Hero, failure – or both?

Captain Scott was a morbid romantic, the victim of a tradition of heroic failure, says Roland Huntford – and Amundsen’s diary makes much better reading

You made a reputation taking apart the Scott legend. But if he was so incompetent, how did he become a national hero?

In Britain there is a tradition of admiration for the glorious failure, a Nelsonian idea of death in the hour of triumph. The other thing is a streak of morbidity. People love a good death, so Scott’s story appealed to that undercurrent.

But Scott’s diaries are eloquent, poignant…

People say he’s eloquent. I find his writing appallingly maudlin and self-regardant, almost pathologically inward-looking, a bit like Lawrence of Arabia. In Scott’s diary there’s self-pity and comments about poor luck with the weather. I read Amundsen and much prefer his writing. Scott’s diary is designed to make things seem heroic; Amundsen underplays things: there’s underlying humour, irony, self-deprecation. Returning to Scott, I thought, “oh no, not more of this romanticised trash”.

So why do most people only remember Scott?

For British people, Amundsen was a foreigner, whom you don’t celebrate. He beat our man and I think that is resented. There’s been a tortuous effort to show Scott was the real winner because he suffered and died – he’s the sacrificial hero. People feel that when someone does something very competently and, even worse, plays it down, it is somehow cheating.


What do you say to the criticisms of explorer Ranulph Fiennes, who says you can’t judge Scott as you have never been to the South Pole?

I’ve not been to Antarctica, but I’ve got a background of Nordic skiing – I’ve been skiing for longer than I care to remember. When I read Scott’s Last Expedition I thought, what’s he going on about, moaning about the snow? He’s describing perfect snow for skiing.

People like meteorologist Susan Solomon also disagree with you about Scott…

Solomon belongs to the school that says but for the weather, Scott would have got through. But there’s a saying in Scandinavian countries that there is no bad weather, only bad clothing. It is much easier to protect yourself against the cold than heat – as warm-blooded creatures, we are walking furnaces, so all we need is proper insulation. If Scott’s party had worn fur, there would have been no problem. But there was a lingering belief that civilised men didn’t use furs – they were for savages. It was OK to use reindeer fur in sleeping bags but not for clothing. Amundsen, however, understood the Inuit, learned from them, and wore fur clothing.

What were Scott’s biggest mistakes?

His first mistake was to depend on hauling sledges by foot. This is idiotic, because it is slow and tortuous. But even allowing for that, he could have still survived had he arranged his food depots at intervals which were adjusted to manhauling – which he didn’t. On 13 February 1912, during his return, he nearly ran out of food. He wrote: “In future food must be worked out so… we do not run so short if the weather fails us.” I am still outraged when I read this. There was no margin of error. When he was returning, it was a case of march or die.

Did Scott know they weren’t going to make it?

Scott’s letters and diary, written in language eerily like Peter Pan, read like a long suicide note. I don’t think he could face failure, so it was a kind of suicide, lying down in the tent.

The diary implies that expedition members Edward Wilson and Henry Bowers were ready to start for the next depot to fetch supplies. It was only 11 miles, but something held them back. Even if one accepts Scott’s record of a continuous blizzard – which I don’t, on meteorological grounds – it was a following wind. Other explorers, such as Amundsen, travelled gratefully in such conditions. By the mores of the time, if Wilson and Bowers had survived but not Scott, they would have been accused of deserting their captain and been socially dead. Scott’s writing implies he was interested in his reputation, not the lives of his followers. He probably persuaded the two to wait on the grounds their records would be found if kept in the tent but not if they fell on the trail. Wilson’s letter to Mrs Oates [mother of the team’s Captain Lawrence Oates] hints tragically at such pressure, and that, left to himself, Wilson would have kept going.

But Scott didn’t just focus on the South Pole, he wanted to do new science. After all, his sleds were loaded with 15 kilograms of specimens when he died. Don’t you have any sympathy?

Not really. Five lives were lost out of sheer incompetence. This is a dreadful thing. Scott was putting records ahead of human lives. Science is not worth sacrificing life for.

You write that Scott used science as a “moralistic fig leaf”. What do you mean?

Scott was using science in order to give the geographical exploration a higher meaning, to enhance his stature because of intellectual snobbery. He also wanted it as insurance in case of failure to win the race to the South Pole. This dishonesty of purpose has an unfortunate effect. I believe it induces an almost schizoid state, which is not helpful when you’re on the edge of survival. Amundsen understood you have to concentrate your efforts – you cannot spread yourself when you have got a goal.

But wasn’t Scott’s team ahead technologically?

Yes. But the problem was there was no proven technology for low-temperature travel. Scott told the engineer not to bother testing the tractors in cold chambers, and they failed. This was blind faith allied to slovenliness in the application of technology. Scott once said that gentlemen don’t practice.

“Scott was consumed with hubris, which is what killed him in the end”

So Scott was interested in the glory of scientific discovery while Amundsen took the best ideas from science to be successful?

Exactly. Here’s an example. When Arthur Hinks, the Royal Geographical Society’s cartographer, knew Scott was going south, he held a seminar on navigation, explaining that longitude doesn’t matter very much at high latitudes because the effect on your course is minimal. Hinks wrote a paper which came to the attention of one of Amundsen’s officers. Amundsen realised instinctively that at the edges of survival you have got to save energy so didn’t bother measuring longitude. Scott ignored Hinks, so Bowers wasted time looking up tables and doing calculations for a few hundred yards of meaningless accuracy.

Do you think that it’s only when compared with Amundsen’s seemingly effortless expedition that Scott can be truly understood?

Here’s a telling statistic. Amundsen’s party had around 100 years of skiing between them; Scott’s could barely muster five. It seems to me that Amundsen had what the Greeks called arete, meaning being suited for what you do. By contrast, Scott was consumed with hubris, which is what killed him in the end.

It’s very painful to read how easy Amundsen found it all – and how terrible Scott did…

When Olav Bjaaland [ski champion and a member of Amundsen’s team] got to the South Pole, he said: “Here it’s as flat as the lake at Morgedal [Norwegian village known as the cradle of skiing] and the skiing is good.” To understand Amundsen, we must remember they regarded the South Pole as the world’s longest ski race. Scott came from the romantic culture of heroism, where there is no heroism without suffering. He gloried in driving himself to the limit and this was a recipe for disaster.

Quotes from expedition diaries Scott and Amundsen in their own words Wednesday 13 December 1911 Amundsen is 31 nautical miles from the pole. Scott is 350 nautical miles away. “Our best day up here. It has been calm most of the day – with burning sunshine.” Amundsen “A most damnably dismal day. I suppose we have advanced a bare 4 miles today. I had pinned my faith on getting better conditions. We can but toil on, but it is woefully disheartening.” Scott Friday 15 December 1911 Amundsen’s party reach the pole. “So we arrived and were able to raise our flag at the geographical South Pole. Thanks be to God! We have had our celebratory meal – a little piece of seal meat each.” Amundsen “Another interrupted march. Our luck is really bad. Pray heaven we are not going to have wretched snow in the worst part of the glacier to come.” Scott Wednesday 17 January 1912 Scott’s party reach the pole. “The POLE. Yes, but under very different circumstances from those we expected. We have had a horrible day. Now for a run home and a desperate struggle to get the news through first. I wonder if we can do it.” Scott “The weather was lovely this morning and the skiing brilliant.” Amundsen

Profile Roland Huntford is best known for his controversial 1979 book The Last Place on Earth, in which he disputes the Scott legend. His newest book, Race for the South Pole, the first to compare the expedition diaries of Scott and Amundsen, is out now in paperback in the UK, and will be out in the US in November