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FACTS
This we have been able to do in much less time than we did on the last long march when with Captain Scott we made 82 16 1/2' Furthest South
-
Shackleton
In attempting to get to the Pole, Shackleton
and his team covered in twenty-nine days a
distance that had taken Scott fifty-nine days.
But they were let down in getting to the Pole by poor preperation in the technicalities of snow travel, something that blighted all British Antarctic
expeditions of the era. Taking ponies cost much effort,
trudging through the snow rather than
skiing over it sapped much needed energy, and persisting
with jackets patently inadequate for the conditions
hardly helped their cause. Shackleton considered " except for the hands and feet ... and the sleeping bags for camping, furs are entirely unnecessary". Tents had not improved since Discovery.
And lack of food was paramount in preventing them ultimate success.
But away from the technicalities of snow travel, Shackleton was sensible, innovative, and open to informed advice. His consideration of the men under him
was one of his greatest strengths and why his men would do
anything for him and put blind faith in him. He would not ask of his men
anything he wouldn't do himself. In that respect he was as different to Scott (who put glory first before life itself) as day is to night. For maybe, just maybe, he and his team could have got to the Pole therby securing Shackleton eternal fame, but it would have cost him and his men their lives.
For his deeds, at home, Shackleton became a national hero overnight.
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Shackleton's expedition accomplished
important work in addition to the new southing. For example, it made the first ascent of Mount Erebus and it reached the south Magnetic Pole (though Shackleton himself was eight hundred miles to the south). Edgeworth David
and his team (which included Mackay A.F. Mackay and
Douglas Mawson, pictured) hoisted the Union Jack on a
tent pole and said: "I hereby take possession of
this area now containing the Magnetic Pole for
the British Empire. Three cheers for the King."
They turned back just ninety-seven miles from the Pole (pictured). They had travelled 730 miles through the ice and snow. The return journey was a march, a race, against death. But they did it.
