Austro-Hungarian North Pole Expedition

The Austro - Hungarian North Polar Expedition ( by Julius Payer Austria - Hungarian North Pole Expedition and popular also payer Weyprecht expedition called ) started in 1872 under the direction of Carl Weyprecht and Julius Payer and ended in 1874. It was at the initiative and with the financial support of Count Hans Wilczek carried out to explore the Arctic Ocean closer. Other financiers belonged Friedrich Schey of Koromla. The crew of the expedition was recruited from all over Austria - Hungary, but especially from Istria and Dalmatia.

Course of the journey

The expedition ship Admiral Tegetthoff was a sailing ship fitted with an auxiliary motor, and left with a 24-member crew in July 1872 Norwegian port of Tromso. The end of August, it remained north of Novaya Zemlya to 79 ° 51 ' stuck in the ice and was stripped known polar regions to date only sealers and whalers. On this drift, the expedition discovered on August 30, 1873, only in some Norwegian fishermen known as Rönnebeck -Land archipelago, which they named after Emperor Franz Joseph I. " Franz -Josef -Land"; the first island to be entered the expedition, named it after her sponsor Count Wilczek Island Wilczek. The researchers undertook the archipelago numerous sled trips and expeditions on foot, to map the area. Two winter spent the expedition members aboard the ship included.

In the spring of 1874, the expedition leaders decided to leave the ship in the pack ice. While the rest of the crew persevered on board to Payer made ​​with some companions on the way north to reach the 82nd degree of latitude and break the almost 50 year-old record of British polar explorer James Clark Ross, who had this been achieved so far the only. After a march of 17 days reached Payer and his companions Midshipman Eduard Orel and sailor Antonio Zaninovich on 12 April 1874 the northernmost point of the archipelago to 82 ° 50 'north latitude and called it Cape Fligely. Then they had to overcome 300 km way back to the ship. Payer has traveled to the archipelago of more than 800 km.

A few days after returning Payers left the expedition on 20 May, the Tegetthoff and began to slide and the boats back on the ice. Five of the boats were packed on sleds. All instruments, all records that Weyprecht and his officers anfertigten during the two- year stay in the ice were, water-and shock-proof packaging. The carriages were pulled over the furrowed by countless blocks, bumps, cracks and crevices of snow and ice wilderness, only to find after weeks due to unfavorable winds from the south a north drift the ice and with them the exhausted team had carried back again. So they were on July 15, again almost at the level of the abandoned ship and could see this even more. Some wanted in her panic and despair back on board to complete with his life. Weyprecht but managed with the Bible in hand, to move the exhausted, starving and demoralized team to saving march towards the south. This scene gave Payer later in the monumental oil painting " Never back ", which today is located in the Museum of Military History in Vienna, firmly.

After a month of march in a southerly direction, the ice drift heard in the meantime, the expedition reached on August 14, 1874 finally recovered the open sea. Then there was a good deal of luck, because the ice edge was moved this year far north. After six days of rowing, they were of two Russian Transchonern who were employed on the coast of Novaya Zemlya in the mouth of the Puhova river with salmon fishing and deer hunting, taken on board and after tough negotiations ( the fishermen should have three boats, two Lefaucheux - rifles and 1200 silver rubles received ) brought to the Norwegian port of Vardo.

On September 25, 1874 came the expedition team that had only one member, Otto Krisch lost through disease and death, in Vienna at the North Station and was cheered on the journey to the city center: Only gradually could the car forward from the Northern Stations [ ... ] reach. [ ...] It is no exaggeration if one assumes that a quarter of a million people took in part of the receptions.

Julius Payer was raised in the wake of Emperor Franz Joseph I in the hereditary nobility.

Late arrival of the bottle

Carl Weyprecht wrote in 1874, when he moved the team to persevere in a bottle, in which he described the events and gave them also at this time the sea. This bottle was 104 years later, found in 1978 by a Russian researcher Vladimir Serov, on the island of Lamont in Franz Josef Land. She came through diplomatic channels in 1980 to Vienna and is now in the possession of the Austrian Academy of Sciences.

Importance of the discovery

The discovery of land and the experiences of the expedition were an essential contribution to polar research, particularly to discover the Northeast Passage by Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld. They also gave the impetus for the International Polar years. Thus the way of sporty race of individual expeditions to world-wide scientific cooperation in the exploration of the polar regions was rejected. Furthermore, had Payer / Weyprecht with Cape Fligely enter the northernmost point of Eurasia for the first time and refuted with their expedition the theory of the ice-free Arctic Ocean.

The scientific results of the North Pole Expedition ( meteorological, astronomical, geodetic, magnetic, and auroral observations and zoological results ) were published in 1878 in a memoir of the Academy of Sciences. In addition, Julius Payer wrote the work Austro-Hungarian North Pole expedition in the years 1872-74, published in 1876, and created paintings, the only ones who has painted of his expedition ever a polar explorer himself. The most well known is the image of " Never back "; it shows how the sailors were held of the expedition leaders after the beginning of the extremely arduous march back from returning to the abandoned ship.

Was processed literary expedition in Christoph Ransmayr erschienenem 1984 novel The Terrors of Ice and Darkness.

Museale reception

The Marine Hall of Vienna's Museum of Military History, the Austro-Hungarian North Pole expedition is documented in detail. On display are numerous paintings by Julius Payer, including the monumental painting " Never back ", which reflects the severity of the situation, as the crew wanted to return to the ship trapped in the ice, which would have meant certain death. Furthermore, ship models are on display, which are related to the expedition and the famous "snake" of Julius von Payer. These are reflections that brought Payer shortly before his death on paper and the report on his life. The notes were glued together later and yielded a total of 24 roles that have been " The Snake " provided with the name. Several photographs also illustrate the events and complete the exhibition.

Honors

In Vienna, the North Pole street remember in the 2nd district Leopoldstadt, the Payergasse and Weyprechtgasse in the 16th district Ottakring and Julius Payer alley in the 22nd district Danube town on the expedition. There are also in Mödling a Pajergasse and a Weyprechtgasse. In the 14th district is also the Vega - payer Weyprecht barracks of the Armed Forces.

In Graz there is a payer Weyprecht road.

Franz stomach certificate signposted be at the Kaiser water, a Danube oxbow lake, located inn, from which you could watch the rowers on the Old Danube, 1874 in honor of the Arctic explorer Franz Josef Land; 1876 ​​was also the surrounding, now-defunct lowland forest on the Kagraner Reichsstrasse ( today Wagramerstraße ), in which the host 's house was to the North Pole, named and developed into a "small Prater ".

Also in Wiener Neustadt, there is a Weyprechtgasse and extending transversely to Krischgasse.

The two created under Mars2013 field simulation camp were named Camp Weyprecht and station Payer.