Dan Snow's History Hit - Ernest Shackleton

Episode Date: October 13, 2024

Dan charts the life, successes and failures of the charismatic and chaotic Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton. In late 1914, Shackleton led 27 men on a voyage to cross the Antarctic. But what should have been a successful expedition turned into a two-year nightmare of hardship and catastrophe when their vessel the Endurance was crushed in the Weddell Sea pack-ice and sunk. In a miraculous feat of leadership, Shackleton saved the life of every single man on board.But while he was revered by his crews, others in government and the upper echelons of British society were dubious of Shackleton, to them he was a cowboy who ignored the rules and was cavalier with the money of others. But was his audacious attitude the root of his success as an explorer?Written by Dan Snow, produced by Mariana Des Forges and edited by Dougal Patmore.This is the first episode in our Endurance season running through October & November to celebrate the release of the Endurance feature documentary on Disney+, Hulu and Nat Geo.For more Shackleton and Endurance content from History Hit, as well as AD-FREE content, sign up HERE for 50% off for 3 months using code ‘DANSNOW’.We'd love to hear from you - what do you want to hear an episode on? You can email the podcast at [e-mail] can take part in our listener survey here.

Fortitudine vincimus. By endurance we conquer. This was the Shackleton family motto. Rarely can a motto have had more effect on a man than that one did on Ernest Shackleton, Antarctic explorer. He would come to embody that family motto. On the 9th of April 1916,

Shackleton led 27 men out into the open Southern Ocean in what were essentially wooden rowing boats. Near constant storms in the Southern Ocean drive waves of 50 feet and above, the height of a four-storey building, in endless procession around the bottom of the earth. This was their last ditch attempt at survival. Their mission had originally been to cross the Antarctic continent

from one side to the other, but their ship Endurance had become stuck in the Weddell Sea ice before they'd even stepped foot on land. Initially, the men had hoped the ice would melt, the ship would be released and they'd be able to continue on. But eventually, Endurance succumbed to the forces of nature. She was crushed by the ice and sank to the bottom of the Weddell Sea. For the next six months, her crew lived stranded on the sea ice,

with no contact or help from the outside world. As that ice began to break up in the Antarctic summer, Shackleton knew their only hope of survival was to sail across the Southern Ocean, first to Elephant Island, and then a daring attempt to return from where their expedition had really begun, in South Georgia, 800 miles away.

Shackleton was determined that he would leave no man behind, and he didn't. He saved the life of every man on Endurance, an extraordinary feat of leadership and tenacity. Meanwhile, his ship, appropriately named Endurance, sank to the seafloor, its whereabouts unknown, guessed at, for over a hundred years. That was until an expedition in 2022 went in search of the wreck. It was an expedition I was lucky enough to be part of.

the wreck. It was an expedition I was lucky enough to be part of. And what we discovered, well, it was more extraordinary than anything we had dared to dream. That adventure has now been turned into a feature documentary. It's out in cinemas now and soon will be on Disney+. It's called, fittingly, Endurance. And you can see everything that Shackleton's crew, well, and our crew, came up against in the depths of Antarctica. Celebrate its release this October. We've got a season of podcasts that tell the stories of Shackleton's expedition. We're going to be talking about the lives of the incredible men involved and the 2022 expedition to find their ship, Endurance.

You're listening to Dan Snow's History Hit. And of course, we're going kick off our endurance season with the man at the centre of it all, by asking the question, who was Ernest Shackleton? Shackleton was Irish, and in the 19th century, that was a complicated business. He was Anglo-Irish. He was Protestant Irish. His family hailed from old Norman stock. They'd come across with the English conquest of Ireland.

And by the mid-19th century, his father and mother rented a 500-acre farm in Kilkee, the Wicklow Mountains in the distance. Six children were born to his mother in seven years, 500-acre farm in Kilkee, the Wicklow Mountains, in the distance. Six children were born to his mother in seven years, poor thing, ten in all. Their second child, their blue-eyed boy, was Ernest, born on the 15th of February, 1874. It was a tumultuous time to be a landowner in Ireland. There was an attempt to wrest control of the land away from Protestants and return it to Irish Catholics. His father abandoned the farm in 1880. They moved to Dublin and he trained to be a doctor.

