Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
editors. Perhaps they were leery of accounts focused on the moods and personal com-
plaints of one member or another.”
In his “true novel,” Herzog insisted, he had captured an epic adventure. “My
greatest pleasure was that my teammates said they recognized themselves in my writ-
ing.” Had he not, however, embellished reality a bit? “No!” Herzog fired back. “That
was
the reality!”
Five days after
Le Monde
interviewed him, Herzog published a letter in that news-
paper. In it, his tone shifts from serene openness to counterattack. Of course, Lachenal
wrote some of his “excessive” diary entries in the heat of battle. Minor conflicts were
normal on expeditions. “After the event, we ended up laughing.”
Lachenal, Herzog insisted, had never been censored, neither in 1951 nor 1955. The
revelations of how low an esteem the Chamonix guides initially held for Herzog, how
ill-qualified they thought him for leadership, now drove him to sardonic indignation:
Without wishing to flatter myself, I find it hard to comprehend how an alpinist of such
modest achievements could have become president of the Groupe de Haute Montagne, a
particularly elitist academy since it brings together the greatest climbers in the world. In the
same vein, how could it have been that all the camps, in spite of the greatest difficulties,
were established by me, and that, during our final push, I was always in the lead, arriving
moreover first on the summit?
The last claim is true only in the most narrow technical sense, and ignores the part
played by Herzog's teammates, including the Sherpas. Terray, Herzog, and several
Sherpas established Camp II; Terray, Pansy, and Alla were the first to Camp III, failing
to “establish” it only because they did not pitch a tent there; Terray and Herzog estab-
lished Camp IV; Herzog and Lachenal Camp IVA; and Herzog, Lachenal, Ang-Thar-
key, and Sarki Camp V.
In his letter, Herzog waxed emotional about his heroism in World War II.
It fell to me to command a unit of 25 “Joyeux” composed of young soldiers, heads of [com-
munist] cells, veterans of the Spanish civil war, German Jews, absentees from Switzerland,
and a number of criminals on probation. . . . To take such a small army into battle in the
Tarentaise, always above 3,000 meters altitude, in deplorable conditions, gives one the kind
of exceptional experience that I put into the service of our expedition.
Herzog added, “Except for Lionel Terray . . . I don't believe that any of my An-
napurna companions took any such part [in the war].”
This backhanded insult roused the ire of Françoise Rébuffat, who responded with
haughty dignity in
Le Monde:
