Sasha today in its history.
Author: Sasha
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【Sasha Lecture Hall No. 1502】 (Lecture 732 of the Historical Series)
Heroic Loser Heroes of the Antarctic Adventure: On March 29, 1912, British explorer Robert Scott and his last two expedition members were killed on their way back from the South Pole.
Robert Scott was a tragic figure, an explorer with courage but not enough detail.
He was a British naval officer and was born into a military family.
His grandfather and four uncles were all soldiers and were considered brave families.
Scott joined the Royal Navy as early as the age of 15 as a naval cadet.
He was a bold explorer, but his military career was not smooth, and he remained a lieutenant at the age of 31.
Normally, a British naval cadet is a second lieutenant officer once he has finished his internship.
He was a lieutenant after 10 years of mixing with the post of second lieutenant, indicating that he was not recognized by his superiors.
One said, this is because Scott often made mistakes in his post, which caused warships to run aground and damage equipment.
The British were a rigid and strict people, and certainly would not promote such officers who looked rash.
Generally speaking, in the conservative British Navy, Scott had a hard time climbing to higher positions.
Scott has a lot of risk-taking in his personality, and he is not willing to be a middle and low-level officer all the time.
So he decided to give up his military post.
At the age of 31, Scott stumbled upon the Antarctic expedition program from the Royal Geographical Society, which required the participation of the naval elite.
He decided to lead the expedition and prepared it for 12 years.
After investigation, the Geographical Society concluded that Scott, though somewhat grinning, had a tough and courageous personality, and had a certain degree of organizational ability to meet their needs.
In 1901, at the age of 33, Scott took his first research ship into Antarctica for training and initial expeditions.
There were more than 50 people on board, and none of them had lived or worked in the Antarctic or the Arctic.
The European media thought it was nonsense, and some newspapers predicted that they would all die on the Antarctic continent.
Sure enough, the training was not going well, and they used a large number of dogs as a means of transport. However, these dogs also couldn't stand the cold of Antarctica, and many died of disease.
This led Scott to the erroneous conclusion that dogs were not suitable for Antarctica, setting the stage for the tragedy that followed.
Shortly after their landing, they encountered a snowstorm and the food supply was difficult, and they were forced to kill some dogs for food. As we all know, the British do not eat dog meat, and they are extremely opposed to eating dog meat, but there is no choice in that environment.
Even so, something went wrong with them.
On March 11, 1902, a member of the team walked in a snowstorm and accidentally fell off a cliff and died.
Even so, this training is still very important, and it is considered a success.
At one point, they advanced to a distance of more than 850 kilometers from the South Pole and also experienced the horrors of the South Pole.
As the first British team to approach the Pole of Antarctica, Scott was warmly welcomed by the crowd upon his return.
He became a household hero and was promoted to captain.
King Edward VII of england was also intrigued by his experience, appointing him commander of the Royal Victorian Order, a highly honourable position.
Scott spent two or three years in popularity, busy with public receptions, lectures, and writing expedition records. Members of the royal family also wanted to meet him, to hear him tell what had happened to him, and to appreciate his courage.
It was also the culmination of Scott's life in 1906.
Naturally, Scott did not stand still, and in 1910 he returned to antarctica, ready to be the first to reach the south pole.
The British Institute of Geography was very important to him and commissioned him to bring back some fossils of tongues and teeth to confirm Darwin's theory of evolution.
Scott gladly accepted the commission, promising to do so.
To Scott's surprise, however, he found a contender: Norwegian Roald Amundsen.
Amundsen and Scott were also companions, but not soldiers, but sailors.
As early as 1899, as the first mate of the ship, he followed the Belgian Antarctic expedition and tried to reach the South Pole. However, they were trapped in Antarctic waters for an entire winter due to freezing, and almost died of malnutrition.
Amundsen is not very famous, and his ability is no less than Scott's, or even stronger.
Since 1903, he has been training in the polar regions, repeatedly in the cold of Alaska, and has a wealth of polar experience.
Amundsen was pragmatic and rigorous, and in 1911 he rushed to the South Pole to establish a base camp.
Relying on his extensive experience, he used a large number of dogs adapted to the high cold, using dog sleds as a means of transport.
Their clothes were entirely learned from alaska Eskimos, very warm and light. They calmly set up three supply stations as supplies for the South Pole.
Naturally, Amundsen also decided to kill some dogs for food when necessary.
Due to his preparation, Amundsen set off from October 19 with 2 members of the team, riding 4 sleds with 52 dogs. After nearly 2 months of arduous trekking, they finally reached the South Pole after many hardships.
At this point, there are only 16 dogs left, and it should be enough to return to the base camp.
When Amundsen reached the pole, he left Scott a letter entrusted with him to bring it back to prove that he had arrived first.
That's because Amundsen knew the horrors of Antarctica and thought he might die on the way home.
This concern was superfluous, and they returned to base camp on January 25, just 1 and a half months, leaving only 11 dogs.
In fact, during the period, amundsen's team was also in danger many times, and due to its full preparation and technical skill, it was repeatedly averted.
Afterwards, Amundsen didn't think he was lucky enough to get to the extreme first: the most important factor was how well the expedition was prepared, and you had to anticipate the difficulties that might arise, how to deal with them or how to avoid them. Success awaits those who are well organized, and people call it good luck. For those who cannot foresee difficulties and respond in time, failure is inevitable, and people call it bad luck.
Amundsen is not talking about Scott, who, sadly, fits the loser in this statement.
As it turned out, Scott's preparation was hasty and the plan had many problems.
Because of the experience of the first expedition, Scott mistakenly believed that the Siberian pony was more suitable for Antarctica.