In 1884, the family moved to England. So after 10 years of living in Ireland, young Ernest found himself in England and he never moved back home to Ireland. They lived far from the Wicklow Mountains. They lived in Sydenham near Crystal Palace in South London. His mother, Henriettaetta had one final child, but was struck by disease and complications and spent pretty much the rest of her life listless in bed.

His father passed on to Ernest a love of poetry. Ernest could quote it by the yard, it was said. It's one of his super skills. He appeared to have a photographic memory. One thing Shackleton did not inherit from his father was a love of temperance. His father was a big anti-alcohol campaigner. When the kids were young, he made them sing songs outside pubs about the evil of drink on Saturday night, which I imagine they never forgave him for. Shackleton took the poetry and abandoned temperance, as you'll

hear. I think he was a typical boy in the British Empire in the late 19th century. He loved stories of adventure. He was obsessed with Jules Verne stories. He actually referred to himself as Nemo later in his life, the maverick hero of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Despite his brilliant memory and passion for life and learning, he was a poor student. We think he got bullied for his Irish accent. He got in fights. One report said he has not fully exerted himself. He was a poor student. We think he got bullied for his Irish accent. He got in fights. One report said he has not fully exerted himself. He would find other fields in which to show full exertion. 20 years after he left school, he was invited back to Dulwich College where he went to hand out prizes and he quipped that it was as close as he'd got to a prize. He played truant as a kid. He convinced a gang of mates to go into the London docks and

sign on as seafarers, but they were told to get along home. Thank goodness. He was desperate to leave school. His father couldn't afford to send him to a smart naval college, so his dad sent him into the merchant marine. Aged 16, he made one shilling a month. He signed up to the Northwestern Shipping Company of Liverpool, and he joined a clipper ship like the Cutty Sark in London today, 1,600 tons. He left Liverpool and made a 20,000 mile trip around the Horn into the Pacific. He'd never spent a week away from home before that. He was terribly seasick. He was rather shocked initially, I think, by the swearing and drunkenness.

He was happy to adopt both quite rapidly. He made friends quickly and he was keen. His first trip round Cape Horn was suitably dramatic. They had to beat against the wind. As you'll know from listening to these podcasts, the Southern Ocean is a terrifying place. The wind howls from the west constantly without pause. They beat against the wind, they had to tack into it, crashing through the waves. The small ship's boats were swept away. Yards were sent smashing to the deck, injuring crew members. He was very lucky to escape injury himself. And then they made it up the

Chilean coast. They picked up nitrates, the vital key component of fertilizer, and they headed back to the UK. He arrived in Liverpool almost a year to the day on which he departed. 40,000 miles completed. He called it a stiff apprenticeship and he'd picked up the habit of smoking. That was it. He was a merchant mariner. He caught dysentery in South America. He sweated in India. He nearly died in a storm on the way to Australia as rigging smashed to the deck. And by the time he was 20, he was five foot ten. He had a barrel chest. He radiated confidence, golden brown hair. He was handsome, took his exams and passed as second mate and joined a steamer. By 1896, he was first mate of a steamer and he'd fell in love. But he was restless. He was desperate

to prove himself. And like all these stories, there was a moment, a sliding doors moment, there was a breakthrough. He met the son of a wealthy industrialist who'd helped fund the first British mission to the Antarctic of the modern era, and he begged him for an introduction to his father. He'd done a decade of sea service and he was a bit bored. Later in life, he claimed to be, I love this, he claimed to be obsessed by the Antarctic, but contemporary said he never ever mentioned Antarctic once. I think he would eagerly have jumped on a ship taking him to look for treasure into the Spanish main. But his persistence, his enthusiasm, and his powerful connection got him a place on the expedition. It was the National Antarctic Expedition, commanded by Scott,

a Royal Navy lieutenant. He had no experience of the ice either. Shackleton went as the third lieutenant after the donor pressed his case, and that was the moment really his life changed. He made a huge impression. Scott said he was always brimful of enthusiasm and good fellowship. Another officer said he was full of flashing new ideas, many of them completely impractical. The first officer on board said he was boyish and almost extravagantly enthusiastic. He wanted adventure, he wanted fame, and he thought he had a pretty good shot at it. They arrived in Antarctica, they made excursions inland, they learned a lot. Their inexperience, their ignorance, if you like, as Scott said, was deplorable. They didn't have dogs or skis,

they couldn't use a primer stove, a portable stove properly, so heat water on their first expedition onto the ice. It was a learning experience, I think it's fair to say. water on their first expedition onto the ice. It was a learning experience, I think it's fair to say. Shackleton was selected to accompany Scott on a trip deep into the interior, and they set a record for furthest south towards the South Pole. But Shackleton fell ill. In fact, we think he almost died. And to his great shame, he was invalided home. He was mortified. But actually being sent home was the making of it, because he was one of the first people back from the expedition, so he could do lots of publicity and he managed to start building his profile.

