ABSTRACT
As we have seen, the newly emergent field of liquid crystals, crystalline liquids, anisotropic liquids – in the absence of convincing physical pictures, there could not yet be a consensus on terminology – had been started in the German-speaking world and leaked out to France following Lehmann’s successful visits to Geneva and Paris in 1909. There was a continuing vibrant interchange of ideas, samples and even visits between Germany and France in the years leading up to the First World War. The Great War, however, temporarily interrupted free scientific interchange, although not by as much as was the case during the Second World War. Thus the important theoretical papers of Born and Grandjean did not seem to penetrate the front line. Although most of the French researchers in the liquid crystal field were allowed to continue their work uninterrupted, their German colleagues were unable to escape war duties. In 1914 Lehmann, at 59, was too old for military service, but Vorländer, already 47, dropped his scientific work in order to become a battery commander on the Eastern and Western Fronts.