However, although the Siberian pony can live in the Arctic Circle, it cannot adapt to the terrible low temperature of the Antarctic. Scott did not test the ponies in question, and it was completely hearsay, so he hastily decided to use the ponies for transportation.
This later led to the destruction of the world!
During his trip to Antarctica, his ship was trapped by ice floes for 20 days, which made Scott anxious for fear of falling behind Amundsen.
After landing on Antarctica to establish a base camp, they were in a hurry to catch up with Amundsen.
They were going to set up multiple supply points, but they were delayed due to bad weather and the ponies' inability to adapt to the environment.
It turns out that ponies, which are much stronger than dogs on the surface, travel much slower than dogs pull sleds.
This is because the Antarctic snow is too thick and the dogs weigh less and are able to run fast on the snow.
The pony's body is heavy, and the horse's legs often have to fall into the snow, which is not only slow, but also easy to cause the leg to break and be injured.
According to Scott's team analysis, dogs can walk 2 hours more per day than the ponies.
If it is simply slow, it is not very deadly, the key is that the pony is easily sick.
Dogs are small in size, and at night they can hide in hastily dug snow holes like Eskimo dogs to avoid the cold.
But the ponies were so tall that they couldn't dig such a big snow hole, and the tent couldn't accommodate it, so they could only sleep in the field at minus thirty or forty degrees.
Running high intensity during the day and freezing at night, it is almost inevitable that the ponies will die.
In short, it is a sentence to say that using ponies to participate in the Antarctic Adventure is a complete failure.
The most important supply point in their plan has a deviation of more than 50 kilometers, and there is no time to transport a large number of supplies that far.
His assistants recommended killing at least a few ponies and placing meat at the original supply point to prevent the most extreme cases.
But Scott refused, believing there was no time and no need.
The assistant said, "Sir, you will regret not listening to me when the time comes." ”
Later, it was really unfortunately said by the assistant.
Even in a hurry, Scott set off on Nov. 1, more than 10 days later than his opponents.
On January 4, it took them more than a month to reach the area close to the South Pole, leaving five people to storm the South Pole and the rest to return to base camp.
The road was also not smooth, and the unaccustomed ponies died one after another, so that even basic transportation could not be maintained, and the speed of travel was greatly slowed.
Even so, they were tenacious explorers who overcame countless difficulties to reach the South Pole on January 17, which took more than 2 months.
Although Amundsen set off 10 days early, he arrived at the South Pole in less than 2 months, obviously much faster.
Well, even if the two set out at the same time, the winner is still Amundsen.
At the South Pole, Scott was dismayed to find the tent and letter that Amundsen had left behind.
Although he failed, he still took the letter of entrustment with him in the manners of an English gentleman, as proof of the extreme in case Amundsen was killed.
On 19 January, they began to return to base camp, having to travel 1,300 kilometers. It started off smoothly, and by February 7, it had completed a distance of 500 kilometers. But at this time, 19 ponies died of illness and were forced to kill some for food, leaving little left.
Seven more ponies fell into an ice cave together, all of which were lost.
So that the team members can only carry their own luggage forward, the weight is very large.
They struggled to travel 100 kilometers along the glacier, and Evans, a member of the team, was exhausted and died after falling on February 17.
The remaining 4 team members still have 670 kilometers of road to go, and the future is not optimistic.
After a difficult month of progress, the team member Oates suffered from an old injury during the war, resulting in worse and worse health. Because of Oates's difficulty walking, the other team members had to take turns to help him, which greatly affected the speed of the team.
Oates believes that if this continues, all 4 people will die.
In this case, it is better for him to die alone than to die together.
On March 17, Oates gently told the team: I'm going to go outside for a walk, maybe a little longer. （I am just goingoutside and may be some time）。
The player didn't care, thinking he was just going for a walk.
Subsequently, Oates disappeared, and no body has been found to this day.
It is generally believed that in order to avoid dragging other teammates down, he found a place to lie down and died quietly in the cold of more than minus 40 degrees.
Although Oates sacrificed himself, the remaining 3 people were almost exhausted in physical strength, and they were also fierce.
With tenacity, they persevered for 32 kilometers, arriving on March 19, just 18 kilometers from the supply point.
It turned out that if Scott had followed his assistant's advice and set up a point more than 50 kilometers south of the supply point, they would have been able to get food supplies at the moment.
At this time, the snowstorm came, and the temperature outside the tent dropped sharply to more than minus 60 degrees, and no one could advance in this weather.
They had to camp on the spot and wait for the snowstorm to end.
In the next 9 days, the blizzard became stronger and stronger, people could not walk at all, and the already scarce supplies were completely exhausted.
From March 23, the moribund Scott stopped writing his diary, presumably completely exhausted.
On March 29, Scott wrote his last words: "Finally, may God bless my partner."
It is thought that Scott may have died on the 29th or 30th.
Even though he was still alive on the 30th, he had basically lost consciousness.
Later, when the rescue team found the remains of 3 people, they found more than ten kilograms of fossil specimens of tongue and sheep teeth that had been promised to be brought back, in addition to Amundsen's letter.
Until the last moment of their lives, they did not give up on their commitment.
In this regard, they are all respectable people.
Although Scott failed, the world, including rival Amundsen, still had a lot of respect for him.
Today, the southernmost part of the long-inhabited Antarctica and the highest latitude in the world is called the Amundsen-Scott Antarctic Station.
Finally, I am reminded of a famous quote by Goethe: If you lose your possessions, you lose only one point; if you lose honor, you lose many; if you lose courage, you lose everything.
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