Out of Tromsø: The Austro-Hungarian Arctic Expedition to Franz Josef Land

Julius von Payer’s map of Franz Josef Land

According to Wikipedia: “Franz Josef Land is an archipelago located in the far north of Russia … in the Arctic Ocean, north of Novaya Zemlya and east of Svalbard, and is administered by Arkhangelsk Oblast. It consists of 191 ice-covered islands with a total area of 16,134 km2 (6,229 sq mi). It has no native inhabitants.

At latitudes between 80.0° and 81.9° north, it is the most northerly group of islands associated with Eurasia. The extreme northernmost point is Cape Fligely on Rudolf Island. The archipelago is only 900 to 1,110 km from the North Pole, and the northernmost islands are closer to the Pole than any other land except for Canada's Ellesmere Island and Greenland.”

The archipelago was possibly first discovered by the Norwegian sealers Nils Fredrik Rønnbeck and Aidijärvi aboard the schooner Spidsbergen in 1865 who, according to scarce reports, sailed eastward from Svalbard until they reached a new land, denoted Nordøst- Spitsbergen. It is not known if they went ashore, and the new islands were soon forgotten.

The officially recognized discovery took place in 1873 by the Austro-Hungarian North Pole Expedition led by polar explorers Julius von Payer and Karl Weyprecht. They named the archipelago in honour of the Austro-Hungarian emperor Franz Joseph I. Since the expedition was privately sponsored and not official, these islands have not been part of Austria.”

Julius von Payer, who was also the chronicler of the expedition, described their discovery as “cold, congealed, frozen land,” “the kingdom of the dead,” but that did not deter Fridtjof

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Nansen, called “the Explorer as Hero” by his biographer, to base his historic attempt to reach the North Pole from relying on that archipelago on his return from the far North.

How come that an Austro-Hungarian expedition ever started?

The 19th century belongs to Europe, major inventions and accomplishments as well as conquests all belong to the powers of Europe. In the second half of the century there was a new wave of colonial expansion, a drive for discovering and annexing new territories. The usual aims were: pure glory for the country and its ruler, to have strategic advantages over the rivals (to forestall them – that was the so-called “scramble for Africa”), but exploiting the resources of the overseas possessions was also an increasingly major consideration. Somewhat different, but not entirely unrelated was the race for reaching the North Pole first, ahead of others. While undoubtedly that drove Nansen, Parry and most others, that was not the avowed aim of the Austro-Hungarian Expedition.

The dynasty of the Habsburgs once ruled over much of Central Europe todays Austria, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia, and also parts of Italy, Poland, Ukraine Romania and Serbia as well as Spain. The so-called Ausgleich (Settlement) of 1867 established the dual Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, creating a personal union between the Empire of Austria and the Kingdom of Hungary – not unlike the Swedish-Norwegian Union of 1815. That consolidated what was usually just called the Monarchy, still one of the five Great Powers of Europe, and gave an impetus for rapid economic development. In this optimistic spirit, prompted by English, American and German Arctic expeditions, a few aristocrats in the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy decided to finance an expedition to find and explore the North-Eastern Passage from Europe to the North Pacific. Reaching the North Pole was a secondary target.

Count Hans Johann Wilczek was the first and main financer of the expedition, but the Ministry of Defence and other departments, too, contributed. From Hungary Count Ödön Zichy, and members of the Eszterházy and Széchenyi families gave donations. Two extremely capable naval officers, dedicated more to the scientific study of the Earth than to nationalist ambitions, Linienschiffsleutnant Karl Weyprecht and Lieutenant Julius von Payer, were selected to lead the expedition. In the summer of 1871 the two decided on a preliminary voyage to see how far the sea east of Svalbard was free of ice. They set off on June 20 from

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Tromsø on board the sealer Isbjørn in heavy snowfall. After a month’ sailing they found that the ice near Novaya Zemlya was much weaker and less set than near Greenland. The further east they went the less ice they found. At the end of August they reached 79 degree latitude – and there was no ice in sight. That looked very promising for the planned expedition.

The ship of the expedition was the newly built Tegetthoff, named after the Austrian Admiral Wilhelm von Tegetthoff, the victor of the naval battle of Lissa against the Italian fleet in 1866, under whom Weyprecht had served. The ship was a three-masted schooner of 220 tons, 38.34 m long, with a 100 hp (75 kW) steam engine. The crew came from all over Austria- Hungary, especially from Istria and Dalmatia, mainly Croats and Italians. The surgeon was Gyula Kepes, a Hungarian. Apart from a good stock of medicaments it was his responsibility collecting the necessary provisions. In addition to tinned meat, rice, dried pastry etc. he instinctively took sauerkrat (cabbage in vinegar) and citrus squash against scurvy. What probably proved the best medicine was a bottles of strong Tokay aszú wine. Built at and starting from Bremerhaven, the Tegetthoff left Tromsø on 14 July 1872 with a crew of 24, which included the Norwegian Elling Olaf Carlsen, an experienced captain, as an ice pilot & harpooner. The party came in sight of Novaya Zemlya on the 29th of July. Unlike in the previous year, they encountered much ice already at that point, at the 74 parallel. On August 21 the ship got locked in pack-ice north of Novaya Zemlya and it proved impossible to free it even by explosives. The expedition drifted northeast to hitherto unknown polar regions. From mid-October the pressure of the ice threatened the ship with crushing it; besides pressure on the sides the ice was towering over the vessel and lifted it high. For 130 days the crew had to be ready to abandon the vessel at any moment. On the 29th of October the sun disappeared for 109 days! The Northern Lights gave little compensation. With the winter over the months of May, June, and July were spent in trying to saw the Tegetthoff out of the ice; but all the efforts made were futile and all hope of breaking up the ice holding it in captivity had to be given up.

