements performed on dry land in those states belonging to the Union (Boaga 1940). On gravity measurements in France and Germany in the ninteenth and the beginning of the twentieth Centuries, refer to Schiavon (2014, Chaps. 1–2) and Schiavon (2018).
- 82.
Bureau des longitudes’ minutes, June 2, 1920.
- 83.
On Sampson, see: “Ralph Allen Sampson” , Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 100, p. 258, February 1940. See also his biography in Elliott (2007).
- 84.
Bureau des longitudes’ minutes, July 21, 1920.
- 85.
Bureau des longitudes’ minutes, October 27, 1920.
- 86.
Ibid.
- 87.
Bureau des longitudes’ minutes, November 15,1920.
- 88.
Ibid. Great Britain tried to insert Greenwich at the heart of the worldwide wireless transmission; it is probably for this reason that the post of the observatory of Algiers was proposed (and not Paris). In Rome (1922), Algiers would have been the choice for the “fundamental wireless network,” but Greenwich would still be inserted—even if as a “secondary network”.
- 89.
The purpose of the Council (initially called the National Research Foundation) was to encourage the increased “use of scientific research in the development of American industries, the employment of scientific methods in strengthening the national defense, and such other applications of science, as well as promote the national security and welfare” (Cochrane 1978, pp. 209–211).
- 90.
Bureau des longitudes’ minutes, December 29, 1920. Note that Picard had already spoken about the creation of the National Research “Foundation” on October 17, 1917. He explained that Wilson founded a group of many laboratories and associations that already existed in this country. This group was a centre for national or international scientific relations: “it is the same in London, and in some English colonies like Canada and Australia. But there’s nothing comparable in France”.
- 91.
On the history of the International Astronomical Union, refer to Blaauw (1994). See also the interesting report of Baillaud in the Annuaire pour l’an 1926 publié par la Bureau des longitudes (Baillaud 1926).
- 92.
The Scientific Hydrology section was added in 1922 (Levallois 1980, pp. 248–313). It has three sub-sections: limnology, potamology and glaciology (Bureau des longitudes’ minute, May 17, 1922).
- 93.
At the General Assembly of the IUGG, which took place in 1930, in Stockholm, Germans were only permitted to attend as guests, as was the case in the subsequent general assemblies of Lisbon (1933) and Edinburgh (1936). They wanted to join the Union in 1937.
- 94.
The Congresso internazionale ferroviario was held in April 1922. Refer to “Special Italian Railway Number. In connection with the Ninth Congress of the International Railway Association held at Rome, April 1922. Numero unico dedication alle Ferrovie Italiane. In occasione del Nono Congresso dell’Associazione Internazionale delle Ferrovie, tenutosi a Roma nell’Aprile 1922”, Railway Gazette, London, April 18, 1922, 66 pages. On the railway in Italy, see the interesting paper by Maggi (2007).
- 95.
Bureau des longitudes’ minutes, November 9, 1921. The list of the countries acceding to the Unions in July 1922 is given by Baillaud (1926). The International astronomical union member States were: Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, France, Greece, the Netherlands, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Norway, Poland, Romania, South Africa, the United States of America and the United Kingdom of Great Britain. On the other hand, the list of the IUGG member States included: Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, France, Greece, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Monaco, Portugal, Spain, the Unites States of America and the Unite Kingdom of Great Britain (Ibid.).
- 96.
Bureau des longitudes’ minutes, December 28, 1921.
- 97.
Ibid.
- 98.
Bureau des longitudes’ minutes, March 15, 1922.
- 99.
The list of the American delegates and a short list of the scientific subjects is in “International Meeting in Rome”, The Scientific Monthly, 14-5, May 1922, 495–496. These questions are contained in Levallois (1980).
- 100.
Besides the representatives belonging to the unions, there were representatives from other countries (the neutrals during the war), which had already joined the International Research Council and were making preparations to join one or more unions. Adding the guests as well, 300 people attended the meetings in Rome (Bauer 1922, p. 614).
- 101.
Bureau des longitudes’ minutes, May 17, 1922.
Others social features were: a reception of the delegates at the Campidoglio by the municipality of Rome (May 4, 1922), a visit to the Palatino at the invitation of the under-secretary of antiquities and fine arts (May 8, 1922), a visit to the Vatican, and a visit to Florence (May 12, 1922) (Bauer 1922).
- 102.
The delegates were received by the Pope on May 10, 1922. Bureau des longitudes’ minutes, May 24, 1922.
- 103.
The names were given at the meeting of the Bureau des longitudes on May 24, 1922: Bowie (president, USA), Gautier (vice-president, Switzerland) and Perrier (secretary, France). The members: Sir Lenon Conyngham (Great Britain), Stroobant (Belgium), General Vacchelli (Italy) and Heuvelink (Netherlands). The scientific work of the Executive Committee would be shared in this way: levelling (Lallemand); bases and triangulation (Perrier); pendulum (Solèr, Italy); isostasy (Bowie, USA) and latitudes, longitudes and azimuths (Ordnance Survey, Great Britain). However, the Latitude Service would work under the control of a mixed commission of astronomers and geodesists. The Central Board was given to Kimura (director of the Mizusawa observatory in Japan).
- 104.
Notice that there are more members with respect to the old association, inside of the Executive Committee, as observed by the members of the Bureau des longitudes in the meeting of May 17, 1922.