He was good at it. People queued up to hear him speak. He was a star. He held audiences in the palm of his hand. It was said that only two men could pull the strings of an audience like a conductor working an orchestra and that was Winston Churchill and Ernest Shackleton. It didn't get him everywhere though.

Charm will overtake so far. He cast around for anything to do. He wanted to stay high profile. He ran for parliament. He got crushed. He said later, I got all the applause and the other fellows got all the votes. But he started fundraising for a new expedition.

The American explorer Robert Peary said, the lure of the ice is a strange and powerful thing. And I think Shackleton felt that. But even more, he wanted to be celebrated and praised. He wanted to discover things and be the first to places. And so he fundraised. He went to William Beardmore, who guaranteed a bank loan for him. Now, he may have been having an affair with Beardmore's wife. So perhaps the idea of sending Shackleton to Antarctica was quite attractive. Interestingly, Scott had decided that he didn't really trust Shackleton. He quietly quite attractive. Interestingly, Scott had decided that he didn't really trust Shackleton. He quietly let it be known that he disapproved of Shackleton,

thought he was a bit of a cowboy. Shackleton is the least experienced of our travellers, and he was never thorough in anything. One has but to consider his subsequent history to see he has stuck to nothing, and you know better than I, the continual schemes which he has fathered. But he was determined. He bought a knackered old ship called the Nimrod. He borrowed money. He made promises. He somehow got things underway.

Creditors chasing him. There was a total lack of coordination. It was chaos. But he did manage to get to Antarctica. He took a car with him, actually. He'd managed to get someone to give him an Aral Johnston car. He thought he could drive across the ice. That'd be nice.

It travelled a few feet and then died. They got it started once again and then it sank into the slush and stopped again. His hope for a quick dash to the pole was gone. His mission was to try and be the first person to get to the South Pole. As he wrote, the fascination of the unknown was strong upon me and I longed to be away towards the South on a journey that I hoped would lay bare the mysteries of the place of the pole. As they set up depots and carried provisions further inland, Dr Eric Marshall, who was the medic on board the expedition, had a good chance to look at Shackleton up close, and he wrote later that Shackleton was an attractive crook and an outstanding plausible rogue. I love that description. The rogue Shackleton set off on the 29th of

October 1908. They did not have skis, they did not have dogs. Skis spread out your weight across the ice and snow. The weight you exert on whatever's below you is a fraction of what it is through your foot. So it's hugely more efficient to travel on skis. But nope, Shackleton took ponies and walked on foot. I mean, I could do a whole podcast about this exhibition. They almost died several times over. One of their ponies crashed into a crevasse. It'd been carrying all their supplies and sleeping bags. But thankfully, weirdly, the load got snagged and stayed on the surface and was ripped off the pony's back. But they did basically run out of food. They had hypothermia constantly. They made it further south than any other human being had ever made it. They made it

to within around 97 miles of the pole before turning round. It was a terrible decision. He could easily have made a dash to the pole. He probably would have got there in a few days, but his chances of getting back and getting his men back would have been nil. He made the right decision. He wrote later to his wife, I thought you'd rather have a live donkey than a dead lion. They made it back to base just by chewing on caffeine and cocaine tablets. The label says, allays hunger and prolongs the power of endurance. I'll bet it did. At one point on this expedition, Shackleton gave his last biscuit to one of his comrades, a man called Frank Wilde, and it was a gesture that won him

eternal gratitude and loyalty. On the way back, if the weather hadn't lifted very briefly and allowed them to spy one of the food dumps, they would certainly have died. He survived by the skin of his teeth. But that's history, folks. And he got back to Edwardian England and became briefly one of the most famous people

in the country. The king called it the greatest geographical event of his reign. He filled the Albert Hall. The Prince of Wales watched his talks. He was knighted. Asquith, the prime minister, in the middle of a gigantic constitutional battle, a big budget battle,

agreed to pay off the massive debts of the expedition to court publicity. Shackleton had nailed it. But he was determined to go back and finish the job. More Shackleton after this. I'm Matt Lewis. And I'm Dr. Alan Orjanaga. And in Gone Medieval, we get into the greatest mysteries.