Drifting helplessly in the ice mostly in fog and reaching latitude 80 on August 30th 1873 the mist suddenly opened partly up. Julius Payer recalled afterwards: „Toward the midday we were standing on the deck, leaning on the ship’s board and staring aimlessly at the mist, that had began to dissipate in some spots. Suddenly the mist dissipated completely in the North- West, and we saw cliffs. In a few minutes we caught an astonishing sight of a majestic mountainous landscape and glaciers, that dazzled us in the sunshine. For a few seconds we

3 stood stunned and couldn’t believe our eyes. Then, overwhelmed by emotions, we burst out crying: Land! Land!” They decided to baptize the newly found territory – opening bottles of wine. It was named Wilczek Island after Count Wilczek, the originator and main sponsor of the expedition, and the land mass behind it was given the name of Emperor-KING FRANZ

JOSEF. (They were probably where today the spectacular Cape Tegetthoff welcomes rich tourists who can afford one of the highly expensive tours to the islands.) The floe was driven to an island, where it remained, three miles from the shore, while the icefield around it finally froze together as a continuous ice cover. Across this ice, Wilczek Island could be reached, and Payer took possession of the land by depositing a document under a pile of stones.The polar night, however, prevented any exploration. Celebrating Christmas had by all accounts a warming effect, lifting the mood of the whole expedition. The crew built a palace of ice and they held a kind of banquet there. Presents made by the ladies of Vienna and Pola were given to the sailors in a raffle. In January the cold was extremely severe, mercury in the thermometer got frozen, so did the oil in the burner, the lamps went out, and the brandy was congealed into a solid mass. Bread had to be sliced by a saw, butter was cut by a wedge so that it could be melted. Polar bears paid the voyagers frequent visits, and 67 of them were shot, providing much fresh meet. Various scientific observations and measuring kept the people occupied. Most of the seamen originally could not read and write, but during the long winter night the officers taught them to become literate.

Although the health and the mood of the people were better than after the first winter, it was evident that they could not survive a third polar winter with their depleted stocks. It was decided that in May they would abandon the ship and try to reach the land by sledge and boat. But first they would explore the uncharted land ahead.

Part of the crew landed on 10 March, and ten days later Lieutenant Payer with a party of six went on a sledge-journey in a north-west direction to Hall Island. The whole region seemed "devoid of life"--ice and great glaciers everywhere. The cold was intense. This party returned, and another journey was undertaken to the north with the sleighs. They found a wide channel in a North-South direction separating the islands and called it Austria-channel. They named the western region Zichy-land. The northernmost elevation on Wilczek-land was named Cape Budapest. The archipelago itself retained the name Franz-Joseph Land. “It is like Eastern Greenland--a land of desolation, with high mountains and vast glaciers, of a greenish-blue colour. The vegetation is extremely poor, and the country is uninhabited,” was the conclusion.

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Further on they reached another territory, which they named Crown Prince Rudolf Land, the habitation of millions of sea-birds, and thousands of bears, seals, and foxes. A great glacier was crossed, but before they left it an immense fissure engulfed the sleigh with the stores, while the others only narrowly escaped by cutting the traces. Lieutenant Payer hurried back for assistance, and at length dogs, men, and sleigh were pulled up, safe and nearly sound. Finally, rounding Auk Cape, the explorers reached open water by the shore.

There was one fatality, Otto Krisch, the engine-mechanic, who died of tuberculosis, most probably contracted before the trip. He was buried on the land.

The longest sledge tour reached the northernmost point of the archipelago and of Eurasia (latitude 81 degrees 57 minutes) on Rudolf Island. But Payer was convinced to have seen land masses stretching endlessly further to the North from there, which he named Petermann Land after the German explorer, but he was not able to travel further during this tour. (This ominous Petermann Land stimulated a number of following expeditions, aiming for the North Pole and hoping to find an easier route northwards over this hoped-for land bridge and therefore choosing the remote and newly-discovered Franz Josef Land as their starting base. It was only the return of Nansen and Johansen from their North Pole attempt, who found nothing but ice between almost the Pole and Franz Josef Land in 1895, that put an end to this legend.

A record of the visit was deposited in a crack of a rock. (It was found in 1921 by Norwegian sailors, who sent it to Vienna.) Now the party returned over the hundred and sixty miles they had come. Reaching the channel they found the ice gone and they had no boat to cross the open water back to Wilczek Land and their ship. Fortunately further away they ice was still there and on 21 (or according to another sources on 26) April they arrived back to their base. The explorations carried out by Julius Payer resulted in the first, though rather inaccurate map of Franz Josef Land.