- 105.
The journal had to be edited in a shorter time. The proceedings were formed by the 41 papers presented in Rome. At the meeting of the Bureau des longitudes on May 24, 1922, Perrier would present all of them. Notice that the Bulletin géodésique is today called the: Journal of Geodesy.
- 106.
Switzerland was admitted in the IUGG in 1923 (Ismail-Zadeth and Joselyn 2019, 33).
- 107.
Bureau des longitudes’ minutes, May 17, 1922.
- 108.
Ibid.
- 109.
In 1932, the organization officially adopted the name «International Association of Geodesy (IAG)» (Torge 2005).
- 110.
In the Report published by Perrier in 1923, we read that the annual contribution of each state is fixed according to its population, in a number of units fixed to 2600 francs (of which 1000 francs must come back to the Geodesy Section). The financial breakdown for 1923 of the Geodesy Section were of 86,000 francs, and consisted of: Mexico (counting for 3 units); Belgium, Canada, Portugal (each one counting for 2 units); Greece and Monaco (1 unit); the United States, France, Great Britain, Italy and Japan (8 units). See Perrier (1923a). Note that, with the Central States and the neutrals, the Section also excludes Spain, whose aim had been to reintegrate Germany into the Union. When, in 1924, the Congress was to take place in Madrid, the question would again be one of actuality, because Spain would ask the Germans to attend.
- 111.
Bureau des longitudes’ minutes, May 24, 1922.
Ferrié became the first president of the International Union of Radio Science. Referring to the engagement of Great Britain, the report published in 1923 says: “it seems necessary to undertake, at the same time of the principal operation [of a fundamental wireless network], some secondary operations which presented a particularly great importance: the attachment of the meridian of Greenwich, of the Observatory of Paris (Bureau international de l’Heure) and another point situated far from the principal polygon”. See the report in Ferrié (1923).
- 112.
A number of studies are underway on these actors within the context of the project of the French Agence Nationale de la Recherche “Le Bureau des longitudes (1795–1932): de la Révolution française à la Troisième République” (https://histbdl.hypotheses.org/a-propos).
- 113.
On metrology inside the Bureau des longitudes also refer to Martina Schiavon, “Metrology problem during the First World War”, to be published on the website “Les procès-verbaux du Bureau des longitudes (1795–1932), un patrimoine numérisé”.
- 114.
As a short example, let’s remember that the edition of the French military expedition in South America (1901–1907) was only achieved in 1925. Speaking about this monumental editorial project (33 volumes, of which 23 are devoted to geodesy and astronomy) planned by General Bourgeois, Captain Georges Perrier and Paul Rivet, the inspector geographer Pierre Tardi, in 1946, would justify the delay by the interruption of the First World War, but he also added that Bourgeois and Perrier lost too much time to describing the details of field observations. In other words, they wanted to “say everything” about the tasks of a geodesist, from the mastery of the physical geography of the territory to the mentality of the populations, which revealed, in 1946, an old practice of geodesy, whose characters were to spend too much time, with their own instruments, in the field (P. Tardi, ‘‘Rapport sur la publication des résultats de la mission à l’Equateur’’, présenté à la Commission de l’Académie des Sciences le 17/4/1946, archives de l’Académie des Sciences). More details about this question in Schiavon (2014, Chap. 2).
- 115.
Wireless also made it possible to transmit information of any kind, in addition to the hour, which was of great use for the army. On the importance of telephone and radio communications during the conflict, see Kragh (1996).
- 116.
The speediness of ground operation required new training: in 1922, the Topographical Army Sections were created at the Service géographique de l’armée, together with the new civilian Ecole supérieure de topographie at the Ecole des Travaux Publics. On the first creation, refer to Léon-Henri-André Bellot, “Rapport à l’Etat-major sur la création au Service géographique d’une section de topographie militaire”, Paris, October 31, 1921, Service historique de l’Armée de Terre (today Service historique de la Défense), 9N295. The civilian school was considered urgent for the surveying of the released territories for the service of Reconstitution foncière and Cadastre organized at the Ministère des Régions libérées. Henri Roussilhe, Chief Hydrographer of the Navy, was requested for this training. On Roussilhe, refer to Schiavon (2014). A report on the civilian superior school is given in the Annex of the Bureau des longitudes minutes of September 1925.
- 117.
“Où en est la géodésie? Les problèmes et les travaux actuels’’ (Perrier 1923, 2 parts).
- 118.
See Perrier (1939).
- 119.
In France, together with the Ecole supérieure de topographie (1922), three new superior schools were created: two Instituts de physique du globe (Strasbourg 1919 and Paris 1921) and the Institut d’optique théorique et appliquée (inaugurated in 1917, but not officially opened until 1924). On this last creation, refer to Bigg (2001) and Schiavon (2014, Chap. 9).
Archival Sources
Folder Archives Nationales F 17/17232.
Les procès-verbaux du Bureau des longitudes (1795–1932). Un patrimoine numérise. Years: 1917–1923. Access: http://bdl.ahp-numerique.fr/collection-tree.
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Schiavon, M. (2021). International Geodesy in the Post-war Period, as Seen by the French Bureau des Longitudes (1917–1922). In: Mazliak, L., Tazzioli, R. (eds) Mathematical Communities in the Reconstruction After the Great War 1918–1928. Trends in the History of Science. Birkhäuser, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61683-0_6
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