by Chris Turney
But science could not heal the party’s bitter divisions. Some confrontations were relatively harmless: at one point, ‘König used a wet sponge this morning to wake Przybyllok who then angrily beat König’s door in with climbing boots. He acted afterward as if nothing had happened.’ Some tried to play music to entertain, but it was not a huge success. Filchner wrote later that ‘in this remote wilderness one’s musical ear becomes more strict rather than uncritical. Unfortunately we did not have a single musician on board and hence accordion concerts turned into dreadful ear-torturing trials.’ The men withdrew to spend a greater part of each evening in their cabins.
Other problems were considerably more serious. Criticisms were met with threats of duelling. In Filchner’s book on the expedition there is barely any mention of alcohol. He claims he gave control of the expedition’s stocks to the navigation officer, a teetotaller, while individuals kept ‘modest private stocks of alcohol in their cabins’. ‘I can heartily recommend fruit juices, mineral water, soda drinks etc and do not consider light wines for special occasions harmful.’ If only this were the case. Filchner regularly remarked in his diary upon the damage alcohol did to the expedition’s collegiality. It was a way of escape, and some of the characteristics it unmasked in the men were not to Filchner’s liking. Vahsel apparently indulged in an ‘abundant consumption of whiskey’ and would insult Filchner in front of the other officers. He wrote of the captain, ‘He is a sly fox.’
Some of the allegations are extraordinary. ‘This drunkenness is a cancer,’ Filchner declared, writing after one of the captain’s soirées. ‘The captain is always in the thick of it.’
One evening Filchner was woken at ten o’clock by the expedition doctor, Wilhelm von Goeldel, shouting. ‘He fought with the carpenter and the boatsman,’ Filchner wrote. ‘Goeldel was totally drunk, threatening with a pistol. Przybyllok was also drunk. I brought them both to bed with the help of König. I myself got to sleep at around 2 am.’
By April, Filchner and Vahsel were no longer speaking. ‘The captain opposes me wherever he can,’ Filchner declared. Von Goeldel and the ship’s first officer, Wilhelm Lorenzen, were now also openly hostile to the German leader. After the expedition Przybyllok commented, ‘The expedition doctor…had twice threatened members of the expedition that he would shoot them down with his revolver. And one had to sit daily at table with such gentlemen!’ The others on board were ‘a bunch of pigs’ and their behaviour towards Filchner was ‘shameful’. Meanwhile, Brennecke had instigated a Great Ship’s Council, supposedly as a means of representing the crew’s views to Filchner. It soon became an opportunity to bypass the command and openly judge the leadership.
One of the most important issues the council investigated was an incident involving König, who claimed he had been shot at on the ice. The Austrian had brought news of the shooting to Filchner and showed him the bullet he had retrieved. Word got out and König was asked to explain himself to the Great Ship’s Council. Filchner was worried. Von Goeldel was ‘behaving like a madman’ and had declared he would place König in ‘a strait jacket at the first opportunity’. At the council König was interrupted with frequent jeers and declarations of ‘Fool!’, ‘Crazy Man’ and ‘Strait Jacket’. It was touch-and-go. Filchner only managed to keep the mob at bay by declaring the shot had been accidental. In the end, von Goeldel did not follow through with his threat and the matter was dropped. Who had shot at König remained a mystery, though Filchner had his suspicions.
By June the bad feeling was too much for Filchner and he desperately needed to get off the ship for a while. He might not have made landfall on the Antarctic coastline, but he could at least make another contribution. Filchner decided to test one of the more controversial claims made about the Southern Ocean. In 1831 the eccentric American sealer Benjamin Morrell had returned from a purported journey south and subsequently published a popular account of his travels, A Narrative of Four Voyages. The book is highly entertaining, full of flamboyant claims and outlandish descriptions of the lands and people Morrell allegedly visited. In it he describes taking his schooner, the Wasp, south into the western Weddell Sea, where he found a 480-kilometre coastline he dubbed New South Greenland—though some later called it Morrell Land.
