Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
hind their rivals in the mechanics of aid-climbing with pitons. With war clouds gath-
ering, Devies notes disdainfully that Hitler had publicly congratulated the Eiger four-
some, Mussolini the victors on the Walker Spur.
Devies's polemic ends with a clarion call to French mountaineers to match the deeds
of those foreigners, who would, within the year, become their literal enemies in war.
Throughout his essay he contrasts French and German cultural attitudes, arguing, for
example that the French have the disadvantage of being slightly more cautious “be-
cause we do not attach any mystical value to death.” Instead, the best Gallic climbers,
in contrast with their German and Italian peers, have “a much purer experience” in the
mountains. “Their deeds are freer and more individual, they earn instead a truth that
is personal and human.”
Rhetoric of this sort had everything to do with the conception of the Annapurna ex-
pedition. On March 28, 1950, just before departing for Nepal, the chosen team mem-
bers met with the Himalayan Committee in the offices of the Club Alpin Français in
Paris. Devies gave the team a stirring pep talk, outlining the history of Himalayan
exploration, reminding the men of their objectives. In
Annapurna,
Herzog quotes
Devies's speech at length, then observes the “solemn air” in the “dull and dreary office
in which we were meeting.” All nine of the expeditioneers “devoutly longed to go to
the Himalaya, which we had talked about for so many years. Lachenal put it in a nut-
shell: 'We'd go if we had to crawl there.' ”
Then Devies abruptly announced that each member must take an oath of obedience,
which he recited: “I swear upon my honor to obey the leader in everything regarding
the Expedition in which he may command me.” A silence followed. Comments
Herzog, “Mountaineers don't care much for ceremonies.”
At last Marcel Ichac, the cinematographer and sole veteran of the 1936 Gasherbrum
I expedition, recited the pledge, with Terray softly murmuring in unison; then the oth-
ers, one by one, pronounced the oath.
For Herzog, the ceremony was deeply moving:
They were pledging their lives, possibly, and they knew it. They all put themselves com-
pletely in my hands. I should have liked to say a few words, but I just couldn't. . . . In that
moment our team was born. It was for me to keep it alive.
Writing in 1996, Rébuffat's biographer, Yves Ballu, benefiting from Rébuffat's own
notes on the occasion, put the evening's events in a very different perspective. Read-
ing Herzog, one pictures the ceremony taking place in a small office, attended only
by the Himalayan Committee and the team members. In fact, the first half of the
event, featuring Devies's speech, was a press conference in the CAF's
grand salon,
with
