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Filchner's
ship, the Deutschland, was a Norwegian ship built
specifically for work in polar seas. Originally named the
Bjorn, she was acquired with the assistance of
Ernest
Shackleton, Otto
Nordenskjöld and Fridtjof
Nansen. Under the command of Captain Richard Vahsel, the
Deutschland left the port of Bremerhaven on May 4,
1911. Her first stop was at Buenos Aires where they loaded
additional stores, coal and 14 tons of rock ballast. They
left Buenos Aires on October 4 and arrived on the 18th at
South Georgia where they spent the next 48 days at the
Norwegian whaling station at Grytviken. While there, they
boarded the Undine and investigated the coasts,
making new charts, and re-opened the observatory at Royal
Bay. They also made an exploratory trip to the South
Sandwich Islands. The ship and crew departed for the Weddell
Sea on December 11, 1911. Filchner wrote, "None of us knew
if we would ever come back alive". The
first ice was encountered on December 15 with progress from
this point forward changing daily. One day the men would
work in shirtsleeves while the next day would follow with
fog, snow and freezing temperatures. By early January, 1912,
the ship was completely surrounded by icebergs and floes.
Filchner wrote, "In three days we spotted almost 200 bergs".
On January 27 samples of clay were brought up from 11,250
feet providing evidence of approaching land. Three days
later, at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, land was sighted to
the southeast. An ice cliff, approximately 100 feet high,
appeared in the distance with the continent gradually rising
behind it to a height of 2000 feet. Filchner wrote, "We had
reached the cliff of the ice overlaying the Antarctic
landmass, land that nobody before had seen or stepped upon,
new territory". This would be the southernmost point reached
by the Deutschland. Filchner named this region Prince
Regent Luitpold Land, now known as the Luitpold Coast. The
Deutschland steamed alongside the ice shelf for
several days. (Filchner named the ice shelf after Kaiser
Wilhelm but the emperor later changed it to the Filchner Ice
Shelf). The
Deutschland eventually reached an ice-rimmed bay at
the foot of a huge ice shelf where Filchner and the crew
made plans to erect their winter camp, or
stationhaus, as Filchner called it. An important
feature of the area was a natural landing ramp where "all
the material necessary to erect a 'stationhaus' could be
easily and quickly unloaded. A precondition for the project
was, of course, that the berg for the 'stationhaus' be
resting solidly on the sea floor". Construction of the camp
began on February 9 with the unloading of materials, dogs
and ponies. By February 17 the stationhaus
was nearly complete. Unfortunately, disaster struck the next
day beginning at 4 am. It started with a few cracking sounds
which quickly intensified over the next couple of hours.
Filchner wrote, "Then suddenly a racket erupted as if one
hundred pieces of heavy artillery were firing in rapid
succession". Captain Vahsel sounded the alarm and shouted,
"All the ice in the bay is moving and the stationhaus-berg
has begun to rotate!" Tons of ice had broken loose from the
edge of the ice shelf with new cracks and rifts opening in
every direction Filchner looked. Even worse, the nearly
completed camp was drifting northwards towards open water.
Along with their berg, tremendous masses of ice as big as 18
miles long were moving in unison with them. It was clear at
this point that the Deutschland was in serious danger
of being crushed in the ice as the camp, along with some of
the men, slowly drifted out to sea. Unloading
supplies on the ice shelf at Vahsel Bay The
Deutschland drifted for the next few days as Filchner
waited for improving weather conditions. Finally a landing
was made on the continental ice where the men built two
large depots some 330 feet above sea level. The depots were
covered with ice and marked with black flags and poles as
Filchners' plans were now to retreat to South Georgia for
the winter. They would return in the spring with additional
provisions and try a second time to complete their
transcontinental journey. But it was already early March and
soon the fog set in, along with sub-zero temperatures,
sealing their fate as the sea froze over at a torrid pace.
Filchner wrote, "The devil himself has sealed our fate". The
Deutschland was completely frozen in by March 6.
