THE UNIVERSE OF INFORMATION.pdf - ideals

Chapter
IX
THE WAR AND ITS AFTERMATH
EXILE IN FRANCE AND SWITZERLAND
The invasion of Belgium by the Germans in August 1914
at once broke down the fragile structures of institutionalised
internationalism that Otlet and La Fontaine had created
through the Union of International Associations, the International
Institute and Office of Bibliography and the International
Museum. The earliest days of the War brought great
personal tragedy to Otlet. In September Marcel, his older son,
was taken prisoner by the Germans at Antwerp. His
younger son, Jean, was reported missing in the Battle of the
Yser in October. Otlet himself searched the battlefield for the
boy's body. 1 It was not until several years later that Jean's
•death was confirmed by information given in a prisoner-of-war
camp to his brother. Even so, Otlet continued to hope for a
time that somehow Jean had escaped and that this information
was false. 2
As the Germans occupied Brussels, Otlet and La Fontaine,
like so many of their compatriots, fled. La Fontaine went to
America and during the voyage thither drafted his The Great
Solution: Magnissima Carta, 3 a work in the form of a treaty,
exploring the setting up of a world organisation of states.
Otlet went with his wife, Cato, first to Holland then probably
for a short time to England. 4 He spent most of the War,
however, in Paris and in various Swiss cities.
On the eve of his departure from Brussels and under the
noses of the Germans, Otlet published his La Fin de la Guerre.
5 This work set the keynote for his activities in France and
Switzerland. In it he presented a World Charter of Human
Rights as the basis for an international federation of states.
Both he and La Fontaine, at the very beginning of the War,
"were passionately convinced that a lasting peace could be obtained
at its conclusion only by the creation of what was later
203