The Alps

by Arnold Lunn

On Sunday morning, Whymper set out with the Rev. Canon M’Cormick to recover the bodies of his friends. The local curé threatened with excommunication any guide who neglected Mass in order to attend the search party. “To several, at least, this was a severe trial. Peter Perrn declared, with tears in his eyes, that nothing else would have prevented him joining in the search.” Guides from other valleys joined the party. At 8.30 they got to the plateau at the top of the glacier. They found Hudson, Croz and Hadow, but “of Lord Francis Douglas nothing was seen.”

This accident sent a thrill of horror through the civilised world. The old file of The Times, which is well worth consulting, bears tribute to the profound sensation which the news of this great tragedy aroused. Idle rumours of every kind were afloat—with these we shall deal later. For more than five weeks, not a day passed without some letter or comment in the columns of the leading English paper. These letters, for the most part, embodied the profound distrust with which the new sport was regarded by the bulk of Englishmen. If Lord Francis Douglas had been killed while galloping after a fox, he would have been considered to have fallen in action. That he should have fallen on the day that the Matterhorn fell, that he should have paid the supreme forfeit for a triumphant hour in Alpine history—such a death was obviously wholly without its redeeming features. “It was the blue ribbon of the Alps,” wrote The Times, “that poor Lord Francis Douglas was trying for the other day. If it must be so, at all events the Alpine Club that has proclaimed this crusade must manage the thing rather better, or it will soon be voted a nuisance. If the work is to be done, it must be done well. They must advise youngsters to practise, and make sure of their strength and endurance.”

For three weeks, Whymper gave no sign. At last, in response to a dignified appeal from Mr. Justice Wills, then President of the Alpine Club, he broke silence, and gave to the public a restrained account of the tragedy. As we have said, malicious rumour had been busy, and in ignorant quarters there had been rumours of foul play. The Matterhorn accident first popularised the theory that Alpine ropes existed to be cut. Till then, the public had supposed that the rope was used to prevent cowardly climbers deserting their party in an emergency. But from 1865 onwards, popular authors discovered a new use for the rope. They divided all Alpine travellers into two classes, those who cut the rope from below (“Greater love hath no man—a romance of the mountains”) and those who cut the rope from above (“The Coward—a tale of the snows”). A casual reader might be pardoned for supposing that the Swiss did a brisk business in sheath knives. We should be the last to discourage this enterprising school—their works have afforded much joy to the climbing fraternity; but we offer them in all humility a few remarks on the art of rope-cutting by a member of Class II (those who cut the rope from above).

A knife could only be used with advantage when a snowbridge gives way. It is easy enough to hold a man who has fallen into a crevasse; but it is often impossible to pull him out. The whole situation is altered on a rock face. If a man falls, a sudden jerk may pull the rest of the party off the face of the mountain. This will almost certainly happen if the leader or, on a descent, the last man down, falls, unless the rope is anchored round a knob of rock, in which case—provided the rope does not break—the leader may escape with a severe shaking, though a clear fall of more than fifteen feet will usually break the rope if anchored; and, if not anchored, the party will be dragged off their holds one by one. Therefore, the leader must not fall. If any other member of the party falls, he should be held by the man above. On difficult ground, only one man moves at a time. No man moves until the man above has secured himself in a position where he can draw in the rope as the man below advances. If he keeps it reasonably taut, and is well placed, he should be able to check any slip. A climber who slips and is held by the rope can immediately get new foothold and handhold. He is not in a crevasse from which exit is impossible save at the rope’s end. His slip is checked, and he is swung up against a rock face. There is no need to drag him up. The rest of the party have passed over this face, and therefore handholds and footholds can be found. The man who has slipped will find fresh purchase, and begin again. In the case of the Matterhorn accident, the angle of the slope was about forty degrees. There was an abundance of hold, and if the rope had not parted Croz and Hadow would have been abruptly checked, and would have immediately secured themselves. Now, if Taugwalder had cut the rope, as suggested, he must have been little short of an expert acrobat, and have cut it in about the space of a second and a half before the jerk. If he had waited for the jerk, either he would have been dragged off, in which case his knife would have come in handy, or he would have held, in which case it would have been unnecessary.

