When, in May 1922 after the First World War, the I.A.U. and the I.G.G.U. met for the first time it was decided that the systematic study of the motion of the pole should be continued. This study had been commenced over 23 years earlier by the International Geodetical Association and had been continued without interruption during the war, thanks to the keenness of the observers and the work of the Swiss and Dutch geodesists and astronomers, who had undertaken to maintain the necessary contacts between the observing stations and the Potsdam Central Office. The Second World War, which broke out barely two decades later, had more serious consequences for this study. The generous and worthy offer of our Swiss colleagues to be intermediaries between the belligerent countries and to help in the exchange of data between the observing stations and the Central Bureau passed unheeded. The Italian Foreign Minister at the time refused to allow the observing books to be transmitted. We had hoped that, when hostilities were over and communications had been re-established, we should be able to obtain, although late, the complete series of observations.