In 1860 a daring attempt was made by Messrs. Alfred, Charles, and Sanbach Parker of Liverpool. These bold climbers dispensed with guides, and had the wisdom to attack the east face that rises above Zermat. All the other early explorers attacked the Italian ridge; and, as will be seen, the first serious assault on the eastern face succeeded. Lack of time prevented the Parkers from reaching a greater height than 12,000 feet; nor were they more successful in the following year, but they had made a gallant attempt, for which they deserve credit. In 1860 another party had assailed the mountain from Italy, and reached a height of about 13,000 feet. The party consisted of Vaughan Hawkins and Prof. Tyndall, whom he had invited to join the party, with the guides J. J. Carrel and Bennen.
In 1861 Edward Whymper, who had opened his Alpine career in the previous year, returned to the Alps determined to conquer two virgin summits of the Alps, the Matterhorn and the Weishorn. On arriving at Chatillon, he learned that the Weishorn had been climbed by Tyndall, and that Tyndall was at Breuil intending to add the Matterhorn to his conquests. Whymper determined to anticipate him. He arrived at Breuil on August 28, with an Oberland guide, and inquired for the best man in the valley. The knowing ones with a voice recommended Jean Antoine Carrel, a member of the first party to set foot on the Matterhorn. “We sought, of course, for Carrel, and found him a well-made, resolute looking fellow, with a certain defiant air which was rather taking. Yes, he would go. Twenty francs a day, whatever the result, was his price. I assented. But I must take his comrade. As he said this, an evil countenance came forth out of the darkness, and proclaimed itself the comrade. I demurred, and negotiations were broken off.”
At Breuil, they tried to get another man to accompany them but without success. The men they approached either would not go or asked a prohibitive price. “This, it may be said once and for all, was the reason why so many futile attempts were made on the Matterhorn. One guide after another was brought up to the mountain and patted on the back, but all declined the business. The men who went had no heart in the matter, and took the first opportunity to turn back. For they were, with the exception of the man to whom reference will be made [J. A. Carrel] universally impressed with the belief that the summit was entirely inaccessible.”
Whymper and his guide bivouacked in a cowshed; and as night approached they saw J. A. Carrel and his companion stealing up the hillside. Whymper asked them if they had repented, and would join his party. They replied that they had contemplated an independent assault. “Oh, then, it is not necessary to have more than three.” “Not for us.” “I admired their pluck and had a strong inclination to engage the pair, but finally decided against it. The companion turned out to be J. J. Carrel. Both were bold mountaineers; but Jean Antoine was incomparably the better of the two, and was the finest rock climber I have ever seen. He was the only man who persistently refused to accept defeat, and who continued to believe, in spite of all discouragements, that the great mountain was not inaccessible, and that it could be ascended from the side of his native valley.”
Carrel was something more than a great guide. He remained a soldier long after he had laid down his sword. He was, above all, an Italian, determined to climb the Matterhorn by the great Italian ridge, to climb it for the honour of Italy, and for the honour of his native valley. The two great moments of his life were those in which he heard the shouts of victory at Colle di Santiarno, and the cries of triumph on the summit of the Italian ridge. Whymper, and later Tyndall, found him an awkward man to deal with. He had the rough, undisciplined nature of the mountain he loved. He looked on the Matterhorn as a kind of preserve, and was determined that he and no other should lead on the final and successful ascent. Whymper’s first attempt failed owing to the poor qualities of his guide; and the Carrels were not more successful.
During the three years that followed, Whymper made no less than six attempts to climb the Matterhorn. On one occasion he climbed alone and unaided higher than any of his predecessors. Without guides or companions, he reached a height of 13,500 feet. There is little to be said for solitary climbing, but this feat stands out as one of the boldest achievements of the period. The critics of solitary scrambling need, however, look no further than its sequel for their moral. In attempting to negotiate a corner on the Tête du Lion, Whymper slipped and fell. He shot down an ice slope, slid and bounded through a vertical height of about 200 feet, and was eventually thrown against the side of a gully where it narrowed. Another ten feet would have taken him in one terrific bound of 800 feet on to the glacier below. The blood was pulsing out of numerous cuts. He plastered up the wounds in his head with a lump of snow before scrambling up into a place of safety, where he promptly fainted away. He managed, however, to reach Breuil without further adventure. Within a week he had returned to the attack.
He made two further attempts that year which failed for various reasons; but he had the satisfaction of seeing Tyndall fail when success seemed assured. Tyndall had brought with him the great Swiss guide Bennen, and a Valaisian guide named Walter Anton. He engaged Jean Antoine and Cæsar Carrel. They proposed to attack the mountain by the Italian ridge. Next morning, somebody ran in to tell Whymper that a flag had been seen on the summit. This proved a false alarm. Whymper waited through the long day to greet the party on their return. “I could not bring myself to leave, but lingered about as a foolish lover hovers round the object of his affections even after he has been rejected. The sun had set before the men were discerned coming over the pastures. There was no spring in their steps—they, too, were defeated.”
Prof. Tyndall told Whymper that he had arrived “within a stone’s-throw of the summit”—the mountain is 14,800 feet high, 14,600 feet had been climbed. “He greatly deceived himself,” said Whymper, “for the point which he reached is no less than 800 feet below the summit. The failure was due to the fact that the Carrels had been engaged in a subordinate capacity.” When they were appealed to for their opinion, they replied: “We are porters, ask your guides.” Carrel always determined that the Matterhorn should be climbed from Italy, and that the leader of the climb should be an Italian. Bennen was a Swiss and Carrel had been engaged as a second guide. Tyndall and Whymper found it necessary to champion their respective guides, Carrel and Bennen; and a more or less heated controversy was carried on in the pages of The Alpine Journal.
The Matterhorn was left in peace till the next year, but, meanwhile, a conspiracy for its downfall was hatched in Italy. The story is told in Guido Rey’s classic book on the Matterhorn, a book which should be read side by side with Whymper’s Scrambles, as it gives the Italian version of the final stages in which Italy and England fought for the great prize. In 1863, some leading Italian mountaineers gathered together at Turin to found an Italian Alpine Club. Amongst these were two well-known scientists, Felice Giordano and Quintino Sella. They vowed that, as English climbers had robbed them of Monte Viso, prince of Piedmontese peaks, Italy should have the honour of conquering the Matterhorn, and that Italians should climb it from Italy by the Italian ridge. The task was offered to Giordano, who accepted it.
In 1863 Whymper and Carrel made another attempt on the Matterhorn, which was foiled by bad weather. In the next year, the mountain was left alone; but the plot for its downfall began to mature. Giordano and Sella had met Carrel, and had extracted from him promises of support. Carrel was, above all, an Italian, and, other things being equal, he would naturally prefer to lead an Italian, rather than an English, party to the summit.