One more little journey was made, and then everybody was preparing for the trip. On the 20th of May the ship's colours were nailed to the mast, and the retreat was commenced. Provisions were packed in the three lifeboats with a load of 1400 kilos each and on three sleighs each weighing about 800 kilos, all to be dragged across the uneven ice surface and minor cracks, mostly against the current. Little progress was made at first as all hands were required for each sleigh in turn, so people were going back to pull each sleigh forward. It took two months

5 to cover a distance of eight miles, and a third winter on the ice seemed probable. One can imagine how hard it must have been to proceed by reading the account of Nansen meeting similar circumstance twenty years later in the same area: “The ice is now as horrible as possible to advance over, broken up so that it seems like a single massive frozen surf.” Huntford continues (based on Nansen’s diary): Hauling their sledges, Nansen and Johansen had to jump warily across from one ice fragment to another. Sometimes they trod blindly over treacherous froth of brash ice blended with mushy snow. Somehow they negotiated these treacherous causeways without mishap.”

At last, in July, they were able to make a mile a day. On 13 August they reached the edge of the ice-pack, the open sea, and they caught sight of the snow-covered peaks of Novaya Zemlya. They wanted to find the food deposit made by Wilczek in 1872 on the northern end of the island. The sleighs were abandoned, and the dogs killed, as no room could be spared for them. The boats then set off for Novaya Zemlya, but heavy storms drove them southward and so they could not reach the depot. They almost ran out of any food when they sighted a ship, a Russian whaleship, and that saved them. Three months after leaving the Tegetthoff, on 24 August the Nickolay took them on board. It was hired (for a substantial sum) to take them to Norway. The party landed at Vardø, from where they could telegraph home that the members of the expedition were alive and well. They were celebrated in the Norwegian ports, Payer and Kepes were received by King Oscar, while the rest sailed to Hamburg, to return to Austria by train. Underway, they were invited to dinner parties hosted by different German geographical societies. They entered Vienna in triumph, welcomed, according to contemporary newspaper reports, by hundred thousands of people. A similarly warm reception awaited the leaders in Budapest. For the Croatian sailors a grand "banchetto" was organized in the Istrian town of Volosko near Fiume, today’s Rijeka.

Although the Austro-Hungarian Expedition did not succeed in discovering the North-East Passage, the success of the expedition was unquestionable, for land was discovered two hundred miles north of Nova Zemlya. The expedition's discoveries and experiences made a significant contribution to polar science, especially to the discovery of the Northeast passage by Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld. They also gave an impetus to International Polar Years, meaning a shift from sports-like races of single expeditions to worldwide scientific cooperation in exploring the polar regions.

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The expedition yielded various results in the fields of meteorology, astronomy, geodesy, magnetism, zoology, and sightings of aurora borealis. They were published by the Austrian Academy of Sciences in 1878. Besides, there are books (most important The Austro- Hungarian North Pole Expedition 1872-74) and paintings by Payer - probably the only paintings of a polar expedition created by the explorer himself.

From 15 June 2009 the archipelago became part of the newly established Russian Arctic National Park.

Bibliography

 Karl Weyprecht, Die Metamorphosen des Polareises. Österr.-Ung. Arktische Expedition 1872-1874 (The Metamorphosis of Polar Ice. The Austro-Hungarian Polar Expedition of 1872-1874)  Julius von Payer, Die Österreich-Ungarische Nordpol Expedition in den Jahren 1869- 1874 (1876); New Lands within the Arctic Circle (1876)  Fischer Zsolt: Ferenc József császár „földje” – Kárpátalja Online hetilap, 2011. május 20.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austro-Hungarian_North_Pole_Expedition

Abstract

150 years ago, in 1872, the Austro-Hungarian Dual Monarchy joined the efforts to explore the Arctic. A 24 member expedition, led by Captain Weyprecht and Lieutenant Julius Payer, set sail from Bremerhaven on 13 June on board the steamer Tegethoff, hoping to find the north- eastern passage. The team was completed in Tromsø: Captain Elling Olaf Carlsen, an expert on the northern seas, joined them. The surgeon of the ship was the Hungarian Gyula Kepes, the sailors were Croatian and Italian Dalmatians. On 21 August 1872, off the coast of Novaya Zemlya (Gåselandet), their ship got stuck in the ice. Drifting for a year, and surviving a winter when temperatures often dropped under minus 50, they got sight of an unknown group of islands, which they named after their sovereign, Emperor-King Franz Josef. They had to realize that their ship would not get out from its captivity, so they explored the uninviting islands inhabited only by polar bears. After the second winter they abandoned their ship and much of their scientific collection, to start on foot, dragging three boats southward. On 14 August 1874 two Russian whaling ships found the exhausted expedition, and took them to Vardø. The scientific results of the expedition were considerable, and F. Nansen made good use of the published account of Payer (Die österreichisch-ungarischeNordpol Expedition in den Jahren 1872-1874) in his expedition in 1893-96, when he spent almost a year on Franz Josef Land.

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