Mathematicians at war. Volterra and his French colleagues in World War I (Q1030804)

The core of this book is a collection of 115 letters, exchanged, from September 1914 to August 1920, between the Italian mathematician Vito Volterra (1860-1940) and his French colleagues Émile Borel (1871-1956), Jacques Hadamard (1865-1963) and Émile Picard (1855-1941). The collection is extracted from a much larger set of letters, handed over, by Volterra's sons, to the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei. The objective of the book is to present the posture, concerns and hesitation of the four friends about World War I. Considerations of these four eminent mathematicians about the concept of war and about the righteousness and interests of joining the war are present in this correspondence. The authors structured the book in a very convenient way. There are three parts. Part I (32 pages) begins with an introductory chapter ``What is this book about?'' where they state, in a few pages, the motivation for the book. In the second chapter, entitled ``The Protagonists'', the authors explain the reasons for choosing the views of these four personalities on WWI. In Chapter 3, they realize a feat, by synthesizing, in a few pages, the political scenario of France and Italy in the eve of WWI. Chapter 4, ``Vito Volterra and His Institutional Activity'', is about the public life on the eminent mathematician who is the main personage of the book. We learn of his brilliant career in physics and mathematics and of his engagement in promoting scientific development in Italy. He proposed important mathematical applications to hydrodynamics (the subject of his dissertation in the University of Pisa, in 1882) , to electrodynamics and to geophysics. Volterra was a founding member of the Italian Society of Physics (1897) and of the Italian Society for the Advancement of Sciences (1907) and he was also active in the political life, being elected Senator in 1905. His proposals pointed to the importance of technological and industrial development and he was engaged in projects of military implications. Chapter 5, on ``Volterra and Italian Interventionism Between 1914 and 1915'' gives a view of Italian public opinion and also the debate among politicians and intellectuals about entering the war which broke in 1914. Although formally a member of the Triple Alliance, together with Germany and Austro-Hungary since the 1880s, which was an opportunity for Italy to star its colonial conquests, Italians had strong resentments with Austria (the Trentino issue). But they also had resentments with France. Indeed, the annexation of Nice and the Savoy was present in the Italian memory. The core of this chapter are the arguments in favor and against joining the war, which finally occurred in 24 May 1915, when Italy entered the war against Germany, in the side of the Triple Entente (France, Great Britain and Russia). The opinion of intellectuals about the war is well discussed in this chapter. Although being a pacifist and contrary to colonial interventions, Volterra was less hesitant in advocating joining the war in the side of France. He had, from the beginning of his academic career, developed strong academic ties with France and he tried to improve cultural and institutional relations between Italy and France. The Jewish condition was also part of his considerations in favor of joining the war. Part I closes with eight pages of pictures of the four mathematicians plus a picture of Volterra's house, copies of letters and other scenes and pictures. Part II (118 pages) is ``Volterra's Exchanges with Borel, Hadamard and Picard in World War One''. The letters are all in French. Most of the letters sent by Volterra are from drafts, without mention of place and date. But the ordering of replies, by date, minimizes this inconvenience. The first letter in the collection is from Borel to Volterra, written in Paris in 3 Septembre 1914, followed by a letter from Volterra to Picard, The correspondence with Borel is more intense. Only after Italy entered the war, correspondence between Hadamard and Volterra dominates. In 1 July 1915, Hadamard writes to Volterra thanking his efforts for the decision of Italy siding with France against Germany. Hadamard reports on his activities and proudly reports on the action in the battlefield of his son and of their common friend, the mathematician Jacques Debré (1885-1969). The tone of the correspondence is heated. Hadamard uses phrases as ``la barbaries boche'' and wishing for ``une belle défaite de ces misérables!'' Indeed, in the entire correspondence, there is a tone of rage. There are only few discussions about mathematics. It is interesting to learn about the decision of promoting a series of conferences of Hadamard in Rome, in the first half of May 1916. They discussed and reflected on the theme, as well as on the days and time of the lectures. The topic agreed was ``Équations aux derivée partielles et mouvement par ondes''. It is also interesting to read about the arrangements with the Minister of for Public Instruction for this invitation and to learn about the interests of the Italian government in scientific exchanges with the allies of the Entente. While Hadamard was in Rome, his son died in battle, His comments were of pride with the sacrifice of the son for a just cause. In the entire collection of letters, also of Borel and Picard, the tone of pride losing their sons is evident. Overall, the correspondence between the four friends reveal the subordination of mathematics and even familiar love to the war effort. Hadamard and Volterra also expressed concerns about the conditions of Jews after the end of war, mainly in Russia. The end of the war, on November 11, 1918, lead to efforts to reconstruct academic life, Particularly interesting is the letter of Picard to Volterra on 28 February 1920, formally announcing that the International Congress of Mathematicians would take place in Strasbourg on the 22 September and of the decision to invite mathematicians from the allied countries, but, from the neutral countries, only those mathematicians who were not ostensibly against the allies. Part III, Appendices (34 pages) is divided in Chapter 7, ``The case of Pér's'', which contains 4 letters of Joseph Pér's (1890-1962), who was exempted from going to the battlefield and became a secondary school teacher in Montpellier. He was introduced by Borel to Volterra and, differently than the other correspondence, his four letters, written during the war, reveal an intense mathematical research, as if nothing was going on besides his research. After the war, Pér's made a meteoric academic career. Chapter 8, on ``Persuading the American Jewish Community'', has one letter of Sylvain Lévi (1863-1935), a philologist, asking Volterra's support for persuading Jewish mathematicians in the United States to assume their responsibilities towards the conditions of Jewish mathematicians in Europe. Chapter 9, on ``French Propaganda'', discusses how French humanists and writers tried to recruit Italian intellectuals, particularly Volterra, to the French side in the war. Chapter 10, on ``Cultural Relations Between Italy and France'', reports on the efforts to establish ties such as visits of scholars between Italy and France for conferences and the founding of Italian Institute of Culture in France and a French Institute of Culture in Italy, during the years of war, Volterra was always a central figure in all this, as seen in the 8 documents presented in the chapter. A section of References, listing 58 titles and a generous Index of names completes this book. This is a very original book, of much interest to those interested in the attitude of specialists, in this case mathematicians, face to a global threat, such as a major war. The lesson from the four great mathematicians, central to this book, is clear: the disciplines becomes less important than the global issues. The exception of Pér's (Chapter 7) reinforces this view. Summing-up, the message of the book is that major societal and national interests have priority over scientific advances.