Pushing on south, Morrell subsequently claimed that, because of a shortage of cooking fuel at 70°, he was ‘compelled to abandon, for the present, the glorious attempt to make a bold advance directly to the South Pole. The way was open before me, clear and unobstructed; the temperature of the air and water mild, the weather pleasant and the wind fair. Under such tempting auspices, it was with painful reluctance that I relinquished the idea…The vassals of some petty despot may one day place this precious jewel of discovery in the diadem of their royal master. Would to heaven it might be set among the stars of our national banner!’ Morrell’s pleas in America fell on deaf ears.
Despite concerns about its colourful discoverer, the existence of Morrell Land excited debate for decades. At a meeting of the RGS in 1870 a paper on Morrell’s claims incited fervent discussion. Francis Galton, editor of the bible of exploration, Hints to Travellers, was suspicious. Morrell, he said, had claimed to have made an excursion into the interior of Africa at about 23°S, describing it as ‘consisting of rich valleys, with large herds of cattle roaming over them, whereas it was a barren desert’. Charles Enderby, the former owner of a sealing company that had funded the discovery of one of the few known parts of the Antarctic coastline at the time, thought Morrell ‘appeared to be a kind of Baron Munchausen’.
The most stinging comment, however, came from a Captain Davis: ‘No doubt the work was a very remarkable one, and also very amusing…southward of that parallel [50°] it was evident that Morrell was out of his latitude…had Mr. Morrell restrained his tongue and pen, a great part of his narrative might have been believed…He visited Auckland Islands, having made the voyage from Kerguelen Land in twenty-two days, or at the rate of about 180 miles a day [in icy seas]…Mr. Morrell then wound up with what may be considered a “clincher”, by characterising the island as “a delightful retreat for a few amiable families”. Of the same spot, Sir James Ross said, “Well adapted for a penal settlement.”’
By mid-June the Deutschland’s northwesterly drift had brought her sixty-five kilometres east of Morrell’s alleged sighting. Filchner grabbed the opportunity. Here was a chance to achieve something and dodge any future shots from his trigger-happy colleagues. Filchner left the ship on 23 June and, with two companions he could trust—König and Kling—made off with enough provisions for three weeks of unsupported sledging. With just two to three hours of daylight a day, the three men slowly worked their way over the sea ice and around open patches of water, much of the time by moonlight, with temperatures regularly approaching -35°C. Kling later wrote, ‘We proceeded at a rapid pace through the ghostly shadows thrown by piled-up floes and snow hillocks. We glided along noiselessly, as if we were heading for Valhalla. Everything around us was as silent as the grave; only the monotonous crunching of the sledges and König’s shouts to his dogs broke the demonic silence.’
Acutely aware of what had happened to Nansen after he left the Fram in the Arctic, Filchner took frequent sightings of their latitude and longitude. The three men pushed on and, dragging their sledge of supplies and equipment, managed to get fifty kilometres from the ship. There was no sight of land. Finding a break in the ice, they dropped a lead weight and reached a depth of sixteen hundred metres before the line snapped. There was no hint of a shallow seabed: there was no coastline anywhere in the immediate vicinity. During their trip the three men saw ‘phenomena on the western horizon which looked like ice-covered land; later it turned out that we had been deceived by mirages’. Filchner was convinced that, if Morrell had made it this far south, he had most probably seen a mirage. The American sealer had been wrong, or had made the whole thing up.
Filchner and his two accomplices headed back to the ship. Correcting for the drift of the sea ice, t
hey successfully intercepted the Deutschland. The small team had covered 160 kilometres in three weeks. For a while, Filchner’s success seemed to surprise those on board: this was not the action of a coward, as Vahsel was now portraying Filchner to the crew. It was not long, however, before the situation on the ship changed irrevocably.
On 8 August 1912 Vahsel died. Filchner is circumspect about the cause in To the Sixth Continent, and suggests it may have been a heart attack. But on board it was common knowledge that the captain suffered from syphilis and, privately, Filchner considered this the most likely culprit. Vahsel was given a sailor’s burial on the Antarctic Circle. The question now was who to put in charge of the Deutschland. There was little choice, and Filchner feared for his life. With the level of suspicion on board, he could hardly set about putting his preferred man, Kling, in the post. In the end Filchner chose Lorenzen, a man he disliked almost as much as Vahsel. But when Lorenzen had signed his name in the log book with the title Captain, Filchner made a point of striking out the title, leading the sailor to faint—or pretend to—in shock. Przybyllok described him as acting ‘like a young girl who wants a new outfit’.