Stuck in the grips of the pack ice, she slowly drifted out
into the Weddell Sea. To break
the monotony of the long winter ahead, Filchner promoted
activities and duties as tents and small cabins were built
on the ice and scientific equipment installed. Additionally,
all the rooms in the ship were wired for electric lighting
"to cut down the polar night to a minimum". As for
entertainment, sporting activities were held regularly on
deck and on the ice, along with horseback riding. Filchner
himself could not take part in most of the physical
activities as earlier he had fallen from a mast and bruised
a few ribs. But by mid-June he was feeling well enough to
lead a short, but dangerous, journey over the ice in search
of Morrell's Land, or New South Greenland. The American
sealer Benjamin Morrell thought he had seen land in 1823
only 37 miles east from where the Deutschland was
trapped. Filchner, together with officers Kling and Konig,
left the ship on June 23 aboard two sledges, each drawn by
eight dogs, with provisions for three weeks. Filchner & Kling
scan for New South Greenland When they reached 70°32'S,
43°45'W, they had come 31 miles but none of the land
reported by Morrell could be seen. They dropped a lead
weight through a hole in the ice and when it had reached
5248 feet, the line broke. It was clear to them that what
Morrell had seen was a in fact a mirage. The return journey
was even more dangerous than the one encountered on their
way out. Large cracks had opened in the ice which meant a
number of detours had to be negotiated. Some areas had
frozen over with fresh ice so thin that the men were in
constant danger of falling through. Despite frozen
instruments, Kling's navigational skills were uncompromised
as only eight days after leaving the ship, on June 30,
Filchner and his men spotted the masts of the
Deutschland. While they were away, the ship had
drifted 38 miles. The ship had to send out the lifeboats to
pick up the men as a wide lead of thin ice had separated
them from the ship. The next
two weeks saw the Antarctic winter come to an end. On August
8 Captain Vahsel died from a prior illness. As a result,
Kling took over the ship. By the end of September the
Deutschland was surrounded by huge stretches of open
water. The boilers were fired up and the ship prepared for
any chance of a breakout. All the animals, huts and
scientific equipment were back on board but it would be
another three weeks before the Deutschland would
break free. Filchner recorded in the ship's log that their
position was 63°37'S, 36°34'W, having "drifted
over 10° in latitude". On December 19, 1912, they
reached South Georgia. The
Deutschland
Wilhelm
Filchner was born in Zurich, Switzerland, in 1877. At the
age of 15 he joined the Prussian Military Academy. His first
expedition was a seven-week sojourn through Russia when he
was 21 years old. When he was 23 he accomplished a one-man
journey on horseback through the Pamir Range of central
Asia. An expedition to Tibet was led by Filchner in 1903-05
and upon his return, plans were developed to lead an
expedition on the crossing of Antarctica in an attempt to
determine if Antarctica was one piece of land. Filchner's
original plans were for one ship to enter the
Weddell
Sea while a second would enter the Ross Sea. Land parties
would then embark on an attempt to meet at the middle of the
continent. Unfortunately, expenses needed to be trimmed so
one vessel, the Deutschland, would have to do. By the
spring of 1908 Filchner had selected his team of scientists
which included two doctors, an oceanographer and an
astronomer. None of the men, including Filchner, had
experienced any polar exposure so a mini-expedition was led
to Spitsbergen. Six members of the team, along with one dog,
crossed areas of the island in the Arctic Ocean in order to
prepare them for what lay ahead.
Filchner
reasoned that the disaster occurred due to a spring tide,
coupled with a sharp drop in barometric pressure. It was
later determined that the water level surged about ten feet
with more than 17.5 billion cubic feet of ice
breaking free. The next two days were spent feverishly
dismantling their winter camp. The Deutschland
remained at a safe distance while lifeboats were used to
haul the materials and animals back to the ship. Enough of
the building material could be saved to construct their new
home but one dog was left behind as it refused to be caught.
Filchner left a note with the discarded supplies which
described the reason for abandonment. The iceberg's original
position was 77°45'S, 34°34'W and, as Filchner
wrote, "A trail of heavy ice followed it, [so] it
was impossible for us to return to Prince Regent Luitpold
Land".
Travelling
was far more difficult than they'd ever imagined. Daylight
lasted only two to three hours each day as the sun set
around 2 pm. On some days they made less than four miles
while their best was fifteen. All the men suffered from
frostbite as the temperatures plunged to -31°F.
Filchner wrote in his diary, "at night we were shivering in
competition in our flimsy tent". Simple tasks took hours
because of the cold temperatures. The scientific instruments
froze over the moment they were removed from their
containers. As a result, the instruments had to be thawed
out after a short time. As Filchner described it, "To take a
sighting we needed two hours rather than the usual ten
minutes".
The
Deutschland Expedition failed in its attempt to make
a trans-Antarctic crossing, but, as Otto Nordenskjöld
later pointed out in a preface to Filchner's book, his
discoveries of the Luitpold Coast and the Filchner Ice Shelf
were important geographical finds. As well, the existence of
Morrell Land was proven to be otherwise.
After her return, the
Deutschland was subsequently sold to Austria.
Filchner himself was invited to take part in another
expedition but he 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 decided to return
to my original field of work: Central and East Asia". After
World War I Filchner made a number of trips to Nepal, where
he carried out a survey in 1939, and to Tibet. He spent the
years surrounding World War II in India where he never made
it a secret concerning his anti-Nazi feelings. On May 7,
1957, Wilhelm Filchner died in Zurich. He was 80 years
old.