 Then, unluckily for Pillai, the First World War broke out, with Germany attacking Britain, France, etc., in 1914 and Pillai got stranded in Göttingen and could not go back to Edinburgh, submit the Working Plan and secure his BSc degree in Forestry and then return to Trivandrum.A.R.Pillai, even though he did not then have a basic university degree, was, however, allowed to register and work for PhD in the Philosophical Faculty of the University of Göttingen and also of the University of Giessen by the University authorities.But he was able to complete only two courses for the PhD degree when the situation brought about by the First World War, which began in October 1914 and lasted till November 1918 came in the way; the monthly remittances of money to A.R.Pillai by his maternal uncle (the head of his matriarchal family, Punnackal) and letters from his mother in Punnackal and his wife and children and his father-in-law, C.V.Raman Pillai, at Rosscote in Thiruvananthapuram, were stopped from August 1914 by the British authorities, Pillai being in their enemy country.