If Filchner had hoped things would improve with Vahsel’s death he was to be bitterly disappointed; if anything, morale worsened. Filchner and Lorenzen argued constantly. By mid-September the Deutschland had edged far to the north, and Filchner was desperate to start the ship’s engines and get going; Lorenzen would not hear of it. Filchner wrote in frustration, ‘Lorenzen is not able to lead a ship, every time he is challenged by decisions, he wants to faint (by purpose!). Shit gang here on board.’
Dr von Goeldel became ever more frustrated with König, who was struggling psychologically. The doctor was even suspected of trying to poison the Austrian biologist. Meanwhile, Filchner was suffering from constipation and haemorrhoids, a situation well known to von Goeldel. Because of the continued poor relationship between the two men, the expedition leader asked Kling to get his medication for him—but the doctor would not acquiesce. ‘Kling was supposed to get laxatives from von Goeldel,’ Filchner wrote. ‘Von Goeldel made him swallow the double ration (although he didn’t need it!).’
Their relationship did not improve. By 17 October, Filchner was writing in his diary, ‘At night I slept on the bench in my room so that von Goeldel can’t shoot me through the walls. I locked the door and have a gun and cartridges next to me…I will sleep always on the floor, gun loaded.’
Finally, on 26 November at 63°S, the Deutschland broke free of the ice and headed straight for South Georgia, leaving behind its prison of eight awful months. The ship had covered a staggering 10° of latitude, drifting north in a clockwise direction around the Weddell Sea.
On 19 December the inhabitants of Grytviken greeted the return of the Deutschland. But the relative calm of the whaling station was soon shattered by shouts of alarm and the sound of scuffles on board. The chief of police went on the Deutschland and asked Filchner whether he needed help to restore order. Fearing how this would be interpreted at home, the German leader declined. Lorenzen screamed that he wanted Filchner off the vessel: ‘I am the commander. He has no more say on board this ship.’ Many of the crew were utterly demoralised. Hearing an untrue rumour that they would not be paid, they fell in behind Lorenzen and announced, ‘We don’t want anything more to do with Dr. Filchner.’
The Norwegian whaler Larsen attempted reconciliation, but failed. The bad feeling ran too deep. The mutineers were taken off the Deutschland in South Georgia and sent home via Buenos Aires, completing their journey on a passenger steamer. It was an ignominious end to what had promised to be a fine enterprise.
Ever ambitious, Filchner soon reported to the American Geographical Society that he was keen to give the south another go. ‘About May the Deutschland will reach Buenos Aires and then go into dry dock in order to carry out a trip to the Sandwich Islands southeast of South Georgia, during the current year. At the end of the year the second trip to the newly discovered land can be made again and the explorations in the Antarctic continue according to the original program.’
It was not to be. Those sent back to Germany early had returned with tales of poor leadership and low morale. The fallout reached Filchner’s superiors, and he was ordered to return home and answer charges. His plans for further work in Antarctica were quietly shelved. The Siberian dogs and horses were left behind in South Georgia and died from lack of food, victims of a thwarted expedition.
In Germany the recriminations came swiftly. Accusations raged in the press and a Court of Honour was established. All accusations were heard. Although the court was not legally binding, the disputes it addressed were intended to be settled privately, instead of in the media. The verdict was not what Filchner’s opponents wanted: he was not castigated for his leadership, and several of the scientists continued to back him.
Filchner wrote, ‘The verdict of the Court of Honour included, among other things, the clause that the scientists who were aboard Deutschland had refused to publish their expedition results in co-operation with me. This representation did not correspond to reality, since the expedition astronomer Prof. Dr Przybyllok had not been in agreement with this protest; for his part he rejected the unfair demand that he should publish his results along with the other scientists.’
