[3] The Charter, passed almost unanimously at the GCT congress in Amiens in October 1906, asserted a separation between unions and political parties.

[2] In 1908 Merrheim attended a Congress in Marseille where he compared the present situation to that of 1870, when the result of the Franco-Prussian War was to destroy the first Workers' International.

[6] In 1914, Merrheim belonged to the internationalist core of La Vie ouvrière (The Worker's Life) led by Pierre Monatte and Alfred Rosmer.

Merrheim became the leader of a small group of anti-war unionists in Paris, at first based at the Vie Ouvrière offices at 96, quai Jemmapes.

[2] On 15 August 1915, a pacifist resolution was presented at the CGT's national congress at the initiative of Merrheim and Albert Bourderon, signed by several militants of the federation of teacher's unions including Louis Bouët, Fernand Loriot, Louis Lafosse, Marie Guillot, Marie Mayoux, Marthe Bigot and Hélène Brion.

Lenin wanted to create the Third International at once, and told Merrheim when he returned to France he must call for a strike against the war.

Merrheim, Bourderon and Marie Mayoux of the teacher's federation were expected to represent France, but they were refused the passports they needed to travel.

Three delegates from the socialist party (SFIO, Section Française de l'Internationale Ouvrière) led by Alexandre Blanc were able to attend, since they were deputies and had parliamentary immunity.

[12] In July and August the CRRI leaders met with Trotsky but disagreed with his attacks on the pacifist but centrist followers of Jean Longuet in the SFIO.

[14] In February 1917, the Committee for the Resumption of International Relations split, with Pierre Brizon, Jean Raffin-Dugens and Albert Bourderon joining the SFIO minority led by Jean Longuet, while the socialists Fernand Loriot, Charles Rappoport, Louise Saumoneau and François Mayoux took control of the committee.

The two men had fallen out after the war, but Monatte said of his earlier years "The Merrheim who was large, who dominated us all, who remains in the history of our movement, was first the one who was a model of a militant syndicalist from 1904 to 1918, and last and above all the one who went to Zimmerwald.