obstacle—but not one of Robert’s making; Haber’s public praise fell silent
because of the war, and at the same time by moving into the shadows of
Haber’s life to avoid any association with a man so closely associated with the
German war machine, Robert became isolated and anonymous. But it was the
duty of the chemistry committee to look beyond such aspects and examine
the body of work the two men produced in partnership and in peace-time.
Had they consulted widely they would have learned that the only input the
BASF had to the pilot high pressure fixation process was funding, and learned
too of Haber’s private contract with Le Rossignol which would have been
another critical indicator of the depth of his dependence on the young man.
Under normal circumstances could the committee have expected nominations for Le Rossignol? He was not without potential support, from such as
Donnan,
35 Trouton and maybe even Ramsay had he not died in 1916. In
this respect however, Robert would not have promoted his own candidature;
that would have been undignified. Being a product of Victorian England he
‘knew his place’. All the circumstances of commercial secrecy, the war,
Haber’s dominant personality and the high regard in which German science
was held at the time were stacked against Robert. But with regard to this
young man the Committee totally abrogated their responsibility to the
integrity of the most prestigious award in science, and this above all was the
killer obstacle to Robert’s candidature. The committee employed ‘quota
think’. Having acknowledged the British by an award to Charles Glover
Barkla (the reserved 1917 Physics prize) the Academy felt no need to make
further gestures to the victors. Hammarsten’s ‘contempt’ of the English
meant that Le Rossignol had scant consideration. By 1920, ‘protest’ nominations for Bosch had already begun to arrive. A strong sense of injustice
eventually forced the committee to admit it was in error and they later
awarded Bosch a share in the 1930 Chemistry prize for his industrialisation of
the process. But for Robert there could be no such retrospective. The award
for the discovery of the technology had already been given to Haber alone. He
was left unrecognized. But had he been recognised, and had he been comfortable with the Academy’s reason for the award, given the bitterness of the
time, could he have stood alongside Haber to accept his prize? Only one
person could ever answer that question.
36
But the announcement of Haber’s award had hardly been made before Karl
Hjalmar M. Branting,
37 leader of the Swedish Social Democrats, Finance
Minister and soon to be both Prime Minister and a Nobel Laureate himself,
criticised the Swedish Academy in the Democrats’ newspaper,
Socialdemokratin,
38 equating Haber with ‘barbarism’. By celebrating Haber
and German chemistry the Academy had destroyed its position as a neutral
338
D. Sheppard
because of the war, and at the same time by moving into the shadows of
Haber’s life to avoid any association with a man so closely associated with the
German war machine, Robert became isolated and anonymous. But it was the
duty of the chemistry committee to look beyond such aspects and examine
the body of work the two men produced in partnership and in peace-time.
Had they consulted widely they would have learned that the only input the
BASF had to the pilot high pressure fixation process was funding, and learned
too of Haber’s private contract with Le Rossignol which would have been
another critical indicator of the depth of his dependence on the young man.
Under normal circumstances could the committee have expected nominations for Le Rossignol? He was not without potential support, from such as
Donnan,
35 Trouton and maybe even Ramsay had he not died in 1916. In
this respect however, Robert would not have promoted his own candidature;
that would have been undignified. Being a product of Victorian England he
‘knew his place’. All the circumstances of commercial secrecy, the war,
Haber’s dominant personality and the high regard in which German science
was held at the time were stacked against Robert. But with regard to this
young man the Committee totally abrogated their responsibility to the
integrity of the most prestigious award in science, and this above all was the
killer obstacle to Robert’s candidature. The committee employed ‘quota
think’. Having acknowledged the British by an award to Charles Glover
Barkla (the reserved 1917 Physics prize) the Academy felt no need to make
further gestures to the victors. Hammarsten’s ‘contempt’ of the English
meant that Le Rossignol had scant consideration. By 1920, ‘protest’ nominations for Bosch had already begun to arrive. A strong sense of injustice
eventually forced the committee to admit it was in error and they later
awarded Bosch a share in the 1930 Chemistry prize for his industrialisation of
the process. But for Robert there could be no such retrospective. The award
for the discovery of the technology had already been given to Haber alone. He
was left unrecognized. But had he been recognised, and had he been comfortable with the Academy’s reason for the award, given the bitterness of the
time, could he have stood alongside Haber to accept his prize? Only one
person could ever answer that question.
36
But the announcement of Haber’s award had hardly been made before Karl
Hjalmar M. Branting,
37 leader of the Swedish Social Democrats, Finance
Minister and soon to be both Prime Minister and a Nobel Laureate himself,
criticised the Swedish Academy in the Democrats’ newspaper,
Socialdemokratin,
38 equating Haber with ‘barbarism’. By celebrating Haber
and German chemistry the Academy had destroyed its position as a neutral
338
D. Sheppard