The protagonists appear to have ignored the court’s verdict and continued to make public accusations. Filchner later remarked, ‘When, after this failure, my enemies circulated the story, that I had achieved nothing scientifically on the polar voyage, this rhetoric did not especially disturb me, since it was familiar to me.’
Not everyone was convinced by the denouncements. The Kaiser invited the German expedition leader to his castle at Doon and gave him his backing. Penck wrote a public essay on the expedition in early 1914, defending Filchner and the mission’s success. To him, it was clear where the blame lay: Vahsel and the naval leadership imposed on Filchner.
Still rumours abounded, with von Goeldel claiming that Filchner was not ‘a man of honour’. In the traditional Teutonic way, he was challenged to a duel and the comment was swiftly withdrawn.
After her return to Europe the Deutschland was sold to Austria, so that a restored König could lead another trip south and finish the job. Filchner was invited to take part, but felt ‘for the time being I had had enough of “Antarctic Doings”. Moreover, many experiences had convinced me that truly great successes in the polar ice are granted only to members of those nations where polar research has tradition, namely the Scandinavians, the Russians, the British and the Canadians. I [have] decided to return to my original field of work: Central and East Asia.’ First, Filchner got on with writing up the scientific output of the Antarctic expedition as best he could.
Filchner’s efforts in the south became synonymous with failure in Germany, but were followed with interest overseas. Early in the expedition many commentators pondered what had happened to the Deutschland, with one writing, ‘A guess may be hazarded. Lieutenant Filchner is probably wintering somewhere under the lee of Coats Land. For aught we know to the contrary, there may be another range of mountains there pointing towards the South Pole; at any rate, it seems probable that Filchner will have better weather than…Scott, and that this may aid him in breaking a new trail to the South Pole.’
On the Germans’ return, the international enthusiasm was undiminished. Learned societies and individuals were effusive about the expedition’s achievements. The Germans had heroically fought their way to the southernmost end of a vast Atlantic-facing ocean. And after traversing the extent of the Weddell Sea, Filchner had reached a previously undiscovered shore that set a northern limit to the continent.
The discoveries seemed to show there was no strait beyond the Weddell Sea. Instead, the ocean was backed by an enormous ice shelf that soon lost the regal name bequeathed to it and became known as the Filchner Ice Shelf. On the other side of Antarctica the Japanese and Norwegians appeared to have sighted peaks to the east of the Great Ic
e Barrier. There was little if any room for a connection between the Ross and Weddell seas. It looked like Penck was wrong.
Sir Clements Markham was particularly positive about Filchner’s efforts. Although Markham did not recognise the scientific outcomes, the German’s bravery appealed: ‘There was no impenetrable pack for him. He put the ship’s stem straight at it, somewhere near Weddell’s furthest, and forced her through. After battling with the pack over 120 miles the ship came out into open water and land was sighted in 76°35’ extending to 79°. There was an ice barrier to the westward.’
The Scottish were equally enthusiastic. On the scientific front Robert Mossman, who had been part of Bruce’s team, remarked, ‘The German Antarctic expedition under Dr. Filchner is the most recent, and in some respects, the most interesting, of expeditions in the Weddell Sea area…It was Dr. Filchner’s intention to winter on this land and make sledge expeditions in a westerly direction with the view of testing whether Penck’s theory of the division of the Antarctic continent…was correct.’ And, ‘Apart from the discovery of new land, the drift of the ship demonstrated the general circulation of the air and ocean currents of the Weddell Sea area.’
The balloon releases showed the same sort of temperature inversion the British were finding in the Ross Sea, suggesting this was a common feature of the Antarctic, while the route taken by the Deutschland gave a remarkably clear indication that the Weddell Sea flowed in a clockwise gyre. The Germans thought that this was driven by a low-pressure system which sat over the region, driving the air currents and ice in a clockwise direction, parallel to the coastline. ‘The ice fields follow these air currents, although they are sometimes pushed slightly out of the general direction,’ Filchner later wrote. ‘They respond quickly, however, to temporary changes in the wind direction, so that the direction of the drift always corresponds to the direction of the wind. It seems that when the barometric minimum increases in intensity the winds drive the ice fields toward the nucleus of the depression and thus cause dangerous ice pressures.’