The gobsmacking details and latest groundbreaking research from the greatest millennium in human history. We're talking Vikings. Normans. Kings and popes. Who were rarely the best of friends. Murder. Rebellions.

And crusades. Find out who we really were. By subscribing to Gone Medieval from History Hit. Wherever you get your podcasts. Shackton's Antarctica expertise has always been a bit questionable. When he heard that Amundsen, the Norwegian, who would successfully reach the pole, when he heard he was using dogs, Shackleton said, well, he might have dogs, but they're not very reliable. Instead, of course, Amundsen reached the pole and got back ahead of

schedule, and his men having put on weight rather than lost it. They covered record amounts of distance. They ate 5,000 calories a day. And among them was a Norwegian ski champion and a dog sledder who'd learned how to handle dogs and sleds from the Inuit. Shackleton was gutted. Amundsen had reached the South Pole. Shackleton no longer had the record. He was miserable. The public slowly lost interest in Shackleton. He was terrified that he now faced obscurity. He wrote in 1910, I long for the unbeaten trail again. And by 1913, with his declining fame and fortune, no business opportunities, everything he touched in terms of business was a disaster. Perhaps I will try to go south. Now comes the story of Shacken's third and remarkable expedition

to the Antarctic, the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition. He believed that he could be the first person not to get to the South Pole, but to go via the South Pole, crossing the continent from one side to the other. He managed to get hold of a ship, the Endurance, and this is the expedition on which Endurance was lost. And this is the expedition which I cover extensively in the other podcast in this series. But I'll give you a precie here. I'll give you a brief summary. He somehow cobbles together the money. He heads south, even though the First World War is breaking out. Europe and the world are descending into a place of great darkness. He offers Winston Churchill his ship and crew for the war effort.

Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty, says, no thanks, proceed to the south. I think he wants Shackleton out of the way. It would be easier to fight the war with that man out of the way. Shackleton gets to the south. He has to beg, borrow and steal supplies from whalers in South Georgia. Those whalers beg him not to head to the Weddell Sea, not to head to Antarctica. It was full of ice. There was record levels of sea ice that year. Shackleton ignored

them and sailed, left South Georgia on the 5th of December 1914 and sailed straight into that sea ice. His plan had been to get to the Antarctic coast, to unload the provisions from the ship, to go across Antarctica where he'd be met by another ship on the far side that had laid food depots, which means he wouldn't have to take all the food himself. He would bump into food depots on the far side. The expedition on the far side of Antarctica went disastrously wrong. Shackleton had left them with no funds and poor leadership, but they did manage to lay those depots. Sadly, they'd never be required. In January of 1915, as Shackleton attempted to weave his way through the sea ice trying to get to the coast of Antarctica,

Endurance, his ship, was locked in. It was frozen in. They weren't going anywhere. They had no choice but to batten down the hatches, to wait for an Antarctic winter to pass and hope that when the ice broke up the following spring, the Endurance would be freed. It was not to be. In September and October, the late winter of 1915, Endurance was successively crushed. The pressure waves coming through the sea ice, the ice pushing in on the hull, smashed it, cracked its shell like an egg. Beams snapped, planks gave way, water poured in. Shackleton had to abandon ship. He stood there on the sea ice next to Endurance and told the men, well, the expedition was over. All that mattered now was they had to get home safe. And this really is where the legendary period of leadership begins. He shows astonishing bravery and tenacity. The expedition had failed,

but now Shackleton would show his greatness. They attempted to escape across the ice, but that was no go. There's no chance they were able to walk across the ice, get to the Antarctic Peninsula and reach safety that way. Instead, they had to wait for the Antarctic summer to kick in, the ice to break up, and then in the three rowing boats they'd scavenged from Endurance, they would try and row and sail to safety. In November 1915, they stood watching as Endurance finally slipped below the ice.

Stern lifting in the air, she slid down 3,000 metres of depth. The crew must have thought never to be seen again. One of Shackleton's senior officers, a New Zealander called Frank Worsley, made a note of where he thought the ship sunk, the latitude and longitude of it. And that's the basis of the search box that we used when we went back in 2022 to try and find Endurance.