To mountaineers, all this, of course, is a truism; and we should not have laboured the point if we wrote exclusively for mountaineers. Even so, Peter’s comrades at Zermat (who should have known better) persisted in believing that he cut the rope. “In regard to this infamous charge,” writes Whymper, “I say that he could not do so at the moment of the slip, and that the end of the rope in my possession shows that he did not do so before.” Whymper, however, adds: “There remains the suspicious fact that the rope which broke was the thinnest and weakest one we had. It is suspicious because it is unlikely that the men in front would have selected an old and weak rope when there was an abundance of new, and much stronger, rope to spare; and, on the other hand, because if Taugwalder thought that an accident was likely to happen, it was to his interest to have the weaker rope placed where it was.”

One cannot help regretting that Whymper lent weight to an unworthy suspicion. Taugwalder was examined by a secret Court of Inquiry; and Whymper prepared a set of questions with a view to helping him to clear himself. The answers, though promised, were never sent; and Taugwalder ultimately left the valley for America, returning only to die. Whymper, in his classic book, suggested the possibility of criminal dealings by publishing photographs of the three ropes showing that the rope broken was far the weakest.

Let us review the whole story as Whymper himself tells it. We know that Whymper crossed the Théodule on the eleventh in a state of anger and despair. The prize for which he had striven so long seemed to be sliding from his grasp. Carrel had deserted him just as the true line of attack had been discovered. Like all mountaineers, he was human. He gets together the best party he can, and sets out with all haste determined to win by a head. Hadow, a young man with very little experience, is taken, and Hadow, the weak link, is destined to turn triumph into disaster. Let the mountaineer who has never invited a man unfit for a big climb throw the first stone. And, before he has thrown it, let him remember the peculiar provocation in Whymper’s case.

All goes well. The Matterhorn is conquered with surprising ease. These six men achieve the greatest triumph in Alpine history without serious check. To Whymper, this hour on the summit must have marked the supreme climax of life, an hour that set its seal on the dogged labours of past years. Do men in such moments anticipate disaster? Taugwalder might possibly have failed in a sudden crisis; but is it likely that he should deliberately prepare for an accident by carefully planned treachery?

Now read the story as Whymper tells it. The party are just about to commence the descent. The first five hundred feet would still be considered as demanding the greatest care. The top five hundred feet of the Matterhorn, but for the ropes with which the whole mountain is now festooned, would always be a difficult, if not a dangerous, section. Croz was the best guide in the party. He should have remained behind as sheet anchor. Instead of this, he goes first. Whymper falls out of line, to inscribe the names of the party, ties himself casually on to young Peter, and then “runs down after the others.” In the final arrangements, young Peter, who was a young and inexperienced guide, was given the vital position of last man down. Flushed with triumph, their minds could find no room for a doubt. Everything had gone through with miraculous ease. Such luck simply could not turn. It is in precisely such moments as these that the mountains settle their score. Mountaineering is a ruthless sport that demands unremitting attention. In games, a moment’s carelessness may lose a match, or a championship; but in climbing a mistake may mean death.

As for Taugwalder, one is tempted to acquit him without hesitation; but there is one curious story about Taugwalder which gives one pause. The story was told to the present writer by an old member of the Alpine Club, and the following is an extract from a letter: “I had rather you said ‘a friend of yours’ without mentioning my name. I had a good many expeditions with old Peter Taugwalder, including Mont Blanc and Monte Rosa; and I had rather a tender spot for the somewhat coarse, dirty old beggar. I should not like my name to appear to help the balance to incline in the direction of his guilt in that Matterhorn affair. It was not on the Dent Blanche that he took the rope off; it was coming down a long steep slope of bare rock from the top of the Tête Blanche towards Prayagé. I had a couple of men with me who were inexperienced; and I fancy he must have thought that, if one of them let go, which was not unlikely, he would be able to choose whether to hold on or let go. I happened to look up and see what was going on, and I made him tie up at once. I don’t quite remember whether Whymper tells us how far from Peter’s fingers the break in the rope occurred. That seems to me one of the